Fresh Start: Moving from Doing to Dust
This is the first in a series on Fresh Starts, and we will be using
Romans 12:1-2 to guide us through.
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
To follow Jesus means that all of who we are is affected by the God we serve. In today’s world we have access to more information than any other generation in the history of mankind. Yet there are still so many situations that many of us are facing that we don’t know how to handle. When that co-worker asks about our take on gender politics. When your sister brings her girlfriend home for Christmas and you're trying to figure out how to be Jesus to them, while also figuring out how to explain it to your kids. We are called to care for the poor but how do we do that in a city that is plagued by addiction and it feels unsolvable.
These are all real situations that we face, and while I think most of us would agree that we want to be like Jesus. I believe many of us don’t know how to put that desire into practice. As a culture we don’t know how to live our faith in the complexity, diversity, humanistic, and universalistic thinking of our culture.
We are facing a crisis of discipleship not just a crisis of faith. We need day long sustaining directional obedience to Jesus. Dallas Willard said:
“This is the greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who…are identified as Christians will become disciples, students, apprentices, and practitioners of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him, how to live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven into every corner of the human existence.”
The Difference Between Believing and Following:
Believing in Jesus is important, but it's not enough. True followers spend time with Jesus, learn from him, and allow him to change them. We see an example of how to be a disciple of Jesus from the way the first disciples lived their lives. Jesus invited them to be with him. That invitation to follow Jesus is also a requirement to leave behind what you know. It’s an invitation to be an apprentice of Jesus, to walk so closely that your life is covered by the dust of the Rabbi. This is what Paul is calling us to in Romans 12 when he says:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”
In the dark and light moments of life, we must practice being with Jesus. This starts from the moment we wake up to the moment we close our eyes at night. So this week, the challenge is to spend time with Jesus as the first thing you do when you wake up. Behold him, and ask him to share his heart with you.