Get Up.

[Mark 2:1-12]

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. ² They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. ³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. ⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶ Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ⁷ “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

⁸ Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? ⁹ Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? ¹⁰ But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, ¹¹ “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” ¹² He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

If I had to guess, you have heard this story before. You were told how you needed to be a friend that would be willing to carry someone to Jesus, or something along those lines, which is great, but not the angle I am looking at this story today. I have been reading this passage over and over lately and wondering how it could be applicable to not just a room full of high school students, but for those of us who are in an “older” season of life. 

Usually when I write these blog post I take a very personal angle. I somehow tie in what has been going on in my life with the hopes to encourage you, but that is not the route I am going today. I want to challenge you.

Here is the layout. Jesus comes into town and goes to a house, a lot of people believe that this house belonged to Peter. People start showing up. All Jesus did was sit down in a house and people showed up to hear what He had to say. Why? Because when the Lord’s presence is resting in a place, people show up. Because when the Lord’s presence is resting in a place people show up with expectation.

Then the paralyzed man comes on the scene and the first thing Jesus tells the man is “Son, your sins are forgiven.” I found it a little odd at first that the first thing Jesus did was this and not heal his paralysis. If I was this man and was in this situation I would thought that it is great that my sins are forgiven but I came with the hopes to be healed of my paralysis.

You see, the man’s paralysis was the fruit and the man’s sins was the root. How often do we come with Jesus thinking we know what the problem is? Jesus I do not have any friends, Jesus I get in arguments all the time, Jesus I am not content, etc etc. In a way these things serve as our own paralysis and effect our walk with the Lord. We think we know what the problem is and we go to Him and ask for a solution/healing. The paralyzed man went to Jesus thinking that if he could walk again then all would be okay. But Jesus was telling him, you think you know the issue but you do not.

You have to deal with the root before you deal with the fruit.

I think when we come to Jesus with eager expectation and He does not do what we expected, it is because He wants us to have a revelation about who He is. The man came expectant to be healed of his paralysis, and although Jesus did eventually do that, it was not what He did first. He wanted the man to have a revelation. He wanted him to see that He was in fact Lord. That thought challenges/convicts me so much: when I go to Jesus with expectations of what I want Him to do and He does not do it I usually just get mad and miss the fact that He is trying to show me something about Himself.

After Jesus did this, forgave the man his sins, the “teachers of the law” also known as the scribes started calling Jesus a blasphemer, because by forgiving the man’s sins He was calling himself God. When really they were the ones who were blaspheming, by calling him a blasphemer. Not just the scribes, but us too.....we love to attack the things in other people that are actually in us.

Eventually Jesus tells the man “get up and take your mat home.”

This is it.

The man had heard the word spoken. Not only the word, but THE word Himself. When Jesus could have picked him up off the mat and set him on his two feet, He didn’t, but instead He told him to do something. He told him to get up.

I think that is where a lot of us are today. We have heard the word. We do not need another sermon. We do not need another face to face conversation with someone encouraging us through whatever we are struggling with. We do not need another conference. We just need to get up.

Too many of us are laying on our mats waiting for Jesus to pick us up when He told us to get up a long time ago. We have heard the word and we need to respond.

This is what I love though, after all this Jesus tells the man to take his mat with him. If I was this man I would have thought to myself, “nahh Jesus I have had that thing for long enough, I am good without it.” But Jesus told the man to take the mat with him as a reminder of what Jesus had done and as a reminder of what he got up from.

Maybe your mat is depression. Maybe your mat is insecurity. Maybe your mat is loneliness. Maybe your mat is the wrong life style. So many of us want to get up and walk away from our “mat” and never carry it with us again. But Jesus is saying, take it with you. It will serve as representation of me and all that I am able to do.

The story ends with the man getting up and walking home, but I like to think about the events that unfolded after. I imagine that the man goes home, his kids are waiting for him at the door, shouting to their mom to come see. I imagine his wife standing in the doorway seeing her husband walking for the first time and being amazed, and I imagine the man saying to her, “you do not even see the real miracle.”

We have to stop being so concerned with the fruit and look at the root --- Sin.

We have to stop being so set on having whatever it is removed from us as the thing that is the most important.

