John 13:34-35 A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

So often as Christians think our witness to the world relies on the way we love our neighbor, but how are you doing loving your family?

Jesus says rather, they (the world) will know we are His by the way we love one another (your spiritual family in Christ). Our greatest, most effective witness for Christ is shown in the way we love each other in the family of God. As God’s beloved children we reflect the love and values of our father. How are we doing at this? Lets be honest, most of us know our spiritual families can be rather dysfunctional.  What would it look like to truly love one another in the spiritual family God has placed you in, to live not only in unity but also in sacrificial giving and care for one another?

I am convinced that our neighbors are desperate for true genuine community, how inspiring would it be to see the family of God love each other with such passion and sacrifice that our neighbors would long to be part of such a community. This is possible!

So my question is; how come we don’t experience this in our churches? How is it that God’s family has become so divided, over so many things? Jesus in Matthew 12:25 says “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

If we want to see a movement of God’s Kingdom in our communities I suggest we start asking ourselves how we have divided it, and start taking steps to repair some broken relationships in the family. To “love one another” does not mean we have to be right, it means we have to sacrifice in love as our father did for us, that our focus in not on ourselves, but we in unity love each other and focus on our sisters and brothers that are still lost and looking for a way home.

Lessons from Jesus’ Yoke…
1. Jesus is our source of rest from religion, from duty to man, from our self made mouse wheels
2. Jesus is not like man; that is dominating and controlling, but rather is gentle and lowly in heart. He is patient and longsuffering, waiting for us, calling us into relationship with Him.
3. Learning from Jesus, bearing His yoke, is not supposed to be burdensome but life giving. If you feel burdened you need to stop and ask why?

So I have been waiting for some time to start writing this post. God has been up to more than I could ever explain this past year to lead Angelina and I to the point of jumping head first into pursuing Jesus and His kingdom through planting a church; Wave Church SD. In reality we really are not planting a church, we believe that Jesus builds his church, we rather are seeking God in community with a relentless passion to see His Kingdom come!

The truth is our journey to this point has not been easy or journeyed alone, so many people have come along side us as we experienced a major crisis of church that we found ourselves in over the last few years. It was through these individuals that God began to shape a dream, a Kingdom dream that could not be extinguished. A dream to see a genuine movement of Jesus in a community of believers set on living our lives to show the world that God is real. With a deep heart and passion to seek and follow Jesus in our daily lives, and experience the awesome power of God in our midst. This started as an experiment with a group of guys I love and cherish in my life. We journeyed through a season of Listening Prayer, as we learned to listen to the voice of God and obey,  we saw God begin to move in our lives, marriages, and community, God began to place a larger Kingdom dream on all our hearts.

As pastors we often have a hard time coming to the point of being real and honest about the situations we find ourselves in when it comes to church and ministry. We hold out hope that God is in this, all the time, and pain, and struggle, and investment is all worth it. But what if somewhere along the way we had stopped giving our best to the King and His Kingdom and instead we found ourselves just investing in someone else’s kingdom, or even your own. What if all of a sudden it all just seemed so empty and pointless? God is nowhere to be found and to be honest you wonder if he really ever was. Over the last year God has re-captured my heart for what he called me to when I first went into ministry years ago, to pursue Jesus with a reckless abandon. While on a spiritual retreat in Georgia with some amazing people God spoke a verse that has changed my life as it comes to following Jesus. Galatians 5:1 ” It is for freedom Christ has set you free, stand firm therefore, and no longer be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” For me this has meant a relentless pursuit to remove every hurdle and yoke of slavery that empty religion and institutional church had placed in my life and stood in the way of me following Jesus.

The statistics are out in America we are now entering the post-Christian age, the church is on the decline. Millions of people in America are walking away from church. The reality is that even though many are walking away from Church they are not walking away from Jesus. These individuals are seeking a faith free from the hurdles of institution and religion. How many of us in ministry as Pastors really wish we could walk away as well to pursue the Savior we have given our lives in service too. I believe it is not too late for the church but God is calling us out to make a change, to seek Him with a relentless passion and to remove the hurdles that stand in the way of following our Savior, to be the incarnation of Jesus on earth!

