Author Archives: Kim Reisman

Elijah: Faith that Acts

Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis —moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources. 

God’s directions provide us with insight. God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting

God’s third instruction to Elijah is significant for us: Act on faith 

God tells Elijah to go back the way he came (1 Kings 19:15).  

We cannot follow in the Jesus way until we act. Peter was transformed each time he acted on what he knew in that moment. Bit by bit, Peter’s actions of faith shaped and molded him into the true person God intended him to be—when he stepped out of the boat at the call of Jesus during a storm (Matthew 14:22-33; when he declared Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, at Caesarea-Philippi (Matthew 16:13-19); and when he began to preach to the crowds of Jerusalem (Acts 2:14-42).  

Holy Spirit power flowed though Peter when he acted on what he knew—offering the love of the resurrected Christ to all those who had rejected the earthly Jesus. Peter did not need to know it all, but he did need to act on whatever he knew at the time; and when he did so, his life was transformed.  

To follow Jesus up close, rather than at a distance, we must base our lives on the reality of faith rather than the reality of fear. We serve an awesome God, a God whose promises are steadfast and whose presence, while unseen, is everlasting. When we keep that vision of faith before us, when we declare our faith aloud giving it a life of its own, when we act on whatever faith God has provided us in the moment, we move to Jesus’ side; and we are able to walk with him in intimacy and power. 

 

Elijah: Are You Willing to Speak Your Faith?

Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis—moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources. 

God’s directions provide us with insight. God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting

Elijah obeyed God’s command and stood on Mount Sinai; and as he stood in that place of vision, he encountered God. There was a mighty windstorm; the wind was so strong that it broke rocks from the mountain. There was an earthquake. There was a fire. Then there was a whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13). Envisioning faith, keeping that picture in front of us, requires attending to aspects of life that aren’t readily apparent. God wasn’t in the wind, wasn’t in the earthquake, and wasn’t in the fire. 

 God was found in that “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12, RSV).  

The voice of God is not always readily noticeable. It is not something we always have an ear for. Yet following in the Jesus way involves attending to things that aren’t readily apparent. It involves listening for the voice of God and placing ourselves in a position to hear it often.  

My Belgian friend Mieke has lived in the United States for many years. One time she participated in a program that required her to ride along with a local police officer during an eight-hour shift. During her ride along, she encountered a police dog and heard the officer giving the dog commands—in Dutch! As she relayed the story, she exclaimed, “It was a Belgian dog!” I laughed because the thought occurred to me that here was a dog that could comprehend a language that I am completely unable to understand. A similar thought occurs to me every time I visit Mieke’s family and hear them conversing happily in Flemish—especially the children. Here I am, an educated adult, and I can’t understand a word they are saying; yet there they are—four-year-olds!—and they have no problem understanding whatsoever. I understand that I speak English because I grew up in an English speaking home. Mieke speaks Flemish because she grew up in Belgium, in a Flemish-speaking home. The police dog understood Dutch because its handlers, those who trained it from its earliest memory, spoke Dutch.  

We recognize the voices, the language, of those with whom we surround ourselves. We speak whatever language we hear regularly and often. If we are to hear the voice of God, and thus have an understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in real time, we must surround ourselves with the language and voice of God.  

If we desire to attend to the things that aren’t readily apparent, to hear the voice of God that molds and shapes our vision of faith, we must hang out in places where God’s voice can be heard, where we can consistently see people who are further along on their journey of faith and can energize us to push through in times of disruption and paralysis. God offers Elijah the spiritual resource of faith visioning in order to help him push through his state of paralysis and follow more closely: ”Stand before me on the mountain.”  

Then God offers another directive: “Speak.” God tells Elijah to find Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha and tell them about what he has experienced, anointing Hazael and Jehu as kings and Elisha as the next prophet. God’s directive to speak is a significant directive if we are going to push through our difficulties in order to follow in the Jesus way.  

If we hold an idea or belief within ourselves, it will always remain an idea; it can never become a reality. Only by speaking our idea or belief aloud, by sharing it with others, is it empowered to become a reality. In speaking, we give life to our ideas and beliefs; they begin to exist outside ourselves, becoming infectious and dynamic 

That is why the apostle Paul included both speaking and believing in his instructions to the Romans: “For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved” (Romans 10:9-10, NLT).  

