John Fischer The Catch

I recently had the chance to preview a new faith-based movie coming out in the fall called The Identical. It’s actually a faith-based movie that doesn’t seem like one, and I mean that in the best  possible way. In the opening scenes, a Depression Era father of newborn twins wanders into a revival tent meeting that will forever alter the lives of his two boys. Later, I was trying to tell Marti the main plot line of the story, and when I mentioned the tent meeting, she interrupted me: “There are Indians in this movie?”

I stared at her incredulously. “It was a tent revival meeting, honey, not a teepee!”

We had a big laugh over that, and I thought it would be fitting to close our 21-day discussion on the new covenant with a bunch of laughs.

Like the time I was walking out of my office one morning in the predawn hours and opened the door on a skunk. In my shock I slammed the door shut; I just neglected to pull my head in. That’s when I found out, in a very painful way, that it’s not possible to keep my eye on the skunk and close the door at the same time.

Or how about my most embarrassing moment ever on stage. This one wins hands down, because it took us all at least five minutes to settle down before I could go on. It was a concert I did with my good friend Pam Mark Hall at Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center near Santa Cruz, California. It was a packed crowd of over a thousand — a sort of reunion concert — because Mount Hermon was pretty much where I got my music career started, writing and introducing my new songs to high school campers all summer long up the hill at Ponderosa Lodge in 1969. It’s important to know it’s a friendly audience, because that just gives them permission to laugh even harder. Humor is almost always at someone’s expense, but in the security of a loving relationship, we know we’re all laughing at each other, and not hurting anyone’s feelings. We know we would do the same thing in similar circumstances, so we’re laughing at ourselves and celebrating the silly things that make us all human.

And the truly funniest things are the ones you can’t plan.

Pam and I were both on stage at the same time, and for some reason while we were bantering back and forth, I mentioned I had recently recovered from hernia surgery. As I said that, I suddenly realized how old that made me sound, and wanting to reassure everyone this was a problem I’d had from birth, and not because I was getting old and decrepit, I blurted out, “It was genital!” There were a couple seconds of shocked silence, and then an earthquake erupted.

Now, of course, I meant to say, “con-genital” but the damage was done. For a while there, I thought we’d never be able to finish the night. Talking seriously about your genitals in front of a thousand people is just a very rare and special moment.

What makes these moments so funny is that they actually reveal, probably better than anything else can, the real nature of the new covenant. 2 Corinthians 4:7 is nothing more than one big joke. A treasure in a clay pot is a joke. The high glory of Christ in these tall, short, skinny, fat, pretty, ugly bodies is a joke. And the joke is the point. In fact, it’s the whole point. It’s the way we all realize that the power is coming from God and not us. Come on … look at us! … It makes me laugh just to think about it. We’re the temple of God? Come on…! That’s just grand comedy. It’s the way God gets all the glory, and we get all the laughs, because it’s just too good to be true. That He would love us, live in us, use is — that’s what’s too good to be true.

Grace is one grand joke, at our expense, and to God’s glory.

It’s Marti trying to envision a Depression Era teepee; it’s me slamming my head in the door or trying to cover my genitals in front of a thousand people; it’s the high and lofty grand laughter of God loving us unconditionally just the way we are.

Welcome to the new covenant gospel. I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

By the way, don’t look now, but your veil is showing!

I suppose you could call this a postscript to yesterday’s Day 21 of our 21-Day Challenge. I thought of this story as I was writing yesterday about our experience ministering to the students at Gordon College. This was a similar trip, taken with a number of pastors and laymen from Peninsula Bible Church, Palo Alto, California, to speak at another Christian college, this time it was Malone College, (now Malone University) in Canton, Ohio.

One of the lay people with us was Ted Wise, an influential figure in the Jesus movement of the early 1970s. Ted is definitely one-of-a-kind. He was led to Christ by the Holy Spirit in a vision on an acid trip. Following which he found a Bible and holed himself up for the next 6 months doing nothing but study it. The uncanny thing about this was, when he showed up at our church a few months after that, here was a man who knew the things of God, but he had been taught completely by the Holy Spirit and the word of God. There were no other influences in his life. On top of that, he was a man with a keen mind and an even keener spirit that manifested the gifts of wisdom and discernment. So when he spoke, his language was completely free of church talk, evangelical talk — anything we would have recognized as “Christian” from our well-documented Christian experiences and ways of talking about them. He spoke truth with a piercing clarity that always went to the heart of an issue, and he rarely held anything back.

