|
"The Free Gift of Our Greatness" |
The Quest for Significance
Where does the Christian find his or her identity and
sense of worth? From a career... relationships... a ministry?
This is too often the case. However, Jesus pointed us away from the realms of
outward accomplishments and the honor of man to the inward encounter with the
burning affections of God's heart as a means of discovering our true identity
and sense of significance.
The Free and Eternal Gift of Greatness
God has given us something amazingly powerful in the fact that He desires and
pursues us. He has given us the free gift of greatness. Everyone that is born
again by the blood of Jesus, in receiving eternal life, the gift of
righteousness, and the indwelling Spirit, has received the free and eternal
gift of greatness and success automatically at the new birth. When we said yes
to the grace of God, Hebrews 2:7-9 says that God crowned us with glory and
honor. In that hour we became great beyond exaggeration, and the Lord ordained
that the fact of this new identity would profoundly change the way we view
ourselves.
What the Scripture says about those that have been crowned with glory and honor
is profound. The least believer is high above the highest angel in privilege.
Beloved, we are the bride of Christ, and will rule and reign with Him forever
in resurrected bodies. We are the sons of the most high
God forever. The angels don't have any of these dimensions as a part of their
experience. Imagine how the thief on the cross felt when he stepped over the
line of death into
I don't believe the angels have gotten over it yet, that human beings made of
clay, some of whom were fraternizing with demons, or living in rebellion,
disobedience, or perversion, can be so set free, so cleaned up, so crowned with
glory, and that they alone would be invited into intimate partnership and
intimate fellowship with God Himself. I think they are still looking at us, and
at each other, and saying something like, "How do you figure this?!"
The Divine Romance of Discovery
One of the great challenges of our growth in the grace
of God is to progressively discover the greatness and beauty that we possess in
the new birth. Paul states that our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col.
3:3), and this is the essence of the challenge. The greatness and beauty that
we received as a gift is veiled, hidden from our eyes and the eyes of those
before whom we live. God sees our greatness, of course, as do the angels, but
the full dignity of our lives is significantly hidden from us, and we cannot
know it fully until the Lord is revealed to us in fullness, and we see Him face
to face. It is a magnificent adventure, a romance
beyond imagination, to go on the journey of a lifetime spent discovering the
significance God has placed upon us. The unfolding of this romance is meant to
empower us to live a life of extravagant obedience to Him.
I believe this tremendous experience of the divine romance, understanding and
discovering His beauty and our beauty, His passion awakening our passion, is
the highest motivational strategy the Holy Spirit has ordained for the end time
church. It is this discovery that empowers us to love our lives not even unto
death. We will stand in the face of martyrdom by the grace of God with a lovesick
heart motivated by passion and pleasure, a heart steadfast, a heart on fire,
supernaturally empowered by these truths, and by the Holy Spirit.
Living Beyond Our
Performance
This is what Jesus came to establish for us at the Cross in the atonement. If we
can understand this issue of greatness related to salvation, it would also
settle a lot of our anxiety to achieve a greatness
outside the grace of God, even in the midst of ministry. It is the most natural
thing for us to strive to achieve our sense of worth or success based on
external recognition. However, this type of outcome-based living will never
replenish and sustain our hearts. In the end, it leaves us broken and hurting,
because we cannot control the outcome of every situation which affects this kind
of identity. So how do we re-orient our hearts from this performance- or
outcome-based identity to a true biblical sense of worth? Jesus admonished the
Pharisees that they needed to experience the love of God, and thus discover the
honor that comes from Him alone.
Living Understanding Issuing From Encounter
In John 5:38-44, Jesus sets forth stunning principles as to how He carried his
heart in the realm of man because He had experienced the love of God, and knew
who He was in God's eyes. In verse 38, He tells the Pharisees plainly that His
Word is not abiding in them. This seems a shocking statement, as the Pharisees
were, to others, men mighty in the Word. However, they had biblical
information, not living understanding. They had searched the Scriptures, Jesus
said, but they were not willing to come to Him that they might have life. In
other words, Jesus is saying they have studied the Bible with the
presupposition that Bible information in itself gives an encounter with eternal
life. Of course, we know this is false. Eternal life is a person, the Godhead.
Then, in verse 42, he says something very powerful - that they do not have the
love of God in them. He says this in the context of speaking about receiving
honor from men. Why did Jesus connect an experience of the love of God with
receiving honor?