Like the experience of many of us, my adolescence was rocky and difficult. My classmates spoke resistance and disruption: “Nerd,” “Brain,” “Loser”; but my mother always spoke faith: “Your day will come, you will shine, you will blossom, you will flourish.” She was like Moses in the wilderness. There was adversity all around. But Moses spoke about the land that God had promised, a land flowing with milk and honey. Speaking faith grows faith. It creates and solidifies our faith visions and those of others around us. It enables Jesus to work through us to work miracles in the lives of those around us. It moves us forward through adversity, fear, paralysis, and resistance to keep us following Jesus 

When we speak, we make ourselves accountable. We expand our sense of following from a solely internal project to an external one. As we speak faith, the vision we place beyond ourselves takes on a life of its own. Speaking faith keeps us close to the fire, enabling us to follow Jesus side by side even through periods of paralysis and fear.  

Elijah received three spiritual resources to aid him in pressing on despite his fear and spiritual paralysis. God asks him, Why are you here? And then instructs Elijah to stand before God on the mountain— to envision his faith. God also instructs Elijah to tell three others about his experience with God—to speak his faith. God asks Elijah a second time, “What are you doing here?” (1 Kings 19:13, NLT).  

I believe that is a question for all of us.  

 

Elijah: Do You Have a Sustaining Faith Picture?

Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis — moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources. 

God’s directions provide us with insight. God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting

As with our life picture, God desires us to have a faith picture 

God wants us to have a vision of faith always before us. God tells Elijah, “Go out and stand before me on the mountain” (1 Kings 19:11, NLT). When we talk about life-changing experiences, moments that have such a great impact on us that we can never forget them, we often describe them as “mountaintop experiences.” This is because mountains are places of vision. Our sightlines are expanded when we stand on a mountain. Our perspective changes when we view our surroundings from a mountaintop. When Elijah stood on the mountain, the Lord passed by; and Elijah was given a renewed vision of faith. Just as recognizing God’s picture for our lives can be difficult because we focus on our limitations, envisioning faith is difficult because we limit ourselves to what is visible at any given time.  

But that is not what faith is all about. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (NIV). “It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see” (NLT).  

Faith isn’t about the reality we perceive around us. It’s about the reality of the unseen presence and promise of God.  

When we reach points of difficulty and resistance on our faith journey, when we become fearful and paralyzed, our inclination is to focus on the visible. Elijah was focusing on the circumstances that surrounded him. Jezebel had threatened him, and she had the resources to carry out that threat as was evidenced by the visible bodies of those she had ordered killed. Our inclination is to focus on the visible. But following in the Jesus way is not about the visible. It’s about the invisible promise of God.  

It’s about realizing that nothing has changed, even though our circumstances might lead us to believe it has. God’s promise continues to be valid; God is still present with us. Everything that God has envisioned for our lives remains intact. When God made the covenant with the Israelites, gave them the law, and was preparing them to enter the Promised Land, God spoke these words through Moses: “Watch out! Be very careful never to forget what you have seen the LORD do for you. Do not let these things escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren” (Deuteronomy 4:9, NLT).  

God’s message is that it is the Israelites’ faith picture that will sustain them in their new land. It is their commitment to keeping that vision of faith ever before them that will make or break their experience as God’s people. The biblical witness shows how important this spiritual resource is. When difficulties arose for the Israelites, the strength of their faith picture was always a crucial ingredient to the outcome. More often than not, when they lost their vision of faith, when they forgot what the Lord had done for them, their difficulties increased and calamity followed.  

Keeping a vision of faith before us is critical if we are to follow in the Jesus way. We have to continually shape it and form it and articulate it in order to push through the times of resistance and disruption. God’s words to the Israelites are also for us: 

You must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, NLT) 

As we rehearse our vision of faith over and over, keeping it ever before us, it strengthens and sustains us, remaining intact as a source of strength during times of crisis and resistance.  

