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What About Him?

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What About Him?

By Wayne Jacobsen

BodyLife • January 1997

“When you grow old… someone else will dress you and bring you where you do not wish to go.”

The words Jesus used were precise and abundantly clear. No one standing in that huddled group on Galilee’s shore that morning misunderstood what he had just told Peter. He would one day be executed for his friendship with Jesus.

The surprise breakfast on the beach with the resurrected Lord suddenly turned ominous. Peter must have just stared, his mouth agape with shock. The rest of the disciples must have glanced at each other with that “poor Peter” expression on their face, completely unaware that most of them would die in the same way.

Jesus knew he had just dropped a bombshell on them and certainly he knew the distress that would have been filling Peter’s heart. He was not that many days away from his own anguish that had sent him to the Garden to pray on the eve of his crucifixion.

But Jesus hadn’t spoken these words to scare Peter. So he perhaps reached to Peter, grasped his shoulder and pulled him under his arm. With a reassuring smile on his face he spoke the words he had said to Peter the first day they had met: “Follow me.” It had been on the same lake some years ago and had changed everything about Peter’s life. How much he had been through since then and how much he had learned!

Perhaps this was the best lesson yet. Jesus’ invitation to him was still the same. He didn’t have to be brave or strong or possess great ingenuity. He just need to follow to center his eyes on the one who loved him so much and stay close.

Nothing more simply expresses the essence of what it means to be a believer. We complicate it by getting our eyes on other things, but the secret to thriving through the ups and downs of life is to draw close to Jesus, doing whatever he does and going wherever he goes. In the last days before his Ascension, Jesus wanted Peter to know the same thing that had held him the last few years, could hold him the rest of his life. Jesus would still be with him and he would still be able to simply follow him.

But Peter’s eyes were not yet where they needed to be, for they were yet consumed by his fears.

It’s Not Fair!

When Peter finally regained enough composure to speak we see where his eyes were focused. “What about him?” Peter said motioning to John standing a few feet away. The inference is clear. Is he going to die too? Do we all have the same road here?

I guess misery really does love company. I suspect Peter would have felt somewhat better about his future if he knew he hadn’t been singled out for a worse lot than the others. His words do have a familiar ring to them, don’t they? How often as children when we were asked to do something unpleasant, didn’t we immediately want to know if our brother or sister would have to do it too. Even at work we want to see the joys and responsibilities evenly distributed or cries of “Unfair!” fill our lips.

Isn’t it interesting that our idea of fairness always has to do with comparing ourselves to others? Every human relationship we’ve ever known has been steeped in competition. It seems our society can only measure worth, success even beauty in relative terms. How do you compare to others around you?

Sibling rivalry competes either for the affection of parents, or for their attention as we go out in the world and try to be successful. From the day you started school, you found yourself in competition with all the other students. The infamous bell curve bases education purely on competition. We don’t have to know everything, just a little bit more than most of the others in the class.

In the work world, your application competes against everyone else looking for the same job. On the job your performance review is based on how you compare to others before you or those who have similar responsibilities in the company.

Even in church, competition continues. Minister’s count heads as a measure of success. We compare our blessings with others (or our trials) fearful they say something about how well we are doing spiritually. We even use competition as one of the primary tools used to raise children to be good Christians. We put gold stars on attendance charts so kids who fill up their row can feel good about themselves, and those who don’t might feel guilty enough to come more often.

To show you how poorly wired I was in this area, I remember a Scripture memory contest my church held when I was in elementary school. Whoever could memorize the most verses in one quarter would win a new Bible. I didn’t even need the new Bible, I already had one. But I memorized 153 verses in 3 months. How good was that? Second place had done 37.

Obviously I won the contest, but looking back I think I lost something far more valuable the freedom not to measure my spiritual life against others. For most of my life since I have taken my spiritual temperature by comparing my life to others. As long as I studied more, prayed more, attended church more I could feel good about myself whether or not those things had actually led me to know Jesus better.

Am I saying competition is some great evil? Not in the world. Competition is one of the “elementary principles of this age,” that Paul writes about in Colossians. Without it our world would collapse into chaos, for it is one of the most powerful motivating forces for unredeemed humanity.

But in the kingdom? That’s a different story. Any need for competition has been swallowed up by Jesus’ death on the cross. He set us free from self-effort, so that we need only be motivated by his incredible love for us. Now we can just follow him, without any need to compare ourselves with any other person on the planet. In Christ we are free from the elementary principles of this age. We don’t have to follow them, but we so often do.

Can You Imagine?

We see it in Peter as he turns to John, and that is the lesson Jesus wanted to teach them all that morning.

That’s why he answered Peter’s question the way he did. He didn’t cave into Peter’s comparison even though he could have. If tradition is accurate then John was executed by being boiled alive in a vat of oil some 20 or 30 years after Peter was crucified upside down on a cross. So Jesus could have met Peter’s test of fairness. “Yeah! Him, too! And Philip and MatthewE” He could have worked his way around the circle, somehow proving God’s fairness by the death of them all.

But he didn’t. In fact, he took a surprising tack. He pointed to John. “Him? If I want him to remain again until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” Jesus expanded the problem to encompass Peter’s worst fear. “What if he never dies, Peter. How does that affect you?”

And then he spoke those incredible words again, “Follow me.” When Peter is looking for fairness in the lives of others around him, where are his eyes focused? On them and himself. That perspective will get you nowhere in this kingdom. That’s why God has never answered my angriest accusations about his seeming unfairness. He does not want to encourage the very perspective that will keep my eyes focused in the wrong place.

We can only follow him if our eyes are on him. When we compare our lives to others our eyes are on ourselves and them. And that is as dangerous as trying to drive while gawking in the rear-view mirror at yourself and others in the back seat. That’s the point Jesus wanted to make here. “Get your eyes off of John, Peter. There’s no help there. Don’t focus on the suffering ahead, just follow me.”

How simple Jesus’ invitation is. All we have to do is follow him. We don’t have to understand the big picture and try to figure out what we are suppose to do. I suspect that’s why Jesus didn’t publish a discipleship manual with troubleshooting options for every difficulty or a list of frequently asked questions and their answers. He didn’t want us pursuing a religion. He wanted to build a friendship with us that would allow him to be our personal friend in every circumstance.

How practical that can be! Every day I have more options before my life than I can possibly meet. Should I teach at this church or go help that school district? Should I write that book, or meet with some broken people? Should I invest time today in Lifestream Ministries or Bridge-Builders? Should I only be focused on one of those? It can get overwhelming, until I realize that I don’t have to understand the big picture. I only need to focus my eyes on Jesus, see what he seems to be up to today and follow him. I know it sounds crazy, but whenever I do that I seem to have great clarity about what today holds, and doing that the future takes care of itself.

Compare No More!

But I find it very difficult to do that as long as my focus is on myself and others. And it doesn’t matter whether I’m battling an inferiority complex based on viewing my own failures and other people’s strengths, or from the superiority complex of accentuating God’s grace in my life and focusing on others’ flesh. The fact that I’m even trying to find wisdom in comparison is the problem. My perception of what seems to be happening to me, and what seems to be happening to others will lead me to the conclusion that God is unfair and break the trust that I have in him and his incredible goodness.

Is it fair that the gifted young evangelist, Stephen, was stoned to death during one of his first sermons, and the young man, Saul, holding the coats of those tossing the stones went on to make Jesus known throughout the Mediterranean world? When you put it that wayE Exactly. That’s how our limited human sight puts it, and by doing so we miss out on the marvelous purpose of God unfolding in our lives and people around us.

