CE Week 8: Persecuted

I can understand that people think “God blesses the super-Christians” - those who face extreme persecution just for owning a Bible, or refusing to follow cultural religios customs, or those disowned from their families because of their faith - when they read Matthew 5:10. To some degree, this is true. God is with them. Great is their reward. But, if we read this and think it’s about someone else, then Jesus isn’t talking to the rest of us. We read it as a command, or a law, instead of an announcement. It leads to thinking that, “If you want to be blessed, be brave.” That’s not a gospel announcement, it’s a law. “Go and do this and God will be with you.” More of the same law. This was not Jesus’ intention.

Edward Schweizer put it this way: "This passage extols not the strong, who, to the admiration of all, heroically defend their faith, but those who are defamed and go down in ignominious [marked by shame or disgrace] defeat.” This blessing is about whenever you follow Jesus and it costs you something and you lose. You receive no exaltation. No praise from your supporters. Your reward will be the “kingdom of God.”

This also seems to wrap us back around to the beginning of the Beatitudes to complete a circle of progression. When you're poor in spirit, yours is the kingdom of heaven. From poor in spirit, you mourn, become meek, then hunger and thirst for righteousness. To each of these people, God announces, “I am with you.” God meets you in your failure with grace, which, in turn, makes it easier for us to show grace to others. The progression continues...you become merciful, pure at heart, and peacemakers. Peacemaking leads to persecution. The Jesus way threatens how the world works and persecution often results. With persecution, again, yours is the kingdom of heaven. A complete circle.

Notice in all this, at a high level, for this, Jesus’ longest sermon, he begins with blessing. The 10 Commandments do not begin with law, they begin with blessing. Exodus 20:2, “I am the Lord your God, who BROUGHT YOU OUT of Egypt, out of the land of slavery [and blessed you]. [Now, here are my commands.]” When you have guilt, shame, fail, quit - blessing. Be blessed!

OMT Training: Week 2

When it comes to sharing our faith with others, regardless of what kind of "talker" we are, we tend to clam up and don't say anything. Why is that? What are some reasons we struggle to share our faith? When it comes to telling what Jesus did for mankind ("His Story") and what Jesus did for you ("Your Story"), there are some basic steps we must follow:

1. PRAY: Prayer should be the foundation for everything we do. We need to ask God to give us the words to use every time we open our mouth (Ephesians 6:19).


2. PREPARE: "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)


3. KNOW GOD'S WORD: God's Word equips us for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16). If we mediatate on it, we will be successful (Joshua 1:8). Know how to answer even the basic questions about your faith: Who is Jesus? Why did He come? What did He do for us?


4. KNOW YOUR STYLE: Some people are talkative story tellers. Some people are bold and direct. Some people use their intelligence. Some people are more relational. Know what works for you and how you can best relate that to your audience.

CE Week 7: Peacemakers

We believe in a fundamental difference between being PEACEKEEPERS and PEACEMAKERS. Peacekeepers tend to go with the flow and attempt to smooth over problems while keeping everyone happy. Peacekeepers are compromisers. They avoid confrontation at all costs. Peacekeeping is a temporary operation. In contrast, Peacemakers (Matthew 5:9) understand that in the midst of a crisis, something or someone must change in order to make peace. Peacemakers see a problem and immediately go to work to correct, reconcile and restore. They implement long lasting solutions. Change can be uncomfortable, but Peacemakers do not keep their mouths shut when they see improper behavior. Peacemakers are willing to do the tough things. They teach and apply the truth. Peacemakers aren’t afraid of ruffling feathers along the way because they know that in the end, “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (Romans 8:28)

Online Missions Trip Training: Week 1

[vimeo 1880929]
The “Saving Me” video shows a man obsessed with saving someone’s life because his own life had been saved. When it comes to sharing your faith are you compelled to tell your friends? Do you sense the urgency to rescue them from hell? If you’ve put your faith in Christ alone then you’ve been rescued. Rescued from an eternity in Hell, and shouldn’t that compel us to tell others about Jesus? Jude 1:23 says; Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment." Shouldn’t the fact that God loves us so much that he allowed his son to be murdered, die on the cross, so we can be rescued from our sins compel you to rescue someone?