So it was that he pierced my evangelical veil on that trip in front of about 200 students in the lounge of a large dormitory. Students were jammed in the “L”-shaped room, sitting on the floor, on the furniture and standing up against the walls. There was a heightened awareness in the air that God was doing something special, and the students were there because they didn’t want to miss it. It was my first opportunity to travel with these men who had taught me the new covenant and I was eager to “try it out.”

We had decided that in our evening meetings which were to run all week, each one of the team members would share his testimony, and then Ray Stedman would speak from the new covenant. Because of the entertainment value of music and it’s ability to break the ice, I was the first one. So after singing a couple songs, I launched into my testimony, and very near the first few sentences, I said, in an attempt to capture the self-righteous nature of my early Christian experience, “I used to be a golden boy.” No sooner did I get that statement out, than a voice came booming from the back of the room, “What do you mean ‘used to be’?” It was Ted Wise. Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t we supposed to be on each other’s side here?

I stood there like the emperor with no clothes. I honestly don’t think I recovered very well. I have no idea what I said after that, but in a way I don’t think it mattered, because what the experience said to everyone was that this wasn’t going to be about us. This was going to be about what we brought them from the Lord, and that would remain when we were gone.

So does this mean we all need a Ted Wise with us wherever we go? No, but there’s something about this that needs to be a part of who we are and what we tell. This kind of relentless honesty needs to be a guard against veiling our insecurities and inadequacies. Ted did the same thing my wife does when she is in the room when I speak. She keeps me honest. We need to figure out how to keep ourselves honest. I think this is what Paul meant when he said he speaks with an awareness that he is standing before the Lord. Remember what happens to the veil when we turn to the Lord.? This is the freedom of ministry in the new covenant.

Frederick Buechner in his book Telling the Truth: the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale, paints an unforgettable picture of a preacher who immediately before standing up to lecture a roomful of distinguished theologians at an ivy league divinity school, cuts his face shaving. Buechner captures beautifully all those feelings of inadequacy, and how the preacher hates what has happened, and yet he knows why it happened, so he will stand up there anyway, and know, as he pulls the cord on the little lamp at the lectern, that he is who he is, and whatever of value that might come from him in the next few moments will come from the Lord. Isn’t that the way we should be all the time?

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6)

The contrasts of the new covenant

The new covenant is all about contrasts, and the contrasts present such a different model of Christianity — of any kind of success-oriented teaching, for that matter — that we will miss it if we don’t expose ourselves to it over and over again. Thus, in this, our 21st day of a 21-Day Challenge, we are going to take all the major contrasts in these verses and lump them all together with the hope of perhaps getting the point.

And still we won’t totally get it, because the real message of the new covenant runs so counter to our human and cultural inclinations and lifelong instruction in every other area of life.

We are a success-oriented generation, constantly seeking self-improvement because we are convinced this is the road to success. We are all looking for something that will give us the edge over the competition. The money we spend on products and events that promise to do this for us must be astounding. Yes, competition, because we are always competing with one another. We compete for jobs, for neighborhoods, for school systems, for best body, for best soccer mom, and we compete for best Christian. If we feel inadequate, we go to adequacy seminars where a motivational speaker pumps us up for a few days until we deflate back to who we really are a few days later. For many people, church is a weekly motivational seminar. We all might as well be issued personal pumps that we can hook up to our big toe and pump when needed.

The new covenant flies in the face of all of this. It tells us we are most adequate when we are inadequate (2 Corinthians 3:4-6). That we have the most powerful effect on others when we are most aware of our human and emotional limits (2:12-16). That we are most free when we are stripped of all attempts to cover up our timid selves, or hide our intimidation behind thin veils of false adequacy. That we are most impressive when we lose all attempts to impress (3:18). It tells us we have the most profound effect on others when Christ’s power is seen not because of us, but in spite of us (4:6-7). We have the greatest impact for the kingdom of God when we are afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and knocked down (4:8-9). And we are better dead than alive (4:10-12).

And even as I write this and you read it, we nod our heads, but we don’t actually get it. And we will finish this 21-Day Challenge and go right on doing what we’ve been doing since Adam, because no one wants to be that vulnerable. No one wants to present him or herself the way he or she really is.

Here it is: Stop hiding; stop trying; stop pumping. Throw your pump away. Your deflated self is just the thing God is looking for!