But, as this little encounter on the seashore attests, Jesus understands that. He watched his disciples compete over who would be first in the kingdom, who could be closest to him or who wouldn’t have to wash the others’ feet. He knows learning to follow him is the exact opposite of everything we have learned in this world. He knows our proclivity to compare and become confused. That’s why it took something so marvelous as the cross to defeat any need for us to compete with others.

The cross was God’s work for us when we were powerless to do anything for him. Nothing about us made us acceptable to him, except his awesome love for us. At the foot of the cross, we know that we cannot do anything to make God love us more nor less. Therefore any boasting we might portion out for ourselves is rendered ridiculous, as is any blame we render out to others.

At the cross battling over comparative significance is exposed as the farce it is. As much as the disciples seemed to squabble about that before the cross, they never did so after. The cross makes us all equal in the eyes of the Father. When you understand that you will never have a need to exalt yourself over others or tear them down focusing on their weaknesses.

At the cross Father’s love was so completely demonstrated, that no tragedy in our lives can erase the reality of his love for each one of us. Having loved us at the ultimate price, how absolutely silly it is for us to doubt that love just because things don’t work out the way we preferred.

And at the cross all the righteousness of the law has been met in us, so that we no longer have to live by rules, guidelines, expectations even principles. We are now free to serve in the newness of the Spirit where the only rule is, “Follow me!” And the one saying it is the one who has loved us more than anyone else in all the world.

What God Values

What do relationships look like that are no longer steeped in competition? It’s hard to imagine isn’t it? So many of our relationships even with other believers have been tainted by it. But the Word paints an incredible picture of believers who love, share, support, serve, give; without a need to gossip, envy or complain about what God is doing in others.

Those kind of relationships begin only in Father’s lap. I love how Paul expressed it: “For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth is joined.” (Eph. 3:14-15) When we really understand Father’s love, competition no longer has any power over us. We can finally value in each other, what God values in us.

Our world values people who conform, Father values people who are real. Sometimes we’re so busy acting right, that God doesn’t get to touch us where we really hurt. Jesus never chided anyone for being real. If we’re angry at God, don’t you think he’d rather have us be honest about it and work through it rather than hide behind meaningless words that do us no good? When we’re not competing with each other anymore to see who looks most spiritual, we can extend that same openness to others, standing by them in their struggles to let Father reveal himself.

Our world values those who boast in their good fortune; Father values those who can be confessional with their own weaknesses and struggles. A believing community is a confessing community. People are not posturing to be better than others, but letting Father’s glory shine through their brokenness and failures. When there is no competition there is no need to pretend that we are anything else than what we really are. In our conversations and our prayers we can freely look at our failures and mistakes, knowing that he is at work to change us.

Our world values tearing down others; Father values building others up. When I find people who exalt how right they are and gossip about others who disagree with them, I know they are still trapped in competition. The only way they can feel better about themselves is to point out the flesh in others. How tragic! They might be well served to revisit the cross and remember how none of us have earned anything by our acts of righteousness. When we understand that we can encourage others past the most painful obstacles into the fullness of life in Jesus.

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The Father’s Delight

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By Wayne Jacobsen

BodyLife • November 1996

What greater sound is there than that of children laughing? I’m still hooked on it and mine are in their mid to late teens. As their father, nothing touches me more deeply nor gives me greater pleasure than watching them explode in laughter at some new experience or story. Long after they’ve left the room, I still find myself enjoying their joy.

Have you ever wondered what brings that kind of delight to God’s heart? Well, wonder no more. Jesus already told us.

His disciples had just returned from going through the villages of Palestine sharing the good news of the kingdom. They had watched blind people see for the first time; lepers weep in joy at the touch of their new skin; and people oppressed by demons dancing in joy at suddenly being returned to their right mind.

To get the impact of this, we have to remember who they were. We think of them now as “The Apostles”, men of great wisdom, character and training. We forget that at the time they were simply bad fishermen, tax collectors and who knows what else. Far from being highly respected religious people, they were normal, every-day people who had been infused with God’s life, power and a bit of his wisdom.

Here, for the only time in Scripture, we are told that Jesus was “full of joy” and declared: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.”

What gives the Father pleasure? Revealing his life to people the world would have little regard for. That’s the point here, isn’t it? His emphasis is not who God hides things from, but who he reveals them to. And he delights to reveal himself to people like Peter, Bartholomew and Matthew those who still fought over who would be first in the kingdom, who still didn’t understand the full import of Jesus’ mission, who couldn’t even figure out most of the stories Jesus told.

And he delights to reveal his will, his plans and his power to you as much as I enjoy hearing the laughter of my children.

A Kingdom without Hierarchy

What demonstrates the magnificence of Jesus’ kingdom over every other institutional arrangement of our world is the fact that Father wants direct contact with everyone in his kingdom. He established no hierarchy to feed his plans through, but invited every one of us to a relationship with him close enough so that he could give us his life and direction first hand.

This was God’s plan from the beginning. Ezekiel chastised the shepherds of Israel for abusing the sheep only for what they could get out of them. “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “I am against the shepherds (and) will remove them from tending the flock. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them. I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.” (34:10-11)

Jesus wasn’t looking for better shepherds, he would be the only shepherd anyone would need for he who would look after his sheep individually and draw them to himself without a human mediator. “My sheep know my voice,” he said. “A stranger they simply will not follow.” “There shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10:4, 5, 16, 27)

Why then do we have so many today who claim to be shepherds, and so many separate flocks divided up by their care? Aren’t we missing something incredibly basic in this kingdom, that it was designed for only one shepherd. He can lead each of his sheep. Even the youngest among him know his voice, can understand what’s true and what is a lie. He wants us to trust that.

But we don’t.

We live in an age that is enamored with experts. That’s not a bad thing if you need heart surgery, car repair, and or a house built. But Jesus offered us a kingdom without human experts a place where every son and daughter is directly linked to him. Why is it then that we fall into the trap of deferring to others, especially leadership, as having greater insight than the rest of the flock? Nowhere in Scripture are leaders or institutions made the test of sound doctrine, the managers of the body’s ministry, or the final check on personal obedience. Quite the opposite, every time such things are needed, it is referred to the body itself, not its leadership.

Why? Because we are all connected to Jesus, the only expert in this kingdom.

While leaders are encouraged to teach only that which is sound doctrine, the proof of that is in the ears of the body of Christ. Are we hearing Jesus’ voice in what is being said, or the voice of a stranger? Don’t forget, every false teaching that emerged in the early church came from those who aspired to be leaders.

“Do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” The leaders in Galatia were pushing the body toward legalism so that they could boast in how well their flock looked. Paul said that their teachings bore no resemblance to the gospel and when he corrected it he didn’t appeal to the leaders to kick out the false teachers, he appealed to the body to ignore their ravings.

When those who claimed to be leaders in Ephesus exalted themselves over the lives of others, John went directly to the conscience of God’s people. “You have an anointing from the Holy One,” he said, “and all of you know the truth.” (1 John 2:20-21) John didn’t appeal to a church tribunal, to the leaders or even to his apostleship. He appealed to the fact that Jesus was able to make his truth known in each of those who were following him.

He knew what was coming. Diotrephes, one of their own elders, had decided he wanted to be first among the body able to decide who could and who couldn’t have place in the body and would punish those who didn’t follow his wishes. Hope for the body didn’t lie in trusting their leaders, but in trusting the Spirit’s voice in each of them.

Breeding Insensitivity

Instead of encouraging that sensitivity, however, leaders often end up undermining it. I knew a young man would share frequently during our worship gatherings. He seemed to have a heart for God, and there was often a nugget of truth in what he shared. Just as often, however, it was buried beneath a load of self-focus that made him appear harsh and his words confused. Every time he shared someone would tell me that they struggled with the content and character of his words.

