Saturday, April 7
Day 40
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
John 20:18
Those who offer Christ realize that the journey begins with personal relationship, leads to a comfortable invitation to a ministry of the church, and results in the embracing of the spiritual life. They trust God's time. A visit to church represents a brush with the body of Christ. They invite.
People who invite others train themselves to feel comfortable talking about spirituality and the interior life with outsiders. They practice until speaking of faith feels natural.
They speak with humility, sharing their faith struggles as well as their trust in matters of the spirit.They speak of new life in Christ in real authentic, and honest terms. They get themselves out of the way.They pray about particular people.They prepare themselves for when the moment is ripe for invitation. They ask God's guidance to notice when the way opens.Encouraging new people toward Christ enriches their own spiritual life. They humbly accept the gift of serving as an ambassador of Christ. They view people through God's eyes. They trust God's time. realizing that the journey is a process that begins with personal relationship and giving people space.People who offer Christ realize that new life is a journey of a thousand incremental steps; everyone moves toward Christ at different paces. Pathways to Christ are many.
They do not postpone, avoid, resist, or deny the importance of offering God's love. They never force, coerce, insist, or misuse the name of God to instill fear or guilt as tools to pressure people. "Grace upon grace" is their means. God makes ready the human heart; they trust the grace of God.
Offering Christ completes us, and accomplishes God's purpose. Opening ourselves to God's grace invokes opening the treasure for others, and inviting them in. Inviting God into our hearts leads to inviting others into the heart of God. Radical Hospitality toward God becomes Radical Hospitality toward others.
Read John 20
How do people see in you
how important the decision to follow Christ has been for you? How do people see the risen Christ in you?
Prayer
I give you my hands, my heart, my hope, Lord. Use the change in me to change others for you. May your life be seen in mine.
Friday, April 6Day 39"We are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us ..."2 Corinthians 5:20What is it about your life that would make someone else want to be a follower of Jesus Christ, a person of faith, a part of a Congregation?The purpose of inviting other people to follow Jesus is to help them rediscover love - God's love - and to provide a community that gives sustained focus, energy, and resources to developing the spiritual life. No other community besides the church has as its purpose the deepening of such elements of the human soul as hope, forgiveness, generosity, service, joy, peace, justice, gentleness. Love is the key to unlocking the door to ultimate reality, and in the community of Christ we intentionally practice receiving God's love, loving God in return and loving others. We invite people into a life of love, surround them with the everlasting arms of God, and encourage them to do the same for others. We love because God first loved us.To bear witness to Christ involves more than inviting people with words. It means living with such grace and integrity that our lives themselves become appealing to others.People are hungry for something that is going to make a difference,and they want to be part of something that matters. Do they see in us "the mind that was in Christ?Never dream of forcing [other people] into the ways of God.Think yourself, and let think...Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.
(John Wesley)
Are we living the kind of life that would make others want to live like us?
Witness is more than verbal invitation. It is a way of life that invite God to work through us.
Read
Luke 10:1 - 11
What is it about your life that would make someone else want to be a follower of Jesus Christ and be involved in a faith community?
Prayer
You have poured out your life so generously in Christ, restored me to you, given me back my life, and promised the eternity of love. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Thursday, April 5
Day 38
"Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks
why you're living the way you are,and always with the utmost courtesy."
1 Peter 3:15, The Message
The church fulfills its mission at the margins of the congregation,
where those who actively follow Christ
encounter those who are not a part of the community of faith.
Picture a congregation as concentric circles of relationship,
with those who know each other well and offer leadership in the middle,
those who faithfully volunteer a little farther out,
and those who are newer or less active a little farther still.
When we reach the edge of the farthest circle
we discover on the other side the people
who are not a part of a community of faith.
The church fulfills its mission at the edge,
through service -
helping,
serving,
or sharing faith.
In a healthy church,
the boundary is wonderfully permeable,
and members readily reach across the edge
and new people easily enter into the community.
That margin is where the action is.
That's where the church fulfills its mission.
Hearers and talkers become doers at the margin.
How can we overcome our personal unwillingness
to comfortably and consistently
invite others into the community of faith
and into the life of Christ?
When we pray for renewal for our congregations,
we can't ask God to do for us
what God created us to do for God.
Invitation is our mission.
Offering God's love is our work.
How do we find
our voice,
our manner,
our way to reach out to others?
We don't have to stand on the street corner
and scream about Jesus or change our theology.
We only need to practice our theology and
become an instrument of God's grace!
Find your approach
and prayerfully discern
when the time is right to offer a gentle invitation.
A gentle invitation may change someone's life forever.
