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God Made in Man’s Image

Let Us Always Ask, “God, What Do You Prefer?”

Getting Closer to Jesus: The Samaritan woman who encountered Jesus at the well of Sychar was subconsciously looking for a god made in her image—a god to her specifications. This was fairly common among worshipers not only in Jesus’ day but in ours as well. It occurs when we attempt to come to God on our terms rather than his; when we make worship more about us and what we like than about God and what he likes; when, in effect, we recreate God in our image rather than approaching him as beings created in his image.

That was the problem with the worship of the Samaritans. They had corrupted worship to fit their own needs to the point Jesus said, “You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship.” (John 4:22, NLT) They had become Burger King worshipers. Do you remember the old Burger King advertisement? “Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us. Have it your way.”

That little jingle is fitting for what we modern day “Samaritans” are doing with our experience of worship. We love a customized church experience. We expect worship services to be tailor-made just for us. We expect the praise, programs, and preaching to satisfy our preferences. We want church designed to meet our needs, music tuned to our exact tastes, preachers crafted to our specifications, messages that mesmerize, and a made to order God—a “Burger King God” who says, “Have it your way”.

Some time ago, Los Angeles Magazine ran an article called “God For Sale”. The author said, “It is no surprise that when today’s affluent young professionals return to church they want to do it only on their own terms. But what is amazing is how far the churches are going to oblige them.” Newsweek Magazine added, “They’ve developed a pick and choose Christianity in which individuals take what they want and pass over what does not fit their spiritual goals…”

Nothing can be further from the “spirit and truth” worshiper of verse 24 that Jesus said God the Father is seeking. When it comes to God, and the way you worship him, you need to start saying, “Have it your way”. Me too!

If you learn what it means to do that, you will drink water from an altogether different kind of well—and you will never thirst again!

Take the Next Step: Honestly evaluate your worship expectations. Do you approach worship by asking God how he prefers your worship? Or do you tell God, albeit in not so many words, “This is how I want it”? If it is the latter, a little repentance is in order.

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The Heart of the Matter

Who Is First in Your Life?

Getting Closer to Jesus: An entire book could be written about this story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. For instance, a whole chapter could be written from this story just about the inclusiveness of the Kingdom of God. Another chapter could lay out a master blueprint for starting spiritual conversations with anyone from an authentic seeker to a theological weirdo. And of course, several chapters could present a compelling theology of worship from what Jesus says just in these few verses.

But at the end of the day, what you will find is that any encounter with Jesus doesn’t simply warm your heart to the Kingdom of God or perfect your evangelistic technique or inform your theology or just cram more spiritual information into your head, it touches the true condition of your heart. That is what happened to the woman at the well.

This sinful Samaritan sister is like a lot of people in our society today, even church-going types, who are attempting makeovers, not only of the physical kind but of the whole-life kind. Like her, so many people are profoundly unhappy, dissatisfied, empty on the inside, and are trying to make over their lives by filling that missing void. But any makeover effort that isn’t God-initiated, God-empowered, and God-focused, is akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

In this woman’s case, she had gone from man to man, hoping the next would be better—but each relationship left her increasingly dissatisfied, damaged and desperate. What Jesus was telling her was that she didn’t need a man to complete her. She didn’t need just a “relationship makeover”. She needed a new “water source” (John 4:13-15, NLT)—she needed a brand new life.

This woman is really a mirror of our age. We go from experience to experience, job to job, purchase to purchase, and relationship to relationship, hoping that that next great thing will be what finally brings us fulfillment. But here is the deal: If you are looking to a thing, or job, or another person to fulfill you, you are putting an expectation on something or someone that they cannot meet. When you live in that kind of pattern, your life will end up as one long, futile attempt to find completion.

 

Remember the gushy line from the movie that all the romantics swooned over: “You complete me”? That sounds so romantic it has to be true, right? It’s not! It is one of the Enemy’s great deceptions. What Jesus was saying to this Samaritan woman—and by extension, to you and me—is that only God can complete you. When you come to God for completion, then those unrealistic expectations that you have placed on position, possessions, and people will be removed, and only then can you drink the living water and never thirst again.