Not wanting them to misjudge the brother, I would hear them out but try to convince them that they may not be seeing things clearly. They were letting his weaknesses prevent them from hearing what the Lord was speaking through him. Because he was recognized as a regular contributor to our services, I felt I had to defend him. I didn’t realize it at the time but by doing so I was only training people to be insensitive to the Spirit. That ‘anointing’ had alerted them to be cautious about what they were hearing. They knew not to give it a lot of weight and instead of teaching them to trust that, I tried to get them to be more ‘open,’ clearly communicating that they weren’t competent enough to judge such things.

Another time a couple came to me confused. They felt God had called them to give up some of their duties in the church to become more active in a civic organization where they had frequent opportunities to share the Lord with people who didn’t know him. They had talked to their pastor who said they were being deceived . Their gifts were far more useful in the church than in a secular organization.

“What should we do? We don’t want to be rebellious, but we feel God has called us to go.” At the heart of their dilemma lay this question: who best hears the voice of Jesus for our lives, and how does Jesus want to communicate with his body?

This was 20 years ago and I have long regretted the answer I gave them. I told them they needed to trust the leadership God had placed over them and follow the counsel of their pastor. Even if he is wrong, I told them, God would honor them for obeying him and work things out well for them.

If I could remember who the couple was, I would hunt them down today and beg their forgiveness. At the time certainly was caught up in the pervasive Bill Gothard mentality of the 70’s that God had given us “coverings” in our lives to protect us from making mistakes.

What an absurd conclusion, however, to encourage anyone to defer to another person at the price of being disobedient to God. I can see this couple standing with God someday: “I really had a marvelous opportunity set up there for you to take my light into a dark place. Why didn’t you go?”

“Wayne told us we shouldn’t.” I can hear them answer.

And how would God respond? “Oh, that’s okay, then. If Wayne told you not to do what I wanted you to do, then of course he would know best.” I don’t think so!

Jesus alone is the only shepherd to guide and direct his sheep.

Why then Leaders?

Please understand that the vast majority of leaders I have known in the body of Christ have never wanted to hurt anyone, or take Jesus’ place in their lives. But one of the pitfalls of assuming the place of a program manager in the body of Christ is to think your insight better than others who are not so employed.

What begins out of a desire to help people, can subtly become a means to press people to conform to the needs of the program. “We’re just trying to help people here and we will be able to do that if everyone will just cooperate with us.” Why should they? The reasons are varied, but all have in mind elevating some people above others. “We are better trained, more mature, closer to God, pray more, equipped with a special leadership ‘anointing’, hold a designated church ‘office’ or simply because they attend leadership meetings.

It’s only a small jump from there to accuse people who don’t follow the ‘church program’ designed by those with ‘superior insight’ to be closed, defensive, independent, rebellious or unsubmitted. And if they don’t give in, they often get whispered about as those who have “stretched out their hands against God’s anointed.”

It is so easy to paint someone who is seeking to be true to the Lord’s direction in them as arrogant. “Who are they to think they hear God better than all of us?” The Pharisees did it to Jesus and his disciples. Their modern-day counterparts still do it to those they cannot press to conformity.

When you hear or see such things being spoken, run as far as you can as fast as you can. Don’t misunderstand. The people who do such things often do so with the best of intentions, trying to serve people the best way they can. But that’s the problem. It’s the best way that they see, and whenever we remove from people their responsibility to hear and follow the Shepherd we do them a grave disservice no matter how well-intentioned our actions might be.

John calls this elevation of one believer’s perspective over another as the spirit of the anti-Christ, because it works against Christ’s presence in all of us. It creates a dependency on leaders and by doing so circumvents the very relationship Jesus wants with all of his sheep. Jesus never assigned the proof of his working to leadership. He came to be the shepherd to every member of his flock. This is so easy to forget amidst the way of our world that exalts coaches, managers, directors and even pastors. The role of leadership is not to manage the flock nor provide a buffer between people and Jesus, but to equip the flock to know Jesus better, hear him more clearly and follow him with greater courage.

As such true leaders in Christ’s body will not burden the flock with obligations that serve the program needs of the fellowship, but will free them up to walk with the Living God. They will be excited to encourage them to follow what the Shepherd has spoken to them and support them in trusting his anointing in their lives. As such their ministry will not breed a persistent dependency on themselves or the church program, but on Father himself, through Jesus Christ.

That doesn’t mean they can’t be honest when they have legitimate concerns, but will not make judgments against the motives of people and punish them if they don’t conform. They will know that the only way to learn to follow the shepherd is by freeing them to make their own choices, even allowing mistakes to be part of the learning process.

Freedom, not Anarchy

I know some reading this are about to jump through the roof, fearing this will only breed anarchy in the body of Christ, giving people an excuse to pursue their own desires and say they are being led by God.

Paul makes that exact point in the pastoral epistles. “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Tim 4:3) But Paul does not even for that reason, inject human leaders as mediators between God and people.

For he knew that what we often do to protect against the abuse of those who are not really followers of Christ devours those who really are. The pressure to conform to a program and the invitation to be transformed by the life of Jesus are two very different things. The former will eventually produce only hurt and emptiness, the later is necessary to help believers embrace the presence of God in their lives.

People who really have a heart for God will not allow their discernment of Jesus’ voice to breed greater independence. Quite the opposite.

Those who take the responsibility to be lead of the Spirit will become more diligent students of Scripture, wanting to understand for themselves the ways and character of God. They will listen to teaching, read other books, but all the while listening for the familiar voice of the Shepherd. They simply will not follow the voice of an imposter.

People who know the voice of the shepherd, will realize the value of a fuller perspective that comes from being linked with other believers. In times of decision or need they will seek out the counsel of other believers, including those they might consider to be further down the road than they. But they won’t just do what they are told, they will be listening for that ever-familiar voice of the one shepherd they have pledged to follow.

Finally, they will cooperate with other believers and leaders in the body, since they understand the gentleness of God’s character.

But they will not allow any man or institution to drive a wedge between them and their dependence on Jesus and will turn away from those who try even at great personal cost. They know how seductive Jesus- surrogates are; how easily they have fallen in the past because it is far easier to follow a man or a program than it is to put their trust in Jesus directly.

This attitude is so critical for those who would grow in a trusting relationship with Father. It will transform them from being passive learners, who just hear sermons they mostly forget by Tuesday, into those who actively seek the presence and voice of Jesus in their own lives. They find him to be a Shepherd no man could duplicate and a certain refuge in the midst of every storm.

And I also think they get to hear God laugh with delight. For he loves nothing more than to reveal his treasures not to the wise, but to babes in the kingdom to you and me who simply want to love him with all our hearts. This is his good pleasure. It can be ours as well!

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To Be Free of God??!!?!?

1 Comment / Living Loved, Living Loved Newsletter / /

By Wayne Jacobsen

BodyLife • September 1996

“The wish to be free of God is the deepest yearning of man. It is greater than his yearning for God.”

The sentence leapt off the page and nearly took my breath away. I was reading Helmut Thielicke’s, Between God and Satan, a provocative study of the temptations of Jesus. Thielicke was a German theologian who lived through the horrors of World War II as an active resistor of his own government. A depth of faith forged in the struggle of those years permeates everything he writes.

I was enjoying this book tremendously until I came to this statement. As one who teaches on intimacy with God often, I like to think it fulfills the deepest longing of the human heart. Who wouldn’t want to know the Creator personally; to sense the majesty of his presence; hear his tender voice and watch his power accomplish things we could never even imagine? What else could anyone really want?

