Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those[e] who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

This blog entry is part three of a multi-part entry.

"Go therefore and make converts of all the nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit . . ."

Of course, I am quoting this WRONGLY in order to make a point.  

The word 'converts' should be 'disciples'.  But converts seem to have become the emphasis in our 'great commission'.  What is so tragic is that even this 'commission' is lifted out of context.  That is where we begin to get into trouble . . . a sound-bite without the full story. Not that our commission doesn't include sharing the pathway to salvation and eternal life, but as A.W. Tozer states . . .

"Everything is made to center upon the initial act of 'accepting' Christ
(a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible)
and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation
of God to our souls."

It begs the question if this shallowed-out emphasis is actually producing salvation in those who are being drawn into conversion.  One of two things (or both) may be occurring. Either people are going through the motions as they profess faith, or they are being kept immature by the sound-bite ministries we are providing them.  Probably both and more, I suppose.  I am concerned we have become the shallow leading the shallow.  Myopic in sight and depth.  We are loosing the greater, larger story of what salvation is actually all about.  Jesus certainly did come to provide us eternal life, but that life is called abundant, not just a ticket to heaven. It is for now, as well as in the future. Eternal life is not something that is provided after physical death, but something that we posses right now! We need to help people understand that very important point.

Here's the full context of the mission . . .

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, 
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, 
teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; 
and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

It's much harder to make a sound-bite out of this full statement and directive Jesus provides.  And it also doesn't fit easily on a business card or at the bottom of stationary. : ) 

Let's widen the view.  Before we even get to 'making disciples' Jesus establishes something very important . . . His authority.  Going out to make disciples is obviously based upon authority that has been given Jesus.  It isn't based upon clever strategies. The Holy Spirit guides, directs and empowers the process, based upon the authority established in Jesus. Relational availability is again the key here. To the Father and to others. How do we cultivate this?

First . . . I have to ask myself the question . . . am I relationally available to the LORD? Or am I too busy with things?  Even good things?  If I am going to know what is on the Father's heart I will need to be available and be listening.  I will need my spirit tuned in to what He is saying and where He is leading.  Henry Blackaby made such a simple, but profound statement.  

"Find out where God is at work and go join Him."

How does one start being relational available to the Father?  For me it starts with the thought, "I wonder where dad is?"  That's what my kids say as they look around the house or yard for me.  As they approach me they most often say, "Dad?  What are you doing?"  I think those are great questions that move us to relational availability to God.

It is through this process that we then are able to make ourselves relationally available to others.  The Father knows who will be ready to hear His voice and where they are. He knows His plans for those who are on the journey toward Him and who desires to get to know Him.  We just need to trust His authority and ask to be brought into the process. Whether a person is ready to trust in Him for the first time for salvation, or whether they are ready to trust Him in a deeper way . . . this is all the path to becoming an authentic disciple.  The Father desires for us each to pursue becoming an authentic disciple and to help others deepen their authenticity. No clever strategies needed.  Just a simple thought . . .

"I wonder where dad is and what He's doing today?"

More on all this later . . .

This blog entry is part two of a multi-part entry.

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, 
but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, 
they will heap up for themselves teachers; 
and they will turn their ears away from the truth, 
and be turned aside to fables."

Our lack of spiritual endurance seems to both flow from, and also lends itself to, a version of the gospel that is rather narrowly focused.  In fact, we have taken the gospel and razored it down to our own spiritual sound-bite.  Our gospel sound-bite is John 3:16 . . .

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, 
that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

I grew up memorizing this verse and the verse that follows.  It is a precious truth that I endeavor to see deeply rooted in my inner man.  It is certainly a powerful truth.  The problem is that a growing number of people on planet earth do not understand what it really means.  Their lives have no context for this passage.  Many do not even believe in God to begin with, so the first couple words invalidate anything that follows (that is, from their perspective).  

Our approach to sharing the gospel is going to need to be deeper and generally more prolonged.  We are going to need to be relational.  A shallow Christianity may find it difficult to be relational and deep with others.  Let's ask ourselves the question, "How deep are our relationships?" If you consider yourself a Christian, "How deeply do you share in other Christian relationships?" Do we really have more 'acquaintances' than genuinely authentic relationships?

You may be one of the fortunate ones . . . someone who has a couple of deeply authentic and transparent friendships. Hold on to them, because they are indeed one of life's rarities and certainly a cherished blessing from God.

To go deep relationally, we must go deep ourselves, personally. If we lack depth, we cannot provide relational depth to someone else. We must press into the heart of Father God where the Scripture itself states, "deep calls unto deep". As a community of believers, we must each press in and pursue the heart of the Father with greater passion and abandon. We also need to provide the deeper message of the Scriptures . . . that the Heavenly Father has a unique calling, of the utmost importance, which He has placed upon each of our lives. There is a place in the Kingdom He has established just for you. Only you can arise to fulfill that individualized calling. His shed blood, death and resurrection has not provided just a ticket to heaven. He has paved a pathway toward divine empowerment, which enables us to live in the blessings of the surrendered life. His heart and desire is to pour out a bestowed glory which heals and purifies the most painful trauma and dark recess of our heart.

