Deeper Still by phil mccallum

Scripture
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him….Hebrews 3:1-2

Observation
This week the world has been rehearsing the moonwalk, ala Jackson style. On YouTube a prison yard of men in orange jumpsuits have scored over 27 million hits with their imitation Michael Jackson rendition. Where there is a master there will be mimics. But the risk for the impersonator is that he will forget the sound of his own voice.

I had this thought the other day. Am I living my own life or someone else’s? There are stars I respect who walk on stages that I watch. Before long I can be mimicking their moonwalk.

The fulfillment of life is to have a life calling fully explored. I’m to be metamorphasising, letting the Jesus in me out naturally. The way to find my call is to consider Jesus’ call and his faithfulness. There were moments that Jesus waded up Niagara Falls of expectations to move to the source of his call. Into the roar of the waves, Jesus spoke words like this that parted the waters and let him move closer to the Father:
Father forgive them
Not my will but yours be done
I am willing, be clean
Son your sins are forgiven
The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath
You don’t understand what I’m doing

Application
The message is simple: stay close to Jesus. While the world is telling you who to be like, listen as Jesus reminds who we are. Calling costs. Just consider Jesus. Calling also pays. Consider Jesus again.

Prayer
Father, today, I look to Jesus for instruction so I never have to be reminded how to act. Instead, let Jesus live himself out through me. Amen.

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Press the arrow to listen to Hillsong sing “Desert Song” while reading today’s devotion about weaknesses. If you have time the story behind the song is touching.

Scripture
For God has deprived [the ostrich] of wisdom.
He has given her no understanding.
But whenever she jumps up to run,
she passes the swiftest horse with its rider. Job 39:17-18

Observation
God has woven adequacy and inadequacy into all that he has made, including me. The Creator chose the ostrich to make his point. The grandest and swiftest of all birds is a messy housekeeper and lays her future children out in the open plain. Yet enter that same ostrich into the Kentucky Derby and she would finish first. She is a combination of strength and weakness like the rest of us.

God shows his wisdom in making me a combination of adequate and inadequate. Both show his glory. My adequacy reveals the Lord’s strength through me, and that pleases him to see it flourish. But my inadequacy also pleases him because if I use it rightly it causes me to depend on him. My weakness somehow endears me to the Lord, for it draws us close. He uses my strengths but he glories in my weaknesses.

Application
To thrive in the human experience, I need to become as comfortable with my inadequacies as the Lord is. Often I want to cover them up, but weakness becomes more useful when acknowledged. Last night I met with a volunteer team to work on a future project. Someone put up a hand and pointed out a glaring oversight. In that moment I had a choice that all humans face: do I explain away my shortcomings or do I embrace them and learn from them? I don’t want to be an ostrich with my head in the sand, so I said, “You are right. We missed it. Thank you for your insight. I’ll put that on the list.”

If I can become more comfortable with my inadequacies in God’s presence, I think others will be more comfortable with me, and themselves. We need the Lord and we need each other, if only we can get out of the way and let ourselves be served.

Prayer
Father, I come to you just as I am: an unfinished project. I lean on you and learn from you in the leaning. Amen.

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Press the arrow to listen to Hillsong United sing “All I Need is You Lord” while reading today’s devotion on your true self.

Scripture
He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Luke 4:1-2

Observation
The three temptations of Jesus are remarkable because they show us all of our own. The bottom line was Satan’s attempt to lure Jesus to live by a false self rather than his true self.

The false self, is contorting ourselves so that we conform to the expectations of others. Those expectations can be high or low, for the Devil isn’t picky. He’s quite content to snare us at the edge or the center of his web. What matters to him is that we are caught.

The true self, is what God says about us and letting that definition express itself through our lives. Living by our true self is the most difficult yet the most simple way to live. It is difficult because it is so vulnerable. It requires a moment, by moment, relationship with the Father and complete reliance upon his power and protection. The vivid picture of that vulnerability, is the gaunt, silhouette of the starving Jesus in a desert sand storm.  The true self is the most simple way to live, because we never have to remember how we are to act. Instead, we simply are what Christ has called us to be.

Satan tried to get Jesus to live up to a false self.

The first temptation was to prove that the Father loved him as his Son. But Jesus would have none of that. A relationship cannot be proved, or else it ceases to be a free gift. A relationship can only be enjoyed privately and intimately. The moment we boast about it, the gift is gone and we must prove it over and over. True confidence in a relationship with the Lord is to enjoy it privately while all the world imagines that they know him better than we and that we do not.

The second temptation was to compromise a value so Jesus could get what he really wanted. Jesus was called to be King of kings, and so the allure of all the kingdoms of all the ages in an instant was a real one. But the trigger was to worship Satan. Jesus would not compromise a core value of loving God to shortcut his way to his destiny. Nor should we.

