Jonathan Evans

If I wasn't a pastor, I would still be a Christian

In the counsels of heaven, today has a specific purpose. Therefore, I have a specific purpose. And in the wisdom and power of God's sovereignty, today has a place in history. Therefore, I have a place in history. This is true, this is encouraging, but this is not yet "touching bottom".

 

God's sovereignty is driving all things together towards one destination: Jesus Christ, and the glory of His name. So the overarching and undergirding reality for you and I as Christians is that we belong to Jesus Christ and He belongs to us. And that doesn't change regardless of what changes around us, whether it is our health, our feelings, our plans, our dreams, our friends, our.... 

If I wasn't a pastor, I would be doing something else, but I wouldn't stop being a Christian – a condemned sinner saved by grace. If today you are a construction worker (or a banker, a plumber, a secretary, a teacher, a mechanic, etc.), but tomorrow you begin doing something completely new, you would still be a Christian – a wandering sheep rescued, a hopeless slave set free, a rebellious prodigal welcomed home. 

You are Christ's. This reality changes everything you do, and yet nothing changes this reality for you! You never get over this. You never go beyond this.

The materials and tools we're given (our vocation, talents, gifts, family, money, etc.) to build our lives with are valuable and important, but they are not the foundation. Let us not confuse them for being so. Instead, let us remember that in eternity only what is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ will remain. 

"What do you want me to do for you?"

"What do you want me to do for you?" asks Jesus (Mark 10:51). The blind man, we hope, will answer: "I want you to heal me." He wants to see! We want him to see!

Imagine Jesus asks you the same question. What is your response? Is it determined by what you need the most? Or is it determined by what you want the most? What if they were one, your need and your want?

Jesus heals the man and gives him his sight (Mark 10:52). Jesus is full of compassion. Then Jesus tells him, "Go your way". But he doesn't; he goes Jesus's way. The blindman now follows Jesus; Jesus now leads the seeing man. 

The underlying purpose, implicit or explicit, behind this and every miracle Jesus accomplished was to remove the spiritual blindness that prevented the physically sick and the spiritually sick from being able to see who He really was. Why? So that they might love, follow, and obey Him for who He truly was: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." (John 14:6) 

This is the one purpose in all that Jesus does: to reveal Himself and to bring us into His way, and along that way, into a true and clearer and fuller knowledge of Himself.

Yes, we have physical needs which we should confidently ask Him to meet according to His power ("give us our daily bread"). Yes, we have particular wants and desires which we can gladly ask Him to fulfill according to His wisdom ("your will be done"). But the one true need in every true prayer, the one true desire in all true praying is for Him. 

"What do you want me to do for you?" Our greatest need should be our greatest want: "We want to see you!"

There's a consumer in all of us

You and I as Christians are addressed and described by God in many different ways. Some of them we wonder at, some of them we're happy for. These names include sheep, disciples, witnesses, worshippers, slaves, church, bride, salt, light, holy nation, royal priesthood, children, body members, and living stones. 

The one thing God never calls us is "consumers".

 

The one thing God frequently does call us is "servants". If we add "slave" or bondservant", we are left with little room to wiggle away from who we are in God's eyes, and what we are to do. "We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty." (Luke 17:10) 

But this shouldn't surprise us, much less disappoint us! The one description used frequently of Jesus to describe who He was and what He did was..."servant"!

Jesus "became a servant" (Romans 15:8: Philippians 2:7). He was chosen as a servant (Matthew 12:8; Isaiah 42:1-3). He lived as a servant (Matthew 20:28; John 13:4, 13-15). He suffered as a servant (Isaiah 63). He died as a servant (Acts 4:27). And He lives as a servant (Acts 4:30).

There's a consumer in all of us. But thankfully Jesus came to put that to death, so that as Christians we can stop relentlessly chasing and restlessly craving the satisfaction of our own desires. We can delight now in serving others more, even though we are unseen, unrecognized or unknown for what we do. We can begin to experience the joy of putting others first, being content even when are put last (Mark 9:35). 

"For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s." (Romans 14:7-8) We do not live for ourselves, but for Jesus! We do not die to ourselves for ourselves, but for Jesus!

As Christians we are "living sacrifices" offering ourselves completely and daily to God "which is our spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1). Our whole life is a sacrifice; our worship through serving never stops. If this sounds practically impossible, unrealistic, unsustainable, it's because we fail to cherish the beauty and power of God's mercy, to "taste and (to) see that the Lord is good!" (Psalm 34:8).

