Wednesday February 2, 2011
Theme: Rethink: Authenticity
Weekend Music links on iTunes: No Not One - Brandon Heath, All Because of Jesus - Fee, You'll Come - Hillsong, How He Loves - John Mark McMillan
Read: Zechariah 13:9; Romans 6:14; Galatians 5:13; Luke 13:24
Think: Beyond love and acceptance, we all want the most out of our lives, to be fully the person God created us to be, to be freed from whatever is holding us back in life. But the narrowness of the narrow way (Luke 13:24) is maybe not so hard to grasp intellectually as it is spiritually. In fact, as Pastor Nick pointed out, cliché-filled lyrics can easily belabor that point to where it’s more annoying than inspired and we tune truth out.
Here’s an example of what I mean, what if somebody were to say to you: Pride. Lust. Anger. These are sins. Humility. Purity. Patience. These are virtues. Don’t sin. Be Virtuous. Got it? Great. Thanks. That explains everything. Or does it? Actually, it explains almost nothing that most of us don’t already know within ourselves.
As Pastor Ben mentioned we all desire and want a Purpose-Driven Life. Maybe that’s why Rick Warren sold so many copies of his famous book. But as the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once pointed out: "Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents." Hmm. So I guess if I don’t have 40 days to spend purposefully driving myself to read and apply the ideas in Warren’s book, it probably isn’t going to change my life much, is it?
So how do I be who God wants me to be? Maybe I’ll check out one of those other books that Pastor Ben talked about, like John Ortberg’s Overcoming Your Shadow Mission or that other one. What was it? I think it’s called Truefaced. I just read the descriptions on Amazon. They sound pretty good and as I’m doing that a thought occurred to me: maybe my next right step towards becoming who God wants me to be is first freeing myself from being who God doesn’t want me to be. I wonder what my “shadow mission” is? Actually, I know what mine is. God did not put me here to read the tabloids, to browse TMZ.com or watch the E! True Hollywood Story. No, I’m pretty sure those are required reading if I want to do the Purposeless Undriven Life this week or any other week.
Even Jesus faced the temptation towards a “shadow mission”. It’s very possible that as he was in agony and dying on the Cross and crying out to his Father, maybe Satan was able to stick a few “what if…” thoughts of a quiet comfortable domestic life with a wife and kids and a nice little life of carpentry before his mind. Who knows? What we do know is that even if that did happen, Jesus didn’t buy into it. He didn’t deny his true mission path or hide and die in his sleep in the shadows. He came to die and be raised so that we would not have to live and die in our valley of shadows, but live as lights on a hill beside him. And that life doesn’t have to wait. It can be today, any day we walk with him.
Do: Take a moment to stop and think about what your “shadow mission” might be.
Pray: God, help me not be so driven by my own will, my shadow mission that I neglect to see your will, the true mission, purpose and calling you have for my life. Amen.
The eDevotional is written each week by a team of volunteers from Timberlake Church.