Inside This Guys Head

From Beth Moore via Twitter. I’m thankful for pastors who are faithful. I’m thankful for the WCC fam who keep pressing in. Over the years I’ve known some Christians who needed to hear this. Perhaps you do to.

“Thank the Lord, fellow Jesus-followers, if you have a pastor who chooses God’s approval over yours, who loves Christ, his congregation & you enough to be willing to offend you or go against the doctrines & traditions of men to preach what is in step with the truth of the gospel.

For the love of God, don’t pack up & leave in a huff. Go to your knees & thank God for that pastor. If you are always comfortable with your pastor’s preaching, if he always stays within your preferred perimeters & nothing ever changes, you don’t have a pastor. You have a puppet.

If your financial giving to your church is according to whether or not your pastor stays within your pet subjects and preferred perimeters, if you threaten to take your big wallet somewhere else if he doesn’t behave better, you are not giving. You are bribing.

When our story is told a century from now – and it will be – how much of the American church ran after idols and delusions, false christs and conspiracies, history will not only fault the pastors for not confronting us with the truth but the congregations who forbade them to.”

When a local Church becomes ‘one’ in our suffering and burden-sharing we can find our way through it together. If we lose this solidarity we are left to find the way through on our own.

Seek empathy, beloved. Seek compassion. Be graciously hospitable to the hurting and vulnerable and those who do not share your lived experiences. Ask the Lord to reveal your blind spots and listen intently, paying careful attention to the voices from within your community he brings your way. Then, do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk together, humbly with God.

Trust the Spirit of the Lord.

The crowd waits in anticipation. The crowd awaits their leader, the long-awaited victor. They open up the gates of their hearts to welcome their savior. They shout, “Save us! Deliver us from oppression! Save us, oh chosen one of God!”

The crowd waits in anticipation. They place their hope in him. They say to one another, “Pray for him! Pray for our savior, the one who secures our life, our liberty, and our happiness!”

The crowd waits in anticipation. But their leader does not come. They hold open the gates of their hearts, but no one enters in.

Far off in the distance comes one whose skin is dark and hair like wool. They look beyond him to see who follows, to see if their savior is coming. But it is only the man. They close the gates of their hearts. They look to him and cry, “We thought our savior would come. We thought he would deliver us and secure our liberty. We thought he was the chosen one of God!”

With a blood-stained brow the Man speaks, “If only you knew that the oppression from which you long for deliverance is brought upon you by yourselves. If only you knew that it is your notions of life, liberty, and happiness that hold you captive. If only you knew that it is not from these things must you be saved, but it is from yourselves and your self-centered ways.”

Stirred with anger, the crowd looks at the man, “You do not know what you are talking about! Our savior will come! He will secure our liberty and give us life. He will deliver us!”

And the crowd scatters and everyone in the Church goes home.

Written November 5, 2020 and published on 12:21EST

Peter told the Christ followers living under the tyrannical reign of Nero that they were to love one another with an intense (stretched-out) love (1 Pet. 4:8). It’s when our love is stretched that our strengths and weaknesses are revealed. It’s when our love is stretched that the maturity or immaturity of our faith is revealed.

A stretched-out love refuses to give in to the enemy-making machine (a la Fitch), holds on to compassion, stands with the hurting and vulnerable, resists the labeling and backbiting, forgives the insults, and chooses love when love is hard. It’s in these moments God shows himself strong and gives us supernatural strength to love with a stretched-out love.

Our love becomes resilient.

But if we quit, cave in to the enemy-making machine, ignore the suffering, pain, or rage of our brother and sister because we don’t prefer it or flat out dismiss it, we will possess a love that when stretched, breaks.

Over the coming days lean into the strength God supplies (1 Peter 4:11) and choose to love with a stretched-out love.