Tag Archives: love

new intern at saddleback

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There is a dude interested in interning with the regional ministry at saddleback. Not at a regional campus, which would make a little more sense, but with me in Lake Forest, supporting the other campuses and developing this ministry.

When I first heard this, I was surprised, because all the direct ministry is at the campuses. After meeting with John, it was clear that I needed to seriously consider this opportunity. After a little bit of prayer and consideration, I felt like if this internship was going to happen, it would need to start off more intense than the internships we had in high school. After more prayer and consideration, I came up with the following agreements: (I thought "agreements" was nicer than conditions, but I still used the word conditions when I was talking)

1. We agree that I will disciple you.
2. We agree that this is your internship to learn from.
3. We agree that your ministry is to be my ministry assistant.
4. We agree that you’ll start with small things, and then take on greater things. You’ll only be limited by your decisions and God’s leading.
5. We agree that the moment, if it should come, that you don’t or can’t respect me, then you’ll end the internship.  If I’m not worthy of your respect, if I can’t earn it and keep it, then I ought not lead you.
6. We agree that the moment, if it should come, that you lie to me, then the internship is over.
7. We agree that you can ask any question, as long as you’re willing to hear the answer.
8. We agree that you always do what you think is good, wise, and right.

Since these don’t really stand on their own very well, I’ll explain them.

1. By discipleship, I’m talking more about an attitude and mind set, rather than a program or set schedule. When I do ministry with someone, the condition of their heart is more important than what they can produce. Over the years, this is where most of the people I’ve worked with have ended up after about 6-10 months or so, but I don’t want to wait that long.

2. Initiative is everything when it comes to learning. The responsibility for learning and growing is on the field.  Yes, there’s a responsibility on the teacher, a heavy one, but this doesn’t remove the responsibility on the learner.

3. This one really sounds goofy. I don’t know how else to word it. We’re going to partner in everything, and we’ll see where that leads. I’ve been so busy playing catch up and responding to fires, I’ve not been proactive enough to thing through a specific job description. Were this high school ministry, I could have 15 job descriptions. I could have a few different versions of each job description. I could explain the whole system, plug a person in to an existing area, assist with something, or build something new. This ministry hasn’t been figured out. There isn’t a system. There’s a vision. I have the major pieces of the strategy figured out. But I’ve been thinking in terms of what I can do and when I can get to it…

4. This is pretty basic. Given that everything is new, and John’s ministry skills are largely undiscovered, we need to move slow.

5. This one is worded super goofy, especially the first sentence. I’m not a fan in assuming I have positional authority, and I’m not a fan of convincing/motivating/manipulating people into action. Either a person I lead respects me or they don’t. Leading without the respect of those who follow is a farce and a lie. It’s shallow and hollow. I feel it’s important to earn respect and to keep it.

6. Yikes, this is harsh. Yea, it is. Trust is important, and working closely with someone I can’t trust takes too much energy. I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect honesty.

7. I love questions. I even love questions about my decisions and opinions. However, it’s a difficult thing when I get a false question. When someone asks a question but they already know the answer, or they don’t really want to hear the answer, or they use the question to make a point in a round about way. False questions are really lies, but they are in a category all by themselves.

8. I’m not looking for a robot that obeys every direction…I’m not looking for Nazi like loyalty that ignores what’s right. In the midst of some intense requests, ultimately I expect a person to act according to their conscience.

Anyhow, is this blog long, or what?

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integrity in worship

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Rick Warren taught a message on leadership after the Forum, and I thought it was excellent. It was simple, basic. It is in these things that the greatest challenges come. It’s the fundamentals which have the biggest returns. The simple things are easy to understand and they also easily challenge our conscience.

All leaders need INTEGRITY, HUMILITY, and GENEROSITY. Last night I was reading from Isaiah and one of the scriptures I paused on was:

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.“ (Is 29:13)

Jesus quoted this scripture, answering the religious leaders of Israel, therefore I went back and spent some extra time thinking about the context. Chapters 28 and 29 show the interesting (and sad) progression from God’s revelation turns into human rituals.

What convicted me in the end was the human capacity to divorce appearances from reality. Loving God isn’t lip service. Yes, we are to confess with out mouth that Jesus is Lord, but there is so much more to the spiritual life than talk.

There is DO and GO and SERVE and LOVE. All of this requires more than words. The action that is required must go far beyond “the rules taught by men,” for we can follow these rules and have hearts that are still far from God. We can say the things that sound good to others, we can do the things that look good to others. These things are a waste for the spiritual life when the heart is far from God. When there is a empty place where integrity ought to be.

So I considered my own heart. I considered what I treasured most, throughout the days and weeks and different arenas I find myself in.

I often treasure being right
I often treasure being respected
I often treasure a false hope
I often treasure being served, having things my way
I often treasure being agreed with

YUCK. Those things are ugly. I wouldn’t say I’m in a spiritual slump of some kind these days, but these are the daily selfishness’ I struggle against.

Integrity is important to me. It’s been important for a long time in my life. I commit to loving God with my heart, words, and actions today; in public and in private.

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Imitating Christ

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part three: understanding the two commands and the three loves

Max, Marc, Morgan, Miller, and Mac.

We are still talking about love. I got too excited in our last chat and needed to retreat to reflect and consider the future. (Since this devotional comes from my journal, I’ll edit very little.)

There are two commands that sum up all that it means to serve God. (If you’ve not heard them by now, then I have failed immeasurably.) Avoid the common mistake of many believers: this summary does not mean that they are easily mastered and forgotten. Too many times I’ve heard, “the message this week was so basic, it was only on love.” The believer who has heard too much about love is too immature to hear anything else. That they are a summary means that every teaching flows from them and back to them. There is a river that starts from a spring and ends in the ocean. Love is both the spring and the ocean.