Our brokenness and pain goes deep.  God desires to go deep with us.  He came to heal the broken-hearted.  Will we surrender our self-ways and invite Him into those places? We are going to need to learn to go deeper personally and deeper with others.  Will we allow the Father to cultivate a depth in our character, so that we can go deeper with others? A sound-bite gospel and shallow spirituality is just not going to cut it.

This blog entry is part one of a multi-part entry.


In our day we have winnowed down nearly every news story to a sound-bite.  There are many who bemoan the 'lame-stream media' for only giving us a 10 second video-clip or phrase to represent a story.  A story which we know, deep down, must have a great deal more detail and context to it.  Most of us are so busy with the press-and-crush of daily life that, while we sense there is a deeper story, we don't end up following up any more than most journalists today.  So, as a natural consequence, we have become a culture that thrives on the shallow, seemingly never content and always wanting more.  I guess that is what keeps us watching through 3 minutes of commercials to get to the next 10-second sound-bite.  We're primed for 'the story after the break'.

It is similar to eating.  If we eat high carbohydrate diets all the time, especially of the sugary, high fructose corn syrup, snacks and soda variety . . . there is a constant craving for more and an inability to feel rest in our physical self.

We all have been, and currently still are, conditioned by this world system to crave, be discontent and rather intolerable to anything of substance.  This is a resulting consequence of this 'habituation of the shallow'.  When life requires sacrifice, delay or difficulty . . . . or heaven forbid denying ourselves something altogether . . . there is little tolerance for it and we come to resemble petulant little children in our reactions to it all.  We dig our heels in against that which might disrupt our small and narrow template of what it means to live our lives.

We Christians, of course, point to the media, political parties, and the world around us, decrying the shallowness of it all . . . and then we design our 'religious institutions', ministries and church services in such a way that they mirror the very spirit of that which we just lamented in the world.

If you are going to have (or go to) the 'happening' church it has to be high-energy, with dynamic worship teams leading the way, wearing all the most current fashions, backed by the right labels.  It is quite a rehearsed show.  Quite a weekly performance.  It doesn't matter that those very same members are living with their boyfriends or girlfriends, having inappropriate relationships with one another, or have generally bad character and dispositions in how they treat one another.  What matters is the IMAGE that is created for everyone else to see.  You see, we don't need a life-style and track-record of godliness and good character . . . what matters is the snap-shot you see on Sunday morning.

We bring motorcycles and Ferrari's on stage to capture people's attention.  That way people will think we are cool, hip and 'IT'.  The logic goes that they (the world that is) will want to come and hear what we have to say because of all the visual stimulation. The problem is that what we provide is 'world lite'.  The world will always be several steps ahead of a church that is trying to emulate it, which is of course motivated by being 'culturally relevant' . . . right?  The irony is that our development teams are chasing the next thing the world does, so we can emulate it also. Does anyone see a potential problem in this? I was thinking that there was Someone else who we were supposed to emulate . . .

Personally, I understand the need to be culturally relevant.  To be culturally irrelevant is foolishness, if you want to reach out to extend God's grace and love to hurting people. I have been one of those 'hurting people' and I needed someone to reach out to me where I was at the time.  I think, however, we have forgotten that Yeshua/Jesus generally shunned bringing attention to Himself.  His life was rather quite the contrast to many of our weekly religious gatherings.  In many cases, He forbade those whom He had healed to tell anyone that He had done it.  That is nearly unfathomable in today's 'get people to church' strategies.  If, perchance, God actually does do something rather striking in our ministries, we have a plethora of means to make sure everyone hears this 'God-story'. Our means be which we get these 'stories' out rivals the 'get out the vote' of most political campaigns.

Does God do so little, that is striking, in our ministries that we must make sure that people know He showed up recently? Are we subtly trying to manipulate 'followers' (now there's a culturally relevant and narcissistic term) by our clever marketing strategies? Is it both? Might we need to step back and seek the Father regarding the foundation and motives of why we are doing what we are doing?

The contrast of the ministry of the Son of God is worth pondering. Yeshua/Jesus simply engaged people in their brokenness and spoke truth (often times very hard truth) with strength, grace and love.  He told people to stop sinning.  He spoke of His coming earthly Kingdom (Second Coming).  That we would all give account for our lives.  That there actually is a hell.  I know, I know, that's become passe now.  Of course, we wouldn't want to offend anyone with talk like this today.  Believe it or not, He also said that His authentic disciples would be those who laid their lives down completely for His sake and that they would also deny themselves in order to really experience the fullness of LIFE the Father had for them.  Some accepted it.  Some did not. He let the chips fall where they may. He loved people enough to tell them the truth and give them the full picture. He respected them enough to let them wrestle it out for themselves.