Before I knew it I was arguing with Professor Thielicke, trying to reject his conclusion. But the more I thought about it the more sense it made. His conclusion does answer some compelling questions: Even though I do really want to know God better, why do I often make choices that lead me further from that reality? Why do I get into circumstances and so easily trust my common sense, than really wait to hear what God might have to say about it? In short, why is it so difficult to follow someone we desire to love so much?

I know there is a deep longing in my heart to know God, but could there also be a deeper yearning still?

The Quest for Control

There was for Adam and Eve. It wasn’t enough that God had given them each other, a garden to live in or even daily moments of fellowship with himself. They wanted something more. Something God said they shouldn’t take to themselves or they would die.

But they did anyway. No where do we read that Adam and Eve wanted to reject God. Quite the contrary they just wanted to be more like him, and this knowledge of good and evil just might be the trick. Here was a simple way to get it. All they had to do was eat the fruit before them. They wanted control of their destiny, freedom from God to earn their own way by their own hand!

And of course it was God that gave them the power to do so. He gave them the freedom of self-determination the gift of choice. He not only invited them to trust him, but he also provided the fruit of that tree as a means for them to gain knowledge apart from him. He warned them not to, but then watched as the enemy coaxed out of Eve her distrust of Father. “God just knows that when you eat of it you’ll be like him.” He’s holding out on you, Eve.

The choice was clear. Trust Father and spurn the devil’s temptation; or trust her own insight and strength to get what she could do for herself. Adam wasn’t long in following after her, and though they gained the knowledge they sought, that knowledge became their bondage. They had no power to choose the good over the evil. Their desire to take control of their lives was greater than their desire for God.

I’ve weathered that same struggle. Sometimes I’ll just start praying about a situation, when my mind is already scheming about phone calls I can make or a letter I could write to fix it. Too often it was only after I have tried those things and made things worse that I quiet myself enough to listen to God’s wisdom.

Don’t we hate being in any kind of situation where we are not in control. Fear and anxiety overwhelm us and we waste all kinds of effort scheming or manipulating others to put ourselves back in control. Haven’t we all learned how horrible it can be to be at the mercy of circumstance or other people? If you don’t control you’re own destiny people will take advantage of you, and use you for theirs.

The yearning in our hearts to be free of God springs from this fountain. It’s not that we reject God; it’s more that we want control of our own lives. We want that and God too, and there is the deception. We don’t realize that the affections are mutually exclusive.

The Insidious Reversal

When we seek control of our own lives, and at the same time attempt to foster a relationship with Father we put ourselves above him. We know what is best for us, and if God doesn’t satisfy our expectations we doubt his love for us, our love for him, or both. Every difficult circumstance, then becomes a cause for despair and disillusionment. We enlist his help to change the circumstances or what others are doing and are frustrated when he doesn’t honor our attempts. Or worse yet, we assume his favor when someone does give in to our manipulation, thinking we’ve won a great victory.

But notice what has happened in this whole process? By wanting God to be the vehicle for our agenda, we turn the Almighty God into our personal fairy godmother. We think he exists to turn our pumpkins into carriages, and our mice into white stallions. Of course we still want God, but not as God. We want him to fulfill our needs our way. We want his power to serve our comfort and convenience.

Jesus didn’t see it that way, which is why he seemed to say some really strange things by our standards. “Blessed are you when you are at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” That’s Eugene Peterson’s translation of Matthew 5:3. How many of us genuinely feel blessed when we are at the end of our rope? How many people do you find sharing how great their week was because they had lost control of key situations in their life?

No, our sense of being blessed is often derived from how ‘in control’ we feel. If we have enough money, friends, health and possessions we feel secure. When we don’t have those things we’re afraid and have to work even harder to maneuver our circumstances to a more secure place.

I’ve come to realize that I have spent most of my life working against Father’s plan for my life and I didn’t even know it. I was trying to help God (see how twisted that is!) get me to a place where everything in my life was wonderful and easy. In short, I wanted to be so secure in my circumstances that I wouldn’t need him every day. All the while he was trying to teach me that I needed him, and that there is no other place in the world more secure than that regardless of what the external circumstances look like.

Regrettably, we only seem to realize that when our attempts to control ourselves fail miserably. According to Jesus that’s the best place for us to be, so he is merciful to show us over and over again that our efforts will never be good enough. When we finally give in, no longer trusting our insights or our abilities we are in the best place to see God’s hand more clearly. Then we can give way to his rule, or purpose, in us. The secret to intimacy with Father is to give up on our ideas of what is best for us and surrender completely to the Father’s purpose even when we may not understand it.

I remember how risky all of that used to sound to me. Even the thought of surrendering completely to God conjured up fears of missionary service in a distant land or menial labor closer to home. Trust used to be so scary. Not anymore.

Life at the End of the Rope

Whenever I talk with other pastors who hunger to see the body of Christ as a dynamic people growing together in loving the Father and sharing his life together, one question almost always surfaces. “If all the body shares responsibility together, how do we justify our salaries?” Sometimes we laughed it off, too uncomfortable with the subject. In more secure times we engaged serious discussion about how great it would be for the body not to have the image of full-time Christians trying to be the body of Christ to everyone else. But we never did anything about it because we were afraid of losing control of our lives.

Instead we’d have to work harder and do more than others to justify our position and our pay. I felt pressure to teach or lead activities, so people would think we were earning our keep. It’s a vicious cycle. The more I did, the more people let me do. The more they let me do, the less opportunity there was for others to grow in their gifts, and the less of a body we became.

Almost two years ago now, it became clear that Sara and I were on a different track than others on the leadership team of the church I’d helped plant 15 years before. We tried everything we knew to do to fix the problem or make room for the differences, but every attempt failed. God clearly put it on Sara and my heart to let go and give everything up–ministry, friendships, reputation, and salary. It was the hardest and most painful thing we have ever done.

Never before had I truly been at the end of my rope. I’ve been a couple of inches down it before, but now I knew I’d never been close to the end. Everything I had controlled about my life through 20 years of vocational ministry was gone in a single day. We cried out to God to fix the circumstances, but he didn’t. Oh, he took care of us well enough. We never missed a meal, nor a house payment. He graciously used our lives to encourage others even as he brought others to encourage us.

The first six months were horrible. We might have put up a bold front at times, but the anxiety was great. Both books I had published were out of print. Few churches were inviting us to come and teach, and I was no longer sure I believed in the church system I had invested so much time in training others to embrace.

I’d lost control of my life and was miserable for it. You would never have convinced me before that I was in control of it. I couldn’t see it until I lost it. I tried a number of things to get it back and all of them either failed, or someone stopped me before I made things worse. Through it all Father kept dealing with my trust in him. “Stop trying to control your life, Wayne. That’s my job. All you have to do is trust me enough to let me.” I kept trying to explain to him that it would be easier to yield to him if I had more control.

I don’t know how. I’m not even sure exactly when, but somehow the words finally sank through my unbelief. The last year has been an absolute joy seeing God open doors, provide for us, and teach us how to live life outside of our own control and under the security of his. Looking back now through every painful moment, I am incredibly thankful for what God has taught us.

I have never known such freedom. No longer burdened by my attempts to earn my way, I can enjoy the grace of God. No longer having to manipulate people to fit into my plans, I can simply love them and free them to discover God’s will and live in it with joy. No longer finding security in a salary, I have only to obey him every day and rejoice as he provides. And no longer being in charge of a fellowship, I can be only what Father has made me to be in the body and not fit a cultural role that no man can honestly bear.

