Jesus Paid It All, All To Him I Owe?

When I’ve sung this song, it often produced feelings of guilt and stirred feelings of “I gotta pay you back, Jesus.  Thanks for covering me. My turn.”

I’ve heard people say many times, “You’ve got to count the cost of following Jesus. It’s going to cost you everything.”

What does that mean?  Isn’t grace free?

We live in a culture where we demand equality.  Especially in financial matters.  We will not allow someone to give us anything without feeling obligated to send something in return.

When we get a great gift, we feel obligated to give a great gift back.

We get increasingly competitive at Christmas, and constantly try to out-do each other.

We never want to be in a position of “owing” anybody anything.  We try to make good with anyone that we’ve been given something from, because we’re totally uncomfortable until we even up.

We do this with the crucifixion.  We try and put ourselves into a state where we grieve over and over for Jesus and the beating he took for us.  We cannot stand that Jesus had to suffer and die FOR ALL THE SINS I’VE DONE.  We drive up the “debt” of guilt and spend all our time working to free ourselves from that debt.  All our service and activity is geared toward relieving that guilt.  That makes us feel better.

What did Jesus really demand when he talked about “the cost” of following him?  Could he mean something way different than money?

One of my friends sent me an email a while back, and he said he had a dream about me.  In his dream, he was watching a man shovel hay in from a huge pile into a bigger barn.  The man was doing the work himself.  On a bench away from the action, another man was sitting there watching the other man do all the work.  At closer inspection, my friend identified the man working as Jesus (don’t know how, but he knew), and the man sitting on the bench was me! Jesus turned to my friend and told him that the work he was doing was for Bob and he looked over at me on the bench.

When I heard of the dream, immediately I had 2 reactions – I am seriously allergic to hay, so the thought of taking a pitchfork and shoveling hay into a barn on a hot day closes my lungs up.  Yet even with my aversion to hay and what it would do to me physically, I felt really guilty and had a desire in my heart to pick up the fork and help him.

Then it hit me with 100-ton force – I am a bad receiver.  I cannot accept grace from anyone — even Jesus himself.

I HATE receiving gifts, and NEVER feel comfortable receiving anything for free.  I always position myself as the giver, and absolutely love giving the bigger and better gifts and the feeling that produced in me.  I never allow myself the grace to receive anything from anybody without giving back in return.

Strip that all away and it is nothing more than pride and false humility.  It’s not humility at all – it’s sin.

So when I had my breakdown, and I had to give up everything, I had to let Jesus start doing things for me. I had to let others start doing things for. It made me really uncomfortable.  I mean physically uncomfortable.

Think about that dream.  It was as if I was embarrassed and unable to allow Jesus to work for me.  I wanted to take his place even in a state of weakness.  How in the world do I resolve in my mind that me doing something like shoveling a mountain of hay is not something I can allow Jesus to do for me, even if it will kill me?  I remember Peter had the same issue.  “Jesus you ain’t washing my feet, dude.”

Jesus WANTS to do the work. The work would kill me, but for him it’s easy and enjoyable.  Why is it so hard to let someone else do the work for me, let alone my brother and savior Jesus Christ? This attitude makes it impossible for me to accept grace from him, or get it from others.  I just could not receive anything from anybody, especially God himself.

I have to think that in the scheme of things, this extended season I am going through is as much about me giving up the things which drove me – pride, approval of others, being the giver not the receiver, always being the “fall guy”, doing the work myself when others need to do it, taking financial and emotional responsibility for people that willingly give it up to me, always being the “responsible one”, never accepting a handout, never accepting a gift with grace, and countless other flaws.

Letting all of this go has been painful – for me and those around me.  People are confused, upset, and judgmental.  It’s been a horrible ride for people that counted on me in the past, and I can no longer provide the support or be counted on doing the work. There’s people I even owe things to that I cannot pay back right now.

I am in a season where I am limited in what I can do, and limited in where I feel free to roam.  My “ministry or service” is nothing anyone would sanction with a budget or fanfare.  Loving people one at a time and engaging them in conversation seems too simple and small, yet it’s what he’s showing me to do.

He’s got my spiritual life, my business, and my relationships in a purifying fire to burn away all the crap that I’ve allowed to pile on.  I’m betting there’s a lot of crap in that hay pile that Jesus needs to shovel away too.  It’s getting to the pure gold and burning away the garbage I’ve built up on it.

I am accepting the fact that Jesus paid it all. I am accepting the fact I don’t have to pay him back.  I am accepting the fact that in this season I will let a lot of people down that used to count on me, and people will continue to question, judge, and be upset with my lack of action.  There are people that have given me financial help, physical help, spiritual help, and advice for which I am unable to pay back now, or maybe ever.