 

Elijah: Paralyzing Fear vs Powerful Faith

Ahab reported to Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the massacre of the prophets. Jezebel immediately sent a messenger to Elijah with her threat: ‘The gods will get you for this and I’ll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you’ll be as dead as any one of those prophets.’ When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there and then went on into the desert another day’s journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die. 1 Kings 19:1-4 (THE MESSAGE)

 

Following Jesus is not an easy task. There is one distinct block that is particularly important to explore. If you recall Peter’s experience in the courtyard, you’ll remember that it was a very frightening time. Peter had experienced not a few dramatic events, all crammed into a short period. The Gospels record that Jesus had turned the Passover supper on its head with a foot-washing and predictions of betrayal and death. Judas had walked out on the entire project. Peter and the rest of the disciples had fallen asleep in the garden while Jesus was praying, which had led to yet another rebuke. Then Judas led a band of soldiers into the garden, confronting Jesus. Peter attacked the high priest’s servant with his sword, cutting off the man’s ear and prompting Jesus to heal one last time before they led him away. Finally Peter found himself standing in the courtyard, most likely scared to death.

It is no wonder that he lurked in the shadows, away from the fire; fear is an incredible obstacle to faith. (See Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22; John 13–18.) Fear undermines. It blocks faith and achievement. It disrupts our life direction, hinders us from seeing God’s picture of our lives and discovering our life mission. Peter was sidetracked by fear that night in the courtyard.

So was Elijah when he fled the wrath of Jezebel. Elijah was one of God’s mighty prophets in the days of the Old Testament. In a time when the people of God were following at a comfortable distance, Elijah was following up close and in the thick of things. He stood with integrity and spoke with courage and boldness. Elijah knew how to depend on God. God led him into hiding in the wilderness for his safety, fed him for an entire year with food carried by ravens, and then showed him the way to a widow who was able to provide him shelter from his enemies.

Elijah understood that God was in control. He had experienced the power of God working through him to resurrect a widow’s son and bring fire to the altar when the priests of Baal were unable. Elijah was faithful, focused, and obedient. And that is where fear enters the picture. (See 1 Kings 16:29—18:45.)

When we follow in the Jesus way, we will always encounter resistance. The fire can get very hot, and there will always be disruptive events that challenge our commitment to follow. That is what happened to Elijah. He had experienced great prophetic success; but even as he sought to be faithful to God, forces of resistance challenged him, bringing him to the end of his rope. Queen Jezebel had been systematically murdering the spiritual leaders of Israel, and now she set her sights directly on Elijah. He was terrified and ran for his life. (See 1 Kings 19:1-3.) His life direction was disrupted. He was sidetracked by fear.  

I believe this is an experience common to all of us. We undergo spiritual growth and gain maturity in our devotion and success in our faith. We believe we are living out of our God picture, our life mission. But then the world throws resistance or disruption at us, or we experience a spiritual plateau, and suddenly we’re paralyzed. The forward movement of our spiritual journey is halted.

I have a friend who is a wellspring of faith and encouragement. She has been a significant source of spiritual mentoring for many people. One day, however, she stopped coming. I e-mailed her, wondering what was wrong. She would e-mail back occasionally, but she did not return to church. Over the course of several months, I lost contact with her altogether. Finally, she contacted me, wanting to talk. We met; and as her story unfolded, it was clear that she was experiencing an overarching spiritual paralysis. Despite the depth of her faith and the significance of her ministry in our church and our community, she doubted her place in the Kingdom. Her faith had been disrupted, and now she feared she wasn’t “spiritual enough.” Living in spiritual fear, she retreated from the community of faith— the very people who could support her and carry her through. The further she retreated, the greater the paralysis became. My friend experienced spiritual fear and paralysis and dealt with it by retreating from the community of faith; Elijah experienced fear and paralysis and dealt with it by running away to a broom bush, and then to the dark depths of a cave on Mount Sinai (1 Kings 19:4-9a).

Humans have developed many tools to deal with fear. One of the first tools we make use of is control. When something bad happens to us, we exercise our feeling of control and do everything in our power to keep this bad thing from happening again. My friend exercised her feeling of control by retreating. Elijah exercised his feeling of control by running away. It’s a basic human instinct.