Read Matthew 12:1 - 9
When was a time you had a conversation
about the spiritual life with someone who has no church home?
How did the experience affect them? You?
Prayer
Give me
the spirit,
the grace,
the right timing,
the right tone,
the right words,
the ripe moment, Lord, to reveal your love.
Wednesday, April 4
Day 37
"Let your light shine before others,
so that they may see your good works
and give glory to your Father in heaven."
Matthew 5:15
A mysterious element of our God-related lives
is our frequent unwillingness
to invite others in a gentle, authentic, and natural way.
If following Christ involves inviting others to explore the inner life
and to discover the riches of God's grace,
why the ambivalence?
First,
we fear offending people,
as if by telling a friend about our serving
or the worship we love,
we appear judgmental since they do not do these things.
Second,
in a live-and-let-live world,
we feel uncomfortable with any notion
that we may be imposing our values onto others.
Third,
the thought of
praying,
preparing,
and planning
to invite another person into the faith community
feels
manipulative,
artificial,
contrived,
and utilitarian.
Intentionality connotes conniving.
The invitation benefits the "inviter"
more than the "invitee"
as the genuine hospitality of Christ dissolves into
a membership drive,
a marketing ploy.
We see it as our invitation
rather than God's.
We despise self-serving motives.
Fourth,
invitation reminds us of negative stereotypes of evangelism done rudely -
the street corner preacher screaming invectives at passers - by,
or the pushy college roommate constantly shoving religion our way.
Fifth,
we find it difficult to offer the invitation
in a healthy manner because
we don't have many good examples to learn from.
Ironically, each of us has come to faith or remained on the journey
because of the encouragement of other people,
and evidently their disposition toward us was not offensive or coercive.
What personal qualities attracted us to them?
What stimulated our curiosity?
What practices supported our inner yearnings
and helped us to experience God's grace,
and to eventually say Yes to God?
Offer God's love.
Invite.
Pray about it.
Learn about it.
Grace received becomes grace given;
a way discovered becomes a path offered.
Grace becomes real through invitation.
What's the greatest gift you have ever given?
Perhaps the most life-changing gift you will ever offer to another person
is an invitation to life with God.
This is the gift immeasurable.
Read Matthew 5:13 - 16
What causes you to resist offering God's love to others?
If everyone in your congregation
offered the same quality and frequency of invitation that you do,
would your congregation be growing or declining?
Prayer
The old life is gone;
your new life in me flourishes.
Use me to persuade others by gentle, persistent love
to enter into your love and work.
Tuesday, April 3
Day 36
"Don't load yourselves up with equipment.
Keep it simple;
you are the equipment."
Luke 9:3, The Message
The most concrete and personal way
God reaches out to invite people into faith
is through friends who invite friends.
Most people who have no church
have at least one friend who practices the faith,
and that person provides
the most likely pathway
to the spiritual journey.
Are you that person?
Jesus forms his disciples with the words,
"Follow me."
He initiated conversations with the woman at the well,
engaged tax collectors,
entered homes,
approached sickbeds,
and consoled mourners.
He had an outward focus,
looking to the margins of the crowd
to draw people toward God.
He did not wait for people to discover him.
He moved toward them.
Jesus' most compelling parables
portray the initiative of God,
a love that searches and seeks and waits
and persists and refuses to give up on anyone.
The lost sheep,
the woman and her coin,
the father and his son,
the Samaritan and the stranger -
all describe an active love that steps toward people.
If we want to do what Jesus does,
we search, seek, and serve.
"I was a stranger and you welcomed me....
I was in prison and you visited me."
following Jesus involves being sent to
invite others with this advice:
"Don't load your selves up with equipment ...
you are the equipment"
Luke 9:3
"Sentness"
Apostle comes from the Greek apostolos,
and means "someone sent out."
The word mission derives from Latin, and means "to send off."
As disciples (meaning learners, followers of a person or idea),
we do the things Jesus did and teach what Jesus taught.
Our mission is to communicate the love of God, to offer God's grace.
Every follower of Christ becomes part of the mission
and is sent out as "ambassadors of Christ."
We've been assigned a duty and provided a setting, such as
our workplace,
neighborhood
and family network
to seek those who need God's love.
Why do followers of Jesus feel compelled to tell others about God's love?
God's love has an initiating quality
that searches and seeks and never gives up on anyone.
This love propels Jesus' followers to the ends of the earth.
The receptivity that opens us to God
leads us to
encourage,
welcome,
and support others.
Invitation continues God's love.
In us, the Word becomes flesh once more.
Read Matthew 28
What place and network of relationship
has God given you to serve as Christ's ambassador?
How does receptivity toward God lead us to open ourselves to others?
