Pursuing Discipleship Leads to Death

If you read my last post on discipleship, understanding that it starts the second you meet someone, the next thing I must warn you is that discipleship leads to death. Well, it leads to death if one does it the way that God has lead us to disciple. The title, "Pursuing Discipleship" is one that doesn't mean that we start trying to disciple, but it means that discipleship must be one that is a pursuing relationship.

The reason we must pursue others, is because it is clearly how God has always been towards, not only us, but towards all of man in all of history. Not only does God pursue, but he shows us the depth that he pursues and the characteristics of true Godly pursuit. Think of it.

God pursued Adam and Eve daily in the cool of the day

After they sinned...God pursued them in the garden asking, "Where are you?"


After kicking Adam and Eve out of the garden, God still pursued their children, Cain and Abel, for relationship

After Cain killed his brother, God pursued Cain and asked, "Where is your brother?"

As the story continues, sin was overflowing, but God pursued Noah.

God then pursued Abram and brought him out of the land filled with pagan gods and promised him a great nation that would glorify his name.

God gives us a clear understanding of how great his pursuit is when he tells the Israelites that he didn't choose them because they were strong, or some sort of great nation. It was merely because he truly loved them.(Deut 7:6-9)

This continues as God's nation is built and decides to leave him and intermarry with pagan countries, etc. When his people find trouble, God pursues them and saves them, but always desiring a relationship with them.

I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts
Isaiah 65:2

After pursuing this nation for hundreds of years through the prophets that weren't listened to (Jer 35:15) God finally showed how far he would go in this pursuing. He sent his Son to us. He literally came down to earth in the flesh to pursue us. This pursuit, the depth of this pursuit, shows us how far we are to go. Jesus died on the cross. He gave up his very life for us, not only that, but he is now "trapped" in the flesh, as an eternal Being, in a human body (although glorified, still flesh of some sort) for eternity. That's the depth of God's pursuit for us. Do you fathom this? That through all of this, all this pursuit, that even as the Christ is hanging on the cross, being spit on, he still pursues by asking the Father to forgive them.

Not only do we see this in the scriptures, but ask the Spirit to show you how much he has pursued you, even while you were yet a sinner. We clearly see that God has always pursued people, even though they rejected him.

So, the question comes, "What does Christ tell us if we turn to him, what is this going to cost us?"

Everything.

Jesus tells us to take up our cross and follow him. He tells us to be a living sacrifice, that to gain life, we are to lose it. This is the depth of discipleship.

So, now what?

If discipleship starts the second we meet people and begin relationship with them, when are we allowed to stop pursuing them? If we see how God has pursued man, and ultimately us, the answer is never. We are to pursue in love always. No matter the response from the other person. This is why we are to return evil with love. This is why we are to love our neighbor like ourselves.

Christendom has a terrible name of pursuing others like a zit faced teenager pining after the cheer captain that is out of reach. Once rejected, the cowardly teen grovels in self misery and pity. He then either gives up pursuing women entirely, or moves on to another in his pitiful state.

This isn't to be us. We are to pursue others as God pursued us. Not in some sort of annoying way, but in a way out of love for our neighbor to show them what God is like. When we "move on" or give up, we do not show off our God, but we show off what it looks like when we live by our own power with our own motives.

Our goal in discipleship is not to convert people, our goal is to show others what God is like. Period. We water, we plant...God grows. The problem is that we plant the seed and stare at it for a day and see no growth so we move on...leaving the seed feeling unloved and rejected by yet another crappy Christian farmer.

We have the very power of God living inside of us that raised Jesus from the dead. We don't serve some sort of beggar. We serve the King of kings. Lord of lords.

What if we lived like this? What if we lived in light of what Christ has done for us and the depth of pursuit he showed us to others? How would this change our community? How would this change our relationships? How would this change the views of the people of God?

This type of discipleship that pursues because we have been pursued and loved by God is one that will lead to death...death of self. Because as one pursues like this, we pursue those that don't want to be pursued, we pursue those that hate us in return, we pursue those that reject us over and over again. But, if our identity is found in Jesus and not our converts or how people react to us, it is a beautiful thing to die to that self.

Let me ask you. If Jesus told you, "Your neighbor will never turn to me, but will remain in his sin for eternity." Would you pursue him and love him like you love yourself still? Or would you stop the relationship and focus your efforts elsewhere? The answer to that question shows your heart why you are pursuing.

We should always pursue to show off what our God is like, not for the sake of what we'll gain from that pursuit and relationship, knowing that it lead our King to his death...but this death leads to life.

