Where are you?

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” C. S. Lewis

Jeff (not his real name) is an incredibly bright, entertaining, capable, successful, middle-aged man with a wife and kids that love him. But Jeff is losing a battle he’s been fighting for years. As brilliant as he is, he can’t find a reason why someone like his wife, his kids, God, or even himself would care about him or love him. He feels a deep-seated sense of worthlessness and he reinforces it with his active disease. Jeff is an alcoholic. He’s been in and out of recovery rooms for years. On the outside Jeff is a highly successful medical professional, yet daily he feels like a failure. He feels absolutely worthless.

Jeff turns to his friend Jack Daniel’s as midday approaches to numb the pain of his shame and regrets. He finds he has no defense against that first drink. His disease eats willpower for breakfast. And after his first drink all bets are off. Jeff is a black out drinker, rarely remembering the night before. He seems driven toward his self-destruction, fanning his disease of alcoholism into flames every day. Eventually these flames will drive him insane or put him in prison or he’ll wind up on the living room floor in his own vomit, dead from alcohol poisoning. Those are his only three options now: insanity, incarceration, or death by alcohol related causes. Jeff can’t seem to find a way to heal his soul. Jeff can’t do it.

Or maybe there’s a fourth option.

Jeff grew up in church. He only knew God as an angry deity who would rather punish you than save you. But lately, Jeff is feeling a small tug on his heart. He knows he alone can’t fix his problem with alcohol. He knows there is nothing he has inside of him that can overcome his addiction to booze. He is beginning to believe that only a power outside of himself, a power greater than himself, could heal him. He’s also beginning to rethink a deity. It just can’t be the old “god” he dismissed as a fraud. Amazingly, Jeff is finding ways to seek God again, hoping he was misled about his earlier concept of God. Jeff is letting God reveal himself in new ways and he’s starting to give over his will and the care of his life to a personal Higher Power much greater than himself. He’s beginning to let God into his soul, to trust him, to believe God loves him and is doing in him what he cannot do for himself. To do what only God can do. Heal him completely.

That’s the beginning of apprenticeship. Of following Jesus.

Almost 2,000 years ago something amazing, almost beyond comprehension, happened! It was an event that would be both the culmination of a nation’s history, as well as the beginning of a new history - for everyone worldwide. A man lived, what his closest friends would say, was a perfect and blameless life. They tell us he lived for and taught about his Father and their kingdom of love. This man was then arrested by local authorities and sentenced to death by the cruelest means possible, crucifixion. He died on a cross and was buried in a borrowed tomb.

It’s what happened three days later that was too amazing for most people to believe. Yet these witnesses couldn’t believe anything else but what they saw and experienced. So, they wrote down exactly what happened and as they reflected on this man’s teaching, they wrote the following and taught it to others within months of the resurrection. It is the earliest testimony of these events by those who followed Jesus. It’s what they saw happen and gave up their lives affirming the veracity of these events as eyewitnesses. They said simply:

“Christ (Jesus) died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time,…then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” Earliest Church Creed AD 30-33(1 Cor 15:3-8)

Of course, they said he taught more than this simple creed, but this testimony is how it started. That’s what they passed on from the beginning and what they taught others to believe and pass on. That’s who they said Jesus was and what he did. He walked the earth 2,000 years ago and it’s reasonable to believe that after he conquered death when he walked out of the tomb, he has been and is still alive today. He lives in a dimension of reality he created called Heaven. He wants us to follow him and learn to live in his kingdom of love. To follow him because he knows us, loves us, and knowing him might be the only way to live sanely in a world gone mad. Not to mention he is King of Heaven and Earth. That’s simply who he is. The question is…

Where are you?

Are you searching for answers and a change of direction. Searching because your current life and way of thinking is, well, killing you inside. Much like Jeff, you can’t do it either. Maybe you grew up in a church you couldn’t relate to, with people that frustrated or hurt you, and with a message you couldn’t believe. You may be searching for the truth that you may have missed, the truth about God and his Son Jesus. That’s a good thing.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7 ESV

This book is simply what you would want to know to begin following Jesus. Therefore, it is introductory information, with a rather elementary set of instructions on how to begin a relationship with the lover of your soul, Jesus.

