Digging Deeper

The Lord has really been pressing hard on some issues lately, just between me and Him. It's funny because they really don't matter. Ask a thousand people if these issues are issues, and they'd let me off the hook. But He and I know better. What's interesting to me is the progression in this. I was fasting, but that has served its purpose and now that that got established, He's shown me it's not needed. In fact, if I do it any more it'll be empty. This "issue" is on, and it is the real sacrifice (actually it’s a cluster of things).

The call to discipleship is as deep as you want to make it. Hendricks used to use the illustration of a mine. If all you want to do is stroll and find the occasional nugget, that works. But if you want to go deeper you'll find more, but then, that's more work and sacrifice and commitment and exertion and pain and labor and the searching might be more frustrating. You might even doubt the worth of the endeavor, especially if others are not doing it.

Jesus said that calling Him Lord is silly if we don't obey. I don't think He's talking about morality as obedience. It is following Him in a particular way, in the harvest. There are three things…very easy on the surface. You come to Him, hear His words and do them. Makes for a good sermon outline. Three points and they're right on the surface.

Living with Him…hearing His voice, knowing His Heart, wanting to give and sacrifice and follow? Loving Him enough to want to make His will and desires our will and desires? Following, dying, giving that others might live?

Hearing His words. I've got to admit, my time in the Sermon on the Mount gets more convicting as I go on. That stuff about the blind leading the blind, the flawed disciple maker, the log in the eye. That's hard on me - giving up my rights, being meek, hungry, sad, willing to show mercy like my Father, for Him and the Kingdom and the Harvest. That sort of takes my breath away. I want Him, but I'm not sure I want His words. But I do really.

And doing them. If they were passive morality I'd be fine. But there is action and a mission and a training that is completely voluntary. If I don't do what He says, no one will know or care.

He is like a wise man building a house who dug deep until he found rock. It doesn't give a depth. I would like some specs here. A foot? A yard? What if it's 26 feet or more? Didn't matter, the rock was the goal, the foundation was the purpose and he worked and worked and worked.

In the middle of all the things that we are hoping for, to see the Lord glorify His name, and reach the lost and make disciples, He came to a place with me and said, "Now it’s time for this." I knew it was coming and He set me up beautifully. What a great teacher and Lord. And I see it as the best gift I've received this year. He handed me a shovel and told me to go for it.