But the brutally honest, unimaginably wonderful truth is that God has had mercy on us selfish sinners in Jesus Christ, who came "not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (‭Mark‬ ‭10‬:‭45‬). Mercy now constrains and compels us towards self-giving, not self-seeking (Romans 12:9-21). 

Sacrificial living is the fruit of a life that has taken root in the mercy of God. 

Self-gratification, then, is not a fruit of mercy, but a work of darkness (Romans 13:22-14), and Jesus came to destroy such works (1 John 3:8). Once the light of His salvation begins to shine into our hearts, it begins to uncover and drive out all the sinful selfish desires that are an obstruction to the light. (‭1 John‬ ‭1‬:‭7‬)

"The greatest among you shall be your servant." (Matthew 23:11)

 

Don't grow impatient on the way

The path of God's will for our life will take us across many different spiritual terrains. 

There is the garden path, along which the stream flows, the trees grow, and the fruit is abundant. We can sit, rest, and enjoy life without any anxiety or fear.

There is the mountain path that leads us up to the heights of God's glory, inexpressible and full of joy. We look out, we breathe in. We want to live here, away from it all!

On these paths we find our way easily and enjoyably. But there are other paths, paths we might not choose for ourselves.

The other mountain path leads us up and around to the place of testing, trial, death to self. We still trust, but we can barely breathe; we want never to return here, but we know there's just one way out.

There is the path that takes us through the valley, where the clinging darkness of fear and uncertainty surround. We don't know where our next step will take us – towards a clearing or further in. We struggle to keep calm, our emotions and thoughts confusing us, controlling us.

There is the desert path that takes us through doubt, anger, grumbling, discouragement, and despair. Here "in the middle of nowhere", with no end in sight, no water on the horizon, no sign of life anywhere around us, we begin to give up hope.

Down every difficult path we walk in obedience to God, we come face to face with an unassuming, yet dangerous temptation: to choose our own path.

"And the people became impatient on the way." (Number 21:4) And so we have, and so we will. But we must remember that "it is easier going out of the way when we are in (on the right path) than going in when we are out (on the wrong path)." (John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress) 

God has not promised to go with us down the path of our own choosing. But He has promised that He will lead us down His path, and if we follow, be with us every step of the way.

"The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way" (Psalm 27:23).

We may dislike the church, but should we hate our own body?

The church is neither different than Jesus nor the same as Jesus, but one with Jesus. 

We aren’t called to be different from Him, to be unlike Him. Nor are we called to simply imitate Him and follow His example. Rather, we are united to Him – we draw and receive all our strength, power, life, joy, and purpose from His strength, power, life, joy and purpose. Apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5).

Jesus is the "cornerstone" on which His church is built (Ephesians 2:20). He is therefore the most important stone in the entire building. As a result every other stone in the building is united to and dependent upon Him. 

Jesus is also "the head" from which His body, the church, grows. He is therefore the most important member in the entire body. As a result every other member in the body is joined to and sustained by Him (Ephesians 4:15-16; 5:23). 

As Christians, then, we are individually "living stones" (1 Peter 2:5), fitted and "joined together" (Ephesians 5:21), to be "built together into a dwelling place for God" (Ephesians 2:22). And we are also individually "members of His body" (Romans 12:4-5; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 5:30) who are to "grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (Ephesians 4:15). 

So we live and draw our life from Jesus, but we do so as the church. 

We have been individually chosen, fitted, and placed into the church not by our own choosing or doing, but by Jesus’ own choosing and doing. This is not bad news! Unless, of course, we dislike the building or the body – our body. 

"For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it..." (Ephesians 5:29). It's true! We go to great lengths to care for and nourish our own bodies. Yet when it comes to our body as the church and the church as our body, we hate our own flesh. We harm and neglect rather than nourish and cherish our body "just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body." (Ephesians 5:29-30)

Dear Christian, we can and will only grow as part of the building, not apart from it; we can and will only grow with the body, not independent of it. A collection of scattered stones is not a building; a pile of severed limbs is not a body. Those of us who seek and desire to grow up into Christ, our Cornerstone and our Head, simply cannot do so by by removing ourselves from His building or by amputating ourselves from His body.

We are never more faithful to Jesus, never more dependent on Him, and never more connected with Him than we are when breathing and living and moving as His body, the church.

We may dislike the church, but Jesus died for her

Growing up I watched as the builder chose brick after brick and placed each in a wall of the building under his construction. On occasion a whole brick wasn't necessary. So the builder looked at the space in the wall, then at the size of the brick. He deliberately and carefully shaped and prepared it to fit exactly into its place. 

