I'm Not a Missionary; I'm Not Doing Ministry

Writing teaches you a lot of humility.

I've written a few blogs which I look back on and think, "Wow. I really just didn't get it back then." Sometimes I want to delete them, so that no one reads it and thinks that is what I still think and believe. The truth is, I may feel the same about this blog some day.

I think sometimes that we forget life is always changing; that we are always growing. I have learned so much more than I knew a week ago, a month ago, or a year ago, times when I thought I knew so much. I don't know much of anything at all, actually. I believe I'll be saying that until I die. At least, I hope so.

I've used this gift of writing down words on a page for so many things. When it came to blogging, I had reached a new frontier, and in my trailblazing, I think I've made a mistake or two. With pure intentions, it started with an ask, "God, please use my writing to help someone." It came from a place of not really knowing what I even meant. When it started, I do believe it came from a place of loving others.

I think over time, it became a series of sessions where I let my brain explode on to a page. That gets messy, and can take on some motivations other than love. I let an avenue for creative passion become a place to vent my own frustrations and ideas for how people should think, and believe, and act. I hopped aboard a train of "I know better" and rolled on down the tracks way past the point of "loving people."

Thankfully, this season of writing over the past year was also scattered with some love, encouragement, and humility. Thankfully, I know God answered that prayer with His love and grace to use my words in helping others, despite my own ego trying to mess it all up.

My point is this: I'm done trying to be some polished televangelist hoping that somehow my words were going to be the perfect ones to make someone start living a totally different life following Jesus. I'm also done being a "missionary" who "does ministry".

Instead, I'm going to follow Jesus by doing what He told and showed me to do. It's an uncomplicated things thing that we as "Christians" have spent 2,000 years complicating and messing up. I want to lay it out as simply as I can:

1. Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus told us this is the very most important thing we can do as human beings. He showed us how to do it. SACRIFICIAL LOVE. The kind where a man lays down His own life, so that someone else can live their life. It isn't some deep theology or doctrine or interpretation or set of rules.

2. We can love Him and others, because He first loved us.

God is sacrificial love. Jesus embodied it, and showed us what it looks like. He is only telling us to do what He already did. We are the overflow of His love, and the only reason anything or anyone even exists is so He could love us first.

3. People will know Jesus' love by the way His followers love each other.

This is the part that we've been spending 2,000 years complicating and messing up. We made systems, structures, doctrines, bi-laws, political affiliations, crusades, anti-"you name it" campaigns, "sinners should burn in hell" signs, and a whole lot of other things that Jesus never put in the plan! We made life about us, and what we want, and not about sacrificial love.

4. Seek first the kingdom.

Jesus talked about the "Kingdom of God" more than anything else in His life. He taught and demonstrated that it looks like 1,2, and 3 happening. He didn't do it with some doctrine, or system, or telling people they're going to burn in hell unless they say the believe Jesus died for their evil nature sins (How could He if He hadn't even died yet?)

What He offered instead was a new way of life. A life within the Kingdom of God, a kingdom where Jesus is king, and He rules by sacrificing everything for His people, where that same type of sacrificial love is the most important thing you can do with your life. He was perfect love, and He tells us to follow His example so that this Kingdom can exist, not just in some far-off afterlife, but every day of our life on earth just like He did. (All of this stuff is in the Bible. Start with 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, then the Gospel of John. Google it.) These are the things Jesus talked about, so why do we talk about or try to do anything else?

So, again, I'm not a missionary doing a ministry. I'm not on this earth to strong arm people into joining my religion or adopting some list of absolute beliefs. I'm here to love people by sacrificing whatever I need to sacrifice in order to love them like Jesus does, so that they can know His love, so that they can know they were born to be loved and get connected to the source of that love.

This is just my apology to all of the people in this world who don't really know Jesus, who don't want to know Jesus, and have never experienced His love in a life-transforming way because those of us who have and who follow Him, have failed to truly live and give our lives in such a way that you could experience His love.

I love you. I'm here for you. I really want to listen to your thoughts and discuss it with you, so please contact me.