It has been several years since I have practiced Lent. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, repentance and self-denial for the culmination of the Holy Week, that being the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While I have to admit I am not one for Christian traditions that often lead to a spiritless and empty routine that lacks the true significance of the intent. I have felt a drawing of my life to truly Seek God with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength allowing Jesus to lead where ever he desires. This is a season of complete abandonment of self to truly leave all and follow him.  Lent provides us with the opportunity to bring our prayers of lament and brokeness before God. There is only so long we can go one pretending everything is ok. In truth there is a lot of healing that takes place when we can finally expose the rawness of our hearts to allow God to heal the deepest wounds. This is, of course, countercultural to us; as a culture we try hard to avoid death, grief, and pain. So in our churches we don’t regularly enter into the kinds of faith practices that help us live with and through our pain. Lament opens the possibility for us to face the doubts and questions we have and then turn them toward an all loving and sovereign God who has shoulders much larger than ours that can handle them. I have been moved by a very simple passage the last few months. Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” I believe that if we were honest with ourselves we would recognize much in our hearts that truly do not want to  seek and find God. We are content only allowing him to have parts of our hearts that are tidy and clean. But what if? What if we truly searched God with all of our hearts, undivided, honestly, humbly, what could we be missing!! Lent for me is an all in search for God, and a reminder of the words of Jesus, ” If you want to save your life, you must lose it, for whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

^{Matthew 4: 17}

The first words of Jesus in his pubic ministry as recorded in Matthew was a call to repentance to the reality that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. But what does this really mean? In the greek this phrase is translated ” Change your perspective for the one who holds the royal power of the universe is in your midst.” What an amazing reality!! Jesus Christ, the royal power of the universe is in our midst, the only thing keeping us from seeing him is our own faith that the God of the universe would care enough to touch our lives personally.   But how sad that so often I have missed this. We often miss the incredible reality of Jesus in our midst not because he is not moving, but because we are to consumed with the ordinary. A great mentor of mine recently told me, ” you will never find Jesus and His Kingdom in the future, until you find Jesus and His Kingdom today.” This has been the motivating verse of my life these days. For to long I found myself seeking God for some distant personal agenda for my future, rather than seeking Jesus in the present. Rather now I awake each day anxiously anticipating Jesus and His Kingdom in my midst and learning to be a child of the Kingdom.  And what incredible things Jesus has shown me!!! How would our lives look if truly we recognize Jesus in our midst and join him in His Kingdom work today?

How is Jesus calling you into his Kingdom today? Maybe for many of us it starts with changing our realties to see Jesus, the royal power of the universe  in our midst! That the God of the universe wants to intimately interact with your life in this moment!

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”

“The Crisis” By Thomas Paine, was written for General George Washington to rally his young troops to think the impossible, to cross the Delaware in the midst of a fierce winter storm to take the British by surprise, this battle would be the spark to gain Americas independence.  Few people know that up to this point General Washington was a failing General, he had lost several battles and was faced with his fiercest challenge, do I shrink back in defeat or do I stand in faith for what I believe to be worth life itself. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on things, especially freedom.

Galatians 5:1 “It is for freedom Christ has set you free, stand firm therefore, and no longer be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

Christ died that we may have freedom, maybe today we need to stand firm, toss off the shackles that bind us, and take hold of that freedom that awaits us!!

Why did Jesus come to earth? This is a question I have been wrestling with. The easy answer would be because he wanted to save and redeem humanity, he would become the atoning sacrifice for our sins that we may have eternal life, that is to know God the Father as seen in John 17:3. If Jesus simply came to save us through his death on the cross why did he spend the majority of His time on earth talking about His Kingdom come, and how to plant that Kingdom here on earth. Why did he spend the significant amount of his energy in discipleship of 12 individuals. I am convinced that Jesus came to save and restore humanity, but how this salvation would spread to the ends of the earth would be His Kingdom coming through His faithful disciples. In the great commission we see Jesus say, Matt 28:19-20 “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Two things I see pivotal in His command for salvation to come through His Kingdom to the ends of His earth:

1. We must be a people who are willing to “Go” to share the gospel in word and deed in places of darkness. We are to “go” to places where the gospel isn’t. That means places of darkness. I would argue to say that God’s Kingdom is where individuals have surrendered to Jesus as King and they are taking his light and truth seen in the gospel and are breaking and exposing areas of darkness that once were held by Satan

2. The Kingdom is expanded through creating new disciples. What is the definition of a disciple? Disciples make disciples they are reproductive. If an individual claims Christ as Lord and is not multiplying Jesus in others they are not disciples.

