Steve Holt's Blog, page 51

Killed by the Word, “Tenderhearted” – Liz Holt

I love words and word studies. In fact, I own a huge book that I take out on occasion when we are in the throngs of family devotions. Admittedly, I have seen the look of terror and dismay on my children’s faces when they see me emerge from this book’s “cage’—my bedroom–carrying this monstrous green dictionary, The American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster, 1828. They know they will be enduring another one of my impromptu word studies. This book, written almost two centuries ago, contains enough biblical references and quotes in its word definitions to kill any curiosity one might have about the meanings. This is a no nonsense hunk of words!

Why do I love word studies so much? It’s because a word in its construct reflects ideas, and ideas can produce consequences. Noah Webster put it this way in 1821, “An immense effect may be produced by small powers wisely and steadily directed.” I agree, as I have seen a word, when freshly or more deeply understood, change my life!! This summer I am chewing and meditating on the word, “tenderhearted.”

The force of this word, “tenderhearted”, must have arrested the Apostle Paul, a former Christian killer and persecutor. After his miraculous conversion to Jesus Christ, he told us twice to put on and wear this word daily like a basic garment, a layer right next to your skin!

“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Eph. 4:31-32

“…As the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering…” Col. 3:12

Webster’s definition tells us that “tenderhearted” means to be “susceptible to the softer passions of love, pity, compassion and kindness.” Did you know that there was a category of passions, called “softer?” Paul and Webster are separating these types of passions from the others. I have always considered myself a passionate person—usually zealous about something! Until this summer’s pursuit of Paul’s call to be tenderhearted, I had NO idea that I could be/should be zealously and daily passionate about some “soft” things. We may not be granted opportunities very often to lead a great civil cause or protest an injustice, but aren’t we granted opportunities every day to express our zeal in the realm of the softer passions?

Being “susceptible” sounds like a disposition in which one might easily catch something that will change how he/she normally feels. Ever go to bed feeling fine and strong and then wake up the next morning feeling weak and sick? It would be safe to conclude that you were unknowingly susceptible to a bunch of bad germs! They took over your defenseless body! What if we put down our defenses, which come in the forms of fear, self-protection, self-interest, cynicism, resentment to name a few, and woke up instead in the morning allowing/permitting the germ of the softer passions to seize us, and make us LOVE SICK? Now that would be a good day—for us and for all around us!

On the Road,

Liz Holt

Disciple Whisperer

And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons. 1

Monty Roberts spent his youth in the plains of the U.S. watching his father beat the daylights out of wild mustangs. He observed his father’s way of breaking horses through tying them to a post and beating them with a rod. Monty felt there must be a better way.

Monty took off to the plains and, on his own, observed how actual lead mustangs communicated with a new horse that wanted to join the herd. Monty discovered that there was a mustang pattern of invitation, exposure, and challenge that drew a new horse into the wild herd.

He found that when he adopted the characteristics of a lead horse, of invitation, exposure, and challenge that he could train horses to submit to him. His gentle “horse-whispering” technique was in marked contrast to his father’s abusive style of control.2

Let’s consider for a moment what Jesus was able to accomplish in only three years. He handpicked twelve men that most of us would never have chosen. He taught them to do and be like him. To such a degree that a movement was launched that has touched almost every corner of the globe.

Jesus was a disciple whisperer.

Not unlike a horse whisperer, Jesus invited men to follow him, he exposed them to his life, and he challenged them to do the same things he was doing! Jesus broke these men of their pride, self-sufficiency, and ambition, and remolded them into servants who were fully submitted to him.

Jesus created a highly inviting, grace-oriented relationship while simultaneously building a highly challenging culture that his disciples could grow in. This disciple whisperer understood that our hearts need both love and challenge.

Mike Breen says it well, “Fundamentally, effective leadership is based upon an invitation to relationship and a challenge to change. A gifted discipler is someone who invites people into a covenantal relationship with him or her, but challenges that person to live into his or her true identity in very direct yet graceful ways. Without both dynamics working together, you will not see people grow into the people God has created them to be.”3

Jesus has called all of us to “go and make disciples,” and he has shown us a way to disciple that draws men and women into the life of abiding in Christ. The disciple making process is the work of building men and women to look and walk like Jesus; to be like him, and to do what he did.

May we each grow to be disciple whisperers.