Losing Control, Gaining a Father

When Kevin Smith, a friend from Australia, was here this summer he said something that intrigued me. Because we don’t really trust Jesus to be the head of his church, we devise systems to keep it under man’s control on his behalf. Which means much of our structures for body life today are actually built on unbelief.

Sometimes I feel like such a fool that I had been in ministry so long without learning that Jesus rules to the extent that I let go. He said it clearly, “Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I thought I knew what that meant, but if I’d have listened carefully my anxieties would have proved me wrong. Fear is certain evidence that I’m moving out of my own wisdom and expectations, instead of moving out of my trust and security in the Father’s watchfulness over and care for my life.

As long as we’re trying to manipulate circumstances around us, we’ll find our spiritual life shriveling up. That’s as true of our job as it is our ministries and our children. That’s because we’re trying to be free of Father to pursue our own will and desires. That road always looks secure but leads to ruin. I am so thankful that he has provided a better way.

Even out of our own failures, our Father can work his purpose. That’s what he did for Adam and Eve. In fact he knew his first invitation to trust would be ignored. He knew it would cost him his Son before we would be able to understand how much we are loved and how safe it is to put all of our trust in him. He also knows how slow we are to learn that, and with great patience continues to invite us past our fears and anxieties, past the need to control every circumstance of our lives, and surrender to his work and purpose.

What are you afraid of today? Where does your life feel out of control? Right there, at the end of your rope, let go and fall into the lap of a loving and powerful Father. “I’m so sorry God for trying to fit everything in my image; so tired of finding my security in the fickleness of circumstance. Show me, Father, how I am manipulating others and teach me how to find all my joy and security in you and you alone.”

He knows everything about you. He knows every circumstance that assails you and he will use them all to teach you how to trust him, if you’ll let him. He will never take control of your life; that’s something you must give up to him every day, circumstance by circumstance. Give up trying to grab what you desire most. Do it and you’ll find that real security doesn’t come in the money we possess, the church we attend, or the circumstances we manipulate. Security is found in the Father alone.

Then build your life anew not on the fears of unbelief, demanding your expectations be fulfilled, but on the presence of a Father who is more awesome than you ever imagined. There you’ll find a peace and rest that no circumstance or person can disturb.

Finally, you’ll discover what it is to be free of the need to control your own life. You’ll find that Father really does know best and that he can work in you better than you ever asked or imagined.

Then and only then will your deepest desire be to know God more fully.

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Going to the Root

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Going to the Root

By Wayne Jacobsen

BodyLife • June 1996

Talk about intimacy with God for very long, and the conversation almost always turns to how that is lived out in church life. Most people seem to recognize that the means by which we often “do church” does not always help foster that relationship and often provides significant distractions to it.

Look at all the books written and all the seminars held in the last 30 years about church renewal, yet what has really changed? A variety of structures have been offered, each claiming to be God’s last, best answer. But even those lapse back into the same pattern of Sunday services with kids spirited away to their own peer group, up-front led worship, and a sermon that may entertain briefly, but can not be recalled two days later.

Add to that the confusion that comes when people in the church force their way on others, and it’s no wonder that most people really question what ‘church life’ should look like. During a recent trip to New England this topic came up continually. For all the time and energy we put into our church structures, wouldn’t you think they would be more effective at doing the most important thing helping us know Jesus better?

But not everyone finds them so. A couple of years ago, I would have claimed to have more answers than I would today. Now I have far more questions, but through the sometimes painful circumstances of our church involvement the past few years Sara and I have come to see how simply powerful the life of the church can be, without the need for extensive structure.

In the last year we have had significant contact with believers all over the world who have moved out of traditionally-structured churches to seek a more effective and authentic body life. Many meet in homes, building the life of the body around Jesus-centered relationships and daily discovering what it means to pursue God and care for each other. Their meetings are rarely slick and attractive. They are designed to equip and encourage through active participation, honest examination and simple love. They say they have stopped just going to church and are now learning to be the church.

I am not offering that here as the answer, convinced that no structure guarantees renewal. But I am finding increasing merit in their priorities that can even be a blessing to people who attend more traditional church structures. Those are best summarized in a book by Christian Smith called, Going to the Root (Herald Press: Scottsdale, PA). He offers nine proposals for radical church renewal. I want to share them with you for your own reflection and encouragement this summer:

1. Build Intentional Community

“Radical church renewal begins with a new vision of Christian relationships in the body of Christ. It affirms that the church should look, and feel, not like a club or interest group, but a loving, extended family What is necessary for people to live like this? People must truly know each other, share with each other who they really are.”

In short, discipleship and personal care in the body of Christ were never meant to come through a paid staff or cumbersome programs. Jesus gave his ministry to people who would live out their lives in close, personal friendships.

Let me give you a word of warning about this chapter, however. It seeks to build that community through accountability and commitment, two words that are not linked to body life at all in the New Testament and are often misused to exercise control over people. While I love his goal here, his methodology will only set us up for disappointed expectations. Love and freedom is how Jesus called us to embrace body life for it was in relationship not institution that Jesus vested his life.

That said, the author gives two key pieces of advice: “Christian community is an alien, alternative reality that must be purposefully pursued and cultivated” and “It is a living dynamic experience that is nurtured, not a prepackaged program that is instituted.”

2. Do Church Without Clergy

Don’t panic! I know a lot of hot-buttons just went off. The author doesn’t advocate throwing pastors overboard, simply makes the case that we do not need them in the way they’ve come to dominate church life today. “Going to the root helps us see that our clergy system is not demanded by the New Testament. It is often counterproductive. And it can obstruct healthy, biblical church life. Is it possible that one of the best things that could happen to the church would be for the clergy to resign and take secular jobs? The problem with the clergy is not the people, but the profession itself. The New Tes-tament is clear that ministry in the church is the work of the entire body of believers, not of a single minister or pastoral team.”

From both sides the fact of clergy in the body of Christ today produces two classes of people leaders and followers. This is unhealthy from two angles. On the one hand we expect pastors to be the body of Christ for every one, and who can stand up to that weight? On the other, it promotes passivity on the part of believers, waiting for the leaders to sort things out without going to the Head and following his desires.

The profession always seems to lead clergy to be more program managers than mentors, making decisions for people believing themselves to have a superior perspective, rather than linking people close enough to Jesus, that he can live out his will through them.

3. Decentralize Leadership and Decisions

“Never in the New Testa-ment is one believer, even a church leader, said to have spiritual authority over another…. (We don’t find) a model of leadership that is hierarchical, authoritarian or focused on filling offices. What we find is a very organic, bottom-up model of leadership…. (Spiritual authority) is given to leaders by believers around them because of the exemplary, trustworthy character of their lives.

The author goes on to say that whatever leadership emerges exists only to mentor others to hear and follow the the Lord. They should function in plurality without one leader dominating the others. But for decision-making, he encourages those believers affected by the decision to engage in a process of consensus-building. “When dominating leaders make decisions and call the flock to follow, the seeds of apathy and immaturity are sown.” Of course this works more realistically in groups less than 50 than it does in large impersonal groups. For that to happen we will have to learn how to handle growth by multiplying groups not expanding them until they can longer function relationally.

4. Open Up Worship Services

“Structurally, the worship services of many churches are preplanned, clergy-centered and performance- oriented (that often)undermine our best intentions In the most extended New Testament teaching on church gatherings ( I Cor 11-14), Paul repeatedly states that the overarching goal of meeting together is mutual edificationbuilding and strengthening the believing community.”

How can that happen if we don’t move away from our pre-planned meetings, and invite the honest, open participation of all God’s people who gather? This doesn’t lead to an efficient service, but it does allow the body to be the body.