Very simply put, there is only one place we can discover our worth, and know
the true honor that has been bestowed upon us, and this place is the realm of
encounter with the love of God. In Ephesians 3:18, Paul talks about the height,
width, depth, and length of the love of God. He says it is incomprehensible; no
one can fully comprehend it in this age. The main problem with the Pharisees is
that they did not have living experience with this ultimate reality, the vast
ocean of the burning desires of God's heart. They had no chance of living
right. They were disconnected from the only place of discovery of who they
were. They had no choice but to seek the honor of men. We cannot repent of
seeking honor, it is part of who God made us to be.
But true honor that satisfies the soul can only be found in knowing who we are
before God.
The Son's Honor and Glory
In 2 Peter 1:17, Peter is talking about the mount of transfiguration of Matthew
17. It is many years later, and Peter says that on the mount Jesus received
from the Father honor and glory. When did Jesus
receive from the Father honor and glory? When the
voice came to Him, saying, basically, I love you, I love you, I love you! This
honor prepared Jesus in His humanity for the crucifixion. The way that God
chose to prepare Jesus, in His human weakness, for the crucifixion was by
giving Him the revelation of His honor and His glory. This is the same way the
Father feeds our hearts, and sustains us in times of trial and tribulation - by
telling us what we look like to Him. When God wants to get someone free from an
addiction, He tells them how awesome they are!
Encounter in the secret place of your life with the God of love, where He will
reveal His burning heart of pleasure over you, and show you your destiny as the
partner of Jesus Christ forever is the only method God has chosen to establish
your sense of worth. My personal ministry could disappear in the next few
months, or I could reach hundreds of millions, and it would not affect the
essential greatness of who I am before God when I stand before Him. God is not
going to look at how big the crowds are, or how many people listened or did not
listen. He will look at whether I said yes to His love, and became a lover of
God. When I stand before God, He is not going to ask me how big the conferences
were. He will not ask me how well I preached, or wrote books. He is going to
ask us about the realm of love. He will say, 'I loved you. Did you receive it?
Did you respond back to Me in love?' Love will be the
only currency we take with us to the eternal city. We are loved and we are
lovers, therefore we are profoundly successful.
What Are You First: A Worker or a Lover? -
Avoiding Burnout
Many Christians who reach out to others burn out quickly because they launch
out into ministry before they establish in themselves the foundation of being
lovers of God. Discouragement, despair, boredom and frustration will inevitably
occur if we do not recognize that we are first called to be lovers.
Yes, it is true that God has called us to be workers. Yes, we are called to be
servants. We are called to bear the inconveniences of being caregivers to other
people. But we must remember that such works of service are a part of the second
commandment; they are an overflow of the first commandment. (See Matthew 22:37)
What happens when we want to first be workers or fighters for the truths of our
particular religious system? What happens if we first want to be students or to
disciple others? What happens when our first priority is to fulfill the Great
Commission to go into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature? (See Mark 6:15.)
Devastating things can happen when we place ministry to others and the Great
Commission first in our lives. The first thing to go wrong is burnout.
When we are lovers first, when the first commandment is first, our sacrifice
and labor are rewarded. This reward is twofold: (1) The Holy Spirit
communicates to us that God loves us. (2) We become a vessel through which the
Father's love for Jesus flows back to Him. This twofold reward keeps us
invigorated, and therefore we avoid much of the burnout so common today.
God fashioned us to receive love and to be vessels through which His affection
flows back to Him. It just feels right when we experience His love in our
moments of weakness and distress. At such times we can have the Father's
affection and enjoyment for Jesus pulsating through our hearts back to God.
The reward of our labors is that we get to enjoy being a lover as the primary
preoccupation of our lives. It's a pleasure beyond compare. But we suffer
greatly when we are workers first. When workers are mistreated, when the
anointing of God does not show up as we want or when circumstances disappoint
us, we have nothing to fall back on - except waiting for heaven. The result of
such pressure is usually burnout.
But the outcome is far different for lovers. As a lover first, now when I
experience attacks from other people, when I am undermined, when things don't
work out, or when disappointment comes while I am laboring for the gospel, I
can always run back to the secret place. I still have a secret place of
pleasure where I am immersed in the knowledge that God loves me. This is where
God imparts back to me a little bit of the Father's love for His Son. This is
true spiritual pleasure!
Pleasures in God Reduce Burnout
God has ordained many pleasures for believers. There are physical,
emotional, and intellectual pleasures, all of which are ordained by God. But no
pleasure is more intense than the pleasure that comes when God communicates
Himself to the human spirit. In the little moments when God communicates His
passion for me, I experience what life is all about. It is life at its very
best.
Such tender moments with God cause life and spiritual vitality to be
replenished deep within. Of course, we do not experience an unbroken sense of
God's love in this life. Such dramatic touches of God's presence tend to wane.