Yeshua/Jesus did not come into the world to imitate the world.  He came into the world and offered Himself, as He was.  As an alternative to the world.  He knew who He was and what His eternal calling was.  He lived in that truth and purpose each day.  It changed the lives of those with whom He interacted on a daily basis.  And it changed world history forever.

We all want to have an impact in the world. It might be a better life-strategy, individually and corporately, to seek Him as to who we really are in Him and to seek an understanding of the eternal calling that He has determined for our lives.

"For we are His workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus for good works, 
which God prepared beforehand 
that we should walk in them."
-----
Ephesians 2:10

No glitz, performances, special lights or fog machines required.

The sun has already set in Jerusalem and Passover has begun in the Holy Land.  Within a couple hours, the sun here too  will set.  God renders time in such a way that a day, according to Him, begins at sundown.  In the Genesis account it states, "And the evening and the morning were the first day."  It was during these night hours that Yeshua/Jesus ate a last meal with the disciples, teaching them the deepest of meaning contained within the Passover meal.  He would not be able to participate in the Passover meal that would be celebrated the following afternoon and evening.  Not along side them, anyway.  He would be above them, hanging on the cross, as THE Passover Lamb.  Precisely at 3:00pm the next afternoon, the Passover lamb would be offered up as a sacrifice in the Temple.  At exactly the same time Jesus/Yeshua would be speaking with His Father . . . "Into Your hands, I commit my spirit."  And then, "It is finished."

The greatest act of love occurred on that Passover day some 2000 years ago.  Love that is quite difficult to comprehend, if we spend any length of time reflecting on it.  Why did He do this?  Why did He choose to take our sin upon Himself and die for it?  I can't help but weep when I allow time for that to soak in.  We know the answer . . . at least in our heads.  He loved us so much that He and the Father and the Spirit all agreed upon this plan to redeem us from death and sin and the captivity of the Enemy. He would die to set us free.

Sometimes we go through the 'ritual' of communion so quickly that we don't take time to allow it to sink in . . . or there isn't enough time allowed in our services.  So much today, in terms of our church services, is planned for efficiency.  I wonder if God is grieved that a service/act dedicated for 'communion' has become more like a news bite? Efficient reflection seems shallow, especially when we are talking about salvation and the death of the Son of God.

Jesus told His disciples (and of course this includes us) to 'do this in remembrance of me'.  At Moriah we take time each year to gather for Passover.  After all, our (the church's) observance of communion is rooted within it.  While it makes some people a bit squeamish to participate in something 'Old Testament', 'Jewish', etc. we find it a breath of fresh air to re-attach 'communion' with Passover, and be blessed by the richness of it's hebraic roots.  Over the last 12 or so years, many of us have learned how multiple layers of hebrew culture were intertwined within Yeshua's words through Passover.  The four cups of the Passover speak a deeper, richer message than just the one cup of 'communion'.  Learning the four basic covenant types speak of a deepening relationship with God, as we grow from servant, to friend, to calling, and completion.  These are all reflected in the four cups of Passover.  And the Jewish Betrothal picture is most certainly wrapped into the Passover, through symbol and also in Jesus' very words.

We often take time to remember our sin and ask forgiveness before we partake of communion, albeit a rather flash prayer, generally speaking.  We will also briefly remember that Jesus died for us and have a moment of thanks.  We will be reminded that He arose from the dead and there is much gladness in that for sure.  I am certain that all these things were meant when Jesus told us to 'do this in remembrance of Him'.  But Passover bring an additional reflection that is equally important.  He is coming again for His bride.  When one gains a deeper understanding of Passover, the betrothal themes glow with Holy Spirit illumination.  As much as anything . . . Yeshua was most certainly saying . . . 'remember that I have purchased you with My very life and you are my bride and I am your groom, and the marriage feast of the Lamb awaits us when I come back to get you.'

At the time of Yeshua's earthly ministry, when a Jewish man left his betrothed, in order to go build a home for them, he would say, "I go to prepare a place for you."  This is exactly what Jesus said at the Passover meal before He went out to give up His life for us.  So, when you enter into a time of communion this weekend, remember to ponder that He not only LOVED you so much that He died for you, but that He LOVES you so much He is coming back again to share His life with you forever.  

His love wasn't just past tense.  It is future.  And it is now.

As the evening comes on, take some time to ponder the fact that He loves you.  That He has gone away for a time to prepare a place for you.  He didn't just die for you.  He lives for you.  And He lives to see you face to face.  To hold you. To speak truth into ever broken and dry place within you. Passover is a time to let the walls down from around your heart, to trust Him, and to give Him that specific and certain permission.

Please, LORD . . . breathe new LIFE into me.
I give you permission.
I throw the doors of my heart and mind wide open to You.
Speak Your Truth into and touch deeply
every broken place within me.
Grant me true LIFE once again.

When the time for communion comes.  Take the time and open your heart to Him and this time . . . determine to encounter Him. The moment is too precious to let it slip by even one more time.

Be blessed.