The glory of God is the “heavy weight”, as it’s referred to in the original language, of the revelation of God’s reputation or character of love!

Jesus wept is the shortest verse in the entire Bible. Yet, have you ever wondered why He wept? Well, just consider all that Jesus was taking in at the moment.

Did you hear what was arising out of Martha’s heart? She’s expressing respect mingled with an honest frustration that essential says, “Where were you?”!

How does Jesus respond to families grieving the loss of a loved one?

What could God possibly be trying to teach us as parents through the experience of this journey with Abraham and Isaac, by a request that seems so cruel?

When the love of Christ is the Why for your life, then what’s the fourth step He leads your life into?

Notice Jesus has already gone before these disciples to reach the hearts of the people, but now He decides to enter their environment, their space, their work space for a better, more effective platform to reach the people.

Peter was fine when Jesus was doing His preaching and teaching thing from his boat, but now He wants to enter his profession and tell him how to do his job. You see, once Jesus gets in your space He has some things to say about how things are done in there.

Notice Jesus has already gone before these disciples to reach the hearts of the people, but now He decides to enter their environment, their space, their work space for a better, more effective platform to reach the people.

When the love of Christ is the Why for your life, then what’s the third step He leads your life into? Well, if you want to find out, then Come with me to the shore of the Sea of Galilee as the water gently splashes on our feet while we stand in the midst of a crowd that have pressed together to hear Jesus teach.

Notice the first move wasn’t to take this precious harvest of 3000 newly baptized people and pack them into the nearest auditorium their in Jerusalem and call themselves a mega-church. Rather they were immediately placed into smaller gatherings that met from house to house as their primary gathering for church life.

The setting was away from the large gathering of the crowds and into the small gathering within a home. The disciples didn’t merely have a personal, one-on-one abiding relationship with Jesus. But they also learned and did life together as followers of Jesus!

When the love of Christ is the Why for your life, then what’s the second step He leads your life into?

When the love of Christ is revealed to you as the Why for your life, then what’s the first step He leads your life into?

This first step on the discipleship pathway is an exploratory, seeking and experiential step. And one thing you’ll notice at every step in Jesus’ pathway to disciple-making is it’s highly relational.

We deceive ourselves into thinking our way is better, while in truth we are slipping down the path to self-destruction. And this breaks the heart of God because He created us to flourish as human beings by living in the rhythm of love to God, one another and everything in the environment around us.

Paul is saying, “If you want to know what’s driving us, what’s motivating us, what’s pushing us, what’s moving us and ruling our hearts; if you want to know what’s getting us up in the morning, it’s the compelling love of Christ!”

What is the compelling why that drives your life? 

Jesus being in our midst until the end was His explicit promise in Matthew 28:20, which says, “… I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. Matthew 28:20 NKJV. Knowing that Jesus is with us in our midst through the Spirit is a strong encouragement, yet it is also a challenge.

Just ask any human being on the planet and they’ll tell you that the thing most human beings fear, next to speaking in front of their classmates in middle school, is death. It is fear that has paralyzed so many people from being able to truly live and it is fear that causes so many people to be easily manipulated  and controlled by those with power.

John wrote an open letter that was to be circulated and read to seven literal churches in ancient Asia Minor (or modern-day Turkey), but was intended to address the Church from that time, to our time, even until the end of time.

“You see, what we see the Holy Spirit doing for David is He mightily fills a teenager, and as a byproduct, gives him spiritual gifts, that as he uses them to the glory of God, begin to open up doors for him.”

“…I just believe there’s a movement of youth rising up just waiting for some of you “Samuels” from the older generations to call them into fulfilling their Spirit-anointed purpose; to guide, mentor and release them into mission!”

“…God is trying to teach Samuel, and us in the 21st century, how to see people, especially youth, how He sees them.”

How do we create a safe space for youth to fulfill God’s purpose for their lives?

Now I know calling people to repent of their sins has its place, but did you notice that Jesus isn’t recorded in this story as calling out the egregious nature of his long list of sins?

Notice that the joy of Zaccheus stands in sharp contrast to the grumbling criticism of the crowd. And their accusation against Jesus was nothing new…

Now, right away, I’m already struck by the fact that even though the crowd was unwilling to accommodate Zaccheus’s “differentness” in order to help him see Jesus, he would not be deterred from seeing Jesus!

Are the spaces where we do life on a regular basis, really safe spaces for people to experience Jesus? And if not, then how do we create safe spaces for the worst sinners, and the different, to experience grace?

“How much do you matter to God, especially when you’ve experienced church hurt?”