That is exactly what Elijah discovers. He had experienced great victories in his life, but now he finds himself in a state of fear and paralysis; he can’t control the events unfolding around him. He’s under the broom bush; he can’t eat; he can’t sleep; he is so fearful that he even asks God to end his life. When you get to this point, it’s hard to hear God anymore.  

This was the case with my friend. She couldn’t discern God’s direction. She was filled with isolation and doubt. Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis like these—moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, if we are to continue to follow, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources.

Elijah has traveled from the broom bush to the depths of a cave on Mount Sinai. God finds him there and asks a very important question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9b, NLT). It is as though God is asking, “Why would you come to this place after all I’ve done? Don’t you remember my power? Don’t you remember my love and care? What are you doing here so full of fear and doubt?”

God asks, but then God directs; and these directions provide us with insight.

God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting.  

We’ll continue to explore God’s response to followers paralyzed by fear, but for now consider these questions:

What disruptions have you experienced in your faith walk where your forward motion of faith was stalled? How have you attempted to exercise control in your life?

You don’t have to live in paralysis. 

Becoming Kingdom People: The Shape of the Beatitudes

What do Kingdom people look like? Kingdom people come in different shapes and sizes, have different gifts and passions; they follow by leaving home and by staying put. But Kingdom people have several important things in common, and the Beatitudes offer several aspects of Kingdom people that are worth noting.  

Kingdom people seek to live their lives in sync with God and thus receive God’s blessing. They are poor in spirit, recognizing their intense need for God, understanding that they are not self-sufficient and therefore putting their whole trust in God. Kingdom people experience mourning, yet they are also blessed with Christ’s healing comfort and peace. They understand that the deeper the love, the deeper the loss—and in that same moment they recognize that it was with the deepest love of all that Jesus offered himself up for them. Kingdom people hunger and thirst for righteousness, working for the full realization of God’s kingdom in the world. They are merciful, extending forgiveness to others because they know forgiveness is crucial to God’s justice, and because they’re always aware of how much they’ve been forgiven. Kingdom people know that true children of God are peacemakers. They act as radical agents of love, which requires courage in a world whose foundation is force.  

When they are persecuted, Kingdom people continue to have hope, receiving God’s blessing, which provides them comfort in the midst of suffering. They understand that their lives are lived in God’s hand. They understand that God ultimately has won the victory, and they will share in God’s reward. Not all Kingdom people experience persecution, but they all align themselves with those who do, with those who suffer, and they work to alleviate that suffering and end that persecution.

Kingdom people are humble; they are meek and lowly and gentle. That’s a particularly difficult and challenging aspect of following in the Jesus way, and it is particularly significant in these times in which we find ourselves. The world doesn’t reward meekness; that isn’t an attribute that usually gets us to the top. Being gentle and lowly doesn’t usually get a person very much.

Jesus knew this when he talked about a particular experience he had at a dinner at which he was a guest. When Jesus arrived, he noticed that everyone was trying to get the best seat in the house. Everyone was intent on getting as close to the head of the table as possible. This observation prompted him to explain that we look at life backwards. We calculate that getting a better seat will aid us in advancing up the ladder of success—it will add to our honor. Jesus turns our assumptions around because he wants us to think as Kingdom people. He wants us to look at life from the perspective of the future of God’s kingdom back into the present. In talking about his dinner experience, he says, “If you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t always head for the best seat…Do this instead—sit at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place than this for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. “For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored” (Luke 14:8, 10-11, NLT). Jesus wants us to think about our place at the table in light of God’s will and purpose.

If we are Kingdom people, if we are following in the Jesus way, then we will think about what the Kingdom is going to be like—a place where those who have humbled themselves will be honored and those who have honored themselves in the kingdom of this world will be humbled. The idea of humbling ourselves now is a challenging notion, because we are often confused by our concept of self-esteem. We confuse humility, being humble or gentle or lowly, with low self-esteem. Humility is about accurate esteem, it is about Kingdom esteem. Humility involves understanding that our worth is not estimated by the world’s calculations—that is, where we sit at the table. God’s math is much fuzzier—our worth is calculated not from our place at the table but from our place in God’s heart.

We are God’s beloved creatures. We are made in God’s image, paid for with the very life of God. We are creatures of unimaginable value, not because of our own merits—where we sit at the table, what we’ve accomplished, or how successful we are—but because we belong to God. God loves us unconditionally and without end, and understanding that fact is what God-esteem—Kingdom-esteem—is all about.

