Done with Jesus?

17 Jesus asked, "Didn't I heal ten men? Where are the other nine?18 Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?" ~Luke 17:17-18 (NIV)

God is not done with you yet!
A lot of times I will hear people say, and with eternal reason and significance, "God is not done with you yet!"

I love this reality because it helps me remember that though my life seems insignificant at times, God has given me a reason to live for and a cause to die for.

However, here is what I am wondering during this Thanksgiving week: "Not is gone done with you, but are you done with God?"

Are you done with God?
There is a passage of Scripture in Luke 17:11-19 where the majority of the people were "done with God" once He gave them what they needed. 9 out 10 people "got" what they needed from Jesus, and then, were "done with Him."

The 9
Who were these 9? They were the 9 lepers isolated in the village outside the borders of Galilee and Samaria. Jesus entered their village (no one else would because of their disease), paid attention to them (when no one else would), listened to their cry, and purified them of their illness. They were to go the priests and show themselves. As they went, they were healed. At that moment, 9 got all they needed from Jesus and walked away. Only 1 wasn't "done with Him yet."

17 Jesus asked, "Didn't I heal ten men? Where are the other nine?18 Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?"

Are you "done with God?" As Thanksgiving week approaches, we have so much to be thankful for (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). However, here's the deal: we can easily find "9" other things to do "before" we thank Jesus..."9" other things before we thank Him for saving our lives..."9" other things to do before praising Him, worshiping at His feet.

The One
Nothing came "before" Jesus for this 1 man who was purified of his disease. As he was walking to show himself to the priests, his decaying fingers began to grow back; his skin began to soften and regain color; his eyesight got clearer; he could even feel the ground he was walking on. At that moment, he stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, ran to Jesus and fell at His feet. He praised Him with such a loud voice you would have thought he had a megaphone. He worshiped Him like He never worshiped before. He thanked Him like it was going out of style. I love what verse 15 says:

"One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, "Praise God!"

He Came Back
He "came back". Everything about our relationship with Jesus Christ is found in those 3 words,

"He came back".
"He came back."
"He came back."

In other words, this one guy was NOT DONE WITH JESUS YET! He was healed, but wanted to be saved! He knew He was in the presence of God and He wanted more. "He came back."

That's what you do when you are not done with God yet. You keep coming back wanting more of Him...more of His presence...more of his healing...purifying you of sin...saving you from your hopelessness. Jesus was these 10 guys only hope. They had been cut off from family, friends, even worshiping at the temple. They had no options. No reason to live...until Jesus "entered" their village.

Jesus has entered
Jesus has entered our village. Your village. He not only came from Heaven to earth. He came from Heaven to your soul! You and I were dead in sin. No cause. No hope. Maybe that led you to cry out to Him like the 10 lepers did. Maybe He has healed you of your impurities. But even now, you may feel isolated, cut off, and worthless. You know you have eternal salvation, but what about daily salvation, practical salvation while on earth? You may only have a faint cry for Jesus to have mercy on you. I pray, when He does, and He will as you cry to Him in faith, even weak faith, that you will not walk away and be done with Him. I pray you will "see" your transformation, your healing, and stop dead in your tracks, "come back" to Him and desire more of Jesus...the very presence of God! That is a daily salvation! THANK GOD FOR OUR SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Elemental Faith

I want to follow up on Christian's excellent post, Be a pest, and mention that the reason we can come to Jesus on a constant basis and 'bug' Him, is because we have the faith that He is God. If we did not really believe Jesus could do anything, we would not come to Him in the first place.

The great thing about our faith and ability to come to Jesus, is that it is our foundation of Christian belief, our elemental building block of why we believe what we believe.

The word Element has a good number of definitions, one of them, as a noun, says the following:

an essential element of the game component, constituent, part, section, portion, piece, segment, bit; aspect, factor, feature, facet, ingredient, strand, detail, point; member, unit, module, item.

In Chemistry, an element is defined as: each of more than one hundred substances that cannot be chemically interconverted or broken down into simpler substances and are primary constituents of matter.

So basically, an element is the foundation of the whole, but a significant piece if not the most significant piece of the whole. And when it comes to faith, we must be ELEMENTAL. Jesus tells us the importance of this. He says we must have faith like a child...to simply believe...

Here is how Jesus puts it from Matthew 18.2-4

For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me.

Constipated Faith
Erwin McManus puts the issue in a funny way. He says that we sometimes think that our faith is bottled up inside us. Its like we have a constipated faith and if we could just grunt and strain hard enough and get it out then we could live by faith through our actions.

