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What God is Doing Right Now in our Crazy World

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Photo by Diana Vargas on Unsplash

In the gospel of John, he tells his disciples two incredible things: the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these (14:12), and it is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away, the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you (16:7).

These two verses tell us so much about what God is doing in our world today and how he moves within the lives of Jesus’ followers to bring about his will.

For many Christians, and honestly for me as well, these two verses seem confusing. How is it possible that anyone can do the works that Jesus did or even greater works than he did? And how could it be better without Jesus here?

I’m sure his disciples, just like Christians who have been mystified about this for centuries, had the same confused looks on their faces. What do you mean it would be better if you left? What do you mean we will do greater works?

In John 14, Jesus tells us how this happens. The person who believes and keeps his commands will do greater works than these and see the counselor (Holy Spirit) come to him.

As Alan Fadling said, “Obedience is not the path to being loved. Obedience is the reality of being at home in love.”

Obedience is not the path to being loved. Obedience is the reality of being at home in love. – Alan. Fadling

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This is so important.

Jesus doesn’t say obedience saves you. Obedience reveals the reality of your salvation.

Jesus doesn’t say obedience saves you. Obedience reveals the reality of your salvation.

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So, the person who will do the works that Jesus did and greater works, the person whose life is better with “the spirit in them instead of Jesus beside them,” is the one who loves God and keeps his commands (John 14:15).

Then, Jesus tells us what followers of Jesus experience in the spirit each day: The presence of the Father, Son, and Spirit; counselor; and teacher.

Jesus tells us that we will find our home through the Father, Son, and Spirit and won’t be left as orphans. Jesus knew that his disciples would feel abandoned and vulnerable, so he told them, “I won’t leave you as orphans; you will not be alone” (John 14:18). As a follower of Jesus, you and I are never alone. We are not navigating anything by ourselves. We are never abandoned, no matter how much the enemy makes us feel that way.

Then he says the Holy Spirit is our counselor (or advocate in some translations) and teacher.

A counselor carries the idea of helper, which the Spirit is also called. Someone who helps us, guides us, convicts us, and gives advice and direction.

But also a teacher of all truth. So, in the moments we aren’t sure what to do, what to say, which way to go, which decision is better, when we need wisdom and truth, the Spirit gives it to us. We are not alone. We are not trying to figure it out by ourselves. God isn’t holding back on us.

What does our world need now?

Followers of Jesus who do greater works than Jesus through the power of the Spirit.

Our world needs followers of Jesus who do greater works than Jesus through the power of the Spirit.

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What are the “greater works” that you will do — all of you?

Pastor John Piper says, “You will receive the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ. Before the resurrection of Jesus, nobody in the history of the world had ever done that, not even Jesus. And in the power of that absolutely new experience — the indwelling of the crucified and risen Christ — your works of love and your message of life in union with Christ, will point people to the glory of the risen Son of God, and you will be the instrument of their forgiveness based on the finished work of Christ (John 20:23). This will be new. This will be greater than Jesus’ earthly miracles, because this is what he came to accomplish by his death and resurrection.”

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1 Thing Every Follower of Jesus Needs to do This Election Season

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Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

In talking with lots of people in my church and watching the endless scroll on social media, the anxiety levels around this election seem to be at record highs.

There are many talking heads and candidates who say that if this or that person gets elected, this is the end—the end of our country as we know it—the end of our democracy.

Many pastors I talked to this past year agonized over what they would preach leading up to the election cycle. More than one pastor said he wished he was on a sabbatical this fall to skip the election and return for Christmas!

As I prayed and thought through it, I kept hearing, “The end.” And I wondered, what did Jesus say about the end? What did He say at the end?

Immediately, my thoughts turned to what is known as “The Upper Room Discourse” in John 13 – 17. It was the night of Jesus’ betrayal, the last night He spent with His disciples, 24 hours before His death. What did He say to them? What was the mood in the room that night? Knowing that Jesus knew what lay ahead, He chose His words carefully and purposefully.

As I dug into it, I was struck by all that Jesus said and the things He shared with them. It is startling as you read, especially when Jesus washes the disciple’s feet, knowing what will happen that night.

In John 13, at the very beginning, we see the one thing that followers of Jesus need to do this election season.

1 thing every follower of Jesus should do this election cycle.

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This isn’t the only thing they need to do, but it is one thing we should always do.

What is it?

Serve.