Kingdom-esteem leads to humility, because it involves recognizing that it’s not about us, it’s about what God has done for us. Humility doesn’t simply involve what we think of ourselves. It is intimately connected to what we think about others, how we esteem them and relate to them, and how we show them hospitality. Hospitality in the Jesus way entails showing love to those who can’t give us anything in return. Jesus said the crucial issue is not that we open our hearts and lives to folks who can repay us (see Luke 14:12); anybody can do that (Luke 6:33). The crucial issue is how we behave toward those who can do nothing for us (Luke 6:35; 14:13).

Kingdom people, those who are following in the Jesus way, don’t just open their hearts to those who can later provide them with some sort of benefit. They do not focus only on those who can show hospitality in return. Kingdom people show hospitality to everyone, particularly those who can do nothing in return. If we are following Jesus side by side, we’ll be practicing fuzzy math rather than calculating things from the world’s perspective.

Kindness, love, hospitality toward those who can do something in return will certainly reap rewards right now. That kind of behavior will more than likely add up to our increased success. But love, concern, support, solidarity with those who can do nothing for us will reap even greater rewards for eternity. 

Following in the Jesus way involves humility—an accurate sense of our Kingdom-esteem. Joy can be ours when we place Christ at the center of our hearts and live as Kingdom people, following Jesus side by side, reversing the world’s take on happiness and experiencing the deep and everlasting blessing that the world can never give nor take away.

How might you be living out of the world’s understanding of blessedness, rather than Jesus’ understanding of blessedness? 

Our spirituality is “whatever we desire most.” How does that description fit your life? What have you ordered your life around so far—what do you desire most?

What might have to change in your life if you were to begin doing whatever is necessary to put God at the very center of your life, to put yourself at the very center of God’s will?  

How has your understanding of humility had an impact upon your behavior toward others? How might your behavior change?

 

Spirituality the Jesus Way

The Latin American Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino described spirituality as a profound motivation; he said that it’s about instincts, intuitions, longings and desires—both within nature and in our culture—that move us, inspire us and shape us, inform and fill our decisions and actions. That definition of spirituality—“profound motivation”—connects with Jesus’ words to us to seek the kingdom of God first, and everything else will be added (see Matthew 6:33).

Our spirituality is whatever we desire most. Whatever we strive for, whatever motivates us, drives us, moves us to select one thing over another; whatever primary shaping forces are in our life, that’s our spirituality.

Following in the Jesus way is about recognizing that Jesus calls us to a particular type of spirituality, a way of life that’s shaped by seeking and finding God’s presence in our life, doing whatever is necessary to put God at the very center of our lives, to put ourselves at the very center of God’s will. When we do that, we experience deep, abiding, life-changing, life-marking joy—not because we’ve earned it or achieved it, not because of chance or circumstance, but because it already exists. God’s blessedness is already there, and we experience it when we seek God’s kingdom. Jesus promised that when we seek the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness first, everything else will be added. That adds up to a type of happiness the world can’t give or take away.

The biggest challenge for Christ followers who seek to follow Jesus side by side rather than at a distance is the implicit question of the Beatitudes: Will we yield ourselves totally to Jesus?  

Will we allow him to shape our lives and give us happiness, joy, and blessedness, or will we continue to seek happiness by following the direction of the world?

When we yield ourselves to Jesus, following in the Jesus way—up close, in the thick of things, not at a distance and in the shadows—we experience the deep joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction. We become Kingdom people.  

 

The Blessing of the Beatitudes

We call Matthew 5:3-12 “the Beatitudes” because the word beatitude, which is Latin, simply means “blessing.” The meaning of the word “blessing” comes from two sources: the Latin word benedicere, which means “to speak well of,” and the Greek word makarios, which means “blessed.” Makarios was a word used to describe the gods, and it points to a godlike joy, a kind of joy that has its secret within itselfMakarios is a self-contained kind of joy, a joy that does not depend on circumstance. It is independent of chance or change. These concepts combine to form our understanding of blessing.