My life has been simplified to a being totally engaged with Father, Spirit, and Son and figuring that out without distraction.  Being totally engaged with my wife and daughters  and family in a new way.  Getting real with a few old and new friends who are accepting this new me and totally supporting me, even while going through their own process. Being a person that lives in the moment, and has eyes to see what’s going on around me right now and totally live in that.

My question to you is this – are you trying to pay back a debt for something you cannot pay? Is Jesus someone you accept gifts from, or accept and try to pay back?  Are you able to accept gifts from others?  What have you experienced?

Popularity: 16%

What Is My Calling?

GREAT Interview with Jim Robbins today.  Matt was high on a chocolate chip cookie, Jim was a little down at the beginning because of technical problems on his site and a lack of coffee, and Bob managed to live up to HIS calling of being the person to bring it all together.

But seriously, this was an awesome interview. Can’t believe the depth of insight we could achieve in just 40 minutes. Jim took us through his process of this, and all 3 of us shared our experiences in how we’ve come to discover our calling.

Listen – If you have struggled with calling, validating your life’s purpose, or just trying to figure out what your place is in this world, this 45 minutes with Jim today will clear up a lot of questions and remove a lot of stress from your life.  We hope you enjoy it, and as always, welcome your questions and comments!

Popularity: 28%

Knowing God or Knowing All About Him

One inconspicuous Sunday, visiting a church to watch my niece get baptized, I heard a message that changed my “walk” forever.

The man delivering the message on this day is not my pastor, but a pastor to our extended family.  He is the pastor of a church where many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins attend, and has been a gift to the family during some extremely painful trials (tragic death of family members) and during times of joy (births and weddings).

Howard said one line that has rung in my head for over 4 years now.

“My prayer is that you would learn to Know God, rather than strive to Know More About Him”

As Howard pointed out, the goal of the Christian life should not be to read a book and be the foremost authority on who God is.  Not that there is value in that, but if you only spend your time on this earth as a student of God, you will never know who he is, or have a chance to experience him in the embrace of a relationship.

I prayed that prayer in my heart with Howard on that Sunday, but I never knew the depth of that request until this past year.  God has been answering that request in so many diverse ways ever since.  Every season of my life since then has been like an onion, peeling back the layers of what this really means.  I find myself not going a week without hearing that in my head, and asking God to keep bringing me to the place where I know Him better, and stop learning about him.

It would take years to explain to you what that has produced in my life, and the trials and tribulations that this prayer has produced.  You’ve read along with me a little bit over the past year, but I can say with 100% assurance, that God heard that prayer and has been answering it ever since.

I love the way Darin Hufford makes the analogy (and I am severely paraphrasing here), “If one of my kids came in to my room and started asking me questions about what I was doing, what I like, what I was working on, etc., I’d be an abusive Father if I halted their questioning and handed them a book, and said – just read my book son, it has everything you need to know about me.”  The book has value, it has truth, and it’s a resource to validate what God is saying in your life, but if you only strive to read and memorize the book, and never stop to speak and listen to the person that wrote it, you’d be missing out on a full and Spirit-led life.

My problem for most of my childhood and early adult life was that I knew the book backwards and forwards, but I never knew the person.  I never heard the person who inspired it.  I never stopped to listen to the person myself, instead relaying on pastors and teachers to speak for him.  I’d speak to him in prayers, but I really never experienced the intamacy of that relationship where I truly felt he was listening to me.

Was I saved?  Yes.

Was I a model Christian? Yes.

Did I teach and lead others according to the book? Yes.

Did I know the man that saved me?  Not really.

Did I know the person I was serving?  Not too well.

Did I truly experience and understand what I was teaching?  Not as much as I once thought.

The past year has been a revelation to get to know him.  To hear his voice at a deep level. To see him work and move in both the mundane and exhilarating experiences of life.  To watch him operate in my life and the lives of those around me.  To know his comfort during difficult trials. To hear him laugh and see him smile in the amazing joyful moments of life.

Maybe they were right. Life must begin at forty.

All I know is that the rest of my time here on earth, and my days in eternity will be about knowing him, not being overly concerned about theology, doctrine, or principles.  It’s about a relationship and spending my time with him and those he surrounds me with. I want this for my wife, I want this for my daughters. I want this for my friends, but I cannot give it to them.  God will not force himself on people – he might interrupt them and save them – but this is a choice we all have to make. An invitation to deep relationship.

It saddens me that there are people who go to church each Sunday and read the Bible regularly, but have no sense of the daily, moment by moment relationship.  Yeah, they are saved.  But they are really missing the gospel in it’s fullness and experiencing love and life from Father because they don’t know him personally.

What are your thoughts on this?  What have you experienced in this revelation?

Popularity: 82%

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