For sure, God wants people to be impressed around us, He just wants them to be impressed with Him, not with us. And the only way that happens is by contrast — when the most valuable thing we have shines through these common, broken vessels of ours “so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.” Impress people with yourself, and no one gets to God.

Last night, on BlogTalkRadio, we had as our guests a couple we have known since the first time we were exposed to this teaching and discovered it together as we walked and talked. Marti reminded us of the time the four of us were guests of the chaplain at Gordon College in Massachusetts, who brought us on campus for a week of special meetings with the students. We taught the new covenant, and each night our numbers grew as the word got out about the freedom of this message, and, I’m sure, the vulnerability of the way we handled ourselves among them. There’s no way I can teach with Marti around and get away with anything. Every night, after I finished teaching, Marti would hold a very frank and honest “So what?” session, often at my expense. “Don’t look now, John, but your veil is showing!” Believe me, it was effective in showing the contrast between our true selves and the power of God in our midst.

On our final night, in a roomful of about 200 students (we had started with 30), we ended with prayer, and Marti invited them to pray out loud as they felt led, and while they prayed, the four of us slipped out quietly and never saw any of them again. To this day we have no idea what happened in the rest of that meeting. There was no arrangement made to end the meeting; we didn’t tell anyone we were going to do this. They could have prayed for hours, someone might have started singing, someone with the gift of leadership might have stood up and taken charge. It didn’t matter. We were four vessels, we had poured ourselves out, and we were done. To be there when they finished praying would have shifted the focus back to us, and perpetuated the myth that they needed us to have the experience they had when we were there. Of course that wasn’t necessary. So we left them with the one thing we could leave them: with the Lord in their midst. (We actually did find out that that group started a student-led weekly gathering that lasted to the end of that school year.)

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. (2 Corinthians 4:5)

Day 21 Challenge:
These verses we’ve looked at over these 21 days are at the heart of the new covenant passage in 2 Corinthians, but it continues into chapter 6 and concludes with the great statement below as Paul challenges the Corinthians to an exchange of openness, because it is only in that openness that we find the Lord together.

We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also. (2 Corinthians 6:13)

Action items:
1. What’s your favorite “fall back” to hide behind when you’re feeling weak and vulnerable?
2. Why do you think it’s so hard to embrace these contrasts in our lives?
3. How do you most often avoid being vulnerable? How could you change that? What do you think would happen if you did?
4. Can you think of a time when the power of God showed up in your life in spite of yourself? What were you like? What was God like?
5. What can you do to live a more honest, open life all the time?
6. And our final challenge to you: “Open wide your hearts also.”

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Life and death

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (2 Corinthians 4:10-12)

I live in a body that was the reason Christ died. That should give me cause to pause and think first about what it tells me I want to do. Unfortunately we have to live with what’s dead. We know that for a fact, because our bodies are physically dying every day. For those of us who are older, that fact is somewhat dramatically lived out. All I need to do is stand up right now, and I will feel this body of death in my knees. Guaranteed. I’ve got one Rice Krispies knee with so much twisted cartilage, it snaps, crackles and pops all day long. And if my physical body is like that, what about its drives, impulses and needs? Aren’t those things that died with Christ, and yet I still have to carry them around?

But wait a minute. Isn’t there something else? This body of death isn’t all there is of me. There is a new life, living inside — alive, vibrant, youthful, teeming with strength and vitality — holy smokes, it’s the Spirit of God! It is never old, never going to die, and it’s going right on with me into eternity. That’s you and me — something new and alive carrying around something old and dying, and something old and dying carrying around something new and alive. Remember? The new covenant is all about contrast.

Without Christ, all we have is the old covenant, and all we can do is try to make the old thing better. All the old covenant has to work with is the body of death, which, for all intents and purposes, is already dead! So … we have  to carry it around, but we’re not identified with it; we’re tied in with the Spirit. So there’s always going to be both these things going on at the same time. That’s why the Spirit of God will be revealed, because we, and those around us, can see it working right along with that body of death.

You can see this best with those who are in recovery. Addictions never leave. You carry them around with you for the rest of your life. It’s just that there is something new that you are now identified with. That old thing doesn’t define you anymore. You are living out the new thing that God is working in you, and when anyone sees you, they see the contrast. Life and death … death and life … both at the same time. The new covenant is all about contrast. I used the recovery picture only because we can see it more easily that way, but in reality we’re all in recovery from sin. My body of death is still addicted to sin — that will never change — and I have to carry it around all the time, but it doesn’t have to define me or control me anymore.