In the last temptation, Jesus was tempted to take his eyes off of the Father and to live up to the expectation of the crowd. Again, Jesus resisted this with a steady dependence on the words of his heavenly Father. The crowd could add nothing to him.

Application
As a pastor, I am tempted constantly to toss my true self for a false imitation. There are times I want to prove how valuable I am to the Lord and his plan and end up being plastic. There are times I want to compromise what I value to get what I want, but the wreckage of the ministry of others warns me. There are times that I am tempted to give the people what they want. But today, I make a renewed choice to be true to the true self God has called me to live.

Prayer
Father, today, I choose to follow you. Lead me not into temptation but please deliver me from evil, whether that is by your guiding hand or by my deliberate choices to move toward you. Today I make the choice to be real, authentic and true even if it leaves me hungry and alone in the desert. Amen.

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Press the arrow to listen to Feeband sing “It’s All Because of Jesus” while you read today’s devotion.

Scripture
Jesus called his twelve disciples together and gave them authority….Matthew 10:1

Observation
Because ministry happens in the public eye there is pressure on pastors to perform and to conform to expectations. We may excel in the eyes of others, but in the process we just might forget who we really are. The further we move from our real self the less useful we are to the Lord.

Jesus gave the first ministry to leaders as a gift. The word Matthew chose to describe this authority is deliberate. He had two words to choose from. One means power, the other word, exousia, means the right to use the power. Exousia is like the policeman who can stop a speeding vehicle simply by standing in the middle of a road in uniform and lifting his arm. The officer does not have to prove anything, for he has the right to use power.

When Jesus gives us a ministry he frees us from living up to expectations and gives is the comfort of being ourselves. Authority comes by giving not by grabbing. Jesus gave it. The disciples did not work for it. They had nothing to prove. They did not have to wind up another miracle show to get attention. To become people of authority, the disciples had only to bring themselves, their real selves, to Jesus. That was it. That was enough.

Application
This authority of ministry works best when we are absolutely ourselves. The closer we come to the core of who God has designed us to be, the better the power of Christ can work through us.

Since ministry is a gift, the authority to do it is a given. There is nothing to prove or to achieve. We begin as gifted disciples. We don’t have to remember how to perform or look for cues to remember our lines. Instead we are to be ourselves and in that the authority of Jesus is seen.

Because I have authority, I’m free to be just who I am. Just entering the room, just speaking, just praying, just leading, just whatever is enough. I have been with Jesus and people will sense the overflow.

To produce grace I need to minister out of grace. When I try to prove myself, grace stops and works begin. Soon everyone is performing. Grace flows only when I accept that I cannot grab the right to minister, instead authority is a given thing.

Prayer
Lord, you know who I am, but it seems to take us humans much longer to realize that. Many don’t discover until old age who they are and who they are not. I’d like to make that realization earlier in life if I could. Help me to be so comfortable with who I am and who I am not that I am useful to you. I accept authority you grant as a gift and repent of keeping up appearances to earn it. Help me to walk relaxed with myself as you are at ease with me. It is mind boggling to think that you would invest ability into such wobbly people as we are. Keep that sense of awe fresh in me today. Amen.

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Press the arrow to listen to the Newsboys sing In Christ Alone as you read today’s devotion.

Scripture
You see, we are not like the many hucksters who preach for personal profit. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ’s authority, knowing that God is watching us. 2 Corinthians 2:17

Observation

When a young leader is first called by God to be a preacher life is so simple. He is young, idealistic and and best of all poor. It is always easier to give Jesus everything when a preacher is wearing blue jeans with empty pockets. Mortgages and family make life complicated. The more that is added the fuzzier the whys of ministry can become.

Paul used an ugly word for some preachers: huckster. That barbed-wire epithet conjures up images of something between a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman and a side show hustler at the carnival. It’s an unpleasant word used for shock effect. Paul wanted leaders to run from the misuse of ministry straight into the arms of Christ.

To pastors whose lives have become complicated and whose motives have compromised, Paul reminds us that the goal of preaching is sincerity and authority. Sincerity comes from the Latin, meaning “without wax.” If a corrupt potter wanted to sell cracked pots, wax would be mixed with the appropriate color and the fissure would be filed. Honest potters stamped their pots with the word sine cere to attest that no wax had been used. Preaching gets its sincerity from a person solidly about Christ. Authority is speaking only what is spoken to him and not what he has conjured up on his own.

Application
How does a pastor get sincerity, authority and flee from the sleazy images of manipulation? By speaking every word with the awareness that God is listening. That simple fact clarifies every motive. Meeting the Lord at the end of life and giving account for every idle word spoken, is unavoidable. But the daily awareness of God’s eavesdropping is a personal choice. If I live with a consciousness of God’s constant inspection of me every word I speak will be attached to right motives.

