Category — Practical Christianity

My beloved mentor and pastor from our Jesus Movement days, Ted Stone, is on his way to heaven. A deadly brain tumor diminishes him a little more each day. Sometimes he has the energy to talk on the phone when I call. I cherish his sentences. He pauses, gathers his strength, and says, “Eddie, I want to tell you something. I may never get the opportunity to say this to you….”

I hold my breath and wait for Ted to speak. It’s an awesome and holy moment as this man who loves me, and in so many ways has given his life for me, and others in the body of Christ, begins. I know I’ll remember every word until the day Jesus greets me in heaven with Ted at His side.

This was the atmosphere in the upper room. These were Jesus’ final words to His disciples. In just a few minutes dark and ominous events would leave them alone and afraid. Tomorrow at this time He would be dead, crucified by Rome and laid in a rich man’s tomb.

And what did He say to them? Remember Me!

If you want to start a religious argument, and get people talking about something that you soon discover they really know very little about, ask a group of Christians who come from different cultures, different traditions, and different generations this question: “What are the essential elements of corporate New Testament worship?”

Here are some of the “essentials” I’ve heard over the years: confession, music, benediction, Bible teaching, Bible reading, offering, altar call, pastoral prayer, and corporate prayer. The list goes on and on.

Our problem is that most of the evidence offered has to do with personal preference or personal experience rather than personal understanding of the Scriptures. Even when we turn to the Bible, most of the evidence we have is descriptive rather than prescriptive.

My understanding of the teachings of Christ and the Apostles, and the inspired history of the first century church in Acts and the Epistles is that there is only one essential element of corporate New Testament worship: The Lord’s Table.

When you worship Jesus, the only non-negotiable is the Lord’s Table. Not saying every week, or even every month, but it must be central to the worship experience of the believers in a local assembly of Christians.

What place does the Lord’s Supper play in your life? Is it central to your worship, or a meaningless religious ritual that gets in the way of your Sunday routine?

What are some ways you could make the Lord’s Supper more central to your worship of the Lord Jesus?

How does it make you feel when you consider that Jesus’ only simple request concerning His death on the Cross is that we wouldn’t forget what He has done for us? How about when you think about the next time He will share this cup with His people in His Kingdom?

Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us (1 Corinthians 5:7).

Nothing excites me more than to hear someone say that they want to live all-out for the Lord Jesus. My pastoral heart moves toward them and Judy and I start pouring our lives into them.

There’s always some initial excitement and a lot of marvelous reports concerning God’s powerful movement in everyday life.

“You wouldn’t believe what’s happening at work. I’ve only been praying for this guy for two days. Out of nowhere he said, ‘Tell me about your church.’”

“We had no idea how we would survive if we gave what we felt God was telling us to give to the church. But we did it. The next day my boss came in to tell me that she was so pleased with my work that he had decided to give me a promotion.”

Even as the reports bubble out I’m always praying for them because I know what’s coming.

God is going to test their faith.

They’ve been living at that precipice of the Christian life that God insists upon if we want to experience His power. The precipice of radical trust, that place we live where we know that if He doesn’t show up, we’re sunk.

Some shrink back from that radical edge of life to the safety of their comfort zone, and it’s tragic. Soon they will be wondering what happened, why their Christian life isn’t as exhilarating as it use to be.

Others will keep on trusting Him, pass the test, and move on to the live they always wanted, the life Jesus wanted them to live and their redeemed heart longs for.

How about you? Is God asking you to trust Him for something big? Something that intimidates you? Something that doesn’t make sense to your friends? Something that will make you look stupid if He doesn’t show up?

Do it!

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

What is your first thought?

If you’re a Christian, your first reaction may be guilt and shame when you read words like these from the lips of Jesus:

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:20-23).

One of the surest signs of how far the church today lives from the New Testament’s emphasis on unity is that most of us read these words as a challenge rather than a comfort.

It’s time to look at them again, as if for the first time and in context!

Imagine you’re one of the disciples living out the drama of that dark night in a room overlooking the dangerous streets of Jerusalem. Jesus begins to tell you things you don’t want to hear and can’t believe. He’s already told you again and again that this is His last trip to Jerusalem with you. He insists that His enemies will kill Him.