And finally, Paul says it a little differently the second time. He says we’re being delivered over to death. What does that mean? The first death is one we carry around, and we need to know about that so we listen to our new life instead. But this one is something that happens to us. For Paul, it was imprisonment, beatings, shipwrecks — things he went through so the life of Christ could be poured out to others. For us, this can be anything that forces us to count on the Spirit of God because we have no other choice. It can’t be just big things that happen to us once-in-a-while, because he says this is always happening, so it must also be everyday things that force us to not rely on ourselves, but on God. And this is almost always for someone else’s benefit. That’s why he says “death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” These experiences reduce us to nothing but the Spirit so there will be no doubt where the power is coming from, and that, in itself, becomes life-giving to others.

Without Christ, death leaves us with nothing. With Christ, death leaves us with nothing but life.

Day 20 Challenge:
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (The “Life of Jesus” always rests upon the “Death of Jesus.” In our daily experiences, we must have the “Death of Jesus” to have the “Life of Jesus.”)
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. (What we want, of course, is the “life of Jesus.” However, the power of God is the miracle of others seeing in us, in the midst of our pressures and trials, the character and the life of Jesus transcending through us.)

Action items:
   What does Paul mean by the “death of Jesus”? Are we to nail ourselves to a cross?
   What was Jesus like on the cross? Was He powerful, impressive, and significant?
   Was Jesus willing to experience physical weakness and rejection?
   Was Jesus willing to lose everything He had built? Was He willing to trust God to bring it back and make it significant?
   Do we see any similarities in ourselves as we carry around in our bodies the death of Jesus?
   Are we willing to give up all the things that make us look important to other people?
   Are we willing to be insignificant, if necessary?
   Do we trust God to use us however He wills?
   So how do we get to the “Life of Jesus?”
   Do we struggle, still, with wanting the power of God and to get credit for it too? How do we manifest this struggle? Personally, if God has done anything through me, I want the world to know. If anything amazing happens in our midst, I might want everyone to know that I spent hours in prayer over it or I counseled so-and-so in such-and-such a helpful way.
   Do you ever want to move in and get the credit too? If so, in what ways do you struggle with wanting the “life of Jesus,” but we also the satisfaction of your own self?

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Through the cracks

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)

These verses, about what life throws at us, immediately follow those other, more well-known verses about “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” that indwells us like treasure in a jar of clay. But it is no mistake that these verses are right next to each other, nor is it a change of subject. If Christ is in these fragile vessels, and He is our light, and our message to the world, it only follows that life would crack these vessels so that the light could be seen in us. And like the treasure contrasts the clay pot, so the worst that life can throw us contrasts the presence of God inside.

Here’s the important thing about this: It is not God’s will to steer us over, around or under the difficulties of life; it is His will to accompany us through them.

Look at these four things and think about your life. Is any of this going on in you right now?

For me, I’m definitely feeling the pressure from many sides at once; I’m perplexed about many things and unsure of what to do; I’m not sure about being persecuted unless that means being misunderstood or falsely accused, so I guess, that, too, which leaves only being struck down — that really doesn’t apply to me … yet. So three out of four? Do I get something for that?

Yes, I do, in fact. I get the opportunity to discover the indwelling life and power of the Holy Spirit to be equal to — no, greater than — any of these things. And in that, I, and everyone around me, discover that it’s not me, but the Lord, who enables me to continue to be an active participant in life.

And that’s the key here, isn’t it? Being an active participant in life. That’s the new covenant ministry. Move On It.

I’ll be honest; as I write these things, and read what I write, it looks like I know what I’m talking about — that I’m in the middle of my own struggles and the Lord is holding me up. Not really. I’m writing this because I know it’s the truth, but I can’t say that it’s exactly working for me right now.

I know what it’s like to not want to get out of bed because of what you know is waiting for you when you do. But remember this (and this part I’m saying totally by faith, not as something I’ve grasped, but something I need as much as some of you might right now): the indwelling life of the Spirit of God is also waiting to meet us. We won’t know that for sure until we get up and get there, but that’s where the faith comes in.

