Tuesday, May 29, 2012

An experiment in Lordship

For the season of Lent, our church collectively went through (as an individual or a LIFE Group) our choice of 1 of 6 experiments. We didn't necessarily take something away (as is typical of Lent), but more likely added something to our day-to-day walk with the Lord with the desire to become more like the Christ we worship. The experiments spanned a wide spectrum from "Abiding" to "Community" to "Giving." Below is the testimony I had the blessing to share with the church yesterday of how I was changed by my time with the Lord over the Lenten Season.

The experiment that our life group went through was one of Lordship. This was an important experiment for me to embark on because I find that it is necessary to realign myself again and again in my walk with the Lord to His will and resubmit to His authority over ALL of me.

So I came before the Lord with the question: What area of my life am I not giving you lordship over, and what do You wish for me to change that would have lasting and eternal effects on my life for my good and Your glory?

What God showed me was this: I am an incredibly self-centered person. This translates into the smallest details of my life as I am constantly aware of the most minute inconvenience to the flow of my days. Me me me...And since the whole point of the experiments is to seek to become more like Christ, I was totally humbled by how contrary to this He is. Christ gave ALL of Himself, leaving behind the pleasures of Heaven even to death, for His enemies, for the glory of the FATHER.

I ventured into this experiment with this revelation: In my self-centered world I am pretty much just gross, but there is joy in the opportunity to grow in likeness to Christ, and to therefore become something lovely.

The answer to my question of “What do you want from me?” was this direction:
Pray, praise and write.
Every day I asked the Lord, “Who do You want me to pray for?” I began my prayer with praise, looking intently at the person God placed on my heart and acknowledging His work in them, His care for them, His love and attentive heart to their every need and pouring out praise to our faithful God for them and for His care. Then I brought before Him the needs He placed on my heart on their behalf. And finally, I wrote them a letter of encouragement.

This had a profound impact on me.

As I considered what I would tell you about this, I realized the privilege God gave me through this experiment of putting others before myself, loving others as Christ loves, and not wasting the gifts He’s given me when they were intended to build up those around me...God gave me the opportunity to observe for a moment through His eyes His love and care for His own. The reality is, if you got a letter from me during Lent, it wasn’t because I am loving and was thinking of you...It was because God is loving and HE was thinking of you, and when I was willing to let Him be Lord over me, He gave me the privilege of being a conduit of His affection.

It really is an incredible thing to observe God’s heart for those He loves, to take the time to stop and tune our eyes to see His hand’s faithful, precise and subtle movements on our behalf.

Another thing that struck me during this experiment was the freedom from guilt or burden. Even in the face of failure, I never once felt like a failure, instead I found the layers of my selfishness accompanied by gentle guidance that equipped me to fight for selfless, Christ-centered living.

I only have time to share one quick example with you: Sometimes my husband works very early hours, and I always get up to make him breakfast so he can go to work with a full stomach...it’s something small I can do to help him begin the day well. I actually enjoy doing this, feeding people is one of my love languages. But I wake up earlier than him to prepare, and often times end up waiting for him to make it down to the table 5 minutes or so before he has to leave. One morning, I found myself frustrated by this again. While my attitude had begun in a pure place of joyful servitude, it landed in a grumbling heap of “I got up early to cook for him, the LEAST he could do is come eat the food I made for him while it’s still warm...” But this particular morning as this played out, I felt the Spirit gently nudge my heart with “Hey, that’s all about you, tell Me, what are you thankful for?” And so instead of wallowing in my complaints, I started to consider my very tired husband and began to thank the Lord for him and the things he does, I thanked Him that Nathan faithfully gets up every day and perseveres through his inhumane residency, that he sacrifices his time, his social life, his health, his energies to work hard and provide; I thanked Him that He gave me a husband who not only lets me stay home and take care of Myla, but values that I do; and as I kept listing off the things I was grateful for, my heart changed. When Nathan came downstairs, the Spirit said, “Now tell him what you just told me.” It is immense grace that the Lord would take my grumbling heart and not only softened it with a spirit of thanksgiving (which is a powerful weapon of spiritual warfare we’ve been given), but turned the situation into an opportunity to encourage and thank my faithful husband.

