For the past year, I have been studying the life and teachings of Jesus.  What’s amazing to me, is how different he approached everything.  In almost every situation, he deals with things in the exact opposite way that we have been taught and trained to deal with things.  We spend so much energy and waste so much effort on planning strategy, developing schemes and creating systems.  We think we are so smart, but with all of our brilliance, we really have very little to show for it, if we are honest with ourselves.  And we really do need to be honest with ourselves.

I mean think about it, we have congregations, budgets, buildings, programs, ministries, groups, training on every possible subject and agenda on top of agenda.  But what is so different this year in our lives from last year?  If you were to stand before God in the next five minutes, what would you have to say about what you have to say?

Jesus had a single task – the task of sharing the Gospel with a lost and dying world.  Did he start a church?  No!  Did he organize a big outreach event?  No!  Did he have a meeting, elect officers and appoint assignments?  No!  Jesus did not do any of the things that we would do or have done.  Jesus simply got up and began to journey through the world that he lived in.  Every encounter was an opportunity to share the Gospel and in the sharing the spread naturally began to happen.

He did not call together the best and the brightest, but instead, he took whoever and whatever came his way and dealt with it by sharing love, grace and hope.  I think that Jesus knew what love, grace and hope could and would accomplish, especially in normal, everyday, challenged people.

Think about the messed up, rag-tag, group of disciples that gathered around him.  When these very human men and women began to live with Jesus and as Jesus, it changed their lives and enabled their lives to change others.  As they began to think the thoughts of Jesus and love with the love of a Savior and friend, the world was changed and they were the ones doing the changing.  The philosophy of Jesus was simple:  Do it, let others see the benefit and as they do it, others will see it and benefit and lives will be changed by God’s love, grace and hope.

We tend to forget that the heart of “one” can change the world.  It starts with Jesus, continues with us and grows through others!  Jesus is teaching me this very simple, but purposeful principle, one heart at a time and I can’t help but to live blessed.

Many of the people that know me, know that I am a very passionate person.  When I believe in something or someone, it is never with half a heart.  I believe in going all in or not going at all.  For the biggest part of my life, I thought I was taking risks and the reality was, that I was playing it safe, while appearing to take risk and live by faith.  My life today is very different and while I still have a long way to go, I can say that I am on the journey – a journey of grace and it is amazing.

A few years ago, God began to rock my world by teaching me that almost everything that I thought I understood, was fatally flawed.  It was not that I did not have a belief system,  I had a very good and very well thought out belief system.  A system so good in fact, that I actually believed that I was that good man in the three piece suit.  But then the Spirit began to point out areas of hypocrisy in my life and before I knew it, I discovered that the real estate of my life was being held in the wrong hands.

I started thinking, praying and trying to figure out how I was going to make right my wrongs and just ended up making a bigger mess than what I began with and then life happened.  What seemed like some of the greatest challenge of my life, was really opportunity to step out of the false comfort zone of my own creating and into an amazing life of faith.  This was not an overnight occurrence, but more like a journey of a thousand miles that began with the first step.

A couple of things that I am learning:

#1 “I still have so much to learn!”  I am not anywhere near where I need to be in this journey, but I am glad that I for the first time in a long time, can say with honesty and assurance that I am making progress.  And my progress is not about anything that I have done, but what I have allowed and am allowing the Spirit to do to and through me.

#2 “Living a life of obedience to Christ is not easy!”  It often means stepping, no running away from everything that we have been taught that is wrong and learning to embrace a totally new way of life.  It often means leaving what you thought were friends behind and be willing to walk all alone if you have to.  The good news is this – God shows you who your friends really are!

It means that popular is something that you will never have to worry about being.  We will have to say goodbye to comfort that we have become accustomed to.  We may have to risk our health and what we think is sanity.  Wealth is something that you will learn to define in a new way, not with money, bank accounts or possessions, but with life, peace and blessing.

Real obedience to Christ runs the risk of our losing everything, but the reward of gaining what really matters.  I am learning that Jesus is more than enough.  I say that I am learning, because I am not anywhere near where I need to be, but I am on a journey and while it is sometimes very hard, it is almost always very rewarding and always blessed!

It seems that the older we get, the harder it is to let go of things.  But we must learn to let go and the best way to learn is by practicing a little letting go everyday.  In order to let go, you have to trust that someone or something.  Letting go is not easy, but you cannot enjoy the peace that you were created to live in, with clenched fists.

As we learn that God has got this – whatever “this” is, then we will begin to relax and open our hands, so that we might take hold of some new and better things that He has in store for us.  All hell can be breaking loose around you, and you can be calm, cool and collected, if you can learn to “let go and let God!”

It is not the absence of strife that brings peace, it is the presence of our Creator in the midst of strife that brings peace and peace opens the door for blessings to flow.  Our Creator has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us, therefore we will never ever have to face anything alone, so we can let go of whatever we have allowed to become false security for us and grab hold of and enjoy the embrace of our Maker.

It is a blessing to know that every step of the way, He is holding my hand and leading me to live blessed!