Prayer
Dear Lord,
you have embraced me
with your unmerited, gracious, and everlasting love.
Help me offer that same love to others.
Widen my vision.
Stretch me.
Push me.
Monday, April 2Day 35"You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit, that will last…"
John 15:16
Fruitfulness provides a metaphor
for many profound aspects of the spiritual life
and the Christian journey.
Jesus says,
"My Father is glorified by this
that you bear much fruit
and become my disciples" (John 15:8).
Fruit evidences discipleship;
following Jesus and fruitfulness are inextricably linked.
Disciples bear fruit.
Paul uses similar metaphors to
explore inner growth,
the fruit of the Spirit -
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
generosity,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
self-control
(Galations 5:22 - 23).
Fruitful living cultivates these essential qualities
of soul and character.
Fruitfulness refers to the interior growth
and the reconfiguration of the soul
that becomes visible in outward
changes of attitude, behavior, and value. Followers grow in grace.
When Jesus says,
"I am the vine; you are the branches,"
he reminds us that all our fruit
derive from our relationship to God in Christ.
Our fruit is God's fruit.
Radical Hospitality
Passionate Worship
Intentional Faith Development
Risk - Taking Mission and Service
Extravagant Generosity
These are the practices of fruitful living.
By repeating and deepening these,
we cultivate interior fruit of the Spirit
as well as grow in our capacity
to serve the world for God's purposes.
Receiving God,
loving God in return,
and giving generously
particularly bear fruit in the world around us.
Fruitful living changes us inside, and through us
transforms the world for God's purposes.
Imagine how the people you invite to faith
intermingle with the
lives of countless other people you do not know.
The fruit in your life multiplies
in unseen and unknowable ways
when we offer God's love.
The grace of God is
replicated,
repeated,
and shared.
Seeds are scattered,
some take root and bear fruit
in ways beyond what we can comprehend.
Offering God's love multiplies the fruitful life.
The receptivity that opened our hearts to God opens doors to others. Our lives become a doorway through which people enter into the spiritual life. God with us becomes God through us. We become "ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us" (2 Corinthians 5:20). Grace becomes tangible through invitation.
Read Galatians 5:22 - 26
You are the fruit of someone else's walk with Christ. Who welcomed and sustained you in your earliest steps toward Christ? Who made God's grace and the fruit of the Spirit tangible and real for you?
Prayer
Thank you, for your love that would not let go of me and for your grace that searched for me and sought me through friends, family, and strangers. Thank you.
Fruitful Living and Offering God's Love
Fruit refers to what Christ accomplishes through us.
Jesus expects our life of faith to make a difference.
Fruitfulness draws our attention to what results
from what we've received,
the change of soul and character inside us
as well as the change that takes place
in the world through us by the Holy Spirit.
And the word fruit refers to the way plants reproduce.
Fruit contain seeds that multiply
and create life apart from the original plant
and yet related to it.
Through fruit,
life passes along to another generation.
Fruit is new life.
Fruit is growth.
Fruit is future.
Offering God's love to another person
and inviting someone else into the spiritual life
multiplies both
the inner qualities of spiritual fruitfulness
and the outward impact of service
more than anything else we could possibly do.
Living fruitfully means
not only cultivating the fruit of the Spirit within us
but also cultivating spiritual life in others.
God uses our growth in grace to
transform the world for God's purposes.
During the coming days,
focus on the new life God gives you in Christ
and the new life God offers others through you.
How can we live with such grace that people see Christ in us?
Jesus,
cause me to be what you have called me to be for you:
disciple,
ambassador,
light,
servant.
Saturday, March 31Day 34"This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way...2 Corinthians 9:11, The MessageTithingSarah grew up in a family that practiced tithing, and as a child she put ten cents in the offering plate from each dollar she received. "I love giving," she says, "and I cannot imagine living my life or loving God without giving back."For hundreds of generations, the practice of tithing has sustained growth in personal generosity. To tithe means to give a tenth, and involves returning to God ten percent of income. Do it first thing when you are paid, and you discover that the practice dials down appetites, reshapes priorities, and that all other expenses and needs will re-adjust. For most people, tithing is not easy. It takes time to learn and adapt and grow into the practice.Tithing provides a concrete way for us to take the words we speak, becomes tangible; Our giving becomes a away of putting God first, an outward sign of an inner spiritual alignment. Tithing is not merely about what God wants us to do, but about the kind of person God wants us to become. Does the giving I now practice help me develop a Christ-like heart?People who practice Extravagnat Generosity grow in the grace of giving. They learn. They take small steps until tithing becomes natural.
They deepen their understanding of giving
through prayer and Scripture.
