Jesus – Page 2 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

August 17, 2023August 16, 2023

Tooling Up

How does the apprentice of Jesus bring about the shift in his prayer life that he really wants and needs? What raw material can he draw on to grow more a participant than spectator?

It is heartening to know that once anyone – anyone – purposes to advance in the holy enterprise of communing with the Almighty, the Lord himself supplies the means. Ingredients called for to see it through. He sees to it that whatever helpful tool, whatever effective resource is needed, it’s there in easy reach.

Any field of human endeavor that results in life-enriching expression does, of course, call for tools.

Great soul-stirring music – whether gentle and melodic (think Bach) or thundering and strident (think Beethoven) – comes to us because of ‘means’. Sheet music, for instance, helps a good bit!

For a long while, especially in the earlier years, I struggled with what to pray. And how to pray as well, with meaning or effectiveness. It was a welcome day when simple tools (helps) got brought to my attention. I confess I felt a bit foolish having passed over some elementary resources that had been available all along. They simply had not registered on my radar. They were also, most likely, being broadcast in lesser measure to the family of faith than today. Thankfully, that is changing.

Opening my Bible (or Bible app) nowadays, I sense a permission in spending time lingering in just one of the many Psalms, returning to it day after day. This grand book of scripture – a prayer book all its own – has proven a treasured onramp (even a camping spot) for the rhythmic set-aside times with God.

Sitting in stillness, welcoming awareness of God’s presence, I can now borrow from the precise language of the man-after-God’s-heart-worshipper himself. Soon it comes to me that I – employing the tools of the Shepherd-king’s language – am worshipping and petitioning out of the wellspring of my interior soul. How encouraging. Lifegiving. Faith has stirred wakefulness – my prayer life made richer in assurance and trust – in boldness and joy.

This by simply lifting the latch and opening the lid of an ancient toolbox: The Book of Psalms.

August 3, 2023August 3, 2023

Smart Steps

“If God wanted me to be a morning person, he would cause the sun to rise later in the day.” A good many people today might share this sentiment.

While the amusing line can strike a sympathetic chord in some, we would likely all benefit from at least giving thought to a practice common in Jesus’ day-by-day living.

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.*

When we think of it, every new day gets its start in the morning. A no-brainer insight, but one which can help us engage a common-sense truth if we are willing.

Morning persons or not, each and every day begins when we wake from sleep to launch (sometimes maybe shuffle) into it.

Jesus’ personal practice was to rise from sleep (in that normal way his fellow humans routinely do). Shortly after waking Jesus engaged his will to consciously direct his thoughts. Toward God. He was intentional at the start of his day, carving out a space and a time to individually give himself to the direct presence of the Father. We, in our day, might label it his quiet time. Regardless what we name it, this action of Jesus was predictable. Conversing with God is a thing he looked forward to. He would never consider choosing not to.

Inhaling and exhaling air is an activity we (as did Jesus) practice a lot, while almost never thinking about it. Breathing comes automatically. In his repeated ‘practice’ of meeting with God on his daily rising, Jesus had grown to pray ‘automatically’. Not as a robot responding to external commands, but as a much-beloved offspring. He purposely – eagerly as well – set aside those many lesser attractions, lesser voices clamoring for his attention and time. My mind by contrast can often get hijacked by relentless distraction.

Nothing going on around Jesus on any given occasion commanded his attention more than this. Communing with the father trumped all.

Jesus invites us, his beloved apprenticing friends, into much the same kind of lifestyle he enjoyed while navigating the many winding and hilly terrain of earth’s pilgrimage. Christlike living, simply put, is prayer-centered living.

Hanging out with God was a centerpiece in his “being-about-my-father’s-business”. This predictable first-of-the-day habit was no less familiar to him than other common practices – breakfasting, teeth-cleaning, sandal-lacing.

.Anyone acquainted at all with Jesus Christ knows that he understood the best way to live life as a human from day to day. Most of us would probably be wise to ponder this for a moment. Jesus knew the smartest kinds of practices to engage in as a flesh and blood human person. He supplies every apprentice the pattern to follow.

“And he went out. . and there he prayed”.

July 27, 2023July 26, 2023

Thirst Quenching

“When I grow up, I wanna be like _____ !”

What gives rise to this sentiment that one hears spoken at times even by grown-ups? An inner hope to become a better whomever.