On the Road,

Steve

1 The New King James Version. 1982 (Mk 3:13–15). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

2 “Monty Roberts Horse Whispering,” YouTube. April 11, 2011, found in Building a Discipleship Culture by Mike Breen, 3DM, 2011, p. 15-16.

3 Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture, 3DM, 2011, p. 18. Much of my thoughts in this blog come from this book.

 

A Movement of Misfits

And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve…1

Jesus turned a bunch of misfits into movement leaders. Jesus made it his aim to build his life into twelve men. These twelve men were to be his primary focus for his three years of public ministry. It was through these men that Jesus planned to change the world. No other movement has so changed the course of human history than the one Jesus inaugurated with twelve ragtag, outlaw, misfit men.

If a pastor makes his aim the building of a church, he will get consumers. If he makes his aim the building of disciples, he will get a movement. Jesus came to build a movement through building men. He chose twelve men that no one in his right mind would have chosen and he built a mighty movement.

With thousands following, Jesus chose twelve men. With thousands crying out for his attention, Jesus went to the mountains and came back with twelve men. Thrill seekers and man pleasers did not impress Jesus. He wanted a few men he could pour into his life and mission.

Jesus wanted to reproduce his image, his lifestyle, and his mission into a few men who would reflect it to the world. Discipleship is all about restoration, replication, and reproduction. Jesus came to restore our heart, replicate his life, and reproduce himself through us. Discipleship is the plan of God for multiplying the heart, passion, and power of Jesus Christ to the world.

At The Road, the new church we are planting, our vision is just this—discipleship of men through restoration of the heart, replication of his life, and reproduction to others. This is why God raised up The Road.

While seeking God during a forced leave of absence, set up by the board at the church I planted, Mountain Springs Church, God began to speak to me of a new fresh vision for discipleship. While on a prayer walk, during forty nights of prayer, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart, “Steve, you are a lover of God and creation, and a disciple of men.” My spirit was awakened with faith as I heard those words spoken into me.

At The Road, we are walking in the footsteps of Jesus. We are not building a church but building men. Jesus discipled men and the church needs better men. Better men build disciples because it’s the only method that really works.

At The Road, we are a bunch of misfits, outlaws, and ragamuffins who love Jesus. We are committed to restoring our heart, replicating his life, and reproducing him in the world.

On the Road,

Steve

1 The New King James Version. 1982 (Mk 3:13–14). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Old Friends

The past couple of days I have been secluded away in two of my favorite places in the world—eleven-mile canyon and the Agape Cabin. Preparing in prayer for several major decisions, I have buried myself in the Bible, my journal, meditation, quiet, wildlife, a river, a lake, and a mountain cabin that has always been filled with the presence of God. When I’m overwhelmed, this is where I retreat. When a pressing decision needed to be made, under persecution, maybe even feeling tired, Jesus often escaped to mountains, lakes, and deserted places. At times, I need to get away.

But something unexpected happened. I jumped in my truck to drive up a mountain for better reception on my phone—the cabin doesn’t have consistent Wi-Fi. As I crested the top of the mountain, I noticed a text from Liz and someone else. It was Victor and Eileen Marx! Through a problem with their RV, they ended up in Colorado Springs. I began to cry. I could barely text them through my tears.

You see, Victor, Eileen, Liz and I are old friends. We haven’t seen each other in a few months and I miss the fellowship. I miss the times of sitting around the kitchen sharing life through laughter, prayer, debate, and mutual respect and love for each other. Victor and Eileen are those rare couples that come along in one’s life that you know they love you…unconditionally. You know that they know that you love them. You don’t have to say it often, it’s just there. It’s just that knowledge as you sit in the living room together, watch a movie, do Disneyland and graduations (last December), shoot, walk, and pray.

Old friends are also about the wilderness, the winters of our lives. New friends become old friends when you do the hard stuff together. Friendships come and go through a lifetime. Often friends turn away during the hard times—you hurt them, they hurt you, and then there is a parting. Even Jesus’ closest friends did that to him. We shouldn’t be too surprised when the same thing happens to us.

But then there are old friends. Friends who will weather any storm with you. Like those old military veterans and their reunions, they are people who you have gone to battle with. They didn’t abandon you. They still have your back and they always will.

