The New Year, A Time to Release the Pain

A new start is always a good thing.  To restore a friendship after a feud, or you get forgiveness from someone you didnt' expect, it all brings a sense of healthy release. 

Recently I found myself asking God to release me from the painful criticism that I have slipped into as a result of disappointment. Let me explain.

Jesus said, deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. 

Luke 9:23  23And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. It is this verse that gets violated my most of my colleagues in ministry. Jesus wants us to lose control to Him, that's the deny part, yet, as we progress in serving God, we hold on to more control.  I want to serve God, but it has to be on my terms.  In almost ten years of interviewing ministry leaders on what they do, and how they do their ministry, I have found 60-70% are narcarissitic. It is this narcarissism that prevents the Body of Christ from experiencing the uniqueness of being one in Christ.  It is this painful reality that most people may not think much about, but it's a cruel truth about most Christian leaders. The hard part about most of these leaders is that they are very talented, very gifted in what they do, and therefore the narcissism is masked behind the cloak of success. The second part of this verse has to do with sacrifice. One of my critiscisms over the years with the prosperity crowd is there is no sacrifice.  They promote a God who will give them everything they can believe for, and they act as if God owes them something. Where is the sacrifice in this this message of name it and claim it?  This is another typical example of naricissism running wild. It's all about me and what I can do if I had more, believed more, and then with all the worldly goods I can give more to others.  I would love to shadow one of these famous prosperity preachers for a week and write a book. It would be interesting to watch how much sacrifice is being made for the cross while riding on your private jet from place to place, and living in million dollar mansions while writing the next book on, "Getting Yours Now." And finally there is the "come and follow me" part of this verse.  Following Jesus is not about who we are or what we want, it's about His agenda, and what He wants.  It is called being a servant.  A servant does not tell the master anything, he follows his masters requests. He doesn't question them, nor does he abort the masters mission for his own. Come and follow me means, you serve Him, represent Him, and live Him out in all circumstances, regardless of how much it will cost you individually.  Now it is easy to slip into a spirit of "no one is doing this" mentality, which of course will develop into a criticism that controls your life. My desire is not to poke at anyone in 2012 but be a grace fulled person who tells the truth.  Truth is important to tell, but it also needs to be tempered with grace. In 2012, I want to release the pain of all the short comings both in me and in those around me, and begin to rebuild with the solidness of His Word and His Spirit, both of which accent on grace.   May we prepare ourselves to live in His grace, as we face a monster year as Bible prophecy begins to live it self out before our eyes.  Keeping it honest and truthful in 2012....K