Prayer
Father, I want this sincerity and authority, so open my eyes today to your listening presence. Amen.

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Scripture
You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. For you have been called to live in freedom my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to sere one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:7, 8; 12-14

Observation
There is one place left in the United States where a driver can open the throttle and see what an engine can do. Along the arrow straight patches of Interstates 10 and 20 in West Texas the speed limit signs read “Speed Limit 80.” A friend of mine from traffic jammed Hawaii enjoyed that stretch of highway a little too much on one trip. Not only did he get a ticket but for the next few hundred miles the cop followed right behind him measuring his speed. That slowed his race.

We’ve all had the experience of zipping along a country highway only to be have the waiting tractor on the side road just ahead pull out in front of us. It can be a long, slow crawl choking on Alfalfa riding behind them.

Paul described someone in a great hurry, making exceptional time, who was cut off and slowed down. The churches in Galatia were trailblazers until visitors came from headquarters in Jerusalem. They brought with them lists of dos and don’ts that slowed down the journey. The simple believers were admonished that it was not enough to follow Christ, they must also follow Moses. The tractor of legalism just created a traffic jam. Instead of following the simple commands of Jesus and his delightful pleasure in us, the people fearfully searched the law books for rules they had missed and must apply.

They were called to freedom. Freedom of course does not mean that they could do whatever they wanted. Lawlessness is as much slavery as is legalism. Freedom means just following one person who takes burdens away and does not add more to the load. Freedom is running with just Jesus. The road is open, there are no speed limits, there is no traffic, simply the call to follow in his steps.

Application
If we have lost our freedom to run after Christ we need to examine who cut in on our race. Often times it comes from people who want us to live up to their expectations. I’ve followed such tractors. Some are dour rain clouds with rules and regulations. Still others are filled with suspicions and want us to prove ourselves. There are sprinters who want us to be clones of their style and so slow us down. There are a few, very few, who deep down don’t want us to make it and ride their brakes to hold us back.

Who is the blame for this slowdown in our lives? Is it those who are blocking traffic? No, it is we who follow them. We follow these people because somehow they offer something that we want. We don’t see it that way. We think it is their fault, when in fact it is our own. Maybe they offer a weird kind of acceptance, approval or acclaim. Our race is slowed because we stopped running our race when we began running theirs. The race begins when follow no one other than Jesus. Most don’t run this race because the road is lonely. It is easier to be rewarded by human voices than to wait for God’s. His voice is heard at the end of the race with the words “Well done!” Until then there is an empty road made just for us.

Prayer
Father, I can see today things I haven’t seen before. There are people getting in the way of my following you. None of them know it. They are just running their race, but I’m copying theirs. The issue is not with them but with me. I’ve been happy to trade in their approval for yours. That’s not right. So here I am to start again. I want to follow you only. Amen.

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Worship as you read this devotion by pressing the arrow.
Song: Desperation Band Promises

Scripture
‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ “For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.” Mark 7:7

Observation
Littered across the salt pan of the Arizona deserts are scattered tree logs toasting in the sun. Don’t try to build a night time fire with them to warm yourself from the desert chill, for this is petrified wood. The trees once full of carbon molecules were transformed one drip at a time into stone. What was living was replaced by what is dead.

The same happens in any vital relationship with Christ. There is a trickle through effect that replaces what is real and vital with what is inert.

How does it happen?

In one scenario, a maverick spiritual leader centuries ago read the Bible and called Christians back to a vibrant relationship with God just as the early Christians knew. During that first generation the children of that movement read the Bible and experienced the fire of God. But as one generation gave way to the next, the children and grandchildren quoted the founder rather than going to the foundation in the Bible. Now when the Bible is read adherents want to know how their founder would have interpreted the verse rather than how the Holy Spirit is speaking to them today. It’s petrified wood.

In another scenario, a trend setting pastor discovers the secrets of bringing large numbers of unchurched people to Christ and into the church. There are conferences, books, magazines, DVDs, podcasts and more. Young leaders immerse themselves in the right blogs and imitate everything from preaching to hairstyles. The magazine graphics look cutting edge, but it is petrified wood because group think has replaced the Holy Ghost.

Application
How can I keep the fibers of my relationship with God fresh and alive? How can I keep my ministry from calcifying? The answer is simple: keep close to the source. Be careful not to marinate too long in anything other than the Bible. Read the writings of great historical figures. Enjoy the expansive thoughts of contemporary thinkers. But always keep close to the source. The more we nourish what God is growing in our hearts with what is fresh from the Lord the less likelihood we have of replacing good wood with stone.

Prayer
Father, I’m not sure I can see the petrified parts of my relationship with you as Jesus can. While he was on the earth he could see what no one else could. Give me eyes to see it now in my own life. Amen.

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