As I received the text from Victor I couldn’t help but remember the lyrics of that song of long ago from Paul Simon,

Old friends, old friends,                                                                                                                          Sat on the park bench like bookends                                                                                                   …old friends, winter companions

We all need a few old friends. Winter companions. I hope you have some. If you do, tell them how much they mean to you today. They are rare and time is short.

On the Road with new and old friends,

Steve

Outlaw Love

Jesus was an outlaw who proclaimed an outlaw love. He did not fit into the system of religion, church life, culture, and rules that men of power and authority had set up. He would not affirm or try to fit into a structure built to protect the livelihood and base of what might be termed “successful religion.” Jesus came with an outlaw love that revolved around those on the edges and bottom of society because he embraced something different from the viewpoint of those elite men who had a greater concern for self-protection than seeing lives transformed.

The Pharisees and the Herodians hated Jesus because he came with a radical view of a new culture, a new way of doing church, a new viewpoint that focused on the heart. Jesus became his most angry when he saw a religiously “hardened heart.” (see Mark 3:5) Jesus had no time for the structural elite and authority because he came with spiritual authority built upon an intimacy with his Father. Jesus came with an outlaw love, or might we say an outlawed love, that upset the elite due in large part because of their hardened hearts.

The church today has bought into a lie. This lie has crept in since the time of Constantine, has continued through the enlightenment—the lie is of a religion based in structural power and success largely drawn from our culture. We have become more interested in being winners and successful than being loving and grace filled.

We can observe this outlaw love throughout the gospels but is zeroed into from the Gospel of Mark chapter 3. Read the chapter. Meditate on Mark 3. Look at who Jesus is attracted to and who he is angry with.

Jesus hates religion! Jesus gets angry with hardened hearts. Does this sound like I’m overreaching a bit? Read the chapter. Read it, think about it. Outlaw love from the first great outlaw, Jesus.

You can tell a lot about a man by who his enemies are…and who his friends are. I may not know a man personally, I may not even know what he believes in, but I can tell you much about a man by who his enemies are. Jesus made enemies. The true kingdom of God will make enemies of the religious.

God’s great work of the kingdom is always a work on the edges of society with those that have no one to help them, to protect them, to minister to them. They are those men and women who understand the love of Jesus and know they need his love. Richard Rohr explains it this way,

“I believe that truth is more likely to be found at the bottom and the edges of things than at the top and center. The top or center always has too much to prove and too much to protect…the pedagogy of the oppressed…Final authority in the spiritual world [kingdom of God] does not tend to come from any agenda of success but from some form of suffering that always feels like the bottom. Insecurity and impermanence are the best spiritual teachers. The good news is clearly not a winners script, although the ego and even the churches continually try to make it so.”1

Jesus came announcing a new kingdom, an outlaw kingdom wrapped in an outlaw preacher proclaiming an outlaw love. Jesus attracts the misfits, the scalawags, the ragamuffins, the sick, the afflicted, and the demonized because he HEALS them!

On the Road,

Steve

1 Richard Rohr, Adam’s Return, Crossroads books, p. xii.

Sabbath as Resistance

“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” -Mark 2:27

For the most part, contemporary Christianity has not given too much serious attention to the Sabbath. For some of us who are older we grew up with “Blue Laws” that restricted drinking and other activities on Sundays. Some who grew up in the northeastern part of the country may recall that Sunday home baseball games in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia could not begin a new inning after 6pm. In the south where I grew up, there were prohibition laws against drinking on Sundays.

For many of us today, Sabbath is a day to watch sports and attend our sons or daughters soccer or baseball games. The Sabbath is anything but restful. We are a society of 24/7 multitasking in order to achieve, accomplish, perform, and possess, and the idea of stopping for a day to do nothing but rest is perplexing at best and downright impractical at worst.

I want to jog our thinking about Sabbath and give my thesis: Sabbath is resistance. Sabbath is resistance to the heavy load of our cultural milieu of constant production and work. Sabbath is the key to love and rest like no other gift from God.

Sabbath is resistance to the clutter, noise, advertising, and busyness that sucks the life out of our lives. It could be that the fourth commandment is the most important, the most difficult, of all the Ten Commandments. It might be that the fourth commandment is the most urgent commandment in our commodity propelled, workaholic, go-driven culture.

We need the Sabbath because we need to resist what our go, go, go culture is doing to our hearts. We are the most medicated, depressed people the world has ever produced. We are overworked, overstimulated, over-entertained, and over-the-top exhausted. We need to discover the purpose of the Sabbath.

