Wayne Jacobsen

I’m beginning to wonder if Israel’s preoccupation with counting horses and chariots whenever they were threatened instead of relying on God to protect and care for them is the same mistake we make when we look to human-designed structures to keep us safe in Jesus.  We are still looking to what man can do and not only is it always disappointing in the end, but like Israel’s kings it was always destructive to the people they ruled over.  From the beginning of time, God has invited humanity to trust him only with the promise that he will care for us.   And our natural proclivities have been to feel safer in structures of our own creation, led by other humans who think they have authority over people and rarely seeing what kind of community God creates if we ceased from our own labors to embrace his.  

I’m one person who is far more excited about the church Jesus is building in the world than I am any of man’s attempts to do so.  For even within our institutions the real community doesn’t flow from the programs but the interconnections God gives between people who will lovingly care for each other and encourage each other in the journey.  We’re going to talk about that this weekend in the first three days of my ten-day trip to Carolina.  Twenty of us are meeting in a home on Lake James and see what God has taught us in our journeys and what he might show us together.  I have no idea what the outcome might be but you’re sure to read more of it on the blog or hear it on a future podcast.  This conversation has been building since The Greater Gathering podcast I did in January.

After those days I’ll be staying another week in the Charlotte and Winston-Salem areas meeting with a variety of people.  If you’d like to connect, please check my Travel Page for details.  I’ve intentionally left some open time to see what God initiates while I’m there.  

In other news, I want to offer my apologies to those of you who have had trouble navigating our website since we made the switch.  Unfortunately that was not as smooth a transitiona as I hoped for and the process made it difficult for people to find what they wanted, order from our store, or simply comment on a blog.  We have made huge strides this weekend to make the site more user-friendly and I hope if you gave up at some point, you’ll return to have a look around.  Though I’m not much for videos, I’m blesed by the feedback we’re getting on my Engage Videos, that are helping people find their way into a meaningful relationship with God, just by encouraging them to recognize how God is building a relationship with them. If you haven’t seen them yet, you might want to check them out.  

Finally, I’ve been in constant communication with the brothers and sisters in Kenya.  They sent this picture of those pastors and teachers who have gathered to go through The Jesus Lens material to help them share with others a gospel of grace and freedom from the Scriptures, rather than the old distortions they’ve learned in the past to twist people into the religious rules that were part of the Old Covenant, not the new.  

I am also working with them in completing the petrol station they are building to fund the ongoing needs of the orphanage we helped them build.  We are in the last stages of finding the money to help them complete the service station and are in need of more funds to help us complete it.  They have run into some unexpected expenses with an emergency system and some additional land so that large trucks and buses can access where they were required to put the pump.  This amount needs to come in quickly as this land is being developed, so if you feel called to help us support these children with this enterprise, we and they would be grateful. If you want to know more about this project or the AIDs recovery home we also support in South Africa, you can see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560 Newbury Rd, Ste 1 #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

It’s the season for new graduates, in high school, colleges, and universities to mark a moment of significant transition in their lives.  I don’t know John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars, but I do know truth when I hear it.   Here are some excerpts of his recent commencement address to the graduates of Butler University.  I hope they listened long enough to let it soak into their bones and influence a thousand decisions they’ll make in the next frew years.  

We don’t hear these kinds of words often enough in our culture and yet they are as true as true gets.  

I would just note that the default assumption is that the point of human life is to be as successful as possible, to acquire lots of fame or glory or money as defined by quantifiable metrics: number of twitter followers, or facebook friends, or dollars in one’s 401k.

This is the hero’s journey, right? The hero starts out with no money and ends up with a lot of it, or starts out an ugly duckling and becomes a beautiful swan, or starts out an awkward girl and becomes a vampire mother, or grows up an orphan living under the staircase and then becomes the wizard who saves the world. We are taught that the hero’s journey is the journey from weakness to strength. But I am here today to tell you that those stories are wrong. The real hero’s journey is the journey from strength to weakness…

 

You are probably going to be a nobody for a while. You are going to make that journey from strength to weakness, and while it won’t be an easy trip, it is a heroic one. For in learning how to be a nobody, you will learn how not to be a jerk. And for the rest of your life, if you are able to remember your hero’s journey from college grad to underling, you will be less of a jerk. You will tip well. You will empathize. You will be a mentor, and a generous one.

Let me submit to you that this is the actual definition of a good life. You want to be the kind of person who other people — people who may not even be born yet — will think about … at their own commencements. I am going to hazard a guess that relatively few of us thought of all the work and love that Selena Gomez or Justin Bieber put into making this moment possible for us. We may be taught that the people to admire and emulate are actors and musicians and sports heroes and professionally famous people, but when we look at the people who have helped us, the people who actually change actual lives, relatively few of them are publicly celebrated. We do not think of the money they had, but of their generosity. We do not think of how beautiful or powerful they were, but how willing they were to sacrifice for us — so willing, at times, that we might not have even noticed that they were making sacrifices.

(You can see his entire speech here, though I have not and cannot vouch for all he said.) 

Sara and I are reading through Ephesians these days and read these words last night in The Message, “You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live.”   I hear that sentiment echoed in the words above. The world teaches to pursue the wrong things and I applaud the courage of someone who will speak into the absurdity of false success and invite people into a different way of living where success is not measured the way the world measures it, or even rewards it.

Life is found in embracing our weakness and in doing so find a God so much larger than ourself and a way to live generously in the world.  Those people do more to make a difference in the world they live in than the politicians, media moguls, or Wall Street brokers.  

My trip to Israel in 1997 proved too far more impact on me than I ever thought it could. I promised someday to take Sara there. I wanted her to walk this land where God made Himself known in the world. The time has come to make good on that promise! And you are invited to come along with us and explore the land where love was first revealed.

I had no idea what it would mean on a personal level: to stand on the shore in Galilee one evening, while the water lapped at my feet,to climb Mt. Carmel where Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, to be surrounded by 2000 year old trees in Gethsemane,to experience pitch-black darkness in the very dungeon that held Jesus the night before He was crucified. Time in Israel gave me a different dimension of understanding for God’s work of redemption. I was drawn closer to His heart. I had touched the earth where He had walked. I had been given a first-hand look at the sky, hills, valleys, and waters where He lived out His physical life. I had experienced His earthly home!

We’re making room for forty people to come with us.  As we journey, we’ll walk through the Scripture story. I’ll be sharing some thoughts at key sites designed to stimulate personal reflection. And as we go along, we will enjoy a joint conversation about how God is revealing Himself in us.

The Israel Tour Company, known for intimate tours that allow people to absorb the culture and history of the land, is planning our time. They hosted me years ago, and I am happy to be working with them now. We’ll even have the same guide that I enjoyed so much when I was there all those years ago.

We have chosen to travel in February since the weather is comfortable in the desert locations. There aren’t as many tourists in the country at this time. And we can take a smaller, more intimate group more affordably. The length of the trip is designed to move us through the highlights of the country, still allowing time for reflection and a free day in Jerusalem.

I hope you can join us for an awesome time – one that will forever change your perspective and understanding.

Check out our website below and don’t miss the wonderful video under helpful links.  

You can get all the details and register here.