The bottom line to this story—and to your life and mine—is simply this: We find real completion only in God.

Take the Next Step: Take a moment, or several if you need, and honestly evaluate whether people, position, and/or possessions have surpassed God in terms of what you depend upon to satisfy your emotional needs for security, significance, and satisfaction. If they are out of order, ask God to forgive you—and help you to reprioritize your tank-fillers—and then get ruthlessly committed to letting God be God in your life!

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The Best Mission Statement

You Exist to Make Jesus Famous

Getting Closer to Jesus: Over the last two or three decades, it has become clear, at least in the Western world, that a person cannot be successful, live a truly satisfying life, and experience significance as a human being without a well-written, eye-catching personal mission statement. Likewise, no corporation can increase its bottom line and influence its market without a corporate mission statement. Next to oxygen and nourishment, a mission statement is essential to life.

Of course, I am speaking facetiously. To be sure, strategically developing and clearly stating your personal or corporate mission is a good thing. I have one. Jesus had one: “The Son of man came to serve, not be served, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45). The Apostle Paul had one: “I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24) You would do well to have one, too.

But what would happen if the qualifier to every mission statement of every Christian and every faith-based organization was the same as John the Baptist’s? Oh my! We would change the world—that’s what would happen!

John the Baptist’s mission statement can be found in John 1:7, “John came as a witness to testify concerning that light (Jesus Christ), so that through him all might believe.” Throughout his ministry, John faithfully, fearlessly, and passionately executed against that calling until he himself was executed, literally, for doing his job. (Mark 6:14-29) And while, in reality, John’s time in fulfilling his mission was brief, it was undeniably powerful.

It is very likely that John could have avoided what from a human perspective looked like the failure of his business. Most likely, he could have gone on to a lucrative career as a speaker, or the leader of a religious movement. But had he done that, from an eternal perspective, he would have failed at his mission.

No, John’s mission to testify to the Light (that is, Jesus and his messianic mission) was controlled by this caveat: no matter how famous and prosperous his clients were willing to make his ministry, John knew that he had to decrease so Jesus could increase. After all, his mission was simply to introduce and represent Jesus. Jesus was the real deal; John only knew of Jesus. It was Jesus, not John, who had the bona fides to speak of the Kingdom of Heaven since he had been there and was actually from there. And since that was the case, the more successful John did his job of introducing Jesus, the less of John people needed to see.

Now, of course, you and I are likely not called to John the Baptist’s path. He was unique in the initial public offering of Jesus. Yet in another sense, all Christians and Christian organizations are called to introduce and represent Jesus. And to successfully execute against that mission—however that mission statement might be personalized uniquely to you and me—John’s caveat must be ours as well: In all that we do, in the success that we experience, in the direction we take and in the dreams we pursue, we must decrease so that Jesus can increase.

From a human point of view, that might seem silly. But from heaven’s perspective, that is the path by which you and I can change the world—for Christ’s sake. Yes, that is the best mission statement!

Take the Next Step: If you have a personal mission statement (or a corporate one), add John’s caveat to the end of it: “Jesus must become greater; I must become less.”

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How We Kill Our Christian Witness

Trigger Warning: This May Infuriate You

Getting Closer to Jesus: Unfortunately, for too many Christians, John 3:17 gets lost in the shadows of the verse that immediately precedes it—John 3:16. Who doesn’t love that verse? It is the heart of God—his sacrificial love for a sinful world. It is the Bible summed up in one short verse. It is the simplest yet most powerful collection of words the world has ever heard. The truth that Jesus declares in John 3:16 is the only hope for the world.

But Jesus’ followers often miss what follows: he didn’t come to force his gracious offer of eternal life down the throats of those who resisted. His plan wasn’t to set up a spiritual police state to enforce adherence to his sacrificial love. He wasn’t even going to publicly condemn those who foolishly, perhaps even violently, rejected the divine plan to eternal life.

