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Here’s a new thought, also from Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard that I referred to yesterday:

From the stage of early discipleship, where “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” we increasingly pass to the stages where the flesh–think of that as what we more or less automatically feel, think, and do–is with the spirit and supportive of its deepest intentions. This is absolutely essential in training that will bring us to do from the heart the things that Jesus knew to be best. (Divine Conspiracy, 1998, first edition, page 354)

It goes against the commonly held idea that as humans we are hopelessly and permanently so imperfect that Jesus had to die for our sins. While it is true that we can’t reach God’s standard of perfect sinlessness, Dallas is arguing that we can train, as he says, “to do from the heart the things that Jesus knew to be best.”

Paul did say, “Train yourself for godliness.” (1 Timothy 4.7) Jesus taught that growth takes time, but that, indeed, growth does occur over time:

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. (Mark 4.26 – 28, ESV)

I once heard an adult Sunday school class member cut off the teacher who was trying to encourage us to be godly, to grow in Christian character. The interrupter said, “We can’t be perfect so why try?” With that remark he attempts to justify his mediocrity.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. (Philippians 3.12 – 17, ESV)

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As June and I are getting over our respiratory infections, painful reality is setting in: no stamina! It doesn’t take long to lose our fitness, and there’s only one way to get it back: exercise!

I was just listening to Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy, where he defined “discipline” as “…something in my power that I do to enable me to do what I cannot do by direct effort.” Today I can’t walk a mile in, say, 15 minutes, but if I disciplined myself to walk a bit faster every day and a bit longer, in time, I could.

The spiritual life is the same. We keep looking for shortcuts, but the scripture is clear:

Train yourself for godliness. (1 Timothy 4.7b, ESV)

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Yesterday I suggested that Jesus used spectacular events to give everyone a chance to believe in him, but that overall, the spectacular didn’t work as well as investing in the twelve. Those twelve, with a total of 120 upper room believers braved hardship and reached the world.

My observation of the two large crowds in Luke 7 (Jesus, his disciples, and his followers going into Nain and a large funeral procession coming out of Nain) was new. Here’s something on the ineffectiveness of spectacular events I observed a while back.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice,  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,  where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.  Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’” (Hebrews 3.7 – 11, ESV)

The Hebrews passage speaks of the generation that experienced three of the most spectacular events imaginable: Passover (Exodus 12), the Red Sea (Exodus 14), and Sinai (Exodus 20). And out of 600,000 men who left Egypt (Exodus 12.37), the total number who entered the Promised Land was 2–Joshua and Caleb. 

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. (1 Corinthians 10.1 – 5, ESV)

As leaders, the lesson is that we shouldn’t build all our ministry strategy around spectacular events. As ordinary followers of Jesus, it’s the daily walk that counts, and we can’t rest on some exciting experience from years ago. It’s how we walk by faith today that matters!

We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn’t do them a bit of good because they didn’t receive the promises with faith. (Hebrews 4.2, MSG)

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I just noticed that Jesus raised the widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7.11 – 17) in front of A LOT of people:

Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. (Luke 7:11 – 12, ESV, emphasis mine)

I take two lessons from this observation.

• Jesus gave everyone a chance to know who he was and believe on him. From the feeding of the 5,000, which probably involved more than 15,000 people counting women and children, to this event in Luke 7. Lots of people saw. More people heard because the story ends with, “And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.” (Luke 7.17, ESV)
• Jesus, however, did not trust in the effectiveness of these big events. He continued to spend most of his time and invest most of his energy into training the twelve. “And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach.” (Mark 3.14, ESV)

We know that the “with him” strategy of investing in a small number of people paid way more dividends than attracting thousands to spectacular events because there were only 120 in the Upper Room in Acts 1.15! Where were the thousands who were fed on several occasions? Where were the folks who saw him raise the dead?

Let’s keep doing whatever we can to reach everyone using, even, big events. However, let’s not put too much faith into the spectacular. Jesus didn’t:

During the time he was in Jerusalem, those days of the Passover Feast, many people noticed the signs he was displaying and, seeing they pointed straight to God, entrusted their lives to him. But Jesus didn’t entrust his life to them. He knew them inside and out, knew how untrustworthy they were. He didn’t need any help in seeing right through them. (John 2.23 – 25, MSG)

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I’ve written before that churches should be training and sending. It’s the heart of the church’s mission (Ephesians 4.11, 12). But a story from a new friend, Jerry, highlights another lesson: sending IS training. 

Regarding “Are you ready?” I met the Lord at a little church in California during the Jesus Movement in 1972. One week later a leader took me down to the beach to do some witnessing. He told me to go one way on the strand and he would go the other way. I told him that I didn’t have any answers. He said to just write the questions down and tell them you will get back to them with answers. That may not be a method endorsed today, but within 4 or 5 weekends of doing this, I had answers to all the basic questions.

I wrote in the “Are you ready?” blog he’s referring to, “I find that most people in most churches will be ‘ready’ after they’ve had ‘one more course.’ By contrast, Jerry’s leader and Jesus himself trained BY sending:

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And he called to him his twelve disciples… These twelve Jesus sent out. (Matthew 9.37 – 10.5)

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Coming on the heels of yesterday’s meditation on power, it’s the first day of Lent, and one purpose of Ash Wednesday, according to John Stonestreet at Breakpoint, is to remind us of our mortality.

That’s a good word for June and me as we each enter our third week of a respiratory illness. As of today, we’re both on the upswing, June, after finally getting an antibiotic for a sinus infection, seems to have turned the corner. 

We keep asking ourselves what we’re supposed to learn during such an illness. Here’s a simple answer: we’re mortal! We won’t live forever, and we’re not even guaranteed full functionality while we’re here!