We can’t just pull out of the game when bad things happen. We can’t check out of life and wait for things to get better, because a big part of the ministry we’ve been given is to discover the Spirit of God in the middle of life’s pressures. That’s why these verses are here. When our little ship gets buffeted by the storm, that’s when it gets to show itself seaworthy.

So come on, let’s go. God is going to bring us through and bring Himself glory through it and bring us joy unspeakable. I believe that. I don’t see it, but I believe it … Lord, help my unbelief.

Day 19 Challenge
Action items:
1. What is your reaction to this news – that it takes our weaknesses to have His strength? I, personally, do not like it. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see the power of God in my life. Yet, I want the power to come out of an untroubled, peaceful, calm life. I want to move through life protected from danger and difficulties. What about you?
2. Would you describe the Christian life as one where we are “hard pressed,” and “perplexed,” and “persecuted,” and “struck down, but not out?”
3. Do you think we have any choice in the matter? Can we choose which afflictions we are willing to go through and what ones we would rather not? Or do you think we get what God sends; whatever He wills is what we have to go through?
4. Is Paul is saying that we are not protected from life? Let’s see …Can Christians get cancer? Can Christians have financial collapse? Can Christians go through difficulties, family separations, divorce; problems of every sort?
5. If your walk with the Lord is better than mine, will you experience fewer difficulties? Why?
6. Yet, do you know Christians who are afflicted and crushed; have perplexities that drive them to despair; are persecuted; feel abandoned; are knocked down and often are knocked out for weeks or years at a time? Paul will answer this question in Verses 10-11. (Stay tuned for Day 20 of our 21-Day Challenge)

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Cracked pots

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

This is the key verse to understanding how the new covenant works — the interplay between God and us, and how God gets His message across through us. Understand and act on this, and you will not be ineffective in your Christian life.

Notice that it starts with that same conjunction “but” that we encountered in Day 1 when Paul had just confessed his anxiety over not finding Titus in Troas, and had left behind an opportunity for spreading the gospel there, only to say, “But thanks be to God, who always leads us …” He set up one thing, and contrasts it with another. He should be anxious over Titus, guilty over walking by a door the Lord had opened for him, and depressed over the whole thing. Instead, he is thankful and confident that he is being led in Christ’s victory, and even being put on display.

Here, the “but” is referring to the incredible treasure we all contain described as “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ,” and yet that treasure is going to be housed in a most unlikely — perhaps even inappropriate — place. You won’t believe it when you hear it. It’s almost a joke, the contrast is so significant. All that glory and brightness and presence is going to be where? In you and me? You’ve got to be kidding!

The contrast is everything. The contrast is the whole point. Anything we do to eliminate that contrast is to take away from the effectiveness of this plan. The contrast between our fragile, clay-like (from the earth) bodies and the immeasurable brightness of Christ is something that should be obvious so that everyone will know the power must be coming from God, because it certainly isn’t coming from us.

You can see how the power of this message is made more effective by the commonness of our humanity. In fact, the power of God in our lives is in direct proportion to our weakness. The more honest we are with our humanity, the more the power of God can be seen and recognized in us. Conversely, the more we try and show ourselves as adequate and spiritual, the less anyone will ever know about the power of God. This is the tragedy of “playing church.” Everybody is hiding the power of God behind a false spirituality.

This is also why the new covenant is so freeing. In it, the greatest power is in concert with our greatest need. No need to hide anything.

Understanding this sets us free to live our lives with a kind of forthright boldness, counting on the Lord to show up, because He always does. The only thing that can stop Him is our manipulation of what he wants to produce in us through our genuine transparency.

Day 18 Challenge:
Here Paul makes reference not just to His power but to the surpassing greatness of His power – This glorious ministry performed through vessels of weakness.

Recap:
Never forget that just as God has a plan for your life … so does Satan. Make no mistake, Satan is the god of this world and is actively at work scheming as to how he might discourage each of us from fulfilling the personal mission that our Lord has laid before each of us.

Do not lose heart! This ministry to proclaim the glory of Christ is too precious to give in to discouragement.

It is all about proclaiming Christ, and staying aware of the following facts:
The message of the gospel of welcome focuses on the glory of Christ.
Christ supremely reveals God as the image of God.
We need to be staring intently into the face of Christ.

Action Items:
Therefore, as Ministers of Christ,
Do you truly believe that God is Sovereign when it comes to who responds to the truth of the gospel? How does this affect your desire to participate as a Minister of Christ?
How glorious and cherished do you find God’s revelation about Himself in the person of Christ to be to you?
Are you hiding the power of God behind a supposed spirituality? How can you get out from under that?