This Lenten season, I let Him be Lord of my eyes, and the results were firstly, the praise, honor and magnification of Jesus, who loves with perfection, for things I would have overlooked and through means I would have otherwise wasted; secondly, the encouragement of at least 35 people other than me (that’s how many letters I sent); and thirdly, what is hopefully an eternally changed woman who is looking at Christ and continually seeking to love others through His eyes and with the gifts He has given.

1 Corinthians 13:1–8a "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends."

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Serving and receiving

John 13:4-17  [Jesus] rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 

Then He came to Simon Peter.
And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
 
Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”
 
Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!”
 
Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
 
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”
 
Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”
 
So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
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Today as I was thinking about service, this passage came to mind. I have heard this passage preached on many times, most often in the context of humble service, even as Jesus took on the lowliest of servant task and knelt to wash the filth of the day that had gathered on His disciples feet. But today as I looked at this passage, I found myself instead looking at Peter.

Peter would have run to the ends of the earth for Jesus; he did things like jump over the side of a boat and walk on water to get to Him, follow Him into enemy territory after He was taken from the Garden of Gethsemane just to keep Him in his sight, and even die on a cross, upside-down, for his faith because he wanted to be with Him for eternity. There is no doubt that Peter loved Jesus. Nor is there any doubt that Peter counted Jesus as his master and Lord; he left all things to follow Him (Mark 10:28), he was the first of the disciples to acknowledge that He was the Christ (Mark 8:29), and he counted it a joy to endure all things for His sake (Acts 5:41). There is no doubt that Peter counted Jesus as his Savior and His God.

Maybe that is why there was such horror in Peter’s response to Christ’s action of service? Peter must have been sitting there, watching Jesus get closer and closer to him, realizing that HE should have been washing the feet of JESUS, not the other way around, wishing his feet weren’t so desperately in need of a good scrubbing...that by the time Jesus knelt before him, he burst out with something along the lines, “What do you think you’re doing?! There is no way that I’m going to be the one who muddies Your hands, You cannot touch my filth.”

But Jesus didn’t praise Peter for his “humble” response. Instead, He stated quite bluntly, “If you won’t receive My service, you can’t receive Me.”

We can’t forget this passage is about the example of humility through the display of Christ and His disciples. Jesus served and the disciples received, and they were instructed to do so to one another. If we did things Peter’s way, there would be neither the opportunity to be a humble servant, nor the opportunity to receive service with humility. Christ was teaching both through His example.

Do you recognize Peter? Why is it that so many of us, though willing to stretch ourselves to our greatest limits and inconveniences to bless another, find it so difficult to allow another to serve us?

Several years before I was married, the Lord really shook up my independent spirit. I had taken on the mentality that I could take care of myself from a young age, and had proven my competency (at least in the most basic sense) in doing so. I got a job when I was 15, I learned how to fix my own car, I worked my way through college, I got my own place and paid my own bills, etc. And then one day, the Lord pressed on me my need for move out of my own place and into a house with roommates...and in the years that followed, I learned many things, including how to be served. Setting aside my independence--whether or not I could “wash my own feet” wasn’t the point--to allow another to experience the joy of service, to not steal away another’s opportunity to exercise and grow in their personal gifting, to get a glimpse of the Body of Christ building itself up in love. The Spirit showed me the lies that made me jump back in horror as Peter did at the hands that reached out to me, and to stand in the Truth of Christ living in those around me as they ministered to my needs. I learned how to say, “Yes and thank you.” without fear of being a burden, and grew to deeply appreciate the times I myself got to hear, “Yes and thank you,” from the lips of another.

I truly believe that until you learn how to receive, you cannot serve as Christ exemplified. Jesus’ first step in teaching His disciples about serving was to have them receive His act of service, and from there, He said to serve one another with humility.

I would like to challenge and encourage you, brothers and sisters, to consider your thinking when someone offers to serve you...are you bombarded by worry and anxiety that you are an inconvenience or burden? That is from the enemy, Jesus gives you the freedom to receive service. Do you recoil at the thought because you are too proud to allow another to see your vulnerabilities? This is from the enemy, Jesus gives you the freedom to bare your filthy feet. What are the thoughts that enter in when looking down into the eyes of someone with a basin of water? Should you not feel joy that another would seek to put you before themselves? Should you not feel gratitude that Jesus uses His people to be His hands and feet, and He wishes to minister to you? Should your spirit not be uplifted and strengthened that another would seek to help you shoulder your burden?

If we want to be a part of Christ’s Body, we must learn to not only humbly serve others, but receive with humility the service of another.