Of course, in Jesus’ day it was a bit easier to know if you were following him. You would simply go where he went, walking dusty Palestine roads from town to town. Listening, watching, and learning. Jesus never required a doctrinal exam before he asked people to follow him. He simply said, “Follow me” or “Come and see” which was the entry point for learning to trust him and becoming his apprentice. In other words, the only requirement to follow Jesus then, was to believe he was trustworthy enough to begin a journey with him to discover the beautiful, good, and true God.

Jesus desires much the same for us as he did for those first followers. To trust him enough to follow him and learn what he teaches about life in the kingdom of the Heavens. Simply to walk with him as an apprentice in his kingdom, learning to not just do what he did, but to think the way he thinks. Not just to have faith in Jesus, but to learn how to have the faith of Jesus.

And so, a whole bunch of people did just that. They were mostly the marginalized outcasts, living on the edge of society and hope. There were dirt poor folks, but amazingly some of the rich and powerful, as well. There were men and women and children. The religious and the irreligious. The poor in spirit, the meek and mourning, those longing for peace and mercy, hungering for a right way to live, and those pure in heart longing to see God.

That’s who they were. Spiritually hungry people looking for answers. Tired of the same old, same old. They were looking for someone to guide them. They were followers looking for their leader.

And you?

Are you hurting and needing healing? Does anger and resentment seem to obsess and exhaust you? Feeling a little lost and needing someone to help you find your direction? Are fear and anxiety your daily companions? Do you find yourself lonely even in a crowded room? Have you forgotten how to love and now you simply consume?

Have hurts and hang-ups driven you to destructive habits? Addicted to alcohol and/or drugs? Do you work as an escape from family? Are you comforting yourself with food to the point of constantly overeating? But nothing seems to numb the pain long enough and the only option seems to be to consume more and more of that which will eventually destroy you and everything you love.

Are you successful on the outside but falling apart on the inside? Are your family and friends drifting away? Are you a world beater who sacrifices everything to accomplish your goal? Everything? Are you starting to feel the emptiness of money and power and ego? Are your possessions possessing you?

Maybe you have heard about Jesus but are turned off by religion? Don’t understand Christianity and disappointed by those who say they are Christians? Haven’t really been to church in years or ever? Or maybe you have been angry at God for as long as you can remember?

The truth about you!

It seems like most of the Christian messages I’ve heard for most of my life have begun with the fall of man as the story of who we are. You find it in the Bible, in the third chapter of Genesis. It’s like the first two chapters don’t exist. We start with sin. Separation from God. Total depravity. We are miserable sinners, born to sin, and our first thought is toward sin and evil. Sin, sin, and more sin. Closely followed by shame and guilt. No wonder, after hundreds of years of this message, people today, though starving spiritually, are rejecting the message of the church. It’s like white noise. They just won’t hear it anymore!

Yet, there are a small and growing number of followers of Jesus who are giving a different message. They are actually reaching back into the past and going to the roots of the movement Jesus started, talking about a good and loving God who created us beautiful, good, and pure. And yes, we have walked away, following the Great Liar, the choices we make that we know we shouldn’t make. Following the lie and being so hurt and far from God that he decided to provide a plan for redeeming us. A plan that would cost him more than we can possibly imagine, his Son. We come to realize we can’t do it; we can’t save ourselves from ourselves. But the good news is God can do it.

If you relate to any of the above and feel a gentle tug on your heart to check Jesus out again or maybe even for the first time, you may want to start at the foundation point where the very first followers of Jesus started. There are four simple truths that can help you think through whether or not you want to begin to follow him just like they did. Faith in Jesus hinges on these truths. Christianity hinges on these truths. If they are not true, then I and everyone else who claims to follow Jesus is a fool. I’m no fool! And neither was Peter, or John, or James, or Paul, or the thousands of martyrs on whose blood the church of Jesus began. Nor are the millions of those followers of Jesus fools who through the last 2,000 years have come to him because he healed their pain, redeemed their very souls, and give them a new life.

If you want to begin to follow Jesus, and learn to live like he lived, it is possible. Take a look at the book “Beginning to Follow Jesus” which I wrote just for those who are more than casually interested in a relationship with Him. I hope that describes you.

Much love,

Dave