We have to see that what Jesus does in forgiving our sins is so much greater than any mat He could tell us to get up front.

We have to stop waiting for Jesus to do something that we could have done a long time ago if we would just respond to what He has already said.

Today, let us finally get up from our mats. Let us respond to the word/truth we have already heard. Let us deal with the root and not just the fruit. Let us never forget that Jesus forgiving our sins is the greatest healing that we could ever receive.

Are You Willing To Sit In Traffic?

Somewhere we went wrong.

It is like sitting in traffic and having your GPS tell you that you are going the right way, but your flesh takes over (Romans 8) and you decide you want to get off, go and find another route that doesn't have traffic and you end up getting lost or taking an even longer way home. This is all because we are not capable to sit through something that is not enjoyable.

We have taken this mentality and applied it in so many areas of our lives. Whether it is the hard conversations with friends, where we choose texting instead of face-to-face encounters. Whether it be never following up with that person we told we would get dinner with so many times. Whether it is not asking for forgiveness but instead letting time cover it up. But above all it is the spiritual aspects of our life we have let it stick to. 

If it not enjoyable, if it requires us to put in work, if it requires us to give of ourselves, or even deeper to see the wrongful things of ourselves, we do not want it. If is not entertaining, we act as if there is a do not enter sign flashing and we walk the other way. 

I think so many times people view life and the church like one of those Passage Malibu rehab commercials. I remember the first time I saw one of the commercials, and thinking if that is what rehab is like I want to go. The beach, the swimming pools, all the glitz and the glam, it was appealing to the eye. But if you know anything about rehab, it is not glitz and glam. Both of my brothers have been, and they would tell you that is the farthest thing from what it is, but they would also tell you it was still worth it. 

I cannot think of better correlation than this. With the hopes to draw people in, Passage Malibu has beautified a place that should not need to be beautified. Rehab centers are a place for you to get help, for you to find yourself once again, and for you to break free from the sin that is entangling you. If you want what it has to offer, you have to make the choice to want to go. It is hard, it is painful, but you can find freedom.

That is the church these days, and by church I mean places we gather. We beautify it with the hopes of appealing to those on the outside. We beautify it to draw people in. Yes, the church has so much offer, but at some point people have to make the choice to want it. They have to make the choice to come.

We do not have to beautify the church. We do not have to advertise how we can entertain you if you come. What the church has to offer is already beautiful.

A.W Tozer says, “Some go to church looking for consolation. We are encouraged to go to church to find peace and consolation. But the church is not a place to find consolation; it is a place to hear the gospel preached so you can find salvation. A big difference exists between being consoled and being saved. A man can find consolation and end up finally in hell. A man can be under blistering, terrifying conviction, get converted, and go finally to heaven.”

I like to think Tozer is saying, “hey sometimes just because it's enjoyable, easy, and looks good to everyone does not mean it is the most beneficial.”

Do not get me wrong, I believe fully in inviting people to church, and the importance of them finding Jesus, but I just think that we have moved to far on the spectrum to “feel good” messages and enjoyable moments, and because of it this mentality has manifested into our culture, into our friendships, into our work ethics, etc. etc.

Do we want to be people that are never willing to sit in the traffic?

Do we want to be people that only want to go to the places like Passages of Malibu because they look good?

Do we want consolation or salvation?

Or

Do we want to be people that just want to experience Jesus?

Life is full of hard moments, but do not ever think that Jesus is not in those hard moments. Sometimes it is in those hard moments that you experience him the most. I know I have. 

Conviction is not the best feeling in the world but the after taste of grace that comes with it is. 

Lets be people who are willing to sit in the traffic sometimes.

God of Comfort

This is a first for me. Grabbing my computer when it is nearly midnight, but I can’t sleep, so I thought maybe I should just write. Write because my heart is exploding with so many emotions. Write because the Spirit has been stirring in me all week and I have to try to take my thoughts and piece them together.

This is one of the hardest posts I have ever written because I know exactly what I want to say, but I do not know how to say it. I am just trusting that the Holy Spirit will show up like God’s word promises in Romans 8, intervene, and paint words onto this page.

