Script Changes
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
1 Peter 5:6 (NIV)
Does Jesus only fit into your life to direct the stage upon which you are acting out life? Or does He have enough lordship in your life to take the script and make some adjustments? Can He change the scenes and adjust your role when necessary?
I love the role Jesus has given me, but I don’t always like some of the script changes. Why? Because I like being the hero. I like it when somebody is in desperate need, and I get to put my cape on and fly to the apex of the mountaintop and rescue them from the hand of the foe. But I don’t like it when I’m the one in the valley, and somebody has to swoop down and pick me up.
I like it when people come to me and ask me for encouragement, and it flows out of my mouth because of the gift of wisdom and the power of the Holy Spirit. But I don’t like it when I’m the one walking around in confusion and can’t figure out two plus two.
We can’t always be the hero of the story. There are times when Jesus takes the manuscript and says, “Hero in scene one, but desperately in need in scene two.” He does this to keep us humble so that we don’t become conceited and think more highly of ourselves than we should.
Learn to exercise patience while your script is being edited. Learn to see in your blindness. Learn to produce in your pain. Learn to discern in your detours. Pay attention in your fatigue. Breathe in your frustrations. Be aware in your mistreatment.
Allow God to place you in the specific role that He has for your life, and then play your part faithfully under His direction.
Jesus Is the Cure
He sent out his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave.
Psalm 107:20 (NIV)
Jesus is the cure.
He is the treatment, the therapy, the remedy, and the medication.
And because He is all of those things, you don’t have to live—at any point in your life—settling for spiritual sickness.
You’re not supposed to live in pain about your personhood, your purpose, your placement, your power, your potential, or your possibilities. Life for you is not intended to be one of diseased mental journey, gripped in fear, haunted by bad experiences, settling for anguish and hurt.
Jesus is more than a cushion for our fall. He is the cure for what ails us. And before you seek help anywhere else, come to Him for your remedy. He makes it available in so many ways.
He can prescribe it through His word, through His work, and through His will. Jesus is our cure.
My challenge to you is to stop living so long with the stuff that is infecting you and impairing you and interrupting your God-intended path and your God-intended pace. Stop negotiating with what makes you spiritually sick because you’ve got a relationship with the Great Physician and you’ve got every right to ask Him for the help you need to live a spiritually healthy life.
Right Side Up
Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
Acts 9:8-9 (NKJV)
When life has turned upside down, just change your definition of right side up. Paul was blinded from His encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he must have felt that his entire life was turned upside down. In reality, however, despite his physical blindness, he was finally seeing more clearly than he ever had before.
It may feel that God has let your life turn upside down as well, but could it be that He’s really turning your life right side up? The upside-down experiences are producing a right-side-up perspective. You may think your life is crashing, but when Jesus is involved, your life is being built up. You may think it’s the end of the road, but you have no idea it’s only a turn in the road.
It’s the blessing that the pain leaves with you. It’s the open door that is only discovered after the frantic response when the last door was shut in your face. It’s the gift the diagnosis reveals. It’s the way your hardship shapes your mind and heart. It’s the breakthrough from the blow-up argument. It’s the discovery that you are loved even after your heart has been broken. It’s losing what you think is most precious to you so that you can find the real treasure in your life.
Perhaps today you sit hurt and angry and scared and confused and actionless. While it seems like an upside-down experience, if we trust Jesus and remember that He is always working things for our good, that He loves us with an unfailing love, then we have to also trust that what He’s doing is causing us to become right side up through experiences that feel upside down.
The challenge is to not let your blindness make you stop seeing. We have to move away from seeing with our eyes and move toward seeing with our faith. Don’t let difficulty run through your life and not leave a gift. There is purpose in the pain.
Who is Jesus to You?
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:13-16 (NIV)
Australian preacher Michael Bird has compiled some of the titles of Jesus to show us that no matter what lens we look through, Jesus meets our need and supplies our lack. He wrote:
To the artist He is the One Altogether Lovely.
To the architect He is the Chief Cornerstone.
To the astronomer He is the Sun of Righteousness.
To the baker He is the Living Bread.
To the banker He is the Hidden Treasure.
To the carpenter He is the Sure Foundation.
To the doctor He is the Great Physician.
To the educator He is the Great Teacher.
To the farmer He is the Sower and Lord of the Harvest.
To the florist He is the Lily of the Valley.
To the geologist He is the Rock of Ages.
To the horticulturist He is the True Vine.
To the judge He is the Righteous One.
To the juror He is the True Witness.
To the jeweler He is the Pearl of Great Price.
To the oculist He is the Light of the Eyes.
To the philosopher He is Wisdom.
And above all, to the sinner Jesus is the Savior of the world.
Jesus is all of these things to all of these people and so much more, but the question for you today is “Who is Jesus to you?” What need is He meeting in you? What role is He filling? What interest is He piquing? What fascination is He satisfying? What lesson is He teaching? What promise is He fulfilling?
Whatever lens you are looking through in life, Jesus is the culmination of what you are seeking and the object of your pursuit.
Jesus First
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2:2 (NIV)
I was asked the most interesting question by a pastor friend of mine. I thought about it for weeks after our conversation. He asked, “Hey Bill, if you were the singular shaper of the church today, what would be your focus and what would you change first?” And to both my answer is this: “I would require more preaching, teaching, and worshipping centered on Jesus, and far less centered on us.”
The church’s focus should be more about the lordship of Jesus, and less about our cultural circumstances, our political issues, or our gender and sexual identity issues. I understand the need to express our worth and our value, our strengths and our potential. I know that we’ve got to speak truth to power, and I know we have issues related to race and politics. Trust me, I get it. We need to be reminded of our inheritance and our spiritual status. We need to be told on a repetitive basis that we’ve got victory and we walk with spiritual might. We need to celebrate the blessings and favor and open doors that God extends to us. But none of these things should be the primary focus of the church. Preemptive above all else is the lordship and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.
Why? Because unless we had been made alive in Jesus, we would be floating dead in trespasses and sins, so nothing else matters as much.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying these things don’t matter at all—because they do. I’m saying they do not matter as much as our focus on Jesus. We need to be encouraged, we need to be motivated, we need self-esteem and character building and training. But these are peripheral things, and all of them are enveloped under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the undeniable, indisputable, irrefutable, singular Son of the living God. And He alone can save by His divine power. It’s time for the church to turn its focus back to where it belongs and keep the main thing the main thing.
