The Power of Honesty

Honesty is an interesting thing. If someone asked you, "are you an honest person?" most of us would say that we are. Yet I wonder if we actually answer that question based on a "high percentage of honesty" -- "I'm being mostly honest. That's almost the truth". See? What I mean is this - let's say that I ask you to share with me the complete truth about a situation so that I can help you come up with a solution. If you tell me 90% of the facts and leave out 10%, then my response to the situation is not at all accurate. It really isn't going to benefit you, because I am answering based upon incomplete truth.

As Christians, we do this. I see it nearly every day in the church. We don't let people know us completely, we don't tell everything about ourselves because we're afraid that one small percentage of information we leave out, if told might cause someone to reject us or judge us -- so we say we're being honest, we say we're open to accountability, but in reality, we are not.

How can we come along side a brother or sister in Christ and help them in their Christian growth and walk if we are not starting from the fundamental place of honesty?

I guess what I'm advocating is for us to "take the chance", get open, get honest, get real in one another's lives or we'll never build relationships that help us to truly grow and develop. We will also never know whether those that are closest to us love us for all of who we are or just for that part that we have revealed to them. Sounds like an opportunity for the devil to get in and isolate us from others so that he can impact our thinking -- even if it's just that small 10%.

Easter Praise!

It is Easter morning, just before last runthroughs begin before New Life's early Sunday Celebration. Thinking back over these past several weeks and then especially this past week gives me pause. We celebrate the amazing work of Jesus Christ as He battled for our eternal destiny. Here at New Life and in churches around the US, we acknowledge that Easter offers an opportunity to speak into people's lives that are not normally within earshot of our message. Many Americans (maybe it's true in other countries too) attend church on Easter when they may not have do so at all at any other time of year. So, we try very hard to give the message in a way that reached them deeply. It is also a season where committed Christians take more time and expend more energy than usual to draw in close to Jesus.

This means that many, many people spend hours upon hours toiling at the planning, the rehearsal and the presentation of our Easter events. It would amaze you the number of hours that were put into the Maundy Thursday communion & foot washing, the Good Friday Stations of the Cross and the weekend Easter Celebrations. Volunteers and staff alike, put in so much extra time -- giving and giving so that others could be impacted by God over these four days. Set pieces have been under construaction for weeks. Several even took a day off work to come in and work on sets for The Door. Band members spent hours rehearsing the music for Celebrations. Technical crews were here early and staying late for every event. Close to 100 individuals worked just in the Worship Arts area to make all this happen.

Of course, had no one showed up to participate, there would have been no impact in lives -- other than on the ones who worked. Hundreds came to Maundy Thursday and took part in The Lord's Table (on the floor) and footwashing. Hundreds more came throughout the day on Friday and spent time in the quiet to listen to God as they paused at the Stations of the Cross -- many tears were shed, sins left behind, and hurts layed aside. People left their shoes, coats, clothing and money for the poor. At the end of the 8 hour event, the lists of thousands of sins were burned symbolic of God's forgiveness.

What a week! Thansk to all who made it happen.

Thanks to Jesus who made it all possible!

If I did a survey of the Christians I know, I'd guess that the great majority of them would say that they would want to see revival. Really though? Do we really? As staff members at a church, we periodically dream of the "church the way we'd love to see it"! We ask ourselves, "what if revival took place?"

What would it really take to achieve what some call an "open Heaven" and see God's outpowering of power and grace?

The word renewal can also be used for this picture of the Church completely surrendering to God's desire for us -- you know, His desire that might be uncomfortable, that might entail mass amounts of confession, that might come in a way that doesn't look like we thought it would or meet our "theological criteria".

I read this statement in a book at lunch today:

"Renewal offers not so much an answer as a question: Why have we been awakened, and what are we prepared to do about that?"

Interesting, isn't it? If renewal came; if we became renewed individuals; if our church expereinced renewal...Why? What is God's point and how would we respond to this "new thing" that God was up to? I doubt that God simply wants us to create a "hipper version where we are now".

Ultimately the answer may be found in the fact that we will meet God most profoundly in the TRANSFORMATION of our own inner life. Then and maybe only then, will a deeper "revival/renewal" come our way!

Let's just ponder that together for a while, shall we.