This past week, as most of you know, there was a tragic accident where four UGA students lost their lives, and one is still in critical condition. I did not personally know these girls, but all week long I have been a mess. My heart has been so heavy for their families and friends. I did not know them, but hearing about their lives and how they lived has inspired and challenged me all week long.

Earlier this week a ministry out in Texas found me on Instragram and reached out about me writing a piece for their yearly advent book they put out every year. I happily agreed, and they sent me an email with the details and assigned me a word that they wanted my post to focus on: comforter.

What is a comforter? What does it mean to comfort someone? How does Jesus possess the quality of being a comforter? All questions that skipped through my mind throughout this week.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.” 1 Corinthians 1:3-5

Paul lays it out for us. It is not will God comfort us? It is not will God show up in our troubles? It is PRAISE be to God who is the God of all comfort. It is PRAISE be to God who comforts us in all of our troubles. You do not praise someone for something they might do. You praise someone for what they have already done.

Another translation says “the father of mercies.” It seems better, however, to take the words more literally, as stating that God is the originator of all mercies, the source from which they flow. 

I cried a lot of tears this week, tonight especially.  But I think those tears washed away a perspective and gave me a new one, a new awakening. Driving home after church I could not help but think about thirteen almost fourteen years ago when my family stood in the midst of death and looking at where we are now and seeing not just the faithfulness of God but the comfort. I wish I could say that in the middle of the hard times I was aware of all that the Lord was doing but I wasn’t. I am now learning that there is beauty in being honest. There is beauty in being real with a world that needs you to be honest with them. There is beauty in saying, “as obvious as it might have been I missed it.”

I did, I missed it.  I missed the fact that in the darkest days, God was still the God of all comfort. I missed the fact that in the sea of grief, God was still the originator of all mercies. We pray for Him to be those things to us. We pray for God to be a comforter, we pray for Him to bring mercies, but He already is. I knew this is who He was but my circumstance blinded me to the truth, just as it so often does to us.

Paul says “praise be to Him.” He was the God of all comfort all those years ago when Paul wrote this letter to the church of God in Corinth. He was the God of all comfort thirteen years ago when my dad died. He was the God of all comfort in some of my darkest days. Today, He is still the God of all comfort.

We pray for Him to be something, and Paul says we should just praise Him because He already is. He is already everything we need Him to be.

By watching the community of UGA this week rally together, I am seeing how they are taking Paul’s words, “God who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God,” and applying them. In old English, the word comfort can be used as a noun or a verb, but in both cases there is an implied meaning of “strengthen.” That is exactly what those students are doing. I read about the prayer nights and the worship songs people are singing all around campus. They are strengthening their campus by proclaiming Jesus. They are strengthening each other by speaking out the hope we have in Him. They are comforting.

But more than that, Agnes Kim, Kayla Canedo, Brittany Feldman, Christina Semeria, and Halle Scott are all comforting us because every single one of them is strengthening us. Strengthening us because their lives proclaimed Jesus, pointed to Him, and are still pointing us to Him.

It is a chain of events. God comforts us. We comfort others. But this only happens by realizing, understanding, and seeing Jesus is a God who comforts, not just sometimes but all the time. 

I miss it sometimes. I miss being able to see how the Lord was the God of comfort then just as He is now. But I will never miss it again. Instead I’ll praise Him. Because yesterday, today, and tomorrow He will never change. I have tasted and seen the God of comfort and now I can go be comfort to someone else.

No circumstances get to blind us from the truth anymore. Tears don’t just have to cloud our vision, but they can instead be the very thing that make us see clearly. It is the truths we stamp on our hearts day in and day out that become the foundation we stand on when things are falling apart.

Remind yourself as often as you need: He is a God of comfort.

Remind yourself so that you don’t ever miss it.

To Agnes Kim, Kayla Canedo, Brittany Feldman, Christina Semeria, and Halle Scott:

Thank you. Thank you for giving me eyes to see something I have needed to see for a long time. Thank you for living in such a way you were/are able to teach me something although we never met.  

Heaven will be a more crowded place because of these girls, but heaven can be even more crowded because of you. Ask Jesus for the eyes to see Him for who He is, and for eyes to be able to see Him as who He is even in the darkest days. Then go and proclaim it.

Friends, take heart. You do not have to ask for Him to be a comforter, He already is. Praise Him.

