Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

As Southern Baptists, we absolutely live for that first part.  Everything we do is focused on getting people baptized, and without rest we preach that we are sent by God to make that happen.  It’s seemingly all we do, and yet we continue to fall farther and farther behind.

Because of that, we’re constantly analyzing why that is and what we can do about it.  The two solutions I hear most often is that we need to teach people “strategies for sharing their faith” and that we need to “work harder.”  I don’t think those are wrong — they absolutely produce results — but, at least in my life, I’ve realized that they only address surface-level symptoms of a fundamental problem.

For me, the real answer is the second part of that very same sentence: teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  I see so much emphasis on “getting them saved” and motivating us to “go and tell,” but so little on making us the kind of people for whom exhortations like that would be completely unnecessary.  If we were living our lives as God wanted us to live them, those things would be a very natural result, not something we had to beg and plead for.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Instead, this is the impression I have of how we commission our people to go and tell:

That’s definitely not what we think we’re doing, but I think it’s how many of us feel.  Our only qualifications are that we love Andy God and we want to do something for him.  Other than that, we’re being forced into a role that we accept very begrudgingly (if at all) because we don’t feel at all adequate for it.

That’s not how God planned it.  We’ve all been given gifts by the Spirit for use in his ministry, so we’re completely equipped for what he wants us to do.  But we have to remember that it’s his ministry that we’re carrying out, not our own.

Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Paul said, “Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.”

I’ve totally missed all of that.  In my own life, the talk of needing to work harder and of my own personal responsibility to help people connect to God has led to me trying to do this not in the power of the Spirit, but in my own power.  That’s a death spiral.  The harder I work, the worse results I have.  The worse results I have, the harder I work.  The harder I work, the worse results I have…

I need to completely change my focus.  Rather than focusing on what I’ve been called to do, I need to focus on who has called me to do it.  As I do that, everything else begins to fall into place.  “Shazam,” as Gomer would say.

I also have to remember that making disciples is much more than just “getting them saved.”  The more we can help people become completely devoted followers of Christ, the more the “getting them saved” begins to take care of itself.  I need to focus on discipleship at least as much as I focus on going and telling — if not much more.

Apple fans loyal through it all

Through it all what?  I thought Apple was perfect?!

Oh, gosh.  This is such a blow.

Phillies, in need of left-handed bat, deal for Stairs

HA!  Everybody knows there’s no such thing as a left-handed bat.  Suckers!

Does that mean it’s going to be another Red Alert air quality day?

Today I’m starting a new series just for Bryant (and anyone else whose friends have neglected to regularly share the wonders of YouTube) — the You Tube Clip of the Week.

This is a very oldie (but goodie) — 7 million views already — but I was amazed to find that even Keith hadn’t seen it yet.  Let’s start off with a bang.

The United States (3-1) never trailed against the mustachioed Croats (3-1)…

In an article entitled “No. 44 Has Spoken,” Der Spiegel’s Gerhard Spörl writes:

Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin’s Siegessäule on Thursday could recognize that this man will become the 44th president of the United States. He is more than ambitious — he wants to lay claim to become the president of the world.

It was a ton to absorb — and what a stupendous ride through world history: the story of his own family, the Berlin Airlift, terrorists, poorly secured nuclear material, the polar caps, World War II, America’s errors, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, freedom. It’s amazing anyone could pack such a potpourri of issues into the space of a speech that lasted less than 30 minutes.

Indeed, Barack Obama has his own sound — it’s more utopian, he speaks of the general human desire for better conditions for all of humanity; and he speaks of the longing for strong and dynamic presidents and chancellors who are capable of acting on a global scale. With this drive and this radiance, he managed to drive Hillary Clinton out of the campaign. It is also the way he will outpace John McCain by November 4. It is the way he took the hearts of Americans by storm, and it is the way he is now taking Europe by storm.

Tim LaHaye, please call your office.

Premium Christian Sunglasses

Does this mean I can’t wear my Wal-Mart sunglasses anymore?

Man, so many great slogans that could apply here.

• Premium sunglasses for premium Christians.
• The only sunglasses company that recommends looking directly at the Son.
• What would Jesus wear?
• Because the Helmet of Salvation doesn’t come with UV protection.
• Blocks the Sun, not the Son.

From the beginning, God has always been able to do things in and with my life.  Either by his design or by his desire, though, the magnitude of those things has always correlated very closely with my willingness to change myself to be more like who he wants me to be.  And not surprisingly, those changes become harder and harder to make as they cut closer and closer to the very foundation of who I am.

What is surprising to me, though, is how unwilling I can be to make those changes.  Not that I outright refuse to do what he wants me to, but rather I am one of the world’s great rationalizers — finding “good” reasons to do something just a little differently than he wants me to do it.

It’s surprising to me because I have for years acknowledged that the success that I have had was not based on my performance at all — so much so that I took the name of my consulting company from Ephesians 3:20:

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think

However, it’s not surprising to me because I have had a very difficult time translating that from something I know to be true intellectually to something I know to be true deep in my soul — moving it from head knowledge to heart knowledge.  I can tell by the way I act that — while it is definitely becoming more of a truth to me every day — it’s still largely something I think rather than something I believe, and there’s a huge difference between the two.

The picture at the top of this post is a Ferrari Scaglietti 612. I have it on my desktop to try to remind me constantly that my ability to accomplish things that have an eternal value has very little to do with me.

Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson called it one of the most astonishing cars made the year he tested it, but as amazing as it is, it won’t even start without gas in it.  Even the Bugatti Veyron, the world’s fastest street-legal car, won’t do much for you without fuel.

To think that I can accomplish the things that I want to accomplish without the one who makes it happen is as inane as the guy who buys a Veyron thinking that the 6 MPG in city driving is a non-issue because gas is really optional anyway.