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All the Fitness He Requires

All the Fitness He Requires

by | Feb 1, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

There’s a group exercise place close to my house that I have been wanting to try out. I have several friends who go there and love it, and when my kids were younger, I really loved working out with others. One of my friends has said she will take me whenever I want to go for a trial class. She has said this for over a year. But I have never taken her up on it, and it’s just for the dumbest reason. I don’t think I am in good enough shape to go to the place that is supposed to whip me into shape. I keep thinking that what I need to do is get into a really rigorous workout rhythm at home for a good 6 weeks and THEN I will be ready to go! So basically, once I don’t need the class anymore, then I will be ready to join. 

 

An Open Invitation

There is another open invitation that we tend to view the same way, which has deeper and more lasting implications beyond an exercise class. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus invites us to come to him…all of us who labor and are heavy laden, which feels like all of us, and he will give us rest. I know this, we know this, and yet…there are so many times when I continue to feel like I have to get my act together in order to be loved and accepted by my Savior. There are so many times when I am striving and struggling and instead of accepting the rest that Jesus offers me, I just double down. I turn to productivity books, reorganize my schedule and just plain try harder. I will get my act together and then come to Jesus, once I somehow achieve that rest that he so freely offers. Accepting grace feels more difficult than continuing to throw myself at a (metaphorical) brick wall. 

Works-based religions just make so much more sense to me, even though they are soul-crushing. In our Western culture, we are self-made women and men! We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. All we have to do is dream bigger and work harder and keep hustling, and all our American dreams will come true! We don’t want to owe anyone anything, we have our pride. Even when asking a friend for a favor, sometimes I find myself doing a quick mental calculation…have I asked this person to do more for me than I have done for them? Is the “favor scale” tipped too far in the wrong direction, do I owe them more than they owe me? If so, sometimes I won’t ask for what I need and what they would happily and lovingly do for me. Because then I would feel like a burden, a drain. 

 

Rest and Peace

And then there is our God. He has done everything for us – created us, given us everything that we have, died for us…there is nothing I could ever do to balance those “favor scales.” And all he wants is for me to come to him; he is standing there, arms open, waiting for me to give him my burdens, my worries, my fears, my sins, my shame, my pride (along with my joys, praise and my loves). And exchange it for his rest, his peace, his presence. 

I have loved Jesus as long as I can remember, and I still struggle to turn to him first, to continue to turn to him each and every day with each and every struggle and burden. I suspect I am not alone in that. But I think, just maybe, I am willing to set aside my pride and admit my need a little quicker than I did a few decades ago. Church, may we be a people who realize that clinging to our pride and self-sufficiency is a fool’s game. We are just causing ourselves such needless heartache and misery. Our God offers us rest, true rest. May we reach out and take it. 

Come, Ye Sinners

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
full of pity, love, and pow’r

Come, ye thirsty; come and welcome,
God’s free bounty glorify;
true belief and true repentance,
ev’ry grace that brings you nigh

Let not conscience make you linger,
nor of fitness fondly dream;
all the fitness he requires
is to feel your need of him.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
lost and ruined by the fall;
if you tarry till you’re better,
you will never come at all.

I will arise and go to Jesus!
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior,
Oh, there are ten thousand charms

Who Will Lift Up Your Arms?

Who Will Lift Up Your Arms?

by | Jan 18, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

Lately, I have been unable to stop considering Galatians 6:2. 

It contains one of the most fascinating “conditional statement commands” in all of the Bible, and is eminently applicable for the persisting difficulties we’re all still facing. It starts off, “Bear one another’s burdens.” 

That’s the command, one of the more than 40 “one another” commands in the New Testament, which are designed to give shape to the emerging community of Jesus followers. Maybe you’ve seen those “In this house we…” signs that then go on to list certain characteristics (whether actual or aspirational) of the family who put the sign up. Whenever you come across a “one another” command in the New Testament, just imagine it on a sign like that for the family of Jesus followers. “In this house we… bear one another’s burdens.”

And how beautiful is that, by the way? 

But also, how necessary is that? 

The image that comes to my mind upon reading that command is a weary traveler, burdened down by long miles and a too-heavy load. What does that person need more than anything else? Someone to come alongside them and take up part of what they are carrying. Someone to “bear their burden.”

Here’s the truth: at different times, we will ALL find ourselves weary travelers, burdened beyond what we can bear. But thankfully, in the family of Jesus followers, there is a design for this inevitably. A surpassingly simple solution: don’t try to go it alone. Humble yourself enough to accept the help of others, to allow them to bear whatever portion of your burden they can. Friends, even Jesus himself needed help bearing the burden of his cross to Golgotha (Luke 23:26). Are we more capable than he? I pray we have enough humility to answer that question correctly.

Exodus 17:8-16 contains a beautiful example of Galatians 6:2 in action. God’s people, the Israelities, have come under attack by the people of Amalek. Moses, as the leader of God’s people, bears the ultimate burden of this “heavy load.” But he immediately and humbly invites help in bearing the burden, delegating the task of leading Israel’s warriors to Joshua. He also recognizes that he must ultimately depend on the strength of the Lord for the victory, so he crafts a plan that puts God at the center via his divinely blessed staff. Moses retreats up the hill, staff in hand. When he lifts it above his head, Israel gains ground in the battle below. But quickly, the staff becomes a literal burden that is too heavy for Moses to bear. And here is the surpassingly simple, Galatians 6:2 solution. Exodus 17, verses 12 and 13, “But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.”

Friends, who will lift your arms when they grow tired? Who will help bear your burdens? 

Recently, my family and I underwent a very intense six-week stretch of life. It quickly identified itself as a “burden too heavy,” but I am humbly eager to report that the family of Jesus followers we do life with at the Shawnee Campus showed up in a major way to “lift our arms.” To help bear this particular burden. It was extraordinary. Meals. Prayer. Texts of support. A constant stream of “How can we help?” and “What do y’all need?”

We were overwhelmed by, well, love. And that’s how we circle back to the last clause of Galatians 6:2. I started by saying that Galatians 6:2 is a “conditional statement command,” but so far, we’ve only discussed the command. 

Here’s the full verse, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Pretty important conditional statement, wouldn’t you say? But it leads us to ask, what exactly is the law of Christ? Thankfully, we are not left to wonder. We have a clear answer. In John 13:34-35, Jesus is addressing his disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When we bear one another’s burdens, when we lift up one another’s arms, what we are ultimately doing is loving as Jesus loved. And what could be better than that?