Am I called to Ministry? How can I know?

 Isaiah 6:8 (ISV) Then I heard the voice of the LORD as he was asking, "Whom will I send? Who will go for us?" "Here I am!" I replied. "Send me."


Ah, the grand call to adventure.  Every hero has accepted the call and began the journey of love and service.  In a sense, every Christian is called to ministry of some sort.  It doesn't have to be flying to the Congo and teaching natives about Jesus.  It can be helping your landlady take out her garbage.  It's as simple as helping set up chairs for a youth event.  Or writing a Christian blog.  Or sharing some scripture on Facebook or Twitter.  

But what about full time ministry?  How can we know if we're called to full time service to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ?  

I've asked myself that same question.  But not too many times.  Deep down I just knew.  No one could tell me.  No church leader could say "yes" or "no."  It was something God placed on my heart.  Don't ever assume that because a certain leader or friend or colleague doesn't think you're right for the call, that you should give it up.  That's between you and God.  Of course the confirmation of friends and family is certainly helpful.  

For me, in the Baptist church it seemed like doors kept closing in my face.  I was concerned about that.  But then I ended up with the Salvation Army, working for them.  And when I worked there it was like every door would open as I walked up to it.  Bosses and colleagues were telling me "yes, definitely, get involved, you're perfect for it."  So it began to confirm that there was a road ahead in ministry.  Imagine if I had given up in the Baptist church and assumed that I did not have a call.  That wouldn't have been good!  But I'm not trying to say here that what happened with the Baptist/E-free churches was a bad thing.  God moves hearts.  He didn't want me there, but that doesn't mean they were bad.  God was just maneuvering me where he wanted me.  I'll always be grateful for the people who helped mold me into a follower of Jesus.  Jesus just led me to a place he knew I would flourish.  Of course it hurt my feelings at times.  That happens in life.  

Even further, for all I know God might lead me elsewhere from here.  It's hard to know exactly what he's up to.  He's a complicated God, the one we have.  He moves in the shadows at times, and at other times he comes out in the bright lights.  I've seen wonderful things happening in the past few weeks.

I met with Salvation Army officers from Divisional Headquarters in Milwaukee.  The next step for me will be moving to a ministry internship somewhere out of state.  I don't know where yet.  It's all part of the SA Ministry Development Program.  I'm excited.  I'm very excited.  

Originally I had envisioned myself in a very different place.  But God knows what is best for us.  He knows where we can do the most good.  Since working at the TLC shelter, I've had the chance to minister to God's favorite people: the poor, the lost, and the needy.  Who did Jesus spend his time with?  The poor.  The Lord has a special place in his heart for the poor, lost, and broken.  I know, I'm one of them. 

Here's what I can tell you about ministry.  A lot of the wrong people are in ministry for the wrong reasons.  It's tough.  We desperately need one thing for ministry in the world:  People who really believe God's word is true.  Not kind of, not a little, not mostly.. but truly truly understand that the Bible is real.  That every word in there is true.  We desperately need people who understand that heaven, hell, Jesus Christ, are not just nice stories, or cool things, or traditions, but that these are realities.  Not just words on the page, or conceptual, but when we turn our heads up and look at the sky, or across the city, or around the neighborhood... we know it's real.  That we know and truly know, that in this physical world these people around us are facing eternal disconnection from God.  And live accordingly.  

Maybe you're called to ministry.  Maybe you need to pave a trail for those who feel like they have no way to God.  Think of all the people groups that aren't necessarily apposed to God, but they don't want to leave their culture?  Punk rockers comes to mind.  Indie rockers.  Metal heads?  Artsy people?  Writers?  Libertarians?  Democrats?  Republicans?  Occupiers?  Anime fans?  Movie buffs?  Gamers?  Nerds?  Motorheads?  Jocks?  Hippies?  New agers?  

And what about international missions?  So many countries remain largely unreached.  Japan is 98% unreached.  India is largely unreached (over 750 million people in fact remain unreached).  Countries like Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria remain largely unreached.  And those are countries where you could be killed for even speaking the name of Christ.  No one said it would be easy.  But it will be a challenge.  People sometimes think Christianity is for wussies and girly men.  It's not.  It's for the brave, the courageous, and the strong.

You get the idea.  If you're a little "different" like me, maybe God is calling you in an unexpected way.  Maybe he wants you to make a niche for people like you.  I'm sure a lot of people feel funny about going into churches where everyone dresses a certain way.  Like I've said in the past, many don't want to join evangelical culture.  And they don't have to.  Jesus didn't tell new believers to wear the Jewish colors, attend Jewish events, and go to Jewish festivals and holy days.  Nope, his followers went to the Gentiles (non-Jews) and did not require them to follow the laws of the Jews.  In the same way, maybe God is calling you to start a church or write a blog or reach out to people like you who don't see a clear way to come to Jesus.  

