Transition

I am rebooting my blog and website. My wife and I are launching the Identity In Wholeness ministry -- an online community dedicated to living & walking out the fullness of who Jesus created us to be.

There is so much brokenness out there, even in the Body of Christ. Forgiveness is not the same as healing. So often we, even as Christians, are the walking wounded. We want to share the healing with you that the Lord has brought us through.

Our new URL is www.IdentityInWholeness.com. See you on the inside!

“But I Go to Church...”

“I go to church! What else do I need?” Good. I'm glad you go to church. We should. It's hard to have relationship with somebody if you never go to their house. But that's not enough. Not nearly. Because that doesn't make a relationship.

The Bible compares our relationship with God to a marriage. If you're married, try spending only an hour or two a week with your spouse and see how that works. Yeah, you laugh because you know that won't cut it. Not by a long shot. You can't have intimacy with somebody on a few hours a week, and that in a group setting.

If you're not married, I bet you laughed too when you read that sentence. That's not the marriage you hope for – only seeing the person you're spending the rest of your life with once a week for a couple hours.

Yet we're too often content to spend only a few hours a week with the person we're going to spend the rest of our eternity with. That's pretty jacked up.

Church is good, and we need that corporate worship time; it's very important. But we need intimacy with Jesus, just him and us, too. Just like with our spouse. In fact, he wants to be closer than our spouse. No other religion boasts a god who wants that! Woof!

Intimacy Not Insurance

Jesus didn't die to give us salvation. Controversial statement, I know. But it's true. He died to give us relationship with him. Salvation was just the prerequisite.

Jesus didn't die to be our insurance salesman. Often we get distracted away from the intimacy he wants with us right now in this life. We think it's ok because we have a policy with Jesus Christ Mutual Life. But without a lifestyle of intimacy with him, we're not keeping up on the premiums. We're in danger of hearing, “Away from me, I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23). Policy cancelled.

He died to be our Lover-King. Read Song of Songs – that's the kind of personal intimacy with us he wants. Lover close, private intimacy. Yes, we need corporate worship also, there's power there. But we also need that private time – just him and me. Just him and you.

“We [the Father and Jesus] will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23). Catch that? He wants to move in. He's not standing at the door and knocking because he's selling fire insurance or the latest sin vacuum. (Revelation 3:20).

Christianity is about so much more than salvation. There. Is. So. Much. More. It's about a wonderfully unpredictable and adventurous relationship with our Living Lover-King God.

Parental Inversion

Parental inversion is when the child has to be strong for the adult. It's when the adult draws emotional strength from the child. It's rampant in our society because we adults don't know how to be adults. Children, and I include teen-agers where it is especially prevalent, don't know any better – when their parent is hurting, of course they want to be strong for them. But they aren't equipped to be. They aren't supposed to be.

We adults are supposed to be strong for our children. We adults are supposed to show by example the Christian life of long-suffering and self-sacrifice, flowing out of beautiful and rich intimacy with the Lord. When we frequently receive that abundance of his presence directly from him, we can sacrifice to ourselves because we're overflowing with Jesus. We never don't have enough.

But instead, often we don't spend enough time with him (if any) to get that overflow. So we live from crisis to crisis, in fear that we won't have enough. And we pull our children into adult responsibilities and adult concerns that they aren't emotionally equipped to deal with. It breaks the heart of God when children can't be children.

But there's hope for parental inversion. If this is you, get counseling, get help. You cannot do this alone. For your children's sake, if not for your own.

We get out of parental inversion by coming to the place where Jesus is a real person we commune with, and he gives us the emotional support we need, instead of drawing it from our kids. We get out of parental inversion by sacrificing our safety in the crisis. By risking not having enough. By trusting he'll give us enough.

We know he's enough because we've lived it. We put our trust in him when it was all on the line, and he came through. Maybe not how we wanted, but he came through how he wanted and we're still standing. So we can sacrifices ourselves in whatever crisis we face, for the sake of our kids. That's the example they need to see.

The Pig I Have

One morning a rural pastor was out visiting folks in his congregation and had this conversation with a poor farmer.

Pastor: “Farmer Brown, if you had two horses, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

Farmer: “Absolutely, Pastor, you know that I would.”

Pastor: “If you had two cows, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

Farmer: “Without thinking twice about it, in a heartbeat, Pastor.”

Pastor: “If you had two pigs, would you give one of them to the Lord?”

Farmer: “Well, now, Pastor, that's not fair. You know I have two pigs.”

(Kudos to Pastor David Sauer for this great story.)

We're happy to give God what we don't have. “Lord, if you let me hit the lottery, I'll give you a million dollars, pay off the church's property, and then I'll start tithing. And since I won't have to work, I'll spend 4 hours a day praying and worshipping, reading my Bible, and communing with you.”

But God doesn't want the horse or the cow we don't have. He wants the pig we do have. He knows our schedule. He doesn't want the million dollars or the 4 hours a day we don't have. Or even the hour a day we don't have. He wants the 10 minutes a day, even the 5 minutes a day, that we do have.

Let's start there. Let's start daily. With something. No guilt, we're not checking a box here. Just giving him what we do have.

That's how you build intimacy with the Lord. That's how relationship starts. Spend that daily time, just you and him, no matter how small. Faithfully. As you're faithful, you'll be amazed and how faithful he will be in giving you more time. Watch it grow. Tell me in the comments what happens.