Serving is all over Scripture, deeply connected to another theme Jesus calls us to: surrender. To live in the kingdom of God, we must surrender our lives to King Jesus, but the picture of the kingdom of God is seen through the servant hearts of Jesus’ followers.

Which Jesus shows us in John 13.

But what is surrender?

John Mark Comer says, “Surrender is the foundation of the spiritual life.” And “discipleship is a lifelong process of deepening surrender to Jesus.”

Surrender is the foundation of the spiritual life. -John Mark Comer

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When Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, he surrenders his status as the leader and rabbi to serve them. In the first century, the lowest servant or slave would wash guests’ feet. The head of the family or the Rabbi didn’t wash feet; that was for someone else. In many ways, Jesus does the thing that is seemingly beneath him.

Not only that, but he washes Judas’s feet—the one who, later that night, will betray Jesus.

In doing this, Jesus is showing us what real power looks like and what power is in the kingdom of God compared to the kingdoms of this world.

In the kingdoms of this world, power is about money, charisma, votes, looks, and star power.

In the kingdom of God, power is seen in serving.

John Ortberg said, “Jesus did not come as a servant in spite of the fact that he is God; he came precisely because of the fact that he is God.”

Jesus did not come as a servant in spite of the fact that he is God; he came precisely because of the fact that he is God. -John Ortberg

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What does it look like to serve those around you?

One is to decide that you will be a servant to everyone. This is Jesus’s call. He tells his disciples, “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done for you.” In this room are people with different political opinions, Judas, who will betray Jesus, and people who are difficult to love and often say the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

Each morning, we must consciously decide to serve those around us.

What might this look like?

This might mean biting our tongue when words come to mind.

It might mean going the extra mile at work when you aren’t asked to. 

Stop keeping score with your spouse or child at home. 

As you scroll through social media, keep your opinion to yourself. 

On that subject, I’d encourage you to spend less time reading about the election, as that will help your heart in this season. 

Ask God if you are struggling to find people or ways to serve. I know He’d love to answer that prayer!

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Why Being on Time Matters in Life & Leadership

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Photo by Igor Son on Unsplash

Have you ever met someone for coffee only to have them show up late? Have you ever gone to a meeting that was supposed to start at 6 p.m. but started closer to 6:20? Have you ever gone to a church service that was supposed to start at 9 a.m. but started closer to 9:13?

It’s frustrating, disrespectful, and hinders one’s influence in life. And this isn’t just leadership; even comedians get this. 

Here are three things that being on time shows:

3 reasons you should never be late.

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What does being on time show to you and those around you?

1. It shows respect to the person you are meeting with (and their time). When you’re late, you communicate, “I’m more important than you.” You would never say this, but being late can be an attempted power play. It shows a lack of care for the other person because it says, “Your time isn’t as valuable as my time, and what you have after this isn’t as important as this is.” You can’t make that decision.

How being on time affects your leadership and influence.

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2. It shows you are self-disciplined. Being late (even though it will happen sometimes) often indicates you need to be more disciplined. Your previous appointment went long, so tell the person you will be late. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting for someone late and not knowing when they will be there. So let the person know.

But being on time means you have planned your day; you know how long a drive or meeting will take. It also means you keep meetings on track and don’t allow a 30-minute meeting to become a 90-minute.

3. It shows you have your priorities in line. As a leader or a person who wants to have influence, your priority is people. Wasting their time by being late shows your priorities are out of line. It also shows you think more highly of yourself than the other person.

3 reasons being late hinders your influence.

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Now, let’s apply all of these to a church.

3 reasons you lose influence as a church when you start a service late.

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Why? So many churches and church plants don’t start on time. When we first began Revolution (the church in Tucson), it was 10 a.m., and the only people in the auditorium were myself, the band, and the tech team. Our worship leader looked at me and said, “Do we start?” I thought briefly and said, “Yep, we start on time.”

Whether or not your church begins on time communicates different things. 

1. It shows respect to the people who came (and their time). Time is important in our culture, and we don’t like it when someone else wastes our time. For a church, you want to communicate to guests (and they are usually on time) that you will respect their time. This communicates that we will respect you. It communicates care and respect to the kids’ workers because churches that start late often go late, which is a fast way to lose them. 

Pastors often think, “We are supposed to start at 10, but most people don’t show up until 10:10, so we’ll start at 10:12.” Here’s what you just told everyone in your church: “We start at 10:12, so come then.” Which means they’ll show up at 10:20.

