Jesus Christ Blog

by John Fischer

The popular singing duo, Simon and Garfunkel, had a song early in their career that defiantly asserted individuality and an exaggerated aversion for relationships. In this song, the singer talks about being a fortress unto himself, disdaining love and laughter, and having no need for friendship. Hiding away in his room with his books and poetry to protect him, he isolates himself from all human relationships because he has identified those relationships as the cause of all his emotional pain. He is a rock and an island – alone to himself in the world.

The philosophy of the song hinges on the words: “If I never loved, I never would have cried.” It’s all about protecting oneself from being hurt by removing oneself from what one perceives to be the source of the pain. I think we can all understand these feelings having been hurt by relationships and finding, even for a season, a certain consolation in being alone. But I think we also would agree that isolation is never the answer to this kind of pain. To love anyone is to be vulnerable and open to being hurt. Love and pain go together, and the only true answer to this dilemma is to welcome them both.

Love costs. Think of what Christ paid when he embraced us. Think of the pain the Son of Man endured in loving a lost and wayward humanity. Love is never without pain. When you sign on to a relationship, you sign on to being hurt. Count on it. But who wants the other option?

C.S. Lewis once wrote about a place where one can be free from the “perturbations” of love. (Perturbation, by the way, is the state of being perturbed.) That place is one’s coffin. Can’t argue with that. Nothing can get through to you there. So Simon and Garfunkel and C.S. Lewis agree: There is a place you can be safe from the painful aspects of being in a relationship with others, but who wants it?

What would make Christ go through what he went through for us? Love and all the rewards it brings in warmth, companionship, fellowship, and joy. Nothing brings more meaning to life than love. True love is what God is and what we were made to know with him and with each other. Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, the pain of love will one day be gone. And even now, we can experience its victory.

So what will it be? The high cost and vulnerability of love or the loneliness of isolation? A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries. But a son or a daughter knows a warm place in the family of God.

It’s important to know your options.

God sees reasons we have no access to.

Mister Rogers was right after all: There is only one you. But this information is much more important than just boosting your self-esteem. It should help you better serve others by being more confident about your God-given role in life.

No one else fits your shape. No one else has your blend of gifts, talents, and natural abilities – making you very important in the whole scheme of things. “God made our bodies with many parts,” Paul wrote, “and he has put each part just where he wants it.” (1 Corinthians 12:18) And as it is with the human body, so it is with the Body of Christ, which is the corporate collection of all who believe.

But this uniqueness goes beyond giftedness; it reaches as well into the depth of each of our experiences in our life of faith. No one else has your life. No one else has your pain, your hardships, your joys, or your sorrows. Everything in life shapes us and we are shaped by everything for a reason – so that we can touch others in a unique way based upon who we are and what we’ve been through. God is amazing. He doesn’t waste anything in our lives.

Every piece of our lives and experiences can be used by Christ to touch someone else. We were made for each other; we live for each other; we even die for each other by “dying well,” as it was once referred to in a memorial service I attended. We die with hope so that others who live might see the reality of Christ in even the darkest of hours. See? God uses everything.

Are you just getting by, or are you living for a reason? Think about your unique gifts and ask yourself how those gifts are benefiting others. What specific way is God using you to touch others in the Body of Christ? Do you seem to have an extra measure of wisdom, or mercy, or discernment, or knowledge, or administration, or desire to serve? These will help determine how you can look for opportunities to help others.

And then, think about the things you have gone through so far in your life – especially the difficult or challenging things where God has met you with his faith. That information is not just for you, it’s for you to empathize with and encourage others who have encountered similar struggles.

God isn’t messing around here. There are no accidents with our lives. Whatever we have received and experienced has shaped who we are, and because of that, we are qualified. There is truly no one else like you … for a reason.

by John Fischer

I’m an Angels fan – God’s Angels as well as Anaheim’s. Now you immediately want to know what a partisan baseball comment like that is doing in a devotional. Well, it’s because I am an Angels fan that I read an article in the Los Angeles Times once about Anaheim’s star young relief pitcher, Francisco Rodriguez, and in that article, he revealed why he points and looks skyward every time he leaves the field. “Win or lose, I point to God when I’m done to thank him for giving me that energy and ability and one more day to do my job. I thank him for allowing me to be myself.”

Some might not recognize this as a statement of worship, but that’s exactly what it is. Our work is our worship. Francisco is worshiping God by training, practicing, and pitching in the major leagues because that is where his talents and skills have taken him. So for him to thank the Creator and give him credit is the most natural thing he could do as a created human being. Actually, every player on the field is worshiping God by doing what he does; it’s just that they don’t all know that they are. Francisco knows, and this adds a spectacular element to his life. He’s not just getting by in life; he’s getting to do what he was meant to do.

Does this only apply to baseball players? Why should it? Why couldn’t it apply to anyone, doing any job? Can a computer programmer thank God for one more day to do her job? Can a CEO thank God for the skills and abilities to run a company? Can a clerk at Wal-Mart thank God for allowing him to be himself? Of course. That’s the unique nature of this perspective. It can apply to anyone or no one.

It’s really all up to us to see our lives as gifts of God for however long we get to live them on this earth. God’s not going to tap us on the shoulder and remind us of this every few hours. Indeed, you can live your whole life and never see it as a gift of God and an act of worship. But in this case, who loses?