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Who is God? A Mere List of Facts?

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
John 8:31-32

In discipleship we have taken this and flopped it. We start like this:

Know the truth

Be set free

Follow Jesus

because of this, many people have never actually seen what God is like, they only know facts about him. They can list off many things:

He is loving, gracious, all knowing, all powerful, everywhere, infinite, provider, caring, passionate.

Here is the issue... We never fall in love with anyone by a list of things we know of them when it's made like a grocery list. I was speaking to a young woman who said she was struggling with her faith, and very confused on who God was and struggled as well because this confusing God was also the very one she was supposed to tell her friends about, strangers about, neighbors about. She would list off all the things above but for some reason they didn't like her algarhythm of a god.



I then pressed into her.

She has a boyfriend so I asked her: What if I were trying to introduce you to your boyfriend before you guys met and I said:

He has two eyes, two legs, a face, hair, a mouth, he eats, he hugs people and he wears clothes.

Will you be so caught up about him that you'd fall in love with him?

She laughed and said of course not. I said, "how have you fell in love with him?" She responded with: our time in relationship with each other. Exactly. She spent time with and walked in relationship and life with him to see what he was like. So much so, that if I were to tell her, " Your boyfriend is a thief and a liar" you wouldnt believe me, because of your understanding of who he is and what he is like.

This is how it is with God. He has always wanted relationship with us, so we could show off what he is like to the entire world. This is why discipleship starts with the first time we have contact with a person. We show off what God is like as we walk in God's ways. Because we aren't merely memorizing facts about God, but actually experiencing those facts in relationship with him, we can show him clearly to others. So, instead of just saying God provides, we see that he provides as we lean on his provision and wisdom. We don't merely call him comforter, but we have experienced his comfort during our lives. These things are what we then show off to others as we live in community with them. Up close. So, when they begin to trust in Jesus, they've already seen what a disciple does and experienced it. Because of this, they have a relationship with God and not merely head knowledge that was proven to be more believable than the alternative.

Where did we get so off track? We've never had relationships like this. We've never merely known facts about someone and said we were in intimate relationship with them. . But, we can see many people that are living this way. They believe this list of facts, then they work the rest of their lives trying to do things to prove that God is real and true, the same way they know it. In reality, they've never been set free. They are still a slave. Jesus' burden is heavy, not light. And, in the end, the gospel isn't good news and it definitely doesn't bring great joy. Maybe this is the reason why so many pastors and Christians are burnt out...they have a relationship with a spreadsheet of facts instead of walking in the ways of Jesus in real relationship with the Father that sets them free, brings great joy, and who's burden is light.

We need to go back to discipleship that starts with walking with others as we walk with God in the cool of the day, so they'll know the truth and so that truth sets them free as it has set us free.

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What Part of the Gospel is Optional?

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Using Hip Hop to Mentor: Celestine

When I first started going to my new church, Harambee, one of the pastors had announced that a hip hop artist named Celestine was going to be coming up from L.A. to partner with our after school program (the after school program gets about 125 youth every day from Renton High School, which is one of the most racially diverse schools in Washington state). I was excited to see what he was going to be doing, but still, when you hear of Christian and Hip Hop together, most of the time it just doesn't work. Not only is the video below top notch, but so is the song. Celestine, and his wife Tara, are still adjusting to life in Seattle and ministering to the youth, but the stories of mentorship are already very exciting. I am very excited to get the chance to possibly help them out by doing some design work and have really enjoyed getting to know them for the past 6 months. If you want to know more about their ministry, check them out at Celestine Rap. (also consider supporting their cause through prayer and financial support)



Here is a quick bio of Celestine off of his website:

Celestine Ezinkwo was born in Africa in 1984. He is a singer and a dancer and spent most of his time singing in the church choir, worked as a hip-hop choreographer and served the oppressed. He lived in Nigeria until he was 19 years old. In 2003 he moved to America to further pursue his musical abilities as a rapper. Since living in America he has discovered his strong passion is to liberate the oppressed through rap music and educating his listeners on how they can be proactive in making a change and helping kids and women around the world. Celestine has been on MTV Asia and worked with different musicians and organizations that are passionate about ending injustices around the world. Celestine’s heart is to CRY OUT for those that can’t cry out for themselves and to make a change partnering with others who have the resources and the passion to free kids and women around the world from the oppression they face on a daily basis. “Speak up for those that can’t speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”(Proverbs 31:8-9)


Expect me to really be doing some major hype for his album that should be coming out sometime in the Spring or Summer of this year.

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