There is a little expressed secret about the Ten Commandments that gives us an insight into the purpose of the fourth commandment. But let’s set the context.

The nation of Israel has just come out of the Egyptian system of Pharaoh’s workaholic, driven, slave labor system. In Exodus 5, we are given a passionate narrative of that labor system in which Pharaoh endlessly demands more production. More bricks for more supply cities for more material wealth. The system is designed to produce more, more, more surplus. There is no rest for Pharaoh, no rest of Pharaoh’s supervisors, no rest for the taskmasters, no rest for the slaves. The exodus from Egypt was an exodus from the pyramid system of power under Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s gods.

It is from the escape out of Egypt that Yahweh takes Israel to Sinai. It is at Sinai that God introduces a new way of living through the ten commands given to Moses. The command given the most press, the most etching as it were, is the fourth, the command to keep the Sabbath. Four verses are given to the fourth commandment alone, and only one verse for each of the others. Why? Why is the Sabbath so important?

Might it be that the Sabbath rest is the hinge-point for the entire Ten Commandments? I think so. I believe that without the Sabbath, no one can interpret and live the other nine. Walter Brueggemann explains,

“Sabbath is the crucial bridge that connects the 10 Commandments together. The fourth commandment looks back to the first three commandments and the God who rests. At the same time, the Sabbath commandment looks forward to the last six commandments that concern the neighbor; they provide for rest alongside the neighbor. God, self, and all members of the household share in common rest on the seventh day; that social reality provides a commonality and a coherence not only to the community of covenant but to the commandments of Sinai as well.” (p. 1 Sabbath as Resistance)

Let me challenge you. Make the Sabbath a resistance to the Egyptian culture of America that has reduced our lives into an increasingly frantic, consumeristic, commodity driven system that is killing our hearts. Sabbath is a call for us to resist, relax, and reflect upon our love for God and our neighbor. To find our heart each week is the purpose the Sabbath.

The Road, the church I pastor, meets on Saturday nights. This Sunday was my Sabbath. And you know what I did on Sunday? Nothing. NOTHING. I resisted the temptation to watch mindless TV, I resisted the attention of a ball game, and I spent time in God’s Word, I spent time reflecting over my spiritual life. I thought about my week previous and my week coming up. At the end of the day I felt refreshed.

Resist and be refreshed,

Steve

Wilderness Remembrance

The wilderness is a wild place of fear…and courage. Not until one has hiked, hunted, or gotten lost in a wilderness can one quite understand the fear and the courage it pulls out of you. The wilderness can define us. The wilderness is a wilderness because very few people desire to go there.

God seems to do His deepest work in the wilderness. Bible history is a constant wilderness narrative of God’s work. From Abram of Ur in Mesopotamia to Moses at Mt. Horeb in the Sinai, to the Judean wilderness of John and Jesus, God does His most significant work in the loneliness of the wilds.

For us Americans, living the high life of the wealthiest nation in world history, we are living the “good life” of safety, predictability, and lighted streets. We have 401k’s and swimming pools. We are a people of indoor plumbing, electricity, washing machines, and computers. For us the wilderness is some distant place we see on Animal Planet and National Geographic channels. It has no real meaning to us.

Yet even for us God will use the wilderness. Maybe not an actual physical wilderness but a symbolic place, just as real. The wilderness symbolizes those places in our pilgrimage where we are stripped of natural resources, relationships, and the props that we have so depended upon. We are pulled out of the civilization of busy accomplishment, career advancement, and economic gain. God uses the wilderness in our lives to do something deep within our heart that could not be accomplished any other way.

Moses received his life’s calling in the wilderness. For Moses it came at the zenith of his career in Egypt, God set him up for Sinai and drove him out of his home and familiarity to find himself on a desert mountain in the land of Midian. It was there in the back of the desert at the “Mountain of God,” that The Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire. Moses met God at the most intimate level in the wilderness and his life was changed forever.

The other day, upon returning from my prayer walk I read these words,

I remember you,                                                                                                                                     The kindness of your youth,                                                                                                                   The love of your betrothal,                                                                                                                         When you went after Me in the wilderness,1

We will all go through the wilderness many times in our journey through life and with Christ. There are times coming in all of our lives, where God will strip us of our energy, our resourcefulness, our intellect, and our wisdom. God will intentionally drive us into a wilderness. His purpose is not to hurt or harm us, but to save us. Save us from ourselves. God will take us into the desert because He loves us.