But how can I know? 

Here's the thing, you're never going to know 100%.  That's the whole point.  You step out in faith, in the incredible act of trusting God on his word and believing what he says in spite of all the horrors of this broken world.  Something deep down will push you in that direction.  Cultivate that.  Build on it.  Think outside the box.  Of course pray about it.  Talk to friends and family about it.  Write about it, read about ministry.  Just turn it around in your head and think about it.  Start to generate some ideas.  If it's of God, he'll make a way in the desert.  He'll help you pave a trail in the wilderness for those like you to come to the one we all must come to: Jesus Christ.

What is the Gospel?

What is the Gospel?

We can know scriptures, we can memorize verses, and we can tell people about the Bible, but what in essence is the basic message of the full Bible, cover to cover? 

To me, we see a description of two basic issues. First, we have a problem. Second, we have a solution to that problem.

How are we as humans to understand this? We are biological life forms dreamt up by the mind of God.  We gain certain pieces of knowledge, but as we grow into adulthood we are often fundamentally apposed to God unless taught.

Let's start here: What does the word "Gospel" mean?  

The meaning of the word "Gospel" is "Good news."  So maybe some of the preachers had you thinking it was bad news.  But it's not.  It's very very good news.  

But to understand a solution to a problem, we have to first understand the problem. What is the problem? The problem is man's disconnection from God. Theologians call this the problem of sin.

Mankind went away from God thousands of years ago. Our ancestors chose a different path. They rejected the awesome presence of God, and decided to try to make it on their own. Now today we live in the wake of that.  

Really it's not hard to see. There is corruption in every level of business and government and banking. We live in a time of war, disease, and death. Sometimes we can forget that as Americans though. We live in a sort of bubble, where we educate ourselves into imbecility, in vain attempts to convince ourselves that "everything is fine and dandy." But it's not. Perhaps the most clear witness for the problem of sin and evil, is the fact that the people of the Earth have more than enough to go around as far as food, water, and shelter... Yet people by the tens of millions starve to death, live homeless, and have access to no clean water.  

So it's clear there is a problem.  I hope we can all see the problem.  I was debating with a sociology major at the University of Wisconsin, and she just couldn't seem to see the problem. The UW is a high quality school. So I was surprised. I confronted her with the facts.  She just kept talking about how we need to reduce the population.  Which isn't actually necessary at all. There are vast amounts of resources that are being hoarded by the few, to the death of the many in countries like India, Pakistan, Tanzania, China, and so many others.  It makes me think that Malcom Muggeridge may have been correct when he wrote, “So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over--a weary, battered old brontosaurus--and became extinct.”― Malcolm Muggeridge, Vintage Muggeridge: Religion and Society

The problem stems back to the very first humans, Adam and Eve.  The problem can be surmised as three separate issues that led to the fall of man. Unbelief in God, as the first humans trusted instead the tempter, and themselves.  Satan had said, "Did God really say that?"  He called into doubt the truth. Second, succumbing to pride and temptation to power, when Satan said to them, "You will be like God."  Third, blaming others, and blaming God. When God asked Adam, "Did you eat from the tree which I told you not to?"  What did Adam say?  He replied, "The woman..." It's always somebody else's fault isn't it? When I got in trouble, it was society, it was conditions, it was the corrupt government, it was the bad laws, it was my parents, it was divorce, it was my friends, it was this, it was that.

 

And by the time it's over, I was just a helpless victim, standing there, and they just did it to me.  But I knew deep down that wasn't true.  The problem starts with me, and my actions, on a daily basis, not society.  Not conditions.  Not labor laws.  Not drug laws.  Me, and what I did.  And who I think about before anyone else... Me.  

What did Adam say after "The woman"?  He said, "who you gave me!"  So, not only is it the woman's fault, it is also God's fault, because God made the woman. Wow. Just wow. How often have I done the exact same thing? Like Cool Hand Luke in the chapel crying out to God, "You're the one who made me this way!"  I have blamed God for my problems, for my sorrows, when it wasn't God.  It was me. Or it was other people. But it wasn't God.  

Genesis 3:12 (ESV) The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”    

That is the problem.  Man turned on God.  And that heart of turning from God, has been passed on down the ages to every person born on Earth.  All the way down to me and you.  

From Genesis to Malachi the problem of sin is described in great detail.  The Old Testament is our total guide to the problem of sin.  We see the history of the Earth, of God's interactions with man after the fall.  He helps man, he encourages man, he pursues man as they run off in chase of many schemes.  The laws passed down to Moses and the Israelites helps man understand the problem even more clearly.  The laws of the OT helped man understand that there are standards.  There are reasons why God should be obeyed.  Because if all of these laws were followed to the letter by all people, there would be no war, no starvation, and no sorrow.  But the law informed man of another problem: Even when someone wants to sincerely live a good life, they seem to trip up and not be able to follow it perfectly.