So why do so many believers have an insatiable need to condemn the unbelieving world? If condemnation were what sinners needed, Jesus would have done that. Rather, Jesus understood that their very resistance to his grace and rejection of his atonement was all the condemnation that was needed. The unbelieving world already stood condemned. Why condemn what was already condemned?

Contrary to Jesus’ approach, condemnation seems too often to be our leading evangelistic strategy. But when believers, churches, and spiritual leaders take to their social media outlets to decry the current crisis of morality in America, or lash out on the airwaves about the obvious failures of our out-of-control government, or write in their blogs about the evils of gay marriage or the horror of late-term abortion or the ills of our increasingly secular culture, we are well on our way to destroying whatever Christian witness we might have once been able to exert. Does that mean I am in favor of those things or believe that we should never speak out about sin or injustice in the world? Not at all!

It’s just sadly interesting to me that we tend to pass too quickly over the greatest truth in the Bible, John 3:16, and go right for the jugular vein in condemning what already stands condemned when Jesus himself, the one we represent, didn’t even do that. Christian pollster George Barna recently summarized some research on the church’s perception in the world by stating, “The Christian community is not known for love.” If Jesus was known for loving the world so much that he gave his life to redeem it, why should that be any less true of his followers? He concludes that this perception renders ineffective most of our evangelistic efforts. Our condemning voice overshadows our loving heart.

So, what should be our response to all these ills in the world that need to be set right? Are we to just idly stand by, do nothing, and say nothing? No—we would be derelict in our discipleship to take that approach.

We would, however, be far more effective in reaching and redeeming the world if we would do what Jesus did. The best evangelism remains that by our love—for the Lord, for each other, and for the lost—that an unbelieving world will be attracted to our Savior. Like Jesus, when we demonstrate selfless, stubborn, sacrificial love, we will have the undeniable effect that Jesus had: the world will be both repulsed yet attracted by God’s irresistible love in us.

That is the strange thing about God’s love: while every human being fundamentally craves it because of sin, many foolishly, sadly reject it. Those who do stand condemned already. Yet the fact remains, whether our witness is embraced or repulsed, we have an undeniable impact in forgoing condemnation and letting love speak for itself. The Apostle Peter said,

You’ve been chosen…to declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his light …[So] live such good lives among unbelievers that even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us…Always be ready [to share your faith], but do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (1 Peter 2:9 & 12, 3:16)

I watch too many believers who are anything but that as they engage in politics, cultural issues, or theological debates. It seems that some Christians are more passionate about their point of view than pointing people to Jesus. We would win more debates, elections, and souls, too, if we’d learn to offer our opinions with more love and less condemnation.

The word “evangelism” is from a compound Greek word, “eu,” meaning “good” (euphoria) and “aggelos” meaning “messenger” (angel.) So euaggelos is simply “a good messenger.” Our task is just translating the Good News by our selfless, sacrificial lives in a way that reconnects lost people with a loving God.

Bottom line: Jesus didn’t condemn; he just fiercely, stubbornly, unconditionally loved. We should go and do likewise.

Take the Next Step: Your assignment this week will be to light a candle instead of cursing darkness when you come across the temptation to condemn. And believe me, you will face such a temptation.

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The Whole Bible in a Single Verse

It's Completely Simple Yet Infinitely Powerful

Getting Closer to Jesus: John 3:16—it’s the whole Bible in just one verse. The verse is so simple that any child can memorize it, yet it is so infinitely powerful that it can totally, radically transform your life. That’s right, this verse is not just an amazing statement about God’s universal love for all mankind, it is about God’s personal love for you!

God so loved the world, but he didn’t just look at it as one big mass of nameless faces. When he looked at the world and loved it enough to send is only Son to die for its salvation, he was looking at you. Max Lucado, who wrote an entire book just on John 3:16, said, “If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning.”

God has a crazy love for you! He really does. St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, one of the most influential figures in church history, said: “God loves each and every one of us as if there were only one of us.” Think about that: If you were the only person on this planet, God would have loved you so much that he still would have given Jesus to die for your sins. There would still be John 3:16 if you were the sole human ever created.