The individual disciple and the gathered community of the like-minded have a thing in common – they wish to grow to be like Christ. Some groups voice it openly, “Our aim is to be. like. Jesus.” Others may signal the appetite in more reserved tones, yet their hearts yearn to grow, to mature with a character of the kind displayed in Jesus.

Apprentices to Jesus like what they see in his manner of being and doing. They long to take on those qualities more and more, to the point really of being defined by them.

The carefree farm kid is at home in the company of the good daddy. A particular setting doesn’t so much matter. Whether frolicking about barefoot on fresh-turned sod or rallying his young muscles to move a lawnmower through a stretch of Bermuda grass, he knows he is never left entirely on his own. A strong, assuring presence dwells there with him, near at hand.

An inner appetite of every Jesus-apprentice – even when not always conscious of it – is their longing for nearness. The good rabbi’s band of followers are pulled along by an inner tug to follow him closely – not letting him ‘much out of their sight’.

Not every earthly dad mirrors well the endearing qualities seen in the one Jesus called “my Father”. Yet, each person living is welcomed by him into just such a father-child closeness. We move that direction through Christ Jesus.

Whether a veteran disciple or a newly signed-on apprentice, the person choosing Christlikeness is growing in the work of training their eyes on this one whom they worship. They are finding, too, that a good beginning point is at the coming of every morning.

“O God, you are my God; early will I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, in a dry and thirsty land with no water.”*

June 22, 2023June 23, 2023

Rankings

Are habits of surrender reserved for the big leaguers alone – the Billy Grahams, the George Verwers, the Mother Teresas?

It seems to come naturally, doesn’t it, the tendency to think, “Yes, but that is them, not me. I am just me”. We’re prone to contrast what we see as our lackluster performance in growth against that of others whose stars seem to shine bright. Such dead-end thinking misses the point and holds us hostage to our insecurities.

Not a single Jesus-follower who has ever reflected him well has done so by the mere capital of talent or natural gifting.

Simply put, God does not know a big leaguer. He has never met one.

Yes, every person carries their own gifts and graces. Still, the one thing that sets the flourishing disciples (apprentices) apart is the simple willingness to believe in and love Jesus. It is from this garden soil of trust alone that undiluted obedience is born. And, from this, fruit. It is simple, really. The old hymn sums the matter up well, “Trust and obey. . . there is no other way”.

Young Billy was a common North Carolina country boy working dairy cattle when a farmer neighbor invited him to a gospel meeting in a nearby town. His heart was moved by things heard that evening. Billy came to be esteemed in years to come, America’s pastor.

The tough conditions of the poor in the Albania city where she lived stirred the mind of an adolescent girl, Gonxha Agnes, a.k.a. Teresa of Calcutta. Myriads of discarded human beings got to taste for their first-ever time unconditional care.

Captivated by lines from a book gifted him, a rascally kid from New Jersey hungered for more. In time, through his efforts and to his savior’s glory, a library-ship, the Logos, traversed oceans, docking at port cities across the world heralding liberating news.

We are certainly given a wonderful thing to ponder, musing over that handful of people the Christian world celebrates as singular standouts.

Still, for every celebrated hero of the faith the worldwide family of God today numbers millions. Humble, obedient disciples of Jesus, faithfully plodding in life and service in close company with their Lord. By human standards they might be labeled, little leaguers.

Jesus knows them as friends.

May 18, 2023May 18, 2023

Of Being Owned

Living our lives day by day in closeness to Jesus calls for desire. And intention.

Just like any healthy marriage motoring right into the sunset years, both parties – the man and the woman – make numberless small but significant choices. All along the journey each of them has grown into the habit of offering up expressions of worth and honor, the one to the other. This is the nature of what the Father had in mind in the covenant relationship – man wedded to the woman, woman wedded to the man.

In similar manner, the intentional and deliberate follower of Christ routinely offers up to him both actions and words. Expressions of love are core. It is this that sets the disciple apart. The casual Christian, meanwhile, may content himself with an occasional nod to a religious creed.

Priorities

That boy or girl, man or woman who’s growing in Christ is assured of belonging to him. They do not fear losing the relationship. Jesus their savior has redeemed them from the old kingdom of ego where Self sat perched atop the me-centered throne of the heart.

While secure in his everlasting hope, the disciple set on Christlikeness is one who is not content to merely qualify for the ‘someday upward flight’ to the afterworld. The apprentice counts the value tag of his life as a thing reflecting a far more expansive aim. While the afterlife destination means much to him, the love-smitten apprentice aspires less to owning heaven than to being owned by heaven.