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‘Let there be light’

For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

You are a walking miracle. If you’re a Christian — if you’re able to believe today — that is because God has performed a miracle in your life. He spoke into the void, the darkness, the chaos of your life, and said, “Let there be light”; and, lo and behold, there was light!

That’s a miracle — a modern-day miracle. Making light shine where there was none is impossible. It is in the realm of God alone. Just as the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so the God of heaven, the universe and all worlds has opened the minds of the believing, and shined His light into their hearts.

If you believe today, it’s because God has spoken a miracle into your life and consequently, if anyone you know is going to become a believer, it’s going to take a similar miracle. This is important for us to know, because it shows us how much we are in over our heads when it comes to those people who will accept the Gospel of Welcome and those who will not. Our job is to love people without partiality, to speak the truth into everyone’s life, and see what God does.

Our vision statement, “Introducing the Gospel of Welcome to everyone, everywhere,” uses the word “introducing” because that’s about all we can do. We can introduce people to Jesus; we can “set forth the truth plainly in front of every man’s conscience in the sight of God;” we can love everyone unconditionally; we can turn grace out to the world; but only God can turn on the light, and when He does, you’ll know it because it will be a miracle, just like it was when you first believed.

Anyone who has witnessed the birth of a baby knows that life itself is a miracle. When that little person sticks its head out into the wide world, and takes its first breath, there isn’t anyone present who is unaware of a true miracle taking place. So it is with being born again, and anyone who is present on such an occasion is aware of a similar miracle. Anyone who is helping that process at that time is nothing more than a spiritual midwife — a witness to the birth. The ability to believe is faith itself. God puts it in us; we don’t come up with it ourselves. My wife likes to call this “warming our hands by the fire.”

The miracle for me happened my senior year in college, at 3:00 in the morning, when I was facing the final in my major field in five hours, I was way behind in my preparation, and I thought I was losing my mind. It seemed like every area of my life that I thought I had under control was flying out of control, and this was the last straw. I was losing my grip. I remember walking outside on a frigid Chicago morning and crying out to God that if He was real, I needed to know it. Suddenly an unexplainable peace came over me, and an inaudible voice told me to go back to my room and go to bed. Everything was going to be okay. It was as real as the table in front of me right now. It was an undeniable presence. One moment I was losing my mind; the very next moment I was in my right mind and completely at rest. No drugs. No talking myself into something. No other explanation, except for a miracle. That’s what it was. Someone turned on the light. And it was sustainable, because nothing was quite the same again.

Day 17 Challenge:
Some people have had gradual, somewhat quiet conversions, and others, more dramatic; but everyone can relate to a time when the light went on.

Action items:
Has God turned on the light for you?
If so, when did that first happen? What was it like?
If God hasn’t turned on the light for you yet, would you like Him to? We’d love to help. We can’t turn on the light, but we can share the truth with you, and try to answer questions you may have, or maybe help to remove some perceived barriers to believing.
Ask someone you know today to tell you the story of when his or her light first went on.

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Not about us

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. (2 Corinthians 4:5)

This guy obviously thinks he’s pretty hot stuff. God used him anyway.

It’s not about me. Nor is it about you.

It doesn’t matter what our strengths or weaknesses are, the ministry of the new covenant will carry on through our lives in spite of them. In this case, our strengths only serve to get in the way.

In the old covenant, we thought of our natural strengths as assets to the ministry. We brought all the best we had to the table and expected God to appreciate it and incorporate it into our ministry. We thought our best plus God equaled a winning formula. But this couldn’t be anything further from the truth.

Our best + God = Disaster.

Our best is our worst enemy. Our best only gets in the way of God. In the new covenant, our natural strengths only mess things up. Incorporating our strengths doesn’t make the ministry any better. In fact, learning the new covenant is all about unlearning what we have relied on most of our lives up until now, and this is what makes our natural strengths so dangerous. They keep us from discovering and using the power of the Spirit of God in our lives.

As long as we think we can rely, as we always have, on our strengths, we will be rendering the new covenant ineffective. God is not interested is partnering with our assets. He wants to take over.

