What are we preserving?

        So today is the day of family, friends, and traditions.  Today is the day I reap what I sowed as a child.  My children were up at 4:30 am, when I took the dog out, he decided to take off and I chased him into the neighbor's yard.  Barefoot in the snow, with no coat on is not fun at 33, at 12 it wasn't so bad. I went to my in-laws and then my parents and we are sitting down to eat dinner.  I can tell you that we keep it as simple as we can, and I can also tell you that I am preserving the memories of this year. The many blessings Go has given me astound me every year and take me by surprise as I reflect on how far we have come.  Preserving simply means to maintain something in its original state, and as I sat down this evening  I am reminded, in the midst of the chaos, that we have to choose wisely what we are preserving.  I am preserving the many blessings of God this year, but I am also curiously questioning as a Christ follower, what am I preserving?
     Since the beginning of biblical civilization, we have been faced with our own mortality, as well as our legacy.  Many horrible things have been done in the name of preserving a lifestyle, a culture, or just our selfish desires.  In my life, as I reflect on my childhood there isn't a lot of things, I want to preserve.  Scarcity, poverty, fighting, abuse, sickness, and filth, to name a few things.  It begs the questions: what is it in my life that was an anchor that tethered my life from not being destroyed?  Fifteen years ago I would have said 'the church' but honestly, it is much more than that, much deeper than that and much more intimate.  A hospital may be a place you go but it is the surgeons, the doctors, the nurses,  the housekeepers, and the aides that make a hospital work.  It is also the patient who decides many times whether or not they will recover.
      I have grown up in church, can say my books of the Bible in thirty seconds, I have read the whole thing front to back.  Yet every day I love diving into it, reading it, and allowing it to seep into my life.  One thing I think Western Christians have done well is knowledge of the Bible, it has become a culture and a high sales point. We are strong in marketing, selling, and buying, but what we have not done well is teaching the heart of the stories. We like logic, but when we get into the messy, sticky, moments of life, we don't want to say the wrong thing, so we shy away from the hard questions.   We see stories as things to repeat, information to spew back but we do not see it as something to seep into our very being.    In my household, we have a whole series of books from the 1980's on stories Jesus told. Our neighbor and my former Sunday School Teacher gave them too us.   I still find myself enthralled with these cheesy books because as I get older the story takes on different meanings.  The only way to explain it is the Bible reveals different layers with each passing year. It's like an abstract painting, it doesn't change, but the way we see it does every time we look at it.   In a world full of opinions I feel the question that we should be asking is what are we preserving?
"What are we preserving?"
   I had the privilege of going to a class this past summer on understanding the Kingdom of God.   I prayed before I went to this class and asked God "Help me understand exactly what I am inviting people into. Because I know I am missing it."  I know that sounds weird, but here is the thing:  many times as Christians we are inviting people to our way of Christianity.  The problem is that many doctrines, including mine, are formed based on other popular revival or renewal movements, some hundreds, if not thousands of years old. Don't get me wrong, I love every single denomination because they all focus in on one area, and many spoke to the culture at the time of the revival and renewal but they do not speak to the culture of today. Denominations are the different colors and textures that the gospel has taken on in the last two thousand years and it is beautiful.  So this is not a slam on any church, but as a person, I found myself jaded and by the whole thing.
    I was at a place, though,  where I didn't want to invite anyone on the journey of Christianity anymore.  The church as a whole, I felt, had let me down. I could get people in the doors but many times, I would invite people into my church through my life, and many left hurt and wounded, by the very ones I had told them to trust.  It is a hard place to be when you question your reasonings and your doctrine of belief.   When your expectations of what is being sold in the pulpit, meet the very broken reality of our humanity, it is impossible to meet the two without a healthy measure of grace.  So, when I went, my prayer was with a true heart.  I found many answers, and I found something that is worth preserving, and that is the fundamental truths of being a part of God's Kingdom.  We are all a part of God's kingdom if Jesus is the way you go."   Many denominational lines have been made from secondary or tertiary issues doctrinally but primarily we believe that Jesus came to earth, was the Messiah, and rose again.  Whether Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, we all believe in Jesus. Their has never been a greater time when we need the full body to rise up, every cell, every organ, every piece to take its place. 
      Have we gotten too busy preserving our doctrine that we lost what it meant to actually follow Jesus? I don't know where I got lost, but somewhere I believed more in a mission statement that I did in the one who walked out the mission.  And if those words are too churchy let me put it this way: Did we get too busy preserving our coffee, selfies, and bumper sticker culture that we forgot what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. Images will not be proof of life, bearing the fruit of the spirit is proof of a Christian life.  I am pretty sure we all read the same Bible.  Jesus told his disciples to go preach the good news to the poor, to cast out demons, raise the dead, and preach the good news to the poor.  I read this and I question where are the signs and wonders of Jesus in me?  The Bible says that the same spirit that was in Jesus is in us.  Where are the sick being healed, the lame walking, the dead raised? 
Where are the Jesus followers that are willing to let go of their control?  To have a posture of humility, to have a culture of inclusion? To stretch beyond our fears, our hurts, and yes even our comfort.   Yeah, if we are honest many of us want to preserve our way of worship, not because it is biblically sound, but on the basis of our comfort and control.   Are we preserving our fear?  We are afraid of those who think differently than us?  Are we afraid of those who serve different Gods?  The gospel that Jesus preached was the gospel of God's Kingdom.  Not of a denomination, but through Jesus the Kingdom of God.  The Bible tells us who we are, but in the generation, we live in, I fear that filters are not helping us.  They are allowing us to hide in our comfort, to hide in our sickness and not allow the Savior of the world to heal us.   We don't know who we are and whose we are, and I hope in 2018 we can dive into finding ourselves in Christ. 
   I am making a vow in 2018 to let go of the secondary things that divide us and pick back up the call God has charged his workers.  We are called to preach the good news that the Kingdom of God releases the burden of the world, you can turn to Jesus.  Repent of your sins, and turn from your idols or the very things you are bowing down too.  You are invited into the kingdom, I am inviting you.  This world is very broken, but the kingdom of God, when you are a part of His Kingdom, you bring his peace, you bring his wholeness, you bring his prosperity.  Not as a marketed gimic, not to cheapen the gift of Christ.  But through a life of following the way of Jesus.  If you are tired of serving yourself if you are tired of bowing down to the idols of this world.  To fear, anxiety, chaos, sexual addiction, anger, malice, unforgiveness, to name a few.  Can I invite you to pray a prayer of surrender? To invite Jesus into your very dark, broken, places and no one else?  Can I invite you to ask Jesus to root out your idols and the strongholds in your life?  The things that are tripping you up?  Don't go into 2018 the same way you are leaving 2017.     Maybe you need to stop preserving the broken systems, the unforgiveness, the anger, the hurt, the broken mindsets.  Maybe you need to preserve Jesus and what he came to this earth to do, the very thing that is still being done all around the world today.  Invite Jesus into your life and allow the Holy Spirit to equip you for the work God has called you to do. Be brave in 2018.