We will be faced with a choice. Either we will run from the wilderness, back to the false gods of so called civilization, or we will run into the wilderness and embrace the God who is there. God is most intimate with us when we’re most vulnerable with Him.

Go after Jesus while in the wilderness; seek Him, as your beloved. He has a purpose for your wilderness. He remembers you and He has a beautiful, bountiful, kind, purpose for taking you through the wilderness. Embrace it. The place of fear will be transformed into a place of courage.

On the Road,

Steve

1 The New King James Version. 1982 (Je 2:2). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

 

The Wilderness Road

God has needed to strip me of everything I have depended upon—my abilities, my gifting, my personality, and my former successes. It is humbling to lose everything that you have put your hand to—the church you built! To grow something that took everything you had, every fiber of your mental, spiritual, and physical abilities, and then hear God say to walk away. To walk away from something you love, when God is leading you, this is the essence of the wilderness.

The wilderness has been necessary. God drove me to the wilderness to break me of my pride. It’s been all part of a grand plan, a plan by the Master Planner to drive me into the wilderness of death and humiliation. Death of my pride was the purpose. It’s the bigger story. The larger story is always the way of Jesus, the way of the cross. Crucifixion and death of all the idols of my life—the idols of success, reputation, and importance must be nailed to the cross in the wilderness.

Five months of exile, forty nights of prayer, in the wilderness, is the desert of death. Dying to all my ambitions is the wilderness journey. Standing in Jericho Tree (California) with Liz, on a high rock, hands upraised, surrendering the past twenty years to Jesus. Saying, “You take it Lord. Mountain Springs Church is Your work, not mine. We surrender it all to You.” And we truly meant what we said. We gave the idol of our church on the stone altar in Jericho Tree. Not our will, but Your will be done.

During this time, God led us to Isaiah 43,

 Do not remember the former things,                                                                                                        Nor consider the things of old.                                                                                                                    Behold, I will do a new thing,                                                                                                                  Now it shall spring forth;                                                                                                                      Shall you not know it?                                                                                                                              I will even make a road in the wilderness                                                                                                And rivers in the desert. (vs. 18-19)

God’s love, grace, forgiveness, and consolation in the midst of the wilderness birthed hope. Jesus was saying, a road is being formed in the wilderness, in the desert. The days of old are coming to an end; the former things of the past are dead to our ways. God’s ways, not our ways, will rule and He will bring forth; He will birth something new.

He will do a new thing. He will provide a road in the wilderness. It is a road less traversed, less taken by most. It is the highway of love, humility, and service. It is the road of forgiveness. It will be a road “in the wilderness.” It is not a road out of the wilderness, but a road in the wilderness.

Isaiah continues in the next verse these hopeful words,

Because I give waters in the wilderness                                                                                                 And rivers in the desert,                                                                                                                         To give drink to My people, My chosen.1

God has us on a wilderness road—a road of His making, of His design. It is a road through the wilderness of our hearts. It is a road that will turn the wilderness into beauty. It follows a river—a road and a river together. The road taking us through the wilderness, and the river nourishing us as we go. A wilderness road is our way alongside a river of His Spirit that renews the desert of our hearts.

God is raising up a people of wilderness hearts. We are a chosen people that God has named, The Road. We are a church, a people committed to letting God drive us into the wilderness, but we are not alone. He will nourish us with His river.

The wilderness is the place of death…and life. It is the place of a baptism of death of self but life to God. John the Baptizer called Israel to the place of death, repentance, and confession of sin; he called them to the wilderness. Jesus found His calling and purpose in the wilderness after being baptized by John. All of us must follow John and Jesus and be baptized into death and life in the wilderness. To discover real life, we must die a real death in the wilderness.

Are you in the wilderness? Is your heart broken? Have your days been full of loneliness and despair? If so, God has you there to baptize you and birth in you new life in His Spirit. A river is forming as you embrace your wilderness. Embrace and let Him do a new thing in your life. Believe me, it’s worth it and it’s necessary.

On the Road,

Steve

1 The New King James Version. 1982 (Is 43:20). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

The Road Day 40 – Jesus and Paradigm Shifts II

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were fasting. Then they came and said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?”