I can understand why. There is a lot of mind pollution in the world.  I was watching television recently and on average about every 10 seconds as I clicked through channels I would see a female scantly clothed, whether on a commercial or fitness program or sitcom.  Or I would see food painted up to look very scrumptious indeed.  Or car advertisements.  Or reality shows where people buy extravagant houses or are told to do ridiculous things for large cash rewards.  In summary, a lot of depraved weirdness on that screen.  The point is there's a lot of temptation.  

So man falls, man receives the law, man cannot seem to follow the law.  That is the problem.

Now we come to the solution.  And my goodness, is it a beautiful solution.  It is a majestic solution.  It is a wondrous solution.  It is a deep and meaningful solution.  It is the solution of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.   

God comes in human form to deal with the problem himself.  He offers himself as the way in which humans can be made right.  God gives himself as the bridge to righteousness.  God comes as Jesus Christ, teaches the truth, but more so, he is the truth in human form.  He lives the truth, and Jesus does not just teach the way, he is the way.  His righteousness is the gift.  This completes our passage into right relationship with God.  Christianity could be called "the way."  In the book of Acts it's often called "the way."  Because it's not necessarily about reading the Bible, it's not necessarily about loving or helping others, it's about personally believing in and receiving Christ as a graft onto my soul, a transfusion of righteousness to defeat the nature of sin within me.  It is surgery, to change me from wickedness to righteousness.  

God recognizes the problem more than people or society or the "experts."  The problem is not around us, the problem is within us, and that is why the Christian message is the truth.  It's a painful message at times, because I must admit that I am part of the problem and that I must change.  But I don't have to drag myself up by my own bootstraps.  Jesus Christ lifts me up.  I don't come to Jesus perfect, I come to Jesus humbly admitting that I'm the problem, me, and that I need his help to be part of the solution.

Now today, I, we, you and I get to be part of the solution.  We get to help, instead of hurt the world.  We get to love instead of take.  We get to give instead of always receiving.  This is the way.  It ain't easy to hear, that's why so many people refuse it.  Why?  Because of the same three problems from Genesis chapter 3.  One, Unbelief, "There is no god."  "The Bible is full of errors."  "Christians are hypocrites."  "Well I've never met Jesus."  And on and on.  Two, pride.  "I don't need God."  "I'm just fine."  "I'm not perfect, but I'm certainly not as bad as.. *insert person or people group."  "I don't need God to be moral."  And three, blaming God and others.  "Look what my parents did to me."  "God made me this way."  "Society did this to me."  "If I wasn't raised in poverty, I would've been something special."   "It's all my ex-wife's fault." And on and on and on.  That's why everyone isn't Christian.  And God treasures us, and our individual rights and freedom to choose so much that he won't force eternal joy on us.  We can always choose sin, depravity, and death.  But we don't have to.  

Many can see the problem, and the solution.  They humble themselves.  They believe upon the evidence and the word of the Bible.  They meet Jesus.  They trust in him despite everything the world shouts.  They blame no one, and take responsibility for their situation and their actions, past, present, and future.  They don't try to do it alone though, they rely on Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide the way and change them internally.  

That person is the Christian who has received the Gospel, the good news, that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.  The Gospel very simply, is the message that Jesus Christ can help someone like me, a sinner, to reconnect to God today, and expect an eternal life with God after death in the future, past the veil of the shadow of death. 

What is the Gospel?  Justification for a person, from all their misdeeds, and rebirth into the family of God by The Way, Jesus Christ, or in Hebrew he is called: Yeshua.  

God bless you, amen.

The Stairway to Heaven

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. John 1:1. 

Have you ever noticed that?  The Bible is not simple, and it's not man made.  It's all interconnected.  The first verse of the Old Testament says "in the beginning God created."  Of course we know from Genesis chapters 2 and 3 that things went wrong.  

Then we look at the magnificent gospel of John, arguably the beginning of the New Testament, and it begins with the same words "In the beginning" but this time it says "was the Word" a term used to represent Jesus Christ.  In those first few paragraphs of John we have an incredible mystery.  It is stated that all things were created by Christ and for Christ.  But more so when examining John 1:1 we see that though there was a problem, there was already a solution to that problem in Jesus Christ.  From the very beginning there was an answer to the problem of sin.  

One of the oldest books in the Old Testament is the book of Job.  Job is a book very close to my heart.  I read it vigorously while I was in jail.  It helped me identify with the problem of suffering.  But in that book Job utters these prophetic words: 

"I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth." (Job 19:25)

It was said that Job was a righteous man in the sight of the Lord (Job 1:1).  Yet he suffered immensely.  Even though Job was so righteous and pure, he still knew that he needed a savior.  Job and God actually talk to one another.  And do you know what God says to Job?  He asks him somewhere between 50 and 60 questions regarding his worldview.  It helps Job understand himself.  God is not the problem.  Man's distorted worldview is the problem.