Unfortunately in English the idea of joy is often understood as being the same thing as “happiness.” The word “blessing”—and consequently the Beatitudes themselves—has also come to be connected with a concept of happiness. The surprise comes because Jesus associates some strange things with happiness— meekness, persecution, mourning. Our surprise comes because we fall short in understanding.

Our English word “happiness” contains the root hap, which means “chance.” That root word points to the reality of human happiness—something that is more often than not dramatically affected by chance and the unfolding events of life, something that life may generate or extinguish at the blink of an eye. (The “Gospel of Matthew,” Vol. 1; pages 88-89) When we think of Jesus’ words in relation to happiness, we miss the depth of what he’s talking about because the blessing he promises, the joy he promises, is completely untouchable. It is totally unassailable by the world.

In giving us the Beatitudes, Jesus is telling us that blessedness looks different from God’s perspective. The world may tell us what it takes to bring happiness, but Jesus is telling us that the world’s view may not be as accurate as we think. The joy God gives isn’t tied to happenstance, chance, or change. It is deeper, more lasting, and may even have some surprising components.  

God’s joy and blessing are what God’s kingdom is all about. Christ followers are Kingdom people. Christ followers are folks who are in relationship with God through Christ, who live in hope of eternal life and live out that hope in their daily lives, thus experiencing God’s blessing and joy. The Beatitudes tell us what it means to be Kingdom people, to live in God’s kingdom. They are concrete expressions of the nature of Kingdom life.

The Surprise of the Beatitudes

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. / Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. / Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. / Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. / Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. / Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. / Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. / Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. / Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. / Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. Matthew 5:3-12 (NRSV)

The Beatitudes are helpful to us because they highlight the contrast between God’s kingdom and the kingdom of our world. This contrast is crucial for our understanding because following Jesus side by side places us in sharp contrast with the world around us. As Peter was recognized to be a disciple of Jesus by the light of the fire, following in the Jesus way shines the light of blessedness on us, distinguishing us from our culture and making us recognizable as Christ followers.

The first thing to notice about the Beatitudes is that Jesus didn’t actually say them in the way we are used to hearing them. In the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, and the Greek in which Jesus’ words were written, the verb “are” is not present in the Beatitudes; that word was used to render his words into English.

Rather than statements— “Blessed are the poor in spirit”—Jesus gave us exclamations: “O the blessedness of the meek!”  

This is important, because the Beatitudes aren’t statements about what might be, or about what could be. They are exclamations about what is. Jesus is announcing the privilege that is ours, to share with God in joy, to share the very blessedness that fills God’s heart. The New Living Translation uses the action word “blesses” rather than the adjective “blessed,” which helps us understand the “is-ness”—the present tense action—of what Jesus is saying. God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness!  

The blessedness that God offers is ours now, not in some future time. Jesus is announcing the present reality of God’s blessing right now, in the present tense. (The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1, by William Barclay; The Westminster Press, 1975; pages 88–89). These blessings, available right now, are quite a surprise when we consider what the world tells us affords blessing.

The world would have us believe that righteous, merciful ways of living are weak. The world would have us believe that mourning leads to unhappiness. In contrast, Jesus proclaims that meekness, humility, and persecution, rather than being sources of unhappiness or misery, are actually sources of spiritual giftedness. That is the surprise of the Beatitudes—what appears to be a source of unhappiness, turns out to be a source of joy and blessedness. 

Following God Beyond Common Sense

It can be easy to live our lives disconnected from our passion and, as a result, from our God mission. That disconnect is often one of the things that keeps us following Jesus at a distance. But following as Jesus leads requires that we connect—or reconnect—with our passion; that we then discover our God mission, and act upon it. It requires that we be open to a little Pentecost—or a burning bush—in order to receive insight from God as to exactly how we are to follow.

The problem is that our God mission is almost always tremendously bigger than we are.  

That’s exactly what Moses discovered.

As he was tending his father-in-law’s sheep, he experienced a little Pentecost. God captured Moses’ attention in a miraculous way— through an encounter with a burning bush—and gave him an amazing mission: “I am sending you to Pharaoh. You will lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10, NLT).