Loving God is the greatest commandment. Loving others is second. There is a greater and a lesser, make no mistake. The difference doesn’t mean that there are two paths to choose from. Neither is optional, so then what is the nature of their connection, that one would be greater than the other? The first will always lead to the second. However, loving others does not necessarily lead to loving others.

Therefore, make loving God your highest goal. Seek first his kingdom. Seek first his face. Love him with every shred of your being and you’ll not be disappointed. His name is Jealous, and he’ll not share your affections with another person or object.

You will fail at this countless times. Never get used to it but do not regret it. The heart that regrets is the heart that fails to confess, surrender, and trust God’s grace.

There are two commands, but there are three loves. You must love God, and you must love others as you love yourself. Many neglect the self love that is godly and good. My number one prayer is that you would love God. My second prayer is that you would love yourself in the way that God has designed.

I am not sure I can teach either of these things, for these are matters of the will. They are a choice to be made. I can share wisdom, provide insight for understanding, but I cannot take away your capacity to choose.

When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? Are you excited about who you are? Do you think, “I am the greatest”? You ought to love yourself. You ought to be excited for who you are. You ought to consider yourself as the greatest. Of course, greatest means comparison, I am not suggesting that you compare yourself to others and think, I am the greatest. NO. that’s a dead end. You compare yourself to yourself. Are you the best possible you at this moment in time. If not, repent, make correction, and be greater in the next moment than you were in the old moment. Behold, God makes all things new!

If you do not love yourself, you will never really love others. You will always look to them to fill needs that only God can fill. Loving God overflows your cup so you can love yourself and others. When you reverse that, your cup never fills, what you get from loving others without loving God is an empty mist that only satisfies for a time. You are great. God made you. You are great, Christ died for you. You are great, because the Spirit was sent as your comforter. You are great, have a spiritual heritage most will never have. People in our world are not comfortable in looking at themselves and loving what they see. Anything less than self love is a false humility and a true heresy.

Learn what it means to love God, to love yourself, and to love others. Following this priority, in the way that God prescribes, will result in more blessing than you’ve ever dreamed of and an influence beyond anything your own efforts can achieve and a confidence that is rare in our world.

I love you.

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Imitating Christ

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Max, Marc, Morgan, Miller, and Mac.

There are four pursuits I would like you to consider carefully for your personal life. These things represent the qualities of Christ I work hardest to attain. There’s many different ways to say these things. It was difficult for me to narrow them to four. These don’t have to be the defining markers of your faith like they are for me. At the time of me writing this, I have been taking God seriously for more than two decades and it took me many months to discern and distil these qualities. It will take you a long time to see how you live your faith.

The first pursuit is love and so this is what we shall discuss. It makes sense to begin with this because this is the best description of God (after YHWH) and our highest ideal to which we reach. Without love we are nothing.

It is impossible to cover all of what it means to show love. Many things contribute to this. In everyday language, love is diluted from overuse: I love your mother and I love key lime pie. Coming to a comprehensive biblical understanding of love is difficult because nearly every chapter speaks of love.

Therefore: become a student and practitioner of love. You’ll never stop learning and you’ll never perfect the art.

Since you were little, I have told you that loving a person means wanting the very best things for them. I encouraged and challenged you often to show love, to consider what the very best thing was for the other person.

Doing this consistently for the rest of your life would set you apart from most in this world. While this understanding of love is biblical, it is an incomplete and immature understanding. It assumes you know what the very best thing is for a person.

Only God can teach you what is the best thing for a person. We will talk more of these when we speak of truth, but it is imperative that you understand this now. For while love means many things but it doesn’t mean every thing. Without a true foundation we will call all things love.

I happen to favor John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Of course you know me well and understand that I’m drawn to absolutes and to the furthest reaches… the “greatest love” is something I’d latch on to quickly. This Scripture is raw and it is real. Raw like an open wound and real like the tombstone you’ll someday be under. Nothing comfortable about that love (unless you are receiving it). Consider: are the friends you have now worth dying for? This isn’t a test of them (we’ll do that later), but a test of your character.

There are many ways to love, therefore you must learn to love in different ways. The more ways you can love, the more people you can serve. It is an immaturity to only know one or two loves. This kind of blindness can lead to devastating and debilitating relationships. Further on I will show you different ways to love. Today you can look around at the people you know and learn from them. I tend to love others in a way they rarely experience.

Love with reckless abandon. Do you know what this means? Reckless abandon is a pack of hungry wolves. They are lean from a long lacking of food through the cold winter. They stumble across a lone rabbit and give chase without thought, without fear, without care. Focused and driven. Love like this.

My sons. You will be hurt. And it will happen so many times. Keep loving. Keep on wanting the very best thing for others. My dear Max, at the time of me writing this, you are the most sensitive of your brothers. I know the fear of rejection and isolation is an icy paralysis for you. When this happens, don’t retreat for long. Keep loving. My sweet Marc. For you, the betrayal of a loyalty propels you into a hot rage. I understand your rage. I, too, burn for justice and what’s right. Love. Please learn to love. You will be rejected and you will be betrayed. Through love you will break the shackles these things create. Through loving, God will heal and strengthen you. In love you will help others.

I have more to write, but I must stop. I can barely write. For now I am burning with a hot rage, I have only one desire to crush the one who hurts you. I must stop now and prepare myself for when these days come so that when you are hurt, I too can love. Were it to happen tonight, I would be consumed with an unholy and loveless rage. If my love for you keeps me from loving others, then am I loving you well? No.

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