Sometimes, we make faith to difficult, almost like there has to be some complicated formula to follow...Maybe I have spent a lot of time in the chemistry and physics lab, because at times I feel like I live in a lab of life where if I run the faith formula correctly then Jesus will answer accordingly...

On another level, I think we can even use faith as a coping mechanism instead of a way to trust. Faith develops from Following Christ, and if our faith starts to become a form of superstition or magic, then we are probably obtaining our faith in something other that Jesus.

The Size Of Our Faith
So what does elemental faith look like? Figuratively speaking, Jesus says in Matthew 17.20, that faith looks like a mustard seed. Jesus wants us to know that we don't have to have some giant sized faith before we can do anything or believe. He simply wants us to trust Him.

Holy Expectation
So why is having an elemental faith, a faith the size of a mustard seed so important? Because it leads to a life of Holy Expectation...we live each day to the fullest, knowing that God is in control and we watch Him work, and we expect Him to work...We take what He has given us and give our all, but at the same time we have a foundational trust, an elemental faith, a mustard seed belief, that God is in control. This allows us to live by faith instead of fear.

To summarize:
A coping mechanism faith is driven by fear. It says that we are in control and that God is our genie...it only leads to stress.

An Elemental Faith says that God is in control and that we are created in advance to do good works which He has already prepared for us to do...it leads to Holy Expectation and True victory! (Ephesians 2.10)

So what about you? Is your faith a way to cope or a way to trust?

Be a pest

"Will you quite bothering me; you are bugging me!"

We don't like pests. You know some. I know some. Pests are people who just will not quite bugging us or bothering us. They nag, nag, nag us about the same thing over and over again.

Holy Pest
I want to suggest that we can be "holy" pests. We need to "bother" Jesus.

A man in the bible "bothered" Jesus. He would not quite. He was a "holy" pest. His 12 year old daughter was dying and would bother Jesus until He got involved.

Involved
Do you need Jesus involved in your life? Is there something in your life that is precious to you, like Jarius' daughter, and it's dying? Maybe it's a dream. You had hopes to become someone and do something, but it seems as if it is coming to an end. Maybe it's a relationship...it seems to be fizzling out but you want it to fire up. Maybe you are concerned about our country, our economy, our generation of teenagers. It all seems to be dying. You and I need to "bother" Jesus.

The problem is this: sometimes we go to Jesus and He seems involved in others lives, but not ours. Jarius quickly found this out in Luke 8:40 and following. A huge crowd surrounded Jesus. Jarius was one of the crowd. However, he was a very important man and so he was able to press through the people quit easily to get a front row to the Lord. He fell at His feet and begged his guts out for Jesus to come to his house and save his dying daughter.

Everyone else but me
Perhaps you have been begging your guts out for Jesus to save your dying situation, to come to you and help you. Perhaps you even really expect and trust Him too. But then, it seems as if our Lord gets sidetracked. You see, after Jarius begged Jesus to come to his house, a woman with a bleeding problem of 12 years came up behind the Lord and clung to the edge of His cloak (more about that in another blog post soon). When she did, Jesus ended up paying attention to her instead of Jarius.

Have you ever been trying to get somewhere in rush hour traffic and you say to yourself, "If only I would have left earlier." Jarius was probably feeling like this. "If only I would have gotten to Jesus earlier, we would not be stuck here with all these people. This is taking for ever. Why in the world is He ignoring me to deal with this lady?" Jarius may not have known this, but as soon as the woman touched Jesus, she was instantly healed. God's Son could have moved on to go save Jarius' daughter, but He asked who touched Him, wanting someone to come forward and testify. This would only prolong Jarius' waiting even more. His daughter was already dying. By this time, she was probably dead. That's when someone came from the home of Jairus and told him, "Your daughter is dead. Don't bother the teacher any more." (Luke 8:49)

Bother Jesus
Have you felt like that? "I'll just stop bothering Jesus. My hope is dead. It's over." Maybe your situation has gotten this far. You've been begging Jesus and begging Jesus and begging Jesus. He helps others, heals others, saves others, provides for others while you just sit there and watch, wondering if He is going to get involved in your life like He is theirs. That's when Jesus says to us like He said to Jarius, "Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed." (Luke 8:50)

I don't know what your "she" is...a dream, a relationship, a job, a hope, a child, a marriage. I do know this: we must keep "bothering" Jesus to get involved. Don't allow yourself to stop "bothering Jesus". Don't let others or your situation tell you to stop bothering Jesus.

Bother Jesus and then bother Him some more! Nag Him. Be a "holy pest". Believe Jesus until He brings healing, whatever that may look like for you. Don't be afraid. Jesus is worth it all! He'll get involved in your life. He already is!