THE Way, without lies and death.

"I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" John 14:6

Such a good verse. But I feel like so much of it has been lost. We treat Jesus as merely a way, a means to truth, a portion of the best life. Jesus becomes an option, a means to an end an avenue for us to get what we want or need.

It has never been, nor ever supposed to have been that way!

Jesus is our all!!

Our christian walk is to discover Jesus, to follow Him and to be like Him. Not to go through Him to find other things, but to know Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.


He is the Way. Sometimes we think of Jesus as our means of salvation, how we get to know God, how we are able to access grace. But no, he IS the Way. In Jesus IS the Way. Knowing Him is all we need.

He is the Truth. We can tend to think Jesus is a wise man and his advice can help us to know more about the world and God. But no, in the man Jesus is all the truth in the universe. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God" Thats truth.

He is Life. He is not an addition, an option, an alternative, an add-on, a bonus, a part, am auxillary, an augmentation, an increase.

In Jesus is our entirety. Our life, hopes and faith are in Him.

This has challenged me to read the bible in a new way. I want to know Jesus because He is Jesus. I want to follow Him and obey Him and be like Him because that's what I was created to do and that's the only thing I can do.

Which makes some of the harder, crazier things Jesus says even harder and crazier. Because they're real and truth. But easier because they're real and truth???

What about Jesus do you need to know more of?

Two things.

So, for some personal news, I am leaving YWAM staff and going home for a season. It's been tough for me for a few reasons, but basically, it's been testing me a lot of trusting God and his faithfulness and knowing He knows best. Because going back to old things is scary. You have to trust God and what He's done and what He's spoken.

So with that, two things have been on my heart to remember and grow in. And i feel like these are specific for my circumstance, but also just huge principles for the christian walk.

Humility and Grace.

Being for others and getting from God. Being focused on relationship and believing God.

Being humble means admitting mistakes, or even sometimes not saying something when you're right. I want to be so focused on others and their well-being that I am humble enough to pull myself down for them. And admitting that I may actually NOT know best and still need to learn things. Especially in terms of community and church, I want to put Jesus and his bride above my own desires. Because his bride is amazing and I want to build it!!

And grace. What craziness. I still don't understand it fully. But I want to. I want to accept this grace. When God speaks and gives, I want to walk in that instantly. I don't want to doubt that I AM or I CAN or that God is bIGGER. So when God pours out his undeserved things onto me, I desire to be able to take it with both hands and run with it, for the sake of others!!!

That's basically it. I feel like this grace thing could go on forever. Gods grace is one of the most mind blowing, incomprehensible things. Its so much, and so good. It's all good in fact.

How can I get more of these things? How can you?

Implicit communication.

So I just came across this article on the website www.outofur.com, a christian leadership website.

http://www.outofur.com/archives/2011/07/worship_through.html#more

I dont know why but it struck me. especially when the author writes "What values are we implicitly communicating by our spaces, music, and liturgy? What do we hope people leave with?"

I have had on my heart lately two major things, community, aka the church, and getting back to a first love for Jesus. And they go so strongly hand in hand.

My heart for a church of community has grown out of experiencing a whole range of different attempts and differing measures of success. I have seen good and bad, but also never perfect. So these questions from this author raised yet more thoughts in me.

What ARE we communicating through our services and our actions? Is it love and acceptance and inclusivity? Or is it ritual and uncomfortability and obedience?
What do we WANT to be portraying? What kind of environment would benefit people to find Jesus the most? How can we set that up?

I am not qualified to be a Judge.

I'm going to try and do this more regularly. Even if no one reads it. My thoughts will be immortalised on the internet for all to see and none to care. Kinda like twitter.

How easy is it for us to judge? Judge ourselves, judge others, judge individuals, corporations, ideas, thoughts and even dreams.

Why are we like that? Especially as christians, we are called to love, others are supposed to know us by our love. Instead, christians are seen as condemning and judgemental. You want proof? read UNchristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. Research has been done on how others see us, and its not good.

Not only can we tend to judge those outside the church, the "gays", "whores" and "heathens" but we have this bad habit of judging ourselves. And that's where I'm going right here.

Ignore the church organisations that condemn those outside its walls, that's perhaps a different topic. What about how we see and treat our brothers and friends in christ? How do we treat those we live our lives with? Or even, how do you feel about what I'm writing, or what you see other churches do?

When you see a fellow christian acting out, or a church organisation condemning or some such, are our thoughts first turned to judgement (they did wrong) or love (how can they do better)

What does Jesus think?

I had this really cool revelation the other day on this topic. Whenever you're struggling with insecurity or pride or especially when you feel you're comparing yourself to others and judging them, think
"what does Jesus actually think of that person?"

"What does the King of Love want to do about it?"

Maybe they have made a mistake, or maybe they haven't and you're being a typical petty, arrogant human. But I can guarantee Jesus would love on them, go out of his way to serve and help and fix rather than talk about problems.

And aren't we called to be like Jesus?

I for one don't want to feel jealous, insecure, prideful or any of the inbetweens. So I'm going to ask, "what does Jesus think of you right now about those actions?"

He wants to love the heck out of them.
I'm pretty grateful for that.