 

One of my favorite authors, Brennan Manning, told the story of an Irish priest on a walking tour of his rural parish, and he happened upon an old peasant man kneeling by the roadside, praying. The priest was impressed: “You must be very close to God.”

The peasant looked up from his prayers, thought for a moment, and smiled, “Yes, he’s very fond of me.” This simple man had a profound sense that deeply he was loved by God, and that was all that mattered! From that story, Manning developed a personal declaration: “I am the one Jesus loves.”

That is in no way arrogant; it is actually quite Biblical. The Apostle John identified himself throughout his Gospel as “the one Jesus loved.” That came to be John’s primary identity in life. If you were to ask John, “Tell me about yourself,” he wouldn’t have said, ‘Well, I’m an apostle, and the author of this incredible Gospel. I also wrote several epistles, and most impressively, I authored the Revelation” Rather, John would have simply said, “I’m the one Jesus loves.”

Now if John could think of himself that way, so can you. John 3:16 gives you permission. So, I hope you will practice remembering that today. In fact, I would encourage you to say it out loud throughout the day: “I am the one Jesus loves!”

Take the Next Step: Do you ever wonder if God really loves you? I do. The cross is a continual reminder for you and me that when Jesus stretched out his arms on that wooden crossbeam, it was as if he were saying, “I love you this much!” Then he bowed his head and died. And there is nothing today that can separate you from that love. Let the power of God’s love absolutely, profoundly change your life today!

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Rebirth Is Required

You Must Be Born Again!

Getting Closer to Jesus: Nicodemus was a very bright man. He had given himself to much study and he had grown quite famous as a teacher in Israel, but he had little wisdom as to how to be in right standing with God. He knew a lot about God, but he didn’t know God.

Nicodemus was rich. Tradition tells us that he was one of the three richest men in Jerusalem. But how much a person has does not change who they are! You can have plenty of money, a lot of fame, and an enviable place in life, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are still a sinner in need of a Savior!

Not only was he rich, but Nicodemus was also respected. He was a member of the Sanhedrin, the prestigious ruling spiritual body of Israel. He was a rabbi. Jesus refers to him in verse 10 as “Israel’s teacher,” which suggests that he had attained celebrity as a master communicator. However, what you have achieved doesn’t change who you are before God. The truth is, hell will be populated with many admired people, because admiration, though not necessarily a bad thing, does not equal salvation!

Nicodemus was rich, respectable, and he was religious. He was a Pharisee! He kept the Mosaic Law down to its minutiae. He was morally pure to a degree that you and I can’t imagine! But religion doesn’t redeem the heart; religious ritual is not the same as right relationship with God. Titus 3:5 reminds us, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.”

Nicodemus was a person who did all the right spiritual things, spoke the right spiritual language, and gained everyone’s spiritual admiration, but he was still empty on the inside because he was still spiritually lost! That’s why Jesus said, “Nicodemus, you must be born again.” He is simply saying that human beings must have two birthdays to get to heaven. We must have a physical birthday, and we must have a spiritual birthday.

Jesus uses the picture of physical birth to point out the need for spiritual birth because of the obvious comparisons. To begin with, physical birth provides life. All babies have life because they are born! Likewise, spiritual life cannot begin until spiritual birth occurs. Not only that, but physical birth also means a brand-new start. No baby is born with a past! They only have a future! So it is with the spiritual birth. When you get saved, you get a brand new start. Your past is wiped away and the future begins! That’s why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

Most profoundly, physical birth takes place because of the suffering of another. A mother literally, through the pain of childbirth, comes close to death to bring life into this world. Jesus didn’t come close to death—he experienced death so that you and I might be born again. Spiritual birth rests squarely on not only the pain and suffering of another but also on the passion and love of another!