Our lives should worship God anyway since we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. So why not get in on the act? Why not thank God for one more day to do your job? And while you’re at it, thank him for allowing you to be yourself.

How could it possibly be that God would give us a purpose driven life on earth only to get us into a purposeless life in heaven? And yet if your training is anything like mine, this is the way heaven is often presented. What if we took the five great purposes for the Church and looked at them in terms of our life together in eternity? What could we learn? A lot, I think.

For starters, worship is a no-brainer. Of course we will be doing that! Most of the biblical pictures of heaven have the saints and angels gathered around the throne worshiping God. In the same way, fellowship will be sweet. This is, in fact, the main reason we were created: We were an idea in the mind of God and we were made in his image so he could relate to us and us to him, and then us to each other. And this fellowship will be enhanced by the removal of the barrier of sin. There will be nothing to hide; everything will be out in the open. We will know and be known.

But what about growth? How will we grow spiritually in heaven? Of course some of this is speculation, but I would imagine growth would come in the form of experiences and adventure in God’s vast universe. And I would venture to guess that universe wouldn’t be static, either.

And why not think that we will still be serving one another? Are we going to get to heaven so we can be served? Will we each have our own personal valet? Will the angels wait on us hand and foot? I would guess that we would just keep right on serving each other, only doing it perfectly and working together with the same gifts and the same interrelatedness we found on earth.

And even mission plays a role, if you believe that God’s work in the world continues into eternity. The way I learned it in Sunday school, it seemed that once we get to heaven, everything will be over. Nothing more to do. Does that sound like God – the God who doesn’t waste any of our experiences here on earth but uses everything to mature and perfect us? Is this all so we can sit around on clouds reminiscing?

“If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job … [he] will put that servant in charge of all he owns.” (Luke 12:43-44 NLT)

Don’t lose sight of the fact that the little things you do now will turn into big opportunities in eternity.

I will worship God today, because it is good and right to do so.

I will worship God today, not because of what it will do for me, or because it is popular, or because it is Sunday, or because I like the worship music, but for the simple reason that I was made to do this. To worship God is what I am here for.

Worship is not an asset. It is not an added benefit to my life like working out or taking vitamins. Nor is it a secret formula that will add a deeper dimension to my life. Worship is the air I breathe. It is the blood pumping through my veins. It is the cells in my body that reproduce and keep me alive for this. Everything else I do is extemporaneous. To worship God is the root of my being.

Remember the pet rock craze? Or canned air? Or rain in a jar? Or anything else so basic that someone tries to make a buck off of packaging, in a clever way, what everyone already has for the taking? Certain aspects of worship today have become so popular that it sometimes seems like it’s being packaged and sold. That’s not worship. Worshiping God is a state of mind that is accessible to all of us all the time. It is not a means to an end; it is the end itself.

The Westminster Catechism says that the “chief end” of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That’s another way of saying it is the most important thing we were created to do. And if it’s that important, then it is accessible to everybody, all the time.

The Lord our God is one God, and we will love him and worship him because of who he is and who we are. It is good and right to do so. It is arrogant not to do so. We are his creatures; he is the creator. We are the sheep of his pastures; he is the shepherd. We are mere people; he is God. To do anything but worship him is to inadvertently put us in his place, and I don’t think anyone really wants to be there.

By the way, we are not the only ones worshiping. The psalmist says that the trees of the field clap their hands, the mountains break forth into singing, and the heavens are constantly declaring the glory of God.

That’s a heck of a lot of noise going on out there, if we could just hear it.

When it comes to serving one another, think of yourself as the shoeshine man.

We’ve all seen these guys in airports, train stations, and downtown next to the newsstand. Their workplaces usually consist of two or three elevated chairs on a platform so they can work at a comfortable level. The most upscale stations have plush, leather-covered, stuffed chairs and brass stands for your feet that put your shoes out where the shiners can work around them easily. Shining shoes is a servant’s position that bears images of a happy-go-lucky soul, snapping his polishing cloth over shiny wing tips while cracking jokes or singing along with the radio.

A successful businessman, of course, would identify with the guy on the throne, never the one shining shoes. And yet were Jesus here today, he would point to the shoeshine man as being the one to emulate. It’s the closest thing in our society to what Jesus did when he washed the disciples’ feet, and then he told his disciples to go and do the same. He lowered himself to a place of servanthood and met the needs of those around him.

Serving others begins with how you see yourself. Paul said, “So look at Apollos and me as mere servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God’s secrets.” (1 Corinthians 4:1 NLT) “Mere servants.” You can’t serve without first seeing yourself as a servant. If being a shoeshine man seems too demeaning, you may need to rethink your calling and purpose in life, because a big part of that purpose is to serve others instead of being served.

And you can’t see yourself as a servant without looking up to those around you. That’s the other part of this image that works with Christ’s foot-washing example. This whole arrangement puts you down and the other person up. For the shoeshine man, the customer is the V.I.P. The customer is on the throne in the plush seat.

Your purpose is to put others on the throne instead of insisting on being there yourself. I don’t know about you, but for me, this is a radical redistribution of power.

So remember today, you’re a servant. You don’t need recognition – you don’t need attention – because it’s not about you; it’s about the people you serve. And if you forget … just remember the shoeshine man.

It is human to be more fascinated by evil than by good.

An important part of serving is being aware of people and their needs