Here the author encourages us away from up-front led worship, which puts the focus on a few and breeds passivity in the rest. Instead people can have the freedom to lead out in prayer, give thanks, read Scripture, encourage, and even ask questions from the teaching so that the body can be built up by its honest interaction in the presence of the Lord.

5. Get Over The Edifice Complex

“Perhaps the most obvious monument to the church’s im-mobility and inflexibility are its church buildings. Buildings are massive, stationary structures, imposing physical symbols of fixity and rigidity.” Here the author most clearly suggests the home church model, “The early Christians could have followed the familiar model of the Jewish temple or synagogue and created specifically Chris-tian buildings to meet and worship in. They did not. Appa-rently they believed their homes were the best context for gathering…. Homes are a place of family, which is what the early believers were to each other.”

Of course the edifice complex can be just as apparent in avoiding buildings, and it could be said that persecution may have contributed to the early church staying in homes. But we still have to ask what do we gain (or lose) by confining God’s work to a building that more often than not confines the life of the body, at great expense to build and maintain.

6. Cultivate a Spirituality of Daily Life

How do we relate to a living God in our everyday existence? Too often we only see that in terms of meeting legalistic, guilt-inducing ex-pectations in the do’s and don’ts of our behavior. This method never produces God’s transformation. Radical renewal invites us to cultivate a relationship with God, that fills every corner of our lives with his presence where we realize it’s not what we do for God that matters, but what we let him do in us.

7. Practice Lifestyle Evangelism

“The Bible makes it clear that the central and irreplaceable medium for communicating the gospel is the quality of believers’ lives together. The lives of people who genuinely love each other, for all their warts and false starts, will be a truer explanation of the good news than the most precisely pitched evangelistic message.” Amen.

8. Work for Social Justice

“Doing biblical justice, therefore, means taking positive actions that create and preserve flourishing human community in fidelity to God’s covenantwhich is to realize a just social order.” This chapter was not easy to understand, but it demonstrates that God’s heart is for justice, especially in alleviating the suffering of the oppressed and needy. How we accomplish that might differ greatly, but we can acknowledge that our service in places like that is close to God’s heart and the true nature of religion.

9. Do Grass-Roots Ecumenism

“Radical church renewal rejects the unnecessary divisions that separate and isolate Christians from each other. It calls believers to work for the unity of the Spirit. But to be meaningful and effective, this work must become the bottom-up, grass roots work of the people of God.” Don’t confine your relationships only to believers who make up whatever group you worship with. God’s work in our world is so much larger, and we can see that when we make an effort to seek relationships beyond our own group.

I doubt I’ve done these justice by trying to summarize in so short a space, but aren’t these fascinating? They have each challenged me to take a fresh look at what it means for me to be a part of the church.

Certainly I’m not encouraging everyone to leave their traditional church structures and jump into house churches. Many of these proposals are possible through home groups and other relationships that can be a part of more traditional structures. What this book did for me, and what I hope this overview does for you, is to help me find meaningful body life wherever God plants me.

If you have been lulled into passivity, expecting your church to spoon feed it to you, I hope this calls you back to action. I also hope it encourages you to find significant friendships with other believers, where you grow together through open and honest conversation, serve each other gladly, and challenge each other to walk in the fullness of his life.

But I also want it to encourage many who read this newsletter who are no longer part of those traditional structures. They are finding God’s life more effective in meaningful exchanges of relationships with other believers in their own homes. I don’t want them to labor under the guilt of an obligation to a Sunday morning format that Scripture never made compulsory. There are many ways for the body of Christ to gather and celebrate.

Let me close by paraphrasing a comment I read off the internet. It ties together so well with past issues of BodyLife:

“Beloved, if we preach ‘the church’ in all of its technical correctness, we will never find it, but if we embrace the power of the cross we will see the church spring up around us in all its glory. When the cross is in its rightful place in the lives of the believing community, the church as God has ordained it will organically flow from that.”

Then God himself can truly be more important than any church structure. In being free from the need to go to church to fulfill some kind of obligation, we can recover the simple joy of living as his church in the world.

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Why Settle for Anything Less?

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By Wayne Jacobsen

BodyLife • April 1996

The lone figure stood on the shore. They didn’t recognize his form or his voice as he inquired about their catch, “You don’t have any fish, do you?” The fisherman’s worst torment when coming up empty.

“Try the other side,” the voice recommended.

Only when they had cast their net on the other side and it came alive with a boiling sea of fish, did John put it all together. He’d seen it happen once before, on the day he and Peter had first met Jesus back on a dock in Galilee. “It is the Lord!”

Without hesitation, Peter stripped off his outer garment, plunged into the sea, and swam for shore. His friend was back and he couldn’t wait for the boat to bring him to shore. There he finds Jesus had already cooked breakfast for them bread and fish.

It appears that the conversation is somewhat stilted. I’m not sure the disciples ever got comfortable with the Risen Christ who appeared and disappeared when they least expected him. No one challenged him as they ate in silent awe. Any word seemed too awkward so the silence hung in the air with the scent of cooked fish. Only when they finished eating did Jesus turn to Peter.

“Simon, do you love me?” The betrayed turns face to face with his betrayer.

“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Peter’s response is not flippant, it is measured. He doesn’t respond with the word for divine love, agape, that Jesus had used, but with a lesser word, phileo, the companionship of friends. Jesus then tells him to tend his lambs.

You know the exchange. Jesus asks again and again Peter answers the same way. Finally Jesus ends with Peter’s word, “Peter do you like me as a friend.” And now Peter grieved at the third question answers in agony, “Lord, you know all things. You know that I like you.”

Looking for Love

“Do you love me?”

What god of any religion that has existed on the earth cares about being loved? False gods never seek love, only power. They rule with terror, demanding unquestioned obedience and inexhaustible rituals. This theme runs through the idols of the Old Testament, the gods of Greek mythology and the tribal deities of
people around the world. Human-made gods don’t want love, they want subservience even if that means they plunder a man’s riches and require the sacrifice of his own child.

But since they are man’s own creation, they tell us far more about man’s sinfulness than they do the intentions of God. Our Father is a God of love. It was love that inspired him to create a world and people to fill it. It was love that beckoned him earthward, to live as man among us so we might know exactly who God is. It was love that invited these men from fishing boats and tax booths into an awesome friendship. It was love that devised a plan for our salvation for which he would be the sacrifice. And it was love that held him through the brutal agony of the cross until our redemption was won.

His love had prevailed through it all. Was this the final test of the cross, not just that God loved us, but that the sacrifice itself might produce love in our hearts for him? For this was what God wanted with us from the very beginning.

So he turns to the one remaining who had just failed him the most. Peter, so confident that night that his love would prevail, boasted that he would die for his friend. But Jesus knew better. He knew the fear in Peter would overwhelm his faith, that by the next dawn Peter would be devastated by his greatest failure.

But if the cross was going to be worth anything, it would have to demonstrate God’s love so completely, that it could usher a man from his worst failure into the fullness of the Father’s love.

Could that be what Jesus was looking for in Peter? This was no quiz to prolong Peter’s agony nor a three-point make-up test. It was an opportunity for Peter to discover the depth of love he really had for his friend, something he didn’t even know himself.

Is that why he hesitated to use the word agape? Did he feel so unworthy to use Jesus’ word because his failure might well have demonstrated otherwise? Maybe he wanted to use it, but hadn’t felt he’d earned it. Nevertheless the question kept coming. “Simon, do you love me?”