When God wanted Moses to build the Tabernacle, He didn't leave the pattern up to Moses. God showed Moses the exact pattern he was to follow. (Exodus 25:9) 

When Solomon built the temple of God, his measurements were precise, not "close enough" (2 Chronicles 3:3). And when the temple was built, "it was with stone prepared at the quarry" (1 Kings 6:7).  

So when Paul says that as Christians we are "being joined together" to be "built together" into a "holy temple, "a dwelling for God", he means we each have been deliberately chosen, precisely fitted, and exactly placed by the Master Builder in the living and growing "structure" of the church (Ephesians 2:19-22). 

We are a part of the church, the temple of God, the body of Jesus Christ. 

You and I don't have a choice! Or do we?

Many of us have excitedly given a gift to someone, a child for example. They hold it in anticipation. You see the huge smile on their face, and you can't help but  smile too! They begin, and finally, unwrap it. They look at it, and without looking up at you they say, "I have this." They toss it aside and reach for the next gift.

Many Christians find the church unimpressive, undesirable, and unnecessary. They are bored with, critical of, and dismissive towards the church. But all the while they never look up at the Gift Giver. 

God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, it's true (John 3:16). But it is also equally and gloriously true that "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.", voluntarily, willingly, sacrificially (Ephesians 5:25). "The church of God" is that which God "obtained with his own blood." (Acts 20:28), the blood of His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. 

Impure sinners, an impure bride. Jesus loved us and died on account of our sins and in our place as sinners, "so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." (Ephesians 5:29)  

The angels who owe nothing to the blood of Jesus worship Him forever as the Lamb of God slain for us (Revelation 5:11). You and I? We the redeemed, the church, and the bride, who owe everything to the blood of Jesus, are bored with, critical of, and dismissive of what He's obtained and is building. 

We each, dear Christian, have been chosen, fitted, and placed in His church at a cost greater than our discomfort, disinterest or dislike. Give thanks, rejoice, and take your place in something bigger and better than you will ever know by yourself.

You may discover that you've never received a gift quite like this before.

Love gets angry at the right things

God is love, not anger (1 John 4:8). Still, God does get angry. But God’s love provides the stimulus, the context and the constraint for His anger.  

 

  

 

BECAUSE God loves us, He gets angry at the RIGHT things which are the WRONG things that result from sin in our hearts. Thankfully, like a father who lovingly disciplines his children, He lovingly convicts us of what is wrong. He embraces us, forgives us, teaches us and continues to conform us into His image.

 

In our relationships, our love like GOD'S LOVE should always seek what is good and best for others – to know, love, serve and reflect God. Our anger like GOD'S ANGER, should arise when what is good and best is opposed by what is not – those things which aim to distract us or keep us from knowing, loving, serving and reflecting God.

 

APART FROM LOVE, though, it is hard to be angry at the right things, with the right motives, for the right reasons. 

 

I might have personal, good, and even justified reasons for my anger, but FOR God's purposes ONLY God's love can provide the stimulus, the desire, the aim, the guidance, the safety and the constraint for my anger. Otherwise, my anger has the potential to be at best misaligned with God's love, at worst severed from it. 

 

If the foundation of my LOVE for you has collapsed, how can I BUILD you up? If my legs are crippled, how can I HOLD you up? If my arms are broken, how can I HELP you up?

 

LOVE digs around my anger down to the root of it; it searches my anger with the spotlight of humility; it shines through my anger to uncover any hidden snares; it frames the portrait of my anger and brings the right object into focus.

 

Is God’s love the stimulus, the context and the constraint for your anger? 

One of the most dangerous things you can ask God

One of the most dangerous things you can do is to ask God to search your heart in the midst of conflict or trial or pain. It may delay the victory or the rescue or the relief you're after. 

David writes, "May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you." (Psalm 25:21) Here the Psalmist is asking God to save him from others; he's praying and waiting, looking and hoping. 

 

We've all be there, in the middle of something we've been dragged into, something we've fallen into, something we've walked into. The primary objective is to GET OUT! 

 

But for the Psalmist, being saved and/or vindicated is NOT the most important thing. Having a right heart is the most important thing. It's as if he's saying, "God even if I'm never rescued or vindicated, even if I'm never getting out of here, let my heart be upright before you, let my heart be pure."

 

Consider Psalm 7:1-2: "O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver." There's no question David WANTS to be rescued! 

 

But it's not David's ultimate, deepest, desire.

"O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust." (Psalm 7:3-5)

One of the most dangerous and courageous things to do is to ask God to search your heart in the midst of conflict or trial or pain. When victory is desirable, but not ultimate in your heart, you're walking in a power and strength not your own. Whatever happens, whenever it happens, will only magnify the joy you've ALREADY found. 