I have seen a spiritual culture that has become obsessed with “church” and how to “do church.” When rather in scripture I Jesus who was obsessed with “His Kingdom” and how to  plant “His Kingdom”. The truth is we read very little in scripture about how to grow and start a church, but  we see that Jesus talks a lot about His Kingdom and how to make disciples. In fact when Jesus began to teach his disciples to pray the very first thing he teaches them is “Our father in Heaven may you be honored, may your Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.” Matt 6:9-10. We have complicated things so much with our programs and methods, and have ignored what Jesus really came to initiate. Many spiritual communities have become consumed with growing themselves rather than growing the Kingdom, and the result is the lack of anything supernatural in the their midst.I am afraid that we have become so consumed with ourselves and how to do church, that Jesus has left to build his kingdom and we haven’t even realized he is gone.

What if we decided to “obey all that Jesus has taught us” as seen in the great commission. By simply sharing the gospel and making disciples. Leaving our methods of church and instead we intentionally take the gospel into places of darkness to make disciples. We are called to plant good seed in good soil, maybe we have misunderstood where that Good soil is. Brokenness is the key to fertile soil, and it is often found most in the darkest places. Could it be that simple, could we actually begin to see God’s Kingdom come in our midst through simple obedience to what he actually taught us?

I was reading this article, Three questions only a father can answer by Seth Barnes, and my heart connected with it on a deep level as a father and a son. Our children are constantly looking to us as their fathers to answer three pivotal questions that will drastically shape the direction of their spiritual lives.

1. Am I ok?

2. What is my highest and best in life?

3. Can I make a difference?

One of the greatest prayers in life is to see my sons love and serve Christ with a Radical faith. I know for this to happen they need to see what a Radical faith looks like. We as fathers have the privilege of inviting our sons and daughters into our faith journey. And as they experience our faith they will begin to develop a new-found faith of their own.  We as parents will set the stage for what our children will become. Will we instill in them a deep passion for the Kingdom and dependence on God, or a deep passion for success and dependence on self.  As a youth pastor for the last 7 years I would say the most influential opportunities I have had in ministry is speaking love and truth into students lives concerning these three questions. Girls and Guys both ask these questions constantly both with verbal and nonverbal queues, and often they do not get the answers they so desperately need to hear. I challenge you as fathers and mothers to understand the significant role we have in continually answering these questions that will lead to a Radical Faith in Jesus Christ.

We live in a country that prides itself as being the “land of the free” & the “land of opportunity” that we may pursue in freedom whatever we put our hearts and minds too. But are we really a country living in freedom, or rather are the freedoms we pursue causing us to live in bondage. With the recent economy downfalls we have begun to see the ugly side of our pursuits of freedom; the ever-increasing personal and national debt, the increasing forecloses of homes, the loses of hundreds of thousands of Jobs. It does not take much digging to see that beneath the guise of freedom we are a nation in bondage. Bondage or “slavery” comes in various forms; financial bondage to a life style that is nearly impossible to maintain, slavery to the need of self-approval from others that causes us to live up to an invisible status quo, or even slavery to our own inflated expectations that cause more stress and anxiety than peace and joy. Slavery is something we all secretly can relate with.  As holistic beings our bondage does not remain external but becomes a spiritual bondage as well. Many in our Christian communities find themselves living in spiritual bondage because of our pursuit of our freedom.  For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his own soul.

There is a verse that God has been increasingly placing on my heart for this season for our lives. Galatians 5:1 “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

Jesus came that we might be free, free to be who God created us to be as unique, creative, spirit filled children of God. That we may run in the freedom and protection of our heavenly father for His Glory and His Kingdom. That we may through Jesus experience a freedom spiritually that permeates into all areas of our lives. So how do we escape our current bondage and enter into our freedom in Christ. It’s all how you look at it, “freedom” that is. In scripture a “yoke” was a rabbi’s interpretation of the Old Testament Law, it was his worldview. Our worldview’s can either place us in bondage or freedom. It is our American worldview “pursuit of our freedoms” that has caused much of the bondage we are currently in.  Jesus presents a picture of freedom drastically different that that our our world, where true freedom comes from surrendering our lives to a greater calling to live for God.  Is our pursuit of freedom really a front for the fact that we do not have the faith that God will provide, that we believe the life we can provide for ourselves is better than the one God will provide. Maybe it is time we begin to seek God’s heart for His worldview by no longer being subject to the world and it’s freedoms, rather being subject to Christ and His Kingdom. Maybe as we surrender the pursuit of our freedoms to God, and allow him to change our yoke we begin to experience a new freedom in Christ, we being to realize that it is this freedom that our hearts have been yearning for. That true freedom is not found in the pursuit of the world but rather the pursuit of the one who gives life eternal to this world.

What do you find yourself in bondage to? What do you find yourself consistently weighted down by? There is freedom in Christ, do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery!! May we truly enter the Land of Freedom as we take our places in the Kingdom of God.