Thoughts from a Passion session by Carl Lentz:
In Matthew 5, Jesus says, "YOU are the light of the world." In Luke 19:1-10, it talks about how Jesus looked up into a tree and saw a short, lowly tax collector that I'm sure a lot of people overlooked and said, "I'm coming to
your house today." Don't you love the fact that Jesus ministered to
everyone? *We* can occupy all streets with the light of JESUS.
Don't do a lot of things for God but then miss the point.
The "Occupy Revelation":
Who you are is not defined by what you do; who you are is defined by who JESUS is to you!
I might not have everything, but if my value is in Jesus, I have everything I need to activate my light and I have an internal confirmation that I have value through Jesus.
Illustration by Lacrae:
I went to a store in Beverly Hills to find a T-shirt -- just a regular T-shirt like most of you are wearing right now. I look at the tag on the first one I see and think, "They must have messed up. This can't be the right price." So I go to look at another one. The price is the same. I'm thinking, "Man, this is just a regular beefy-T. What's up with this?" So I put my pride aside and walk up to the guy at the cash register and say, "You gotta tell me, man, what kinda golden thread is woven in here to make regular T-shirt 640 dollars. Will I be healed if I put this thing on? I have to know what this stuff's made of!"
The guy looked at me and said, "Nah, it's just regular cotton... bit of polyester thrown in there."
I said, "Then why... is it so expensive??"
"It's the name of the designer on it, man. That's what gives it its value."
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We should be the kinds of people who the world is tweeting, and talking about how different we are and even offended at the radicalness of our message because
when you are pleasing God, you displease some people, but you have to ask yourself, "Who am I working for?"
If you are walking with Jesus, YOU are a walking revival; you're no longer "just a" anything. You're not "just a college student"; you're not "just a worker at a gas station"; you're not "just a janitor".... You're not "just a" anything.
DON'T WAIT!
Don't wait to reach people!
Be like the woman who was on her fourth bout with cancer who said, "I don't want to be in this chemo room, but as long as I am I'm gunna find somebody to minister to."
Occupy the streets wherever you are with the love of Jesus. How?
1. OCCUPY wide awake!
Jesus was so wide awake that He passes a tree and ministers to someone no one else would have. Some of us need to wake up spiritually. Don't get caught in the mundane; don't be rushed because you weren't ready. Ever sleep through an alarm? I know I have... It's the worst feeling because then you have to go through the whole rest of the day rushed, fighting with people you don't wanna fight with, not really living in the moment because you're too stressed because you weren't ready.
We need to be ready as Christians; we need to be awake. God is doing more than we are seeing. Somebody may be out there with a seed planted in their heart by God waiting for you to come and minister to them. It may be a seemingly small thing like opening the door for them -- if you do that in New York people will be blown away -- or including them in a conversation.
If you wake up every day asking, "Lord, who can I serve? Who can I love? What can I do?" I promise you, there will be change. But here's the hitch: Don't be discouraged if you don't see change instantly because God is working constantly.
~~~~Be faithful in the shadows. ~~~~
Often times, we want to see the end picture; we don't want to see the story. We want to see the end result and not hear about all the mundane steps and normal decisions that led to it. When we see someone that did something great for God, we want to see the results. But we have to keep in mind... those people went through the same mundane things every day that you and I go through. Every morning they had to wake up and it was a fight to keep living the Christian life. They had struggles; they had discouraging setbacks... but they were faithful in the shadows -- faithful in the little things that God put before them to do right now.
2. OCCUPY with urgency!
The clock is ticking, and we need to get moving! True God-given urgency doesn't make you weird, it makes you effective. If you wake up every morning knowing that this could be the day when Jesus comes back, you will live your life with more urgency... because there are people out there who are DYING and WE know the Answer. We have missed this urgency in our culture.
When God opens a door, walk in it. Walk by trees that other people have overlooked. He can use broken vessels like us to be His Light!
Remove "someday" and "almost" from your vocabulary. Jesus didn't almost go the cross and die; he didn't almost sacrifice everything; he didn't almost rise from the dead to someday save us. He went all. the. way!
Lord, here I am. SEND ME!
I was at a conference like Passion years ago when I was in college, and I was sitting next to this guy that had heartbreaking story -- been to jail 20 times, hooked on heroine, had abuse in his childhood, almost died, etc. And we were standing there worshiping with 60,000+ people and he turns to me with tears in his eyes and says, "I wish someone would have told me sooner. All these people here, worshipping God. I wish someone told me about Jesus sooner. I would have come, I would have listened." Be that somebody that doesn't wait until "someday." Don't wait for a revival or a breakthrough because we already had it! Jesus came and took our place on the cross!
Lord, lift our eyes above the storm and fix them on Jesus. Let us be vessels in the hands of the Potter. Make us faithful in the shadows. Give us strength and courage to occupy our streets wide awake and with urgency. Make yourself BIG in our eyes and let us realize our value is in YOU. Lord, let us not wait; help us to ACT.
