Fasting, silence, and Scripture

After listening to Patrick Mead's sermon this past Sunday, I have decided to dedicate this week to fasting, silence, and Scripture for myself and the Rochester Church. We are in the midst of a season of change, and I am seeking to hear God's voice as we travel along this journey into God's preferred future for the family of believers that assemble here.
I am inviting you to join me in this spiritual adventure this week. Here is what I am doing:

Each day I will fast from food from 6:00am until 6:00pm.

In lieu of lunch, I am dedicating approximately 45 minutes to silence and Scripture. Each day, I will sit in silence for 20 minutes, read Acts 20:24 several times slowly and deliberately, then engage in another 20 minutes of silence.

You do not have to fast from the same thing as me or in the same manner that I am. However, I do invite you to fast from something this week. You could fast from your iPod, a certain food, television, or a host of other things.
Having just finished my first 45 minutes of silence and Scripture, I can tell you it was refreshing. It was interesting as I re-encountered noise how much I noticed every little noise. Sometimes - almost all the time I would argue - we are surrounded by so much noise, we miss hearing some of the most important things.
Let me finish with some thoughts from M. Basil Pennington:

Silence is the very presence of God - always there. But activity hides it. We need to leave activity long enough to discover the Presence - then we can return to activity with it.
Stillness is present throughout the run at every point. But if one only runs, he never knows stillness.
God is present in all beings, but we will never be aware of him if we never stop and leave behind all beings to be to him.

shine!
Jason

Hearing voices

There are many voices calling for our attention. We must always be asking ourselves if we are listening to the right voices. In John’s gospel, Jesus says the following:
“I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.”
Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (John 10:1-10)
We must always be careful about which voices become the dominant ones in our lives. In my experience, I have witnessed Christians who act in a way they think is appropriate because they have allowed themselves to become used to the wrong voices.
Jesus said, “They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.” Unfortunately, some Christians listen to Jesus’ voice so seldom that it sounds like a stranger’s voice to them.
If we want to be able to follow the voice of God, we must constantly be listening to see what that voice sounds like.
In Colossians 3:16, Paul writes, “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.” It’s not until the message fills us that it becomes a familiar voice.
When my closest friends call me on the phone, I can often tell who it is by the sound of their voice. However, if someone I don’t know well calls, I typically can’t tell who it is.
If our conversations with God are infrequent and brief, we will find it very difficult to know His voice. It may even be that His voice will sound like a stranger. If we want to discover the rich and satisfying life that Jesus talks about in John 10, maybe we better start listening to Him more often so we can tell which voices belong to God and which don’t.

shine!
Jason

Those who are lost

In our Wednesday night time this week, we meditated on and discussed Jesus’ words in Luke 19:10…
“For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”
One of the things that we can overlook is that Jesus does not stop seeking and saving us once we are baptized. I think we often fall into the trap of looking at saved and lost as a “black and white” issue. While it is certainly true that we are saved when we are baptized into Christ, that is not where the saving stops. Salvation is both an event and a process.
The event that occurs at baptism enters us into a covenant with God that promises eternal life. There is something very significant and important about that event. It gives us hope and a future.
At the same time, anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time knows that at baptism we do not suddenly become people who are never tempted, never make mistakes, and don’t need to be saved any longer. Salvation is also a process because we still need to be transformed and conformed to the image of the Son on a daily basis.
When it comes to following Jesus, being saved and lost is a “full-color” issue; it’s not just “black and white.” While we have the security of God’s promises as Christians, we also continue to struggle with life. Here are a few examples I shared with my students on Wednesday…
When a close friend or family member dies suddenly, you feel lost.
When your parents tell you they are planning to get divorced, you feel lost.
When someone starts a rumor that spreads through the school and damages your reputation, you feel lost.
The list could go on and on of situations where even those who are committed followers of Jesus can feel lost. While being lost can describe our relationship with God, it can also describe where we find ourselves in life at any given time. As I said earlier, being saved is both an event and a process.
Christians who are allowing themselves to be conformed to the image of Jesus should be living out his desire to “seek and save those who are lost.” This means that not only do we help lead people to the event of salvation through baptism, we also stand beside each other through life as we go through the process of salvation on a daily basis.
This calls us to a higher level of commitment with one another. We must trust one another and hold each other accountable. We must be willing to share our struggles while not allowing one another to be comfortable with our sins. We must pray for one another, challenge one another, and encourage one another.
Seeking and saving the lost is not for the timid. It is a radical commitment to a relationship with God and others.

shine!
Jason

Under a bridge

I just spent a week driving from Michigan to St. Louis to Jenks, Oklahama, to Abilene, Texas. Then from Abilene to Oklahoma City to Searcy, Arkansas, to Nashville, and back to Michigan. Sound tiring? Maybe a little. But at the same time, it was a refreshing time to connect with old friends and make new ones.
One of the coolest groups of new friends we made were at Tent City in Nashville. We were able to go with Doug Sanders, a friend of mine in Nashville, and visit a community of those who are homeless. They allowed us to come onto their turf under the highway and spend time with them. We were able to talk with them, laugh with them, and cry with them.
As I reflect on our time with our new friends, the following words of Jesus came to mind…
'Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' (Matthew 25:37-40)
Every time I read this passage I am reminded of an important lesson. When we seek to serve others, we must always have our ears, eyes, and hearts open towards God. It is often in those moments that we see God in the faces of those we serve as much as or even more than they see God in our faces.
When we humbly seek to serve others and recognize that we need God as much as those around us who are “in need,” it can change the way we view everything. Jesus said it well near the start of his ministry. This is the way Matthew records it in his gospel (Matthew 5:3-8):
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
May there be the words on our lips, the intentions of our hearts, and the passions of our lives. For when we truly seek to live out the Kingdom of God in and around us, God will do incredible things. It is when we pursue the Kingdom that we be able to see God in every part of our lives and every person that we encounter, even a homeless man under a bridge in Nashville, Tennessee.

shine!
Jason

Now what do we do?

Most of the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark that have been found, end at Mark 16:8. Here is how Mark 16:1-8 reads and how the early Christians would have encountered the end of the story…
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back— it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you." And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Here we encounter a very unique end to the story of the resurrection.
As we reflect on the significance of the resurrection event, Mark’s telling of the story leaves us with a lack of closure. There is no ascension. We do not read about them seeing the body of the risen Christ. As a matter of fact, they are afraid. They don’t know what is next or what happened for sure.
I believe that we have often become so comfortable with the resurrection story that we miss the tension that it brings. We miss the story of the death of the man they thought would save them. We miss the idea that many of these people had lost hope when Jesus died on the cross. They didn’t know the end of the story. They didn’t expect a crucified and resurrected Messiah.
Today as we focus on the resurrection of Jesus, take time to think back to what it must have felt like to be one of Jesus’ followers then. Think about how the two women must have felt as they discovered that Jesus’ tomb had been opened. They were not excited. They were alarmed. They were trembling. They were afraid.
Is that ever how we react to the empty tomb? Or do we just take it for granted? A story we have heard most of our lives.
Allow yourself to go back to that day. Stand there with the women as they wrestle with the news. Jesus has been raised from the dead. He is no longer in the tomb. What does that mean? What is the significance? Now what do we do?

shine!
Jason