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil. (Hebrews 2.14)

And here’s another answer: we should be grateful for our health every day that we have it!

And the third answer is: since we are mortal, we don’t have forever to do the work God has for us here. So best we be about it (as soon as we get well)!

The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office. (Hebrews. 7.23, ESV)

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In the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water we nearly always jump to the part where Peter saw the waves and began to sink. We forget that before that:

Peter shouted out, “Lord, if it’s really you, then have me join you on the water!” “Go for it!” Jesus replied. So Peter stepped out onto the water and began to walk toward Jesus.(Matthew 14.28, 29, Passion Translation, emphasis mine)

What are the implications that Jesus in some way shares his divine power with people? It’s one thing that Jesus was able to walk on water. It’s quite another that through Jesus, Peter was able to walk on water too. And heal people (see Acts 3 and Acts 9.32 – 35) and raise the dead (see Acts 9.36 – 42). 

I’m still processing this, especially in light of scriptures like these:

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. (John 14.12, NIV)

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1.3, 4, NIV)

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I was disheartened to hear that Navigator ministry colleagues of mine were leaving a church staff position after less than two years. They had been called to help a church become intentionally disciple-making; they sold their long-time residence and moved across the country. Now, less than two years in, the church has decided they really didn’t want their help. 

I’ve written before about the challenge of church change, but today I want to focus on the personal cost to my friends. In addition to the sheer difficulty of moving the older we get, there’s the issue of “Why, God?” “Why bring us all the way across the country to not succeed?”

Here are a few simple observations which may help us not lose heart when things don’t go quite as we had hoped.

• “Success” is not always guaranteed. Neither Isaiah, Jeremiah, nor Ezekiel succeeded in turning the nation. 
• My friends did leave behind “good seed” in the form of people they discipled. And those people will continue to bear fruit whether in that church or somewhere else.
• We don’t know the next chapter in my friends’ story. It may be that where they go next requires them to be in the “neutral” position they are now in.
• The bottom line is that we don’t know why things happen the way they do! A principle I discovered years ago in Proverbs 20.24 applies to so many situations. Some of us think that because God is in charge and we’re following his direction, everything will make sense. In fact, the opposite is true:

The Lord directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way? (Proverbs 20.24, NLT)

The Passion Translation does a nice job: It is the Lord who directs your life, for each step you take is ordained by God to bring you closer to your destiny. So much of your life, then, remains a mystery!

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“God gave me a message to preach and a horse to ride.  But, alas, I have killed the horse and cannot deliver the message.” — Robert Murray M’Cheyne, as he lay dying at age 29

I thought of this famous quote when I received a letter from a missionary friend in east Asia. He wrote:

Please pray for me as I have contracted another bacterial infection that has made me very weak.  Per doctor’s orders I have stayed inside all week long, and although I am a little better it is so slow.  It has taken most of my strength to prepare this newsletter and email.  I am supposed to travel on Monday for two days of meetings and coaching next week and I hope to be strong enough to do it.

The reason I thought of M’Cheyne is that when I received the note from my friend, I was laid up myself! I had completed an 11-day road trip, coming home with a cold. But I laid low for several days and was feeling better so that I was able to take the 4-day road trip to Key Men’s Invitational that I’ve been writing about. I returned home Sunday night, woke up sick Tuesday, and as I write this, I’m still sick.

I’m sure my friend is sicker than I am, but he really wants to make that trip, just as I did. I hope he will practice appropriate indifference and trust the Lord’s leading. In the meantime, let’s all pace ourselves!

“I’d rather burn out than rust out! –a pastor

“Either way, you’re out! –Howard Hendricks, Internationally known Bible teacher and professor at Dallas Theological Seminary until his death in 2013.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. (Psalm 23.2, 3)

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Recently a pastor of a large church that is committed to two different worship styles on Sunday said something like, “The Contemporary Service is not an experiment and the Traditional Service does not have an expiration date.” Sounds good, but, in fact, worship styles change. There will be a time when the world-class choir that supports the traditional service won’t be there any more.

But here’s a ministry that truly doesn’t have an expiration date: investing in people, bringing them to spiritual maturity and sending them out to do the same. Paul told Timothy:

The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. (2 Timothy 2.2)

I know the ministry has no expiration date because I’ve seen people in action. At his 100th birthday party, Jim Downing introduced us to Diane Derby, a local news anchorperson. He had invited her to do Bible study with him when he was 99, and she said, “I’ve always believed, but I became a true believer on March 30, 2013.” Jim met with people regularly until his death at age 104 1/2. Someone told me recently that he has a recent picture of Jim sitting at a table with a guy–not surprising–but what is surprising is that the picture was made at 1:00 a.m.!

At the Key Men’s Invitational, that I’ve written about the past three days, Len, the man that I brought with me, said one of the highlights for him was seeing Max Barnett, age 82, meeting one-on-one with a young man.

I was at a memorial service a few years ago at a large church, and my Navigator hero, Skip Gray, was there. I connected him with one of the young staffers, a musician who is transitioning over to pastoral ministry. Skip was giving him some counsel on how to preach. A friend of mine observed that here is Skip Gray, in his late 80s, still pouring into people at every opportunity.

I’m “only” 72, but I’m still asking God for opportunities to meet with men, and June is actively investing in women, some local, some elsewhere, across the U.S. and in Africa! This is the ministry with no expiration date! And, it’s open to anyone. See Max Barnett’s comment in Wednesday’s blog, first bullet point!

We’ll close with a promise:

¹²  The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
¹³ planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴  They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green,
¹⁵ proclaiming, “The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.” (Psalm 92.12 – 15, NIV, emphasis mine)