But Job knew deep down that God had provided a provision for his malady, Jesus Christ.  

Think of another Old Testament hero, not nearly as upright and true as Job.  We can think of Jacob.  He was a troublemaker.  If there is any one person in the history of man that I deeply identify with even more than Job, it's Jacob.  Jacob was trouble.  I used to be trouble.  Sometimes I still am trouble!  But God made a great nation of Jacob.  More so than Isaac or even Abraham, Jacob's name is forever connected to Israel.  The time in the book of Revelation when Israel's feet are placed to fire is called simply "The time of Jacob's trouble."  Not Abraham's trouble or Isaac's trouble, but Jacob.  Why is that astounding?

Because Jacob was such a deceitful man.  He ran from his problems.  But God pursued him as he fled.  Do you recall the night that Jacob had his dream?  It's one of the most majestic and haunting records in the Old Testament, as follows:

Genesis 28:10-22 (NIV)
¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. ¹¹ When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. ¹² He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ There above it^[a] stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.^{[b] 15} I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” ¹⁷ He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
¹⁸ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel,^[c] though the city used to be called Luz.
²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear ²¹ so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord^[d] will be my God ²² and^[e] this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”

And God and man met, wrestling all night in Genesis chapter 32:

²⁴ So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. ²⁵ When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. ²⁶ Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
²⁷ The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.

Do you know what "Jacob" means in Hebrew?  It means deceiver.  Jacob was willing to admit that he was a lying cheat who had stole the blessing from his brother Esau.  So once he had admitted his sin, and laid it bear, God made a great nation of him.

This story is very close to my heart.  I did not come to God on my shiny spotless record.  I came to God annihilated by sin and hanging off a cliff, below an eternal abode of outer darkness.  We each hang from that cliff, every single person.  Some know it, most don't.  And it won't matter who knew and who didn't know.  

Think again to the vision of the stairway to heaven.  The majestic stairway, with angels going up and down upon it.  What is the stairway?  

Perhaps a better question is... who?  

In John 1:50-51 (NIV) Jesus said to Nathaniel, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on^' the Son of Man.”
  
Jesus Christ is the stairway in the dream of Jacob.  Jesus told it to Nathaniel, referencing the dream of Jacob in Genesis 28.  Jesus was telling Nathaniel that he would see the path to heaven open up, finally, after thousands of years of waiting for the nation of Israel.  Finally the way would be made, by which man could be reconciled to God.  

Jesus Christ is the stairway to heaven.  And there is no other. 

As an old mentor of mine used to say: "Take the deal."  

Or as Brandon Summers (The Helio Sequence) accurately sung it: "I just wanna know,
Cuz it's time that we end the day,
And you can't even sleep at night
When will you realize?
You don't even know...
You're only falling to rise again.
You're only lost to be found again.
It only ends to begin again."
- (Let it Fall Apart)

Sometimes, things have to happen a certain way.  I used to feel singled out for suffering.  I feel so weak sometimes.  Not like those "strong people" out there.  But turns out I'm one of the lucky ones.  How can I rise if I've never fallen? How could I know that I need God if I feel I really don't?  There are a lot of unlucky people who haven't been through much.  I've been through it.  And I know.  I need God.  I just do.  There isn't anything wrong with that either.  It's the natural state.  It's right.

I've dropped my weapons, and ended my own personal rebellion.  Have you dropped yours?  Have you left behind the self serving rebellion?  Have you joined the righteous remnant?  Have you stepped into the Spirit?  As Thom Yorke (Radiohead) might put it, maybe it's time to "give up the ghost?"

Falling to my knees in front of the fire place, I called upon Jesus Christ.  I called loudly, with all my might.  Now the painting at the top of this post hangs above that fireplace.  The ladder to heaven.  I've dreamt of forests since I was young.  I've dreamt of beautiful, majestic pathways through the wilderness.  For so many years I wondered what the right way was.  I asked the questions.  But I never had an answer.  Thankfully.. once enveloped by total darkness, Jesus Christ intersected me on my journey through that woods, along the yellow brick road.  Much like the way Eric Metaxas describes his dream of the golden fish he pulled from the meta-consciousness lake, Jesus Christ stepped into my demented delusion of the new agey meadow forest, and displayed himself as the passage, not to the left, but to the right, himself, as the way, the truth, and the life.  I need all three.  I need a passage out of this nightmarish false reality, this consumerist delusion.  And I need the truth so desperately, in a world full of lies.  Most importantly, I need life in a world where death is the norm.  

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”