They give more now than in the past,
and will give more in the future than they do today.
Read Psalm 104
When was a time you felt God's Spirit move you to give your resources beyond what you had previously practiced? What's the largest gift you have ever given? What motivated you? What resulted from the gift, and how did it affect you?
Prayer
What a wildly wonderful world, God. All that I have comes from beyond myself. Open my heart, receiving and giving, like breathing in and breathing out.
Friday, March 30
Day 33
"I have learned to be content with whatever I have.
I know what it is to have little,
and I know what it is to have plenty ...
I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
Philippians 4:11 - 13
Generosity derives from
a profound reorientation in our thinking
about how we find contentment in life.
Paul writes,
"I have learned to be content with whatever I have,"
We begin to believe that happiness depends upon
outward circumstance
and material comforts
rather than serving from inner spiritual qualities -
love,
peace,
compassion,
self-control,
gentleness,
prayerfulness.
Possessing greater wealth does not mean
that we experience contentedness.
We can still feel
panic,
emptiness,
striving,
and isolation.
We feel needy,
and our appetites become insatiable.
Surrounded by water, we are dying of thirst.
Abundant living derives from
generative relationships,
from mutual support,
and from knowing how to love and be loved.
Contentedness comes from
personal integrity,
a life aligned with high values,
depth of spirit and of mind,
growth in grace and peace.
Primarily,
contentedness is formed in us by the practice of generosity. Contentedness is
learning to be happy with what we have
rather than feeling distressed by what we lack.
Second,
contentedness results
from a deep, cultivated sense of gratitude.
Generous people are thankful.
Finally,
contentedness comes from
persistent interior work
and cooperation with the Holy Spirit
to develop the personal habits
and
keep us from
surrendering our sense of well-being, identity,
and purpose to materialist measures.
Living fruitfully is not merely a matter of
having something to live on,
but something to live for.
Purpose,
connection,
love,
service,
friendship,
family,
generosity
- these sustain contentedness.
Love is a gift, and life is grace.
They delight
in receiving money,
find pleasure in its responsible use
and experience joy in giving to God's purposes.
They do not become too attached,
and are not stopped, deceived, slowed, misled, or detoured
in their following Christ by the possession of money.
They are rich toward God.
Read 2 Corinthians 8:1 - 7
What causes you to feel content?
How do you avoid a self-destructive acquisitiveness?
What personal habits help to keep you grounded in Christ?
Prayer
I'm so full of myself sometimes, God.
Help me
seek you above all things,
to offer my best,
to be rich in helping others,
and to be as extravagantly generous
with you as you are with me.
Thursday, March 29Day 32Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights."James 1:17, NIVFundamentally, we either consider the material things in our life - our money, house, property - as owned by God and belonging to God, and we manage them for God's purposes, or we view them as owned by us. If they are owned by God, then our tithes and offerings represent our returning to God what belongs to God already. But if we believe that our material resources fundamentally belong to us and that we entirely possess them ourselves, then we can do whatever we please with what we own, and our tithes and offerings are giving something that belongs to us, to God. God should be grateful for our generosity in giving a percentage for God's purposes rather than our feeling grateful for the privilege of using what belongs to God.Think about the possession of land. Suppose we hold legal title and own land according to civil authorities. In the larger span of the earth's history, does our patch of soil actually being to us, or are we temporary stewards? The land didn't begin with us and doesn't end with us.Our mortality assures that we are only the temporary steward, managers, and keepers. At our dying, what will the things we own meant to us? Whose will they be?It's temporarily ours to enjoy, but we do so with respect and awe, because ultimately everything belongs to God, and not to us.Which perspective is truer, more ethically sound, more aligned with reality? That it all belongs to us and we can do whatever we want? Or that we are the temporary beneficiaries, and we find meaning in using what God has entrusted to us to the highest purposes? Which perspective fosters better decisions and deepens a spiritually grounded sense of community and responsibility?
The practice of Extravagant Generosity stretches us to offer our utmost and highest to God rather than to give in a manner that is haphazard, unplanned, reactive, minimalist, mediocre, or mechanical. People who practice Extravagant Generosity give with unexpected liberality; they make giving a first priority. They go the second mile. They do not give from a "what remains" mentality, but from a "what comes first" priority. Giving seriously becomes a personal spiritual discipline, a way of serving God, and a means of helping the church fulfill its God-appointed mission. Giving changes their lives.
Read Matthew 25:14 - 30.
How do you feel about the statement "all things belong to God"? When was a time you felt God transformed your life because you gave? What's the most fun you've ever had giving?
Prayer
Lord, I pray that in you I will break fresh ground in my thinking and doing.
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