Moses had a hard time accepting his God mission because he, like us, had limited his destiny to what he believed he could accomplish with his own strength and resources. He was no longer an Egyptian prince; he was now a simple sheepherder. Moses tried to convince God to send someone else: “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? How can you expect me to lead the Israelites out of Egypt? They won’t believe me! They won’t do what I tell them. I’m just not a good speaker. Lord, please! Send someone else” (Exodus 3:11; 4:1, 10, 13, NLT).

We struggle to follow Jesus closely, in sync with our God mission, because that mission is bigger than we can imagine. We are limited by our detailed lists of past failures, our internal sense of inadequacy, the unhealthy level of our self-esteem. We create a picture in our minds of what we will become, and it’s almost always smaller than what God intends.

Unfortunately, rather than picturing an unbelievable future, we often choose to place a limited picture in our mind’s eye. The picture that I held in my mind when I attended the evangelism conference was limited to the way I was doing ministry at that time. I couldn’t comprehend what God had in store for me because it was bigger than I could imagine and went far beyond common sense. That’s significant. As we seek to follow in the Jesus way, we need to recognize that more often than not, rather than being rooted in common sense, the Jesus way defies common sense.  

How many times have we limited ourselves to the pictures created by common sense? “I could never do that; I’m too old; my children are too young; I don’t have the right degree.” Jesus shakes his head and says, “Didn’t I tell you that you will see God’s glory if you believe?” (John 11:40, NLT)

We follow an awesome God! A God who can do great things with limited resources. This means that our life mission isn’t about what we can imagine about ourselves. It is about what God imagines about us. When we imagine ourselves, our response to the mission God sets before us is often: That’s impossible! I’m not smart enough! I’ve been divorced! I’m in recovery! I’m this…I’m that…I’m not this…I’m not that!

But God says that none of that matters. None of that matters because our life mission isn’t about what we can do for God. Our life mission is what God is going to do through us.  

Remember Moses? “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh?” (Exodus 3:11, NLT)

God says, “It’s not about what you can imagine about yourself. It’s what I imagine about you.” God says, “It’s not about what you can do for me; it’s what I am going to do through you.” That revelation was at the heart of Moses’ burning-bush experience. We follow an awesome God; and when we choose to follow side by side, rather than at a distance, we experience God’s power to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. That’s what happened to Moses and to the disciples, and that’s what happens to us.

Moses tells God that he can’t speak well, that he gets tongue-tied, that he stutters (Exodus 4:10). What is God’s response? “Who makes mouths? I will be your mouth. I will give the words” (Exodus 4:11, NLT). Similarly Peter, who before Pentecost barely knew what to say or when to say it, is empowered to speak eloquently to the crowds all over Jerusalem (see Acts 2:1-42).

God takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. God puts words in our mouths and transforms the ordinary elements of our lives into powerful tools. Moses’ biggest weapon, the source of extraordinary signs and miracles as he argued with Pharaoh to free God’s people, was an ordinary shepherd’s staff. Moses went up against Pharaoh, ruler of the most powerful kingdom on earth at that time, armed with the stick he had used for forty years herding his father-in-law’s sheep.

The reality of following in the Jesus way doesn’t consist of what you can do for God. It consists of recognizing what God can do through you. The question we must ask ourselves is not, “what can I give God?” but “what is God doing? How can I be a part of what God is doing?” 

When we follow Jesus side by side, we don’t wait until we have everything figured out. We don’t wait until our life picture has been filled in with every detail. We act on what we know and trust that God’s picture is infinitely greater than our own. We act on the glimpses we receive of the light of God’s truth, trusting that God is working through us. We follow at a distance when we hear the truth of God and wait rather than walk; but the Jesus way involves action—breaking ranks, risking the radical, attempting the impossible.

Moses’ life mission was about achieving God’s purpose for God’s people. Moses lived in sync with that mission, not by focusing on self-fulfillment or self-actualization, but by allowing God to work through him. Jesus promised that “rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in [him]” (John 7:37, The Message). We follow in the Jesus way in order to serve: to become a source of refreshment and healing and creativity to everyone around us.

Perspective comes when we refocus on God, who has promised to be with us, to be our mouth, to be our resource, to be our strength. Perspective comes when we refocus to see that following Jesus with integrity makes each of us a witness; and witnesses cannot hide in the shadows. Witnesses tell the truth about what they have seen and experienced.