CE Week 6: Pure in Heart

In Jesus’ day, the religious elite were obsessed with external purity, with keeping up appearances: Do all the right things, and say all the right things and it will appear as though you’ve got clean hands and a pure heart. Never mind that you’re dying on the inside and that the keeping up appearances leaves you feeling more like a fraud with every passing day. Still today, far too often religion operates according to a purity-obsessed beatitude that says, “Blessed are the posers.

Jesus also addressed it this way in Matthew 23:27-28 (MSG), "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds."

In the Greek language, hypocrite was a drama term that referred to someone playing a part. For Jesus, the religious obsession with purity had far more to do with how one would be seen by others than it did with actually seeing God.

The pure in heart are those who live an undivided life. The Hebrew word for heart, “lev”, refers not only to the heart but also to the will and the mind. The pure in heart aren’t playing a part for others. Their entire being, heart, mind, and will aches to see God and nothing else. According to the religious conventions of the day, the lepers, the sick and diseased, and the demon-possessed people sitting around Jesus didn’t stand a chance at seeing God. But having sat on that hillside with Jesus, seeing God is exactly what they had done. "Blessed are you," Jesus said. And to those who have stopped living in obedience to the perception of others, and to those who ache to see God, Jesus still announces, "Blessed are you for you will see God."

CE Week 5: The Merciful

Mercy is synonymous with clemency, leniency and compassion. It's NOT getting what we DO deserve. But, it's more than just a look or an observation. Mercy requires action. What set the Good Samaritan apart from the others that passed by the man on the side of the road was that he SAW and he ACTED.

Jesus was regularly ridiculed for his mercy for tax collectors, sinners, and other despised people of his day; eating with them, talking to them, healing them. Then, and now, it was unfashionable to be merciful to those who seemed so undeserving. Additionally, Jesus had some pretty sharp words for the merciless. Check out Matthew 18:21-35!

Think about a time when someone treated you with mercy. How did that affect you? Who don't you want to be merciful towards? Why is it so difficult to show mercy to that person/those people? Be merciful this week.

CE Week 4: Those Who Hunger + Thirst

Truly hungry and thirsty people will do almost anything to satisfy such powerful urges. Look at Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25:29-34. Look at the Israelites after being delivered from Egypt in Exodus 16-17. I love the show Survivor on CBS. I've been a loyal fan since season one. Inevitably, there comes a point in the show when a lack of food coupled with a desire for creature comforts (blankets, tarps, fishing gear, etc.) presents the opportunity for some good TV: a food challenge. And, the "food" is GROSS, but they eat it anyway. Cattle milk mixed with cattle blood, marinated raw fish (marinated in a sauce made of fish bones, crab legs, lobster legs, soaked in sea water for 3 days and left out in the baking sun for a couple of hours), a spoonful of ants, a 3-inch water roach, 3 live grubs, a boiled tarantula, a boiled scorpion, sea slug guts, etc. YUM!

The people standing around Jesus were well acquainted with hunger and thirst. Most of the food the land produced was taken by Caesar, his local henchmen, and tax collectors. It was to these people that Jesus made this announcement. Now, righteousness has a range of meaning. It can mean right relationship with God. It can mean right moral conduct and character. It can also refer to the intense longing for the social righteousness that the prophets spoke of: liberation from oppression and the longing for justice (Isaiah 61:1). Righteousness is the blazing longing for the things to be as God intended them to be, and according to Jesus, the people who hunger and thirst for it will be filled.

Meanwhile, we live in a world that produces enough food for everyone, yet there are millions that starve to death and lack clean water, which leads to countless others suffering disease and dehydration. Righteousness is longing for that to be made right. Righteousness unsettles us. Righteousness disrupts us. You know, another way of looking at this may be, "Blessed are those who allow themselves to be disrupted by what they see in the world around them." Allow yourself to be disrupted this week.