So, what does this mean? It means that salvation requires a new beginning. Not just a reformation of your flesh, but a rebirth from death to life. It means that someone else had to die so that you could be reborn. That is why you can’t do it on your own. It only comes through depending on the complete and adequate supply of God’s saving love through Christ’s passionate suffering for your eternal salvation. It means because of Christ’s adequacy, you can have a brand new beginning and an unending future with God.

As Jesus said to Nicodemus, he would say to you: “You must be born again!” Have you?

Take the Next Step: Although spiritual rebirth still might seem mysterious and inexplicable to you, it is clear from Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus that all human beings must be “born again” if they are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That includes you. The question of all questions is, “Have you?” If you haven’t, consider offering this heartfelt prayer of surrender: “Lord Jesus, I confess that I am a sinner. Please forgive me. I repent of my sins and turn to you. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the tomb to give me eternal life. Come into my life and be my Savior and Lord. And with your help, from this day forward, I will live for you.”

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Believe!

Christianity Boils Down To Belief

Getting Closer to Jesus: If you were a spiritual seeker exploring what the Christian faith was all about, and John’s Gospel was your only source, it wouldn’t take you very long to discover the key component of Christianity. It can be boiled down to just one word—a very simple word that is repeated throughout the book; a single, simple word, yet a word that carries with it the most profound implications. That word is “believe.”

That is Christianity at its purest and simplest: To believe in Jesus Christ.

Now, this is the belief that is more than a mere intellectual acknowledgment of the historical Jesus. It is more than just acknowledging that he was a good man, a wonderful religious leader, or even saying that he was God come in the flesh.

Rather, the kind of belief John is describing—the kind that brings us into an experience of the abundant life of God now and eternal life after we die, is to believe that Jesus Christ is both Savior and Lord. It is to be fully persuaded of whom Jesus is and convinced that what Jesus said is true. It is to have complete confidence that the claims and demands Jesus made are credible beyond any shadow of a doubt. It is the kind of belief that entrusts one’s life and stakes one’s eternity upon the veracity of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is to be so radically won over that all of a person’s life will be placed under the guidance, pleasure, and worship of Jesus.

In the twenty-one chapters of John’s Gospel, all but three use the word “believe” to describe either people’s response to Jesus or Jesus’s call to those who would be his followers.

In John 1:7 John the Baptist is introduced as the one whose entire purpose is to prepare people to believe in Jesus, the coming Messiah.

In John 1:12, the Apostle John explains of Jesus, “All who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gives the right to become the children of God.”

In John 3:14-18, which includes the most famous verse in the entire Bible—the Bible summed up in just one verse—John 3:16, we learn that Jesus will ultimately die on the cross so that people might believe and thereby live forever: “The Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him,” Jesus said. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

Now in this present chapter, John 2:11 tells us that after Jesus performed his first miracle, his disciples believed in him. Toward the end of the chapter, the Jewish leaders ask Jesus for a miraculous sign to prove his authority for driving the merchants from the temple. Jesus only offers them the sign that will come after they destroy the temple, which he will raise up in three days (a veiled reference to his own death and resurrection). Speaking of that in John 2:22, the Apostle John writes, “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled that he had said this, then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

When you get to the end of the Gospel, John reveals to the readers of his Gospel account why he has recorded the stories and teachings of Jesus:

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:30-31)

Believe! That is Christianity pure and simple. And as you read the Gospel of John nearly 2,000 years after John wrote it as an eyewitness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, that same purpose is still in effect: That you might believe—place totally, radical, life-altering trust—in Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord!

Missionary David Seamands told the story of a Muslim man who became a Christ-follower. His friends ask the man, “Why have you become a Christian?” He answered, “It’s like this: Suppose you were going down a road that suddenly forked in two directions and you didn’t know which way to go. At the fork were two men, one dead, one alive. Who of those two would you ask which way to go?”

Friend, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the proof! Do you believe?

That is the most important question you will ever be asked.

Take the Next Step: As you read through the Gospel of John, underline any place where you see the words “believe” or belief” as it relates to either people’s response to Jesus or Jesus’s call to those who would be his followers. And above all, ask that God would deepen your own belief as you absorb the Good News of Jesus Christ.