Jesus wanted him to know that his failure was not a measure of his love. Perhaps Peter didn’t understand it completely during this encounter. Perhaps this was just the seed, or maybe he couldn’t grasp it until the fullness of the Spirit captured his heart at Pentecost, but we know he eventually got it. Whenever he refers to the love of God in his own epistles, phileo is no longer on his lips. It is agape and agape alone. Peter came to know not only the depth of God’s love for him, but also his love for God.

Live the Love

Love is the very essence of God’s nature, and it is the means by which everything in his kingdom is transacted. He knew we were ill-equipped to understand that. Life in a fallen world is based around power, not love. We live by seeking to acquire the power or means necessary to guarantee our own survival, happiness or safety. Often when we speak of love, we primarily understand it only in terms of what we get out of it a good feeling, a friendship or some other need met.

God’s love is self-giving. It doesn’t seek its own glory or advancement, and in fact makes one only more vulnerable in a hostile world. But this love is the most powerful force in all the world, able to transform the most broken lives and able to hold us through unimaginable pain.

Jesus lived in that love every second of his life, and in doing so he sought to share it with his disciples. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” (John 15:9) All he asked them to do was stay in the love he had given them. He warned them: do it, and everything about their lives would bear fruit. Wander away and they would whither up and die.

His call to love was not just for them, but for all who follow him. That is the only basis for life in this kingdom. How do we do that. Here are three ways that can happen in each of us everyday:

1. Embrace His Love Every Day

Do you remember the first day that you knew God loved you? Do you recall the euphoria, the wonder that the Almighty God who spoke worlds into existence even took note of you, much less genuinely cared about you and every event in your life?

If you are like most, that reality probably became clear to you in the midst of great pain or failure. But none of that mattered. His love captured your heart and everything about the world around you paled in comparison.

Every day was an adventure, and even through the most difficult circumstances you knew you were safe in his care and all your struggles were just a part of a larger plan of which you were now a part. God never intended you to leave that place. All he wanted you to do is remain there, or if you’ve left it, to return there. That’s why Scripture calls it first love. We weren’t meant to get on from there, but live in the joy of that love everyday.

Yet, isn’t the record of most of our lives littered with great periods of time where we have wandered away from that love, and sought other motives to carry our spiritual life? Devoid of his presence we are hounded by fear, guilt and the delusion that we can earn that love by just trying harder. So easily we find ourselves living with love-substitutes. We double our efforts to be responsible, committed or disciplined. But those don’t produce love, they were only meant to flow out of it.

In fact that’s also the history of the church. In Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning points out a disheartening trend:

History attests that religion and religious people tend to be narrow. Instead of expanding our capacity for
life, joy, and mystery, religion often contracts it. As systematic theology advance, the sense of wonder declines. The paradoxes, contradictions and ambiguities of life are codified, and God himself is cribbed, cabined, and confined within the pages of a leather-bound book. Instead of a love story the Bible is viewed as a detailed manual of directions.

If the Lord’s love seems distant for you, draw back to him. Find a quiet place and rekindle your affection. Don’t try to go on without it. God never intended you to live even one day outside the wonder of his love. And don’t make the mistake of trying to earn it either. You can’t earn points with someone who is no longer keeping score. Jesus already filled out your card with maximum points. You don’t have to earn what he has already freely given; you simply get to receive it.

2. Let Love Be Your Only Motive

“The love of Christ compels me,” Paul, the apostle wrote in 2 Corinthians 5. Here was a man that rose to the pinnacle of the religious institution of his day before he came face to face with the love of Jesus on that road to Damascus.

He knew what it was to fear the disapproval of men, to conform his life to the strictest of codes trying to measure up, and the control he could exercise over others as a leader.

But the cross changed all of that. He knew he deserved to die in his sin, yet Jesus had taken his place. Paul concluded that he died with Christ and that his life was no longer his own. He had nothing to fear, nothing to earn, nothing to control. His life had been swallowed up by Jesus’ love. There was nothing left for him to do but live every day only by what that love led him to do.

Everyday we are manipulated by host of motives, some of which even look godly. There are expectations people put on us, fears that drive us, appe-tites that lure us, and guilt that hounds us. But none of these are to control the life of the believer. All that matters now is love: his in us, and ours for him.

The next time you feel torn in any situation, retreat to this simple test: overwhelmed by gratefulness for what he’s done for me and secure in his acceptance and care for me, what do I feel called to do? Paul allowed himself no other motive, and neither should we. That’s the only motive that counts in this kingdom and the greatest gift of the cross.

Remain in my love. Without that kindled fresh in our hearts every day it is easy to find our spiritual lives sliding into an exhausting road of responsibilities and rituals. We will be busy doing a lot of things for God, but absolutely devoid of his life and his joy. Weariness will overtake us and our spiritual life will dry up.

3. Let His Love Flow Through You

With every exchange Jesus admonished Peter to take care of his sheep. The love of God flowing in us will die if it can’t flow through us. Having been so generously embraced by the Father, we will find it spilling over to others.

This love is the most powerful demonstration of God in the world. Jesus even took the Old Testament admonition, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” to a whole new level: “Love one another as I have loved you.” Having been loved, now we can love, both our brothers and sisters in Christ and those around us who are lost in the darkness.

I am convinced that we understand little of this incredible love. Yes, it forgives wrongs suffered, but not without honoring truth. Jesus could in one moment confront the false spirituality of the Pharisees at the same time he invited the prostitute into his kingdom.

So much that travels as love in the body of Christ today is simply trying to be nice even at the expense of dishonesty. We’ll smile and feign love in someone’s presence and take the freedom to tear them down in a conversation with someone else. God’s love doesn’t live in denial. It can take situations as they really are and transform them by his glory.

This is the love God invites us to live in and with which we so easily lose touch. I realize that those who misunderstand love only as feeling will agree with much of what I’ve said, yet dismiss the conclusion as too idealistic. We need commitment and tradition, they’ll say, because we won’t always feel his love.

What has feelings do with love? His love for us and ours for him must transcend feelings and touch us at a far deeper level than the capriciousness of our emotions. But it is nonetheless real, all-encompassing and what ignites our hearts with his life.

Wouldn’t it be better to rekindle the love, instead of pushing ourselves to greater responsibility? What effort of our own has ever led us into a greater touch with the Father’s love?

We need only fall at his feet and receive what he has already given. In moments like that we can be captured by his love all over again. When that happens, we are truly full and truly free. He asked us to settle for nothing less. So whenever you lose touch with it, don’t take another step until you fall back into his arms again, and again, and again.

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To Trust or Not to Trust

1 Comment / Living Loved, Living Loved Newsletter /

To Trust or Not to Trust

by Wayne Jacobsen

BodyLife • February 1996

Sara and I had spent almost a week among them. Invited to teach, we were also learning as we watched the simplicity of fellowship, worship and growth that this group of believers shared together. Finally, late one evening while sitting by the fire with some of their key people we got to ask our questions about the life they shared together.

“How do you teach believers to trust each other?” Sara asked.

By the facial reactions around the room, you’d have thought Sara might as well have asked them if they sacrificed animals. They glanced at one another, and shook their heads as if to say, “You really don’t get it, do you?” I was taken back. We had witnessed their honesty, their openness, their service to each other. Surely they worked on trust.

One finally spoke, “Where does the Word teach us to put our trust in men?”

I started probing the deep recesses of my mind whirling through every Scripture I could recall. I couldn’t come up with any Scripture to answer the question.

How could this be? Much of what I taught about the power of Christian community was to help people see how much they need each other, and assist them in building the kind of trusting relationships that would allow them to share God’s life together. But I knew, and most of those I’ve taught also knew that this trust always breaks down. We are imperfect people after all, who will make mistakes, fail each other especially at critical moments which is why churches often leave a wake of broken people.