Now, as you sit around a table for what should be a Passover celebration, He tells you that some foreboding but familiar Old Testament prophecies concerning Messiah will be fulfilled that night (Mark 14:16-29):

• One of you will betray Him, just as Psalm 41:9 predicted.

• This is your last supper with Him.

• You will be scattered, forsaking Him and one another, fulfilling Zechariah 13:7.

This is the context of Jesus’ emphasis on unity and loving one another in the Upper Room Discourse in John 13-17…

This is why Jesus tells them to love one another.

This is why Jesus begs the Father to make them one.

Why? Because, they will need one another!

Jesus didn’t plead and pray for church unity to challenge and shame us but to bless us—to encourage and comfort us!

Unity is one of Jesus’ primary provisions for His followers in a world full of tribulation.

Your friends, loved ones, Christian disciples, and even you, will face dark days—you will receive bad news that will scare you beyond hope. Your heart will be grieved and life will hurt so bad it takes your breath away.

It’s at that precise time you and the others in your life will need the unity Jesus has been telling you to work on since the day you believed. And that should be one of your first thoughts when it comes to unity.

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you (John 15:12).

“Whatever happened to our hope of heaven?”

That’s the question an aged saint asked of a small group she had joined when a twenty-something Bible student told her he could care less about heaven because, “He was into being the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting world.” He was about living for others, not about what He would get someday through some, in his words, “pie-in-the-sky” promises that, again in his words, “medicate the poor and hurting” so that they’ll accept social injustices.

As a Jesus Movement convert of the 60’s, I’d have to own some of this young man’s charge. We were so focused on “getting people to heaven,” we convinced ourselves we could ignore the social insensitivities, the prejudices, and injustices of our day. Wouldn’t want anyone to accuse us of preaching a “social gospel” like the liberals.

However, if I’m reading my Bible correctly, there’s no good hell and no bad heaven. Seems to me this isn’t an either-or but a both-and deal. Believers who ignore the hurting aren’t living out Christ’s love in this world; believers who ignore eternity aren’t living out what He says about the world to come.

One common thread I’ve observed in sincere and Godly people so uncomfortable with my passion for the gospel: They often come from upscale neighborhoods, attended schools filled with other affluent students, and have little personal experience with life at the bottom.

It’s not their fault; they just did.

Could it be that at least some of the reason we don’t long for heaven is because we have it so good here?

Phil Yancey says it best, “To believe in future rewards is to believe that the long arm of the Lord bends toward justice, to believe that one day the proud will be overthrown and the humble raised up and the hungry filled with good things. Like a bell tolling from another world, Jesus’ promise of rewards proclaims that no matter how things appear, there is no foundation in evil, only in good.”

What do you think? I sure would love to hear from someone who’s dealing with the meanness of this world as a participant rather than an observer. Does affluence diminish our longing for heaven?

“For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the Sons of God” (Romans 8:20).

The pastor paced the floor screaming out to God. “What did I do wrong? All I ever wanted to do was serve you!”

I had just had breakfast with the chairman of his elder board who had asked me, “Where did we go south on this? All we ever wanted to do was see people come to Christ.”

Church fights, family tensions, embattled ministries, friends at odds—the most discouraging and damaging dynamic in Christianity.

I’ve been around churches and working with church leaders for decades, and I’m convinced that the number one reason church leaders fight isn’t doctrine or philosophy of ministry. Our problem is that in the furious blur of personal and corporate ministry, we begin to neglect our relationships.

I know, it happened to me fifteen years ago.

Judy and I have thought a lot about that painful process, asking ourselves where it all began, what was the first sign of disunity that we should have heeded to. Here’s the condensed wisdom of all that pain and the pain of others we have tried to help:

We created a climate in which we gave ourselves permission to disregard one another.

• Someone expresses their heart and the rest of us give one another that “here she goes again” look. After the meeting we all agree, “She’s just trying to get her way.”

• One family member leaves the room in tears and nobody follows. “We’ve told him over and over he’s just too intense.”

• Two leaders disagree on a finer point of doctrine and begin to view that as the simple explanation for every strain in their relationship, every tear in their unity.

You may not be a church leader, but you are a wife, a husband, a son, a daughter, a friend, a coworker, or part of a ministry team. Whatever you do, don’t give yourself permission to disregard those the Lord Jesus has brought into your life.

It never ends well.

“These things I command you, that you love one another” (John 15:17).