Only in heaven will we enjoy the continual ecstasy of his presence. But during
my tender moments with God in this life, I say to myself and to God, "Oh
yes, I like life. Life is good!"
As God pours His love into me, that same love flows through
me back to Him. As I am loving Him back, greater
revelation of His affection and beauty comes to me, and the cycle just gets
richer and richer. Just like anyone else, I am a regular person, saved and kept
by grace. I experience seasons of spiritual pleasure, and then I go through
times of dryness and dullness, wherein I get mad, glad, sad, and feel all of
the other human emotions.
But burnout occurs when we do not experience the pleasure of the Christian life
found in a love relationship with God. I try to be careful not to exaggerate
the intensity of such encounters with the Holy Spirit, for I don't want to
encourage you to reach for a particular experience instead of seeking after God
Himself and letting Him reveal Himself to you as an individual. This is
important because getting focused on unrealistic spiritual expectations can
actually lead to feeling condemned and discouraged, and leave you doubting
whether God loves you or not.
However, feeling loved - a little bit - and feeling love for God - a little bit
- has a dramatically powerful impact upon the human spirit. I don't cry out
this message because I want to be a noble soldier for God. I'm committed to
sharing this message, to crying out the necessity of putting the first
commandment first, because I've experienced a reality that the body of Christ
has within its reach. But we must refocus our souls; we must put first things
first to realize the awesome spiritual pleasures of walking in a love
relationship with Christ.
Living by Love
His embraces have staying power in our lives. Even the
remembrance of His past embraces holds me steady when I go for weeks or months
at a time without a fresh encounter of His love. In dry times, when the heavens
feel like brass, I remember the seasons when I have felt his embrace. The
memory of the splendor and pleasure of past intimacy with Jesus keeps me going.
Admittedly, I do not like dry seasons, and I resist them. But after awhile, I
realize that my dry seasons can help me grow. I recognize that dryness is used
by God to strengthen me for the future. In His love and tender mercy, God has
shown me that along with needing His embrace, I also
need times of dryness. I need both of these to mature properly.
Living by love and finding strength in God's embrace will revolutionize your
Christian life, for people who are in love quit a lot less then people who are
not in love. When a person is in love, he simply does not give up nearly as
easily. Being in love will prop us up and strengthen us when we're tempted to
let go. Are you a lover first, or a worker? The way in which you order your
life relative to these two commandments makes all the difference in the world.
Being a Lover Reduces Temptation
Being a lover of God not only reduces burnout, it also
reduces temptation. This is because satisfied people sin less. Much of the sin
in the body of Christ is a wrong response to pain, fear, and the need for
comfort. Sin is a false comfort that people use as a prop to get then through
seasons of pain. Many people get into sin because they feel beaten up and
abandoned by God and men. Even though they are not truly abandoned, they feel
as if they are. So they reach out for immediate comfort in status, financial
gain, or wrong expressions of sexuality. Although they are not sinless,
spiritually satisfied people do sin less.
Being a Lover Reduces Strife
Happy people also fight less. I get beaten up by
rejection and criticism just as everybody else does. I even get beaten up by
believers who say false and evil things about me. These attacks come from
people close to me and also from people whom I have never even met.
I do not always respond positively to such attacks, even when I am in a season
in which I am sensing the communion of the Holy Spirit. But when I have that
little bit of happiness that comes from feeling the embrace of God I fight
people a whole lot less! It reminds me of how I felt when I first met my wife.
I was so lovesick with infatuation that if some guy had stolen my car, I would
have said, "You can have my car. And here, do you want my wallet, too?"
Satisfied people just fight less.
The body of Christ simply will not function properly until the first
commandment is where it is supposed to be, in first place. This is absolutely
imperative to the health of the body of Christ. I appreciate people whose number
one drive is the Great Commission and relationships. But I also know that until
being a lover of God becomes their first priority, they will burn out, be
tempted, and become entangled in strife.
Driven by Love
The apostle Paul said, "The love of Christ constraineth us" (2 Cor.
5:14). The word constrain means "to grip
tightly." Paul was motivated by Christ's love working in him and through
him. God's love became a driving force in all he did. It is the very power of
living in godliness. I encourage people to focus on enjoying God more, not
trying harder to overcome sin.
Many people are driven by fear instead of by affection for God. In fact, I
often recognize fear in many of my friends. I even see it in my own heart at
times. When fear comes, we must respond by throwing ourselves into the first
commandment. I become far more stable in the second commandment and the Great
Commission when the first commandment is first in my life. The wonder, freedom,
power, and pleasure of this is within the reach of every
Christian, because it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the human spirit.