I was listening to a sermon by Jason Upton and he made a couple of statements that struck my heart. I am assuming that you have had a similar experience where something that was said struck your heart more than the other things that were being said. The question that I began to ask my self after his statement was, am I a follower or a forerunner? Jason was referring to a local Church that he was leading worship in and their call to the community and making the comparison between being a follower or a forerunner, but I looked at my own life and began asking questions.
This topic covers all three categories that I am about to describe. For those of us who are apart of a local Church, have been apart of a local Church but aren’t anymore and those of us who have never been apart of a local Church can all say that the current Church that we all see is in trouble and headed down a road that God never intended it to go down. Please hear my heart, Jennifer and I are madly in love with the Church ( the called out ones) and feel a call on our lives to help the Church become all that God intended it to be. With that said we can also say that it is in need of help and direction for it to do what God intended it to do. There are places across the western world where the local Church is shinning like a light in a dark place but by no means would I say that this shinning is the norm as a whole.
If we continue to do what we have always done we will have what we have always had. Now what we have hasn’t always been something thats needed to be changed, but now is a clear reality that something new must break forth for us to become who we were destined to be. This idea is the difference between being a follower and a forerunner. Do we want to be an echo of yesterday and years gone by, or a voice to the present and what has yet to be. I believe that God is sovereignly raising up an army who will lead a great reformation in the way that life is lived in the local Church. These men and women will be forerunners not followers.
The difference between followers and forerunners, is simple yet profound. A follower follows what’s already been done, and a forerunner looks for the face of Jesus in the present not the past. It’s easy to see the face of Jesus from yesterday, but that will only take us so far, its only in seeing His face today and each new day to come that we can go where He is going, and say what He is saying. The hour demands that you and I respond to the place of whole hearted devotion in the context of a sermon on the mount lifestyle. The life of a forerunner isn’t a life outside the Bible but rather a life within the boundaries of the Bible. All of creation is longing for the day when the sons and daughters of God are revealed to it, and let it be said of this generation that we didn’t echo what worked for the years gone by, but we said what Jesus was saying right now, and did what Jesus was doing in the present not the past. Jesus was a forerunner cause He did only what He saw the Father doing, and not what He saw others doing.
Recently I been struck with the idea about the conversation of doing something as opposed to the actually doing of it. This is something that I struggle with and have seen many others struggle with as well. It’s so easy for us as humans to be preoccupied with the conversation of our growth in God and actually stop doing the growing. What I mean by this is that we become enamored with the language that we have been learning in our time with God, that we check out of the actual doing of the things that gave us the language. The language isn’t what makes our heart alive or makes me alive on the inside, its the working of the language on the inside of me in the day to day that makes my heart alive and gives me the language. Its so easy for me to move from a place of desperation for experience with Jesus to a place where I am talking about my experience of yesterday and or what I am pursuing in the days to come. My time becomes filled with conversation to others about what I want to do, and what I want to attain in God and I begin to substitute the experience which makes my heart alive for a conversation which is quickly fading.
I am obviously writing this in the moment of my feeling that this is what I have become, and done. I don’t necessarily know what would be the solution to move from this place to a place where we are living in the experience of our hearts being alive in God. The invitation to love God, and have fire on our hearts that causes passion for God and passion for others has been given. Its free. We cant earn this passion and or trick God to giving it to us through any other way then actually doing it. What I mean by doing it, I mean the putting of our hearts before Him day in and day out. The Man Christ Jesus is an all consuming fire, and possess passion as His primary attribute. We as weak individuals and cold at heart, are in need not of conversation only, but the putting of our hearts before His word, and His presence. We need to do this, and not just talk about it, but live in the experience of it. The living in the experience will cause our hearts to come alive in God.
The idea of you and I having our identity rooted and grounded in the reality that we are loved by God, and lovers of God sounds great but often feels impractical to walk out before God and man. This tension I believe is one of the core issues for the majority of those who have given their lives to Jesus. The Bible tells us in Revelations that satan is the accuser of the brethren and he accuses us before God day and night (Rev. 12:10) We often feel the heat of this accusation as it comes so close to home. The devil is quick to point out our weak flesh before God and us. Jumping on any opportunity to accuse when you and I blow it before God. Although most of this is truth, its no the full story. Because of Jesus, grace and truth came into the earth and our relationship with Him gives us the ability to receive this when we need it, both grace and truth. He has made a way for us to move on by repenting and using the strength of our efforts to resist sin, and grow into what becomes a righteous life.
The Bible has a short and powerful book that many refer to the love book, called the Song Of Songs. In this book God uses the love between a King and a peasant women,as a picture of the Love between Jesus and His Bride, the Church, or those who have given their lives to Him through the Cross. I will refer to the peasant women in the Song Of Songs as the bride. A powerful side note is the idea that this peasant women won the heart of a King which is truly our story. The God of all created order has fallen head over heels in love with weak, broken and poor humans. This astounds the heart of humanity as we gaze upon it. So back to this idea of being liked and loved. In the opening chapter of the Song Of Songs the bride runs head first into her weak flesh, and makes the comment that she is dark but lovely (Song Of Songs 1:5). The bride is saying that she has weak flesh but is still lovely to God in her sincerity to live right before Him. This is a hard thing for us to come up against, the idea that we are dark, or have weak flesh and are still lovely to God. We can easily agree with reality that we are dark of heart and or weak in our flesh, but saying that we are still lovely to God in this place of weakness is nearly impossible to declare from our mouths, much less our hearts.
I need to establish something before I go any further. When I say or quote the scripture dark but lovely I am not referring to the rebellious but the sincere. The rebellious has no grounds for being confident before God in their weakness. Its like sinning on purpose because their’s grace available to cover it up. This grace is available to us in our pursuit of a righteous lifestyle before God and man. The condition of the heart has everything to do with it. The whole idea of being dark of heart but still lovely to God, is in the context of the sincere not the rebellious.
So, I think that one of the reasons we struggle with being loved by God in our weakness is due to the fact that we really don’t know the Fathers heart towards the sincere. Just a few verses later in the first chapter of the Song Of Songs Jesus has some things to say to the bride in her broken state, and before He tells her anything about what He would like her to do, He says you look good to Me, and I love you (Song Of Songs 1:8-9). He says you look good to Me, and I love you. These statements weren’t being said to her when things we quote unquote going well for her, but rather when she was broken before God and faced with the reality of her weak flesh or her dark heart. We often relate to God based on how our prayer life goes, or our Word life or how well we have stayed free from the things we continually struggle with. The problem with this ideology is that when we have a bad day, or struggle in these same areas we are no longer able to relate with God, as we feel that He is mad, disappointed or let down by us. The bride tells Jesus, that she is dark, she has issues and His response to her is I know, but I like you and I am in Love with you.
We must allow these tender words break into our hearts and establish a new reality of who This Man Christ Jesus Really is. When I say new reality I don’t mean something outside the context of the Bible, but rather what the Bible really says and not the accusations of the enemy the devil. The Bible is filled with page after page of God making it very clear that He is in love with weak broken humans. This is something that the god of this age has blinded us from, because after this reality breaks into our hearts it causes us to live different before God and man. We gain confidence that we are loved even in our struggle to love God and love others. Dark but lovely to God. Give yourself to this reality, you are liked and loved by Jesus in your weakness.
