Saturday, October 17, 2009

Weeds Grow Naturally


Weeds grow naturally. You don't have to cultivate weeds. You don't have to loosen up the soil or make sure you water them, they simply are a fact of life. Why is that?

Part of the Fall was simply the fact that weeds happen when cultivation doesn't. It's that simple. The Fall ensured that if we allow nature to take it's course, we won't get tomato plants and apple trees, you get weeds.

It's the same with our lives, if we let life just takes it's course, we will not get amazing fruit, we will get weeds. Character and growing in the Spirt does not happen by accident. It's a choice. It is a choice to cultivate those things that really bring us life. The reality is that things will grow if we let the garden of your hearts go unkept, but the soil, the water and the nutrients that those plants consume will crowd out any space for fruitful plants. In other words, letting your garden go unkept will get you living plants, they just won't be plants that give you life. These kind of plants are the weeds, the things that take from you. Good plants don't just use up soil and nutrients, they produce a crop.

Friends, let us be people that live life cultivating those kinds of plants that give us life. If we do, there is no telling how many will benefit from our garden.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Relevant to Who?


I've been bothered by the word 'relevant' when it comes to how Christians are to engage culture. It seems like lots of my friends and I myself have been tempted to jump on the relevant bandwagon without even knowing what damage we are doing. The question must be asked, "what is the 'matter' to which we are trying to be relevant as Christians?" Are we trying to be relevant to culture, or are we trying to be relevant to the human heart? If we are trying to be relevant to the human heart, then we would offer what the human heart really needs- God himself. I think we have missed what we are trying to be relevant to. Our desire to be relevant has been focused on the wrong thing. We have been trying to be relevant to culture, but we have missed the absolutely relevant heart of Jesus for the world, and inso doing we have ceased to be relevant to the human heart.

I am worried that we spend so much time trying to stay current with our culture that we miss the relevance that would be ours in Jesus. The same people that are trying so hard to be relevant to culture are the ones who have come to me in secret confessing just how non-existent their prayer lives are. Could it be that we are so focused on being relevant that we have lost touch with the very Source of relevance?

Jesus is the most relevant man alive. He knows exactly what people need. If you are reading more from Dan Brown than Scripture, and are watching more movies than gazing at the beauty of God, then I think you may just have as much to offer culture as culture itself. The world does not need more experts on culture!!! The world needs a dynamic, vibrant encounter with Jesus himself, and if we are spending more time trying to figure out culture than being passionately in love with Jesus, then we have absolutely missed the meaning of relevance.

Friends! Please hear me! The world is not looking for more cool people. They are looking for substance. They are looking for people whose lives are so radically different than anything the world can produce that they have to ask the question, "Why do you live like that?"

If I am at all honest with myself, trying to be relevant is simply a cover-up for having nothing original to say. I really don't think we become more relevant as Christians by being more concerned with what the world has to say about itself. We become more relevant by being more concerned about what Jesus has to say to us about the world. We become more relevant as we encounter more of Jesus. And when we encounter Jesus, the world will encounter Jesus because there is no one more relevant than him. He knows the latest news, and he knows the deep secrets of people's hearts.

If you want to impact someone in a relevant way, try asking God what they need to hear or experience that day and then deliver the message. I can't tell you how many times I have delivered a relevant message from God to a complete stranger simply because I spent time asking what God's heart was for the person. I guarantee you that those kind of encounters would not have happened if I spent my morning catching up on the latest LOST episode. Jesus' words to a person are infinitely more powerful than anything I will ever have to say.

Let's be relevant friends. But let's do it by spending our time with the most relevant Person alive and giving what we have received from him, to the world.