Jesus isn't Prince.

I am the type of person that when I get a certain thought it consumes me. It starts dancing in my mind and it sets itself on repeat all throughout the day, even to the point where I can’t sleep. Whether that is a good think or a bad thing I am not sure, but I guess that is just how the Lord wired me. I analyze things and process things so deeply.

If you have not heard, Prince died yesterday. I will be honest with you, I know maybe three Prince songs, but that doesn’t negate the fact the world shifted a little yesterday. The radio stations have been talking nonstop about his greatness, and playing his music. The headlines blew up, and twitter exploded with so many people paying their respects and expressing how sad they were to hear the news. This morning I was getting my haircut, scrolling through the iTunes charts and was blown away. Prince has dominated the charts. I guess people went crazy and started buying all of his music again. I am talking the #1 through the #25 spot were all Prince. Stay with me, I promise I am getting somewhere.

Then it hit me. Why do we do this?

When was the last time the radio played a Prince song? When was the last time his songs topped the itunes chart? He was an incredible musician no doubt, but he was old news to most. People want the latest and greatest, so it takes something “bad” for people to revisit what they once knew to be great.

We do this with Jesus. More often than we think. It is as if we find Him, we enjoy Him for the time being, and when something “better” comes along or He becomes “old news” He manifests into an afterthought. We treat Him like an artist. We like his music, but a couple weeks from now we won’t be listening to it, and we will not revisit Him until something bad happens.

Somewhere along the drive, we tossed Jesus out of the window and kept on driving, and it isn’t until something falls apart, or something happens that leaves us devastated and in question that we pull the car over and try to find Him.

It isn’t until something bad happens that we revisit what we once knew. It isn’t until then He gets to top the charts in our lives again. We will gladly, and easily give Him back that #1 spot, but on a chart that is  “who is to blame.” 

People who have so far removed Jesus from their vocabulary will in an instant shout out, “why did God do this?” But more than that, people who are Jesus followers do this too. They claim to love the Lord but they have a back up plan stored somewhere, just in case He doesn’t pan out. They live in a game of tug of war, being pulled back and forth between plan A and plan B, but when bad things happen they let go of the rope and fall right back into Jesus.

Let me clarify, there is grace for when we stray. There is always a “welcome home” mat waiting at the door for us, and a seat at the table. But somewhere along the way we have to stop treating Jesus like an artist that used to be popular.

If this is the mindset we are living in then we do not really love Him. Because if this is the mindset we are living in, we are basing our love for Him off of what He does and not who He is. People loved Prince, but they did not really know Prince. They loved him for his music. As soon as he wasn’t making new music, people were not as concerned with him. It was all about what he was doing/giving them.

I have not been able to shake this thought all day. The thought that: I don’t get to base my love for Jesus off what He does or doesn’t do. I don’t get to turn my back when He does something I don’t understand, and I don’t get to praise Him just when I think things are good.

I am reading a book right now and the common thread being weaved throughout the whole story is: stop performing to earn someone’s love. Just be.

Ultimately, we want someone to love us not for what we do, but for who we are. So why don’t we do this with the Lord? Let us not base our love for Him off what He does for us, or off how we think He is performing. We have to be madly in love with who He is. If we root ourselves in that place, when things happen, it will not let our love for Him swerve. Yes, hard times are going to come. Yes, we are going to sometimes question His plans, but from our lips will still come praise.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. " [Romans 8:28]

All things work together for the good of those who love him. To love Him, to really love Him, is to choose Him, every second of every day. It is to let Him hold a constant spot on the chart at #1. It is to let Him dominate the headlines of your life day in and day out.

I don’t want to treat Jesus like people are treating Prince. I don’t want to treat Jesus like a “used to be popular musician.” I don’t want to just play His music when things are bad, and I don’t want to just play His music because I finally revisited it and realized how great it was again. I want His music to be the soundtrack that I dance to day in and day out.

He is good.

He is safe.

He is sure.

He is constant.

He is love.

He is grace.

He is truth.

He is peace.

He could never do anything for us again, and we would still have a million reasons to be in love with who He is. Cause in the end, Jesus isn’t a prince. He is a King, and a King doesn’t get to be treated the same way a prince does.