May 4, 2023May 4, 2023

Yield Signs

Jesus knows us in closeness. It’s something akin to what we witness in those enduring marriages we most admire. The envy of-the-world ones.

An aged couple, having grown deeper and deeper into oneness with each other over time present a heartwarming picture. It gives substance to a special word of endearment. Companionship. While other couples speak sorrowfully of having “grown apart”, our two love birds only solidify their union, growing fused as one over their long marital journey. Why is this?

It is not because the two have been spared struggles and hardships. Indeed, intense pain and even trauma may mark such a couple’s history together. After all, what long-term marriage has not weathered some harsh, distressing storms?

Yet, in spite of everything, a mystery seems to be in play. Where deepening, loving companionship ends up actually flourishing – not just surviving. When broad-sided by overwhelming hardship, a surprising number of devoted couples emerge the other side with their marriage not only intact, but healthier than ever!

Marriage – especially Christ-focused marriage – illustrates well (though imperfectly) the beauty of the Christian life. Such a life grows and flourishes in close fellowship with Jesus, issuing from his own tested and proven love.

Every earnest bride who ever pledged “in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse” made the discovery along the way that vows are made for testing.

Likewise, the broad-smiling groom at the altar offering his pledge to love, cherish, protect. . . soon discovers he has entered a long and challenging learning curve.

Adapt – adjust – accommodate.

Married-life language shouts change. The words are marked by tangible elements of sacrifice. They strike at the heart of a wonderful and frightening movement toward growth – the yielding up or adapting of personal will.

And so it is for the Lord’s beloved ones – the love-smitten, fresh-launched followers of Christ. Their pledge is simple, yet sacrificial. Not shallow, not flippant. The pledge is weighty, and glorious. An all-out love-fueled – and practiced – surrender,

“Your will be done”.

April 20, 2023April 19, 2023

Near

What is it to know God – to know Jesus?

Turning the question around, what is it to be known by Jesus? The answer does seem to matter.

Perhaps you, like myself, have puzzled over a phrase Jesus offered up once,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’*

I never knew you.

It seems we are in need of catching the nature of our Lord’s heart. God in Christ became one of us. He shared in our raw flesh and blood humanity. Jesus (remarkably and wonderfully) yearns for closeness to his fellow humans. Yes, God in the flesh longs to be closely known to us, stating even on occasion, “I no longer call you servants, but friends”*. Jesus doesn’t stop here.

He also – and it is here we can miss a key point – yearns to know us. In this sense ‘knowing’ speaks of closeness. This is not a knowing about factual details of what we creatures are comprised of. Jesus does not see us as machines. We are not devices like a ipad or smart phone held by him.

With our laptops we flip open the lid, press a key here, another there. Presto, the operating system fires up. What sensible person would ever liken such a sterile, mechanical process to a warm, interactive relationship? We know better. We carry feelings, wishes, passions, hopes within our bones.

Our devices are things in our possession that we control and manipulate – hopefully for worthy uses. Creator God on the other hand, in relating to we his image-bearers, is after relationship. Heart and soul, mind and strength. All our being.

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart”.*

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life”.*

God is Spirit and so are we. He seeks worshippers, wonderfully so – living creations akin to himself. Yes, out of all his handiwork we are the unique ones into whom he has breathed life (How do we ever get our heads around this!)

Biblical worshippers are those who happily and with eager hearts, engage their Lord in mutual companionship and love.

April 6, 2023April 6, 2023

‘Aspiring’

Jesus regularly forms his followers, those whose hearts are poised to grow into his likeness. He just waits on us to make a move. The apprentice grows more like his master by observing and doing the things his master (trainer/mentor) does.

Jesus modeled the practice of praying, for instance. Do you, like me, ever wonder why so many preachers, teachers and scholars write and speak on the subject of prayer? Well, Jesus started it.

Jesus not only taught on prayer. He prayed. A lot.

A. W. Tozer notes that Jesus prayed early in the morning and, at times, throughout all the night. That he prayed both before and after the great events of his life, and prayed “when life was unusually busy”.

Wherever you and I happen to be just now on our discipleship journey, we too may come to him as his early ragamuffin followers did those centuries ago. Bringing before him our earnest appeal about talking with God,

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time* If we should search for a single line to sum up a fundamental disposition present in a New Testament disciple, we might begin with that phrase.