And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” -Mark 2:18-20

Jesus is a revolutionary and he is intentionally creating a crisis in the Jewish religion, worldview, and culture. Jesus is literally challenging the current way of thinking that has governed the Jewish paradigms for cleanliness, exclusivity and ethnicity. Jesus is modeling and teaching a revolutionary concept, intentionally introducing a paradigm shift—a gospel of grace in contrast to Jewish Law, inclusion of sinners in contrast to judgment, intimacy with God in contrast to religious ritual.

Jesus is quizzed about his view of fasting. His response is unexpected. In typical Jesus style, he answers a question with a question. Jesus queries back with the question of intimacy instead of arguing religious code. Jesus refutes neither the importance nor the function of fasting, but rather speaks to the heart of a new paradigm.

Jesus is introducing a new way of thinking about everything we do. A worldview of intimacy with God in contrast to religious ritual is the new work, the new revolution. Rather than arguing the merits of or the style of different discipleship ministries (Jesus’ way or John’s way with fasting), Jesus speaks to the heart of the issue—intimacy.

Jesus metaphorically uses marriage, the relationship between the bride and bridegroom as his backdrop. Jesus is saying, why would fasting to God matter if the relational component isn’t part of it? If fasting, at its basic core, is about our relationship with God, to draw us closer to God, then why would one need to fast, if we are as close to God as is humanely possible, i.e. walking right next to him? Thus, Jesus’ disciples don’t need to fast, for they are as close as they can be at this moment.

But a time is coming when the intimacy of the bridegroom will be gone. The honeymoon will be over. The marriage chamber will be empty. Then is the time for fasting and prayer.

How is your intimacy with Christ these days? Are you as close to him as you once were? Is there distance? Sometimes God would call us to times of prolonged fasting and prayer when our relationship with God isn’t as close as it once was. I have found over the years that fasting is one of the most powerful means God has given us for a close, intimate walk with him.

On the Road,

Steve

The Road Day 37 – Jesus and Paradigm Shifts

Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”

When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” -Mark 2:15-17

A paradigm shift, or at times referred to as revolutionary science is, according to Thomas Kuhn, in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science. The paradigm, in Kuhn’s view, is not simply the current theory, but the entire worldview in which it exists, and all of the implications, which come with it. A scientific revolution or paradigm shift occurs when scientists encounter anomalies that cannot be explained by universally accepted paradigms within the community of research.

This can also be true in the religious community. Jesus is challenging the Jewish system of accepted religious and cultural paradigms. Jesus is creating a state of crisis among the Jewish leaders concerning what is acceptable within the worldview of the culture. Jesus is teaching and modeling a new worldview, a new lifestyle, a new way of looking at God, a new way of relating to God, and thus, a new way of viewing people. Jesus is upsetting the religious and cultural apple cart!

Jesus is a revolutionary and he is intentionally creating a crisis in the Jewish religion, worldview, and culture. Jesus is literally challenging the current way of thinking that has governed the Jewish paradigms for cleanliness, exclusivity and ethnicity. Jesus is modeling and teaching a revolutionary concept, intentionally introducing a paradigm shift—a gospel of grace (vs. Jewish Law), acceptance (vs. judgment), Relationship (vs. religion), Intimacy (vs. ritual), love (vs. hatred), and inclusion (vs. exclusion).

Jesus is modeling a Paradigm Shift of Inclusivity. Instead of a Religion of exclusiveness, ethnic pride, and judgmentalism, Jesus is preaching and living a gospel of inclusivity, grace, and love that includes the worst of sinners. Jesus is preaching and modeling that anyone can come in; everyone is welcome to the party.

Jesus is advocating a gospel of inclusion, grace, love, mercy, and intimacy. This is challenging the Jewish view of exclusivity that has existed in Israel for thousands of years. The love and grace of God’s acceptance is open to anyone who wants it. And it is most dramatically open to the worst of sinners, who haven’t a religious leg to stand on. They are the most welcome, because they know they’re sinners, they know they have shame, they know they have nothing to bring.

What do you have to bring? What is your claim to salvation? If your answer is nothing, then you are in the right group. The “nothing to bring” group. Yes, you are included and so are all your friends. Join the party; come to the banquet. This is the greatest party ever thrown in your honor.

On the Road,

Steve