But isn’t community based on trust? I’ve probed that question often since our encounter almost 8 months ago. Our last issue of BodyLife dealt with the trust we can have in the Father through the faith Jesus demonstrated on the cross. Now let’s take a look at the implications of the cross in our relationships with other believers.

Why Didn’t Jesus Do it?

It’s probably the most difficult question I’ve ever been asked whenever I’ve taught on community. “Why do we have to trust others if Jesus didn’t?” I’ve been asked that twice both of them referring to the same Scripture:

But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man’s testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man. (John 2:24-25)

On both occasions I mumbled something about Jesus’ superior wisdom and that no one was able to understand his death on the cross until after it was over anyway.

But even at the time the question bugged me. If Jesus didn’t trust men because he knew what was in them, why would he ask us to? But the only models I knew for body life were those where people were trying to trust each other.

I didn’t stop at the time to realize it was also the common denominator in those who had been deeply hurt by past church experiences. They had trusted others only to see them turn on them whenever their struggles, needs or gifts didn’t fit the prevailing agenda.

So as believers, are we or are we not to trust each another?

Turning to the Word

Three words continue to crop up in most teaching regarding the importance of church life: commitment, accountability and trust. These are used to describe the kind of life that brothers and sisters ought to share together. I’ve used them often to help people see the great value that body life can be to them.

‘Commitment’ is not used at all in the New Testament, though its root, ‘commit’ is. Interestingly enough it is overwhelmingly used to talk about committing sin, as in committing adultery. Only in the Old Testament can we find references about committing our ways to the Lord. Two references in the New Testament describe committing people to the grace of God. All of these, however, are clearly directed at the Father and his work, nothing spoke of being committed to each other or to the church.

Likewise our ‘accountability’ in Scripture is only directed at God. We are not accountable to the local church, to its leaders, or even to other brothers and sisters. Paul specifically exempted himself from such thinking: “To me it is a very small thing that I should be examined by you; in fact, I don’t even examine myself. The one who examines me is the Lord.” (I Cor. 4:4-5)

Though there are extensive references to trusting and believing throughout the Word, I couldn’t find one where we are encouraged to let another believer be the object of our trust. We are told to love each other, pray for each other, bear each other’s burdens, forgive each other, serve each other, stimulate each other to love and good deeds, be kind to one another and many other such things, but we are never told to trust one another. All references to trust and belief are firmly and exclusively directed to God. If he is the one in which all of our trust is invested, what do we have left over to give to another believer?

Interesting isn’t it? Words we consider critical building blocks to body life are not even part of the
foundation that Jesus laid for the church. In fact, these are the concepts that the church has historically used to bind people to its programs and agendas, as in, “Don’t you trust the leadership here?” “If you’re going to grow you need to be committed to what God is doing among us.” “You’ve got to be plugged in somewhere so you can be accountable.”

Jesus only gave us two directives: Love God and love each other. Doing that, we will fulfill all his ambitions for our lives.

Institutional Words

So why are these words so commonly used in the church today? Commitment, accountability and trust are all words that deal with institutions, and are necessary for the survival of any institution. It is what allows people to find identity and cooperation.

Regretfully many people don’t have an accurate distinction in their minds about the church as God sees it and the institutions that have sprung up around it. We think of them as the same thing.

God sees one church that encompasses every believer in every corner of the world. He sees that not in its institutional failures, or the weaknesses of its leaders or adherents, but as the bride he is preparing for his Son. He views the church with great affection, desire and adoration. Gene Edwards, author of Tale of Three Kings, has taken to calling the church, “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” I love that description and understanding it from that perspective will keep us from growing cynical and sarcastic about that which God loves so much.

But that is not the same thing as the organizations, buildings and meetings we call ‘church’ today. Wherever believers gather and seek to work together an institution springs up around it. That’s what allows the group to organize, collect and spend money and make decisions. Leaders are almost always selected who provide certain ‘services’ for the members. That’s been true for 1900 years and will probably be true up to his coming.

Men need institutions to function. Those institutions can be good, releasing the Lord’s life and power among a group of people, or they can become self-serving seeking to use the institution as the extension of their own power needs or the means to their own comfort.

If church history teaches us anything it does demonstrate that while the institution that surrounds the church has often been helpful in preserving history, serving needs, testing orthodoxy and preaching the gospel, it also too often lets the institution overrun the life of God within it. You can always see that when a church battles over ‘what’s right’ in nonessential matters instead of focusing on being right with each other in love and forgiveness.

Church renewal is often only letting believers re-discover what they had in the beginning, before the institution organized it to death. As such, the church often becomes a substitute in people’s lives for a dynamic relationship with the Father. It happens so subtly that few are aware of it. We get so busy maintaining the program and meeting needs that we adjust to the waning life of the Spirit by increasing the institution. When it does we emphasize commitment and accountability.

The Father’s Community

Our attempts to make other believers, or worse yet a church institution, the object of our trust, our commitment or our accountability is to place it in the role that has been reserved for the Father alone. That sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? God has invited us to something so much better.

From the dawn of creation to Jesus’ death on the cross, the Father’s plan has always been to invite us into the fullness of relationship that he shares with himself. Since before time The Father, Son and Spirit have shared absolute joy, love, life, glory, power and wisdom without any thought of one being exalted over the other. God is a community and wherever he manifests his presence he builds community.

That’s the hunger that stirs in people’s hearts who desire to know the Father. It isn’t necessarily for all the trappings of church life today, but to know the community of the Trinity, and be able to share that journey with fellow travelers who are learning to follow the Lord.

That’s the connection Jesus was making with his disciples in the upper room in John 14-17. He wanted them to transfer the friendship he had with them to the Father and the Spirit, and with himself on the other side of the resurrection. “that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us.” (John 17:21)

In exactly the same way the Father and Son shared life and love, he wanted to share with them as well. We get to experience their life, love, sharing joy and wisdom. Jesus identified that community as the basis by which believers would find their unity and their ability to demonstrate his glory to the world. It doesn’t thrive on our trust in each other, but our faith in the Father. The former will leave us hurt and bitter when we fail. The latter will allow us to know God in ever-increasing fullness, and touching that it will be impossible for us to contain his life and love.

Body Life, Father Style

Almost without trying the Father’s love in us will spill out causing us to ‘one another’ believers with love, prayer, forgiveness, insight, money, help and anything else others might need that we have.

Only out of that fullness and our trust in God to fill our own needs will we be able to share without any expectation for others to reciprocate, or any desire to manipulate their response. This is the essence of fellowship believers freely loving each other, assisting however we can, but without any compulsion to get others to do it our way.

We’ll visit this topic again in a future issue, because it is so critical. Notice I’ve not given any institutional fixes here. What I want you to consider is not the structure you attend, but your relationships with other believers. Are you trying to trust them or do they demand your trust? If so, you will get hurt, because we will fail each other out of our own flesh, and even at times when we don’t understand other people’s obedience to the Father.

If you have been hurt like this, let the Father bring healing to your life. Your hurt, only testifies to your misplaced trust and holding onto it will hold you back from finding a freedom to experience the life of God and share it with others.

So what do our relationships with others look like? A man in Australia expressed it best: “It looks like this, Wayne, “in my relationship with you I don’t want you to trust me more, I want to help you trust the Father like you never have before. If you’re doing the same thing with me then we’re sharing fellowship. If I am and you’re not, then I get to minister to you, which is a joy. But I’m not being cheated because I’m trusting the Father for everything I need.”

Doesn’t that make sense, and isn’t it liberating?

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