It was he who spoke of us walking alongside him, donning an ‘easy yoke’. It is Jesus who stirs the imagination, offering a word picture of fruit-producing branches. Each branch, each Christ-follower, draws a plentiful supply of life straight from him – the vine. One day at a time. . one moment at a time.

Through his own frequent rhythms of being present to his Father in prayer Jesus modeled the practice for any and every one signing on as his apprentice. The Lord Jesus, more than any other human, understood prayer’s non-negotiable nature. Endurance and flourishing (two longed-for aims of any meaningful life) find their fountain in direct union with God alone. Nothing else quite works.

I am afraid I have sometimes lacked the ‘sanctified ambition’ witnessed now and then in his early disciples when their hunger surpassed their timidity. “Lord, teach us to pray”.

Those of us who count ourselves as apprentices or apprentice wannabes can thank God every day that their appeal was made. “Teach us to pray” may rank as the most worthwhile request ever voiced by any person anywhere.

Apprentices learn by copying what they see in their teacher.

March 23, 2023March 22, 2023

Serenity Road

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time.

The phrase follows those widely-read first lines of the Serenity Prayer, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

That ‘living one day at a time’ thing lies, I think, at the heart of apprenticeship to Jesus. His disciples are common people who have chosen to set their day-by-day lives before him first thing every day. This is their aim and their practice. On some days the aim is not achieved. But the attentive Christ-follower has discovered that living in step with Jesus is the best possible thing one could ever do. Such a community of believers are not detoured by the occasional misstep. They routinely make peace with their own humanity and pick up the one-day-at-a-time rhythm at the sun’s fresh rising of the next day.

Heading into each morning in conscious companionship with Christ may seem like a small thing. It is not.

A truckload of mornings through the years found me emerging from sleep in a fog (sometimes caffeine helps there). But also at times a wave of anxiety or even panic has met me as I’ve contemplated what lay ahead in the coming hours. Not the ideal prescription for an unstressed life like that which Jesus prescribes. Indeed, that ‘easy yoke’ he invites his disciples to can often seem a distant and elusive dream. Can we ponder for a minute a scenario C.S. Lewis paints for us. Does anything resonate? Do we sense an invitation?

“It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.”

If you yearn for the coming-in-out-of-the-wind kind of living, take heart. You and I can find encouragement and hope through a simple first step. By taking a thoughtful look at how Jesus likely got out of bed each day.

March 2, 2023

Contagion

“Where there are prophecies, they will fail”, the writer pointedly asserts. In the same abrupt language, he follows that even faith fails. Then finally (to the readers’ glad relief no doubt) comes the apostle’s astonishing assertion, “Love never fails.”

Wow. Love never fails.

Such a breathtaking truth will mean a lot of things. Here is just one of the joyous discoveries about God’s unfailing kind of love. Love begets love.

In other words, once we welcome into ourselves God’s pure love in Jesus – repeatedly receiving it over and over – we soon find ourselves reveling in it. We never want to be without it or him. What’s more, a new dynamic has shown up on the scene.

We find it impossible to hold the agape of God to ourselves. By its nature, God’s love – like an overly-filled bucket of water – sloshes out on the surroundings. The Psalmist would not keep such news under wraps, “He restores my soul – my cup overflows”.

Love fueling love. By faith God’s much-thirsty kids simply receive. They take into themselves his generous and forgiving acceptance of them, his free-flowing affection toward them. So, Drinking. Drinking, they receive. They want never to stop receiving. Such a mindset exactly reflects the highest hope their Father above entertains. Heaven dances!

Bookshelves overflow today, and likely groan under the weight of account after biographical account of history’s multiplying disciples. In the truest sense these apprentices are pure lovers. They are being fed and fueled on the Father’s love. Such apprentices have tasted and have drunk of the Spirit’s living waters. Narrative upon narrative recounts the multiplication factor. Spanning generations and language groups – traversing mountains and deserts and plains. “Love never fails”.

It is often noted (sorrowfully and accurately) that hurt people hurt people.

By contrast, the saving love Jesus introduces into our strife-plagued world carries within it seeds of a kind of holy contagion. Like an unbridled virus on the move. From the holy contagion all those flourishing branches – linked everyone to the single common Vine – yield up succulent fruit, fruit of the Spirit. The kingdom expands. From it there springs a cycle,

Loved people love people.