Don't work hard to prove people wrong

Don't work hard to prove people wrong. 

 

Living to try and prove that people are wrong about you is just another way the heart forms and fashions an idol. You end up being enslaved to a person, to their opinion of you and to your expectations of them. And in the end, all idols fail to give us what they promised us.

 

 

WHOEVER

When trying to prove ourselves not to be the person some think or say that we are, we find it increasingly difficult to be ourselves – to laugh naturally, to have a normal conversation, to be pleasant to be around. We become consumed in our mind by whoever we believe is an object to our detriment or our benefit. 

 

We're crushed under the weight of working to earn what we believe we'll be miserable without – respect, popularity, love, acceptance, vengeance, etc. We're bent and bending to a breaking point out of fear, anger or self-love to save ourselves – to be saved.

 

But who can save themselves? And who can save us from ourselves?

 

WHENEVER

God is not as concerned as we are with people's opinions of us. He doesn't want you comparing yourself to others; He's not comparing you to them. He's not comparing them to you either. God is, however, concerned with His opinion of you, your opinion of Him and your opinion of others.

 

"Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. (2 Corinthians 10:12)

 

Paul's constant striving and working was not out of competition or in comparison with others. In fact, Paul would say that whenever we live and thrive off of comparing ourselves to others and commending ourselves to others, we truly don't understand the way God sees or measures things.

 

WHATEVER

Everything Paul did was born and motivated out of love for Jesus and others. He wasn't trying to earn love in anyway from anyone. Paul knew he was already loved as much as any man or woman could possibly be loved. And he was loved having done nothing to deserve it

 

How is it possible to compare or commend ourselves when we have been freely loved, forgiven and accepted by Jesus Christ? Whatever judgment we receive from man cannot possibly compare to the judgment we deserve from God. Whatever love we receive from man cannot possibly come close to the love we don't deserve from God. Because of Jesus, God's wrath has passed over us and His love has come home to us. 

Be careful, then, not to put yourself below or above where Jesus puts you. 

 

Don't work work hard to prove people wrong; don't work hard to prove you're right. Neither is the kind of effort Jesus wants to give you grace for. Rather, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:12-14).

"For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends." (2 Cor. 10:18)

Get your emotions under God's control

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God." Psalm 42:5-6

 

Washing dishes, I thought, "I shouldn't be losing my patience like this. Why do I let my emotions take control of me?"

 

If a 5 year old loses control of their emotions, we would deal with it accordingly. We wouldn't tell them they're being immature and need to "grow up". But if a 15 year old or a 25 year old or a 35 year old were to lose control of their emotions and throw a fit, we would tell them they're being immature and should "grow up!". 

 

 

As a christian, I should expect spiritual growth and maturity in the area of my emotions. If I'm always losing my temper, grumbling, anxious, fearful, unhappy, being selfish, etc., I need to ask myself who's in control: me or my emotions? Truer yet, am I submitting to the indwelling Spirit of God, abiding in Him and allowing Him to shape, prune and grow me? Or am I submitting to my emotions and allowing what has happened and how I feel to drive, steer and influence me?

 

The Psalmist asks himself a question: "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?" His feelings are discouraging him, if not torturing and depressing him. His answer? As strange as it sounds, he begins to talk to himself! He stops listening to his feelings and begins speaking truth to his soul, truth concerning God: "Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."  

 

God is in the midst of and over all the circumstances that surround him. He looks to God – to His faithfulness and to His power. He remembers that his hope is in God, that his salvation is God. He reflects on this and then he reminds himself of this. He stops focusing on his feelings and begins to refocus his attention on God. 

 

Imagine you go for a walk down your favorite path and get lost in the sights, sounds and smells of your surroundings. And then suddenly a thought enters your mind, rapidly it affects your heart and you get lost wandering inside whatever your thoughts and feelings are saying to you.

 

What should you do?

 

Stop listening to yourself and begin talking to yourself!

 

This isn't positive thinking, ritual chanting or magically believing things into existence. This is taking hold of what is already true. And what is already true is God, God who is sovereignly present and sovereignly powerful; God who is dwelling within you by the power of the Holy Spirit; God who is lovingly and wisely conforming you into the image of His Son, Jesus.

 

He is your help, He is your refuge, He is your hope in the midst of emotional chaos and in the face of emotional trial. You can be still, find rest and even fall asleep there (Psalm 3:5-6).

 

Get your emotions under God's control.