God has placed a purpose within you, a life mission. Following Jesus is about discovering that life mission. It’s guaranteed to be bigger than you can imagine, but God has surrounded you with all the tools you need to accomplish it. God also desires to work a miracle through you for another person. We may not have it all together; we may have pain or shame. But it’s not how we imagine ourselves, it’s how God imagines us. We walk in the light—now. We don’t wait. We simply take our ordinary lives, add our experience of Jesus in real time, and allow God to create a mighty work through us.

Little Pentecosts

While crowds of people followed Jesus during his earthly ministry in Judea, the spirit of Jesus worked through the disciples to give birth to a body of believers that has been growing ever since as the fire of the Holy Spirit spread to the ends of the earth.

Once again, Peter and the other disciples provide a significant model for us. While Jesus was on earth, they were followers, students. They didn’t always understand the message or the methods of Jesus’ ministry, and they certainly were not able to perform even a single miracle in Jesus’ presence. Their failures and weaknesses were most apparent.

In fact, Judas betrayed Jesus and then killed himself in despair; and when the pressure was on, Peter denied he ever knew Jesus. Finally, in the wake of the Crucifixion, everyone took refuge behind locked doors, hiding in terror, expecting reprisal. Yet these terrified followers didn’t remain students, and they didn’t remain terrified. Instead, they were transformed.  

They were empowered by the Holy Spirit to be more than simply followers of Jesus; no longer students, they became messengers of the gospel. This transformation didn’t take place because of the bodily presence of the Jesus they had followed those many months; it didn’t happen because of his teaching or through the witness of his miracles and healings. The disciples were transformed into messengers by the presence of Jesus in real time, through the power of the Holy Spirit.  

We call the event of the disciples’ transformation Pentecost, that miraculous event that took place fifty days after Easter and launched the spread of the gospel throughout the world. What we don’t always realize is that the Holy Spirit has been responsible for a myriad of little Pentecosts ever since.

A pivotal event in my own life occurred in 1996 when I had been in ministry only a short while. Due to the young age of my children, I had been appointed part-time to a local church as an associate; and while my work was focused mainly in the important areas of children’s worship and teaching, I had very little responsibility overall. Then I was invited to attend an evangelism conference, the Order of the Flame. With its emphasis on evangelism, the focus of the entire conference was on reaching others for Christ. It was a powerful time, and I was surrounded by many talented people who were doing exciting things for God’s kingdom.

The last event of the conference was a worship service. There was dynamic music, great preaching. It was an awesome worship experience. We closed our time with prayer. Everyone stood, and people spontaneously offered their prayers aloud.

As the praying became more intense, I suddenly felt the powerful presence of God’s Holy Spirit—not just in the service itself but within me. As I continued to listen to the prayers being lifted, I was overwhelmed by the spiritual depth that surrounded me, feeling out of my league. It didn’t seem possible that I could do the types of ministry these folks were doing with such power. I began to feel intensely unworthy, ill-equipped to do whatever it was God was calling me to do. In that moment, I was ready to bolt out of the room. It was truly a crisis, not necessarily of faith but of calling.  

As I began to follow my instincts and leave as quickly as possible, I felt the full weight of God’s power upon me. I couldn’t move. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I sat down, convinced there was no way I could do what God was calling me to do.

Then suddenly I heard the voice of Jesus within me, saying, “you are ill-equipped; you don’t have all the ability. But that doesn’t matter; because I am not ill-equipped. You can do this—you will do this, because I am your source of power; and it is I who will work through you.”  

God moments—“little Pentecosts”—times when we experience Jesus in real time. From that time on, everything changes—who we are, how we live. These aren’t events that exist only in the stories of our faith. They happen every day to believers all over the world, and following in the Jesus way requires that we be open to those life-changing, faith-shaping little Pentecosts.  

Being open to experiencing our own little Pentecosts is about recognizing that each of us has a life mission. It’s that purpose for which God created you, for which God has placed unique gifts and talents and passions within you. And often, you can trace your “God mission” back to some particular passion that has been in your life for a long time.

Are you open to the Holy Spirit bringing a little Pentecost into your own life? What do you feel ill-equipped to do?