My first mentor in the new covenant realized, and rightfully so, that he was going to have to wean me from my guitar if I was going to discover the power of the Spirit in my life. In those early days, it was all about me. With my guitar strapped on, God and I were pretty hot stuff. Problem was, my guitar and my songs were what I relied on and hid behind. My musical talent was like a veil for me, hiding all my insecurities and inadequacies. As long as I had a guitar around my neck, the Spirit of God was not in control.

But in the new covenant, our insecurities and inadequacies are not something to cover up; they are our pathways to power.

Our weaknesses are not anything we have to be concerned about, as if we had to work on them in order to overcome them. Actually, we will find our weaknesses as our greatest asset to the new covenant ministry. They unlock the power of God in us.

Our worst + God = Success.
This struggle is never over. I mention the guitar thing because it’s easy to see how it got in the way. But losing one veil doesn’t mean we can’t put up another one. Learning to stop relying on one strength doesn’t mean we don’t pick up another and not even notice.

It’s not about you, and it’s not about me; it’s about the Lord Jesus Christ and us as His servants. “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy comes from God” … and God alone.

Challenge: Day 16
For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

Paul is saying he serves others and does not expect others to serve him. Just like we, as ministers of the new covenant, are to serve others for Jesus’ sake, because we are servants of Jesus Christ. No one is the boss or in charge over anyone else. We are compelled by His love, for the promotion of His glory. It is the desire of our hearts.

Action items:
Who is the focus on? Who is the focus not on?
Given “For we do not preach ourselves”, why do we often notice ourselves and others enjoying praise and attention? Are any of us capable of saving anyone?
Who are we accountable to? Why?
Do we or do we not play a critical supporting role? Or are by bystanders?
What strengths do you have that could stand in the way of the new covenant ministry?
What weaknesses do you have that could unlock God’s power in your life?

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Blinded

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

“How I long to gather you in my arms…”

I do not relish writing this Catch. I have been staring at the blank page on my screen for a while now, trying to figure out how to go about this. There is no easy way. I wish the Bible weren’t so clear about heaven and hell so we could maybe explain hell away somehow. But Paul talks about those who are saved and those who are perishing, about vessels made for honor and vessels made for dishonor, and Jesus talks about dividing people into sheep and goats, wheat and tares, and branches that are lifted up, and those that are pruned out and thrown into the fire. Kind of hard to get around all of that.

There’s no way you can make this pretty; but there is a way you can make sure everyone knows there is a way clear through to the Father.  That the arms of Christ — as represented by that famous statue over Rio de Janeiro we saw time and time again during the World Cup — are still open wide to the whole world, and will stay open right up to the end of this age.

And if, when you try, some people don’t get it, there just isn’t much you can do about that except to keep setting forth the truth plainly, because you never know when the veil that is disabling someone from seeing and understanding the truth might come down. The veil here sounds final, but it is not. It is not irrevocable. “When anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away” is still true. If it’s true for the children of Israel, it’s true for everyone. That’s all it takes to undo what Satan has done in blinding the minds of some. Turn to the Lord.

The new covenant ministry is unique in that it doesn’t demand results from us. Not everyone will get it, but choosing those who see and those who don’t is out of our hands. It’s not who can set forth the truth in the most compelling way; it’s the fact that the results are in a spiritual realm that is beyond us. This is where the forces of God and the forces of Satan clash over the souls of men and women. This is the mystery.

This is also the power of the Gospel of Welcome. The arms of God are wide open to receive. So open wide your heart to everyone. Set forth the truth plainly. Whatever you do, don’t give up on anybody. Pray. It’s still good news. It will always be good news.

Day 15 Challenge:
Paul is responding to a question, “If this is all true (setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God), why don’t more people come to the truth?”

People are perishing because they do not believe; and they do not believe because they are blinded by the devil. That is what he is saying. The god of this age has brainwashed them. They cannot understand what the good news is saying; they do not believe it.

As before, the veil is the delusion that we are adequate to handle life by ourselves. It is that independent sense of pride that says, “I can handle it by myself; I do not need God.”

The veil that lies over the minds of people is to keep them from seeing their inadequacy up against the law, which is fading into death; their death.

Action items:

1. Who is responsible for unbelief?
2. If it is Satan who has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, do we give up on them?
3. Why then do we not grow discouraged if in our offering no one responds to the plain truth of the gospel?
4. Do we know who is being saved and who is perishing?
5. How do we know what to tell people if we don’t know whether they are being saved or they are perishing?
6. So what hope is there that anybody who has been blinded by the devil will ever believe the good news?

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