2. It shows you are disciplined. A lot happens on a Sunday morning, and it is easy to fall behind schedule or start late, especially if you are a portable church. This means that to start on time, you need systems to ensure things get done on time and aren’t stressful. Are some mornings stressful? Yes. Do things break and fall apart? Yes. But that shouldn’t be the norm.

3. It shows you have your priorities in line. Again, people are your priority, and if you, as a church, care about their time, whether they are guests, members, or volunteers, you communicate care to them. When you don’t prioritize time, you communicate you don’t care.

6 ways to grow your influence through how you use time.

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The Right Pastor for the Moment You Find Yourself In

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One of the things you hear people say throughout life is being in “the right place at the right time.” There is a lot of truth to that regarding life, relationships, finances, etc. 

It also applies to leadership and pastoral ministry in significant ways. 

One of the overlooked reasons that a pastor doesn’t click with a church or that a church doesn’t grow is timing and people. 

Here’s what I mean. There are many different kinds of leadership styles and muscles. Those styles and muscles come naturally to leaders, and they are needed for specific moments and seasons in the life of a church. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t grow in those muscles and styles you aren’t naturally gifted in. But it does explain some things. 

Leadership muscles. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but most leaders are good at a few (not all): starting new things, growing things, maintaining things, vision, strategy, planning, soul care, and shepherding. 

Many churches, when looking for a pastor, are looking for someone who is good at all of the above, plus has 10+ years of experience in a church and is 32! That person doesn’t exist. The quicker the pastor and the church can figure that out, the better. 

As a pastor, you must know if you are a starter, a builder, or a maintainer. Maybe God has wired you to be a long-term leader or one who has only been at a church for a few years. You may be wired as an interim or a supporter. 

Not all leaders and pastors are the same, which is good!

You see this in Scripture. Moses was the leader who brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt, but Joshua was the leader who brought them into the Promised Land. Part of that was Moses’ actions, but another part was wiring. “Moses was the right leader for the people who had been slaves in Egypt; he was not the leader for their children who were born in freedom and would conquer the land.”

Two important, but overlooked, parts of pastoral ministry.

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Finding a spot that needs those muscles. This becomes important in many situations, but especially when looking for a new job or thinking about a ministry transition. 

As you talk to a church, you get caught up in their dreams and what they share. You will begin to think about living in a new place, and all God has in store for that place and situation. 

But you must step back and ask, “What kind of leader does this church need right now? And am I that kind of leader?”

For example, the church may be in a growth season and is looking for someone to come in and simply keep doing what the previous leader did. This is a great situation for a maintainer or improver. For someone who is a starter or a builder, however, it will create a lot of frustration. 

If the church is in a season of decline and looking for a new vision and life, you might find a lot of hard work ahead for you and outside of your comfort zone if you aren’t wired as a visionary. 

In the same way, maybe the church just had a moral failure or a string of difficult pastorates, and they need a calm, shepherding presence. 

How to find the right church for your gifts and leadership muscles.

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This doesn’t mean that how you are wired doesn’t fit everywhere, but if you can line up your gifts and leadership muscles with the right situation, you will find yourself and the church flourishing much more. 

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One Thing that Leads to Church Decline (And How to Turn the Tide)

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church decline

Photo by Stefan Kunze on Unsplash

Looking at most churches in decline from the outside, the decline seems obvious. But when you are inside the decline, it is easy to miss.

The same is true when it comes to our health or relationships. We don’t see ourselves putting on 20 pounds, but those around us do. We don’t see our marriage grow stale or difficult, but those around us might see it.

The same happens in churches. Those within the church who show up weekly don’t always see the signs of decline or even feel it. Those outside of the church or those who visit see it.

When I interviewed with CCC, I received an almost 200-page report from the organization they used for the intentional interim time. At its peak, CCC had nearly 600 people in 2013, but then it began a decline. Many of the comments from people within the church led to the reality that most people were unaware of the decline.

This happens in many different churches for different reasons. People move away, retire, change churches, or stop attending church. But as you show up week in and week out (or, as the most recent stats say, “1.8 times a month”), you might miss when people are gone.

What turns the tide? 

How do you lead so that this does not happen or so that you are aware when it begins to happen?

How to avoid church decline.

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The first is to define reality and never lose sight of it, even when it is painful. Jim Collins says, “The leader’s first job is to face the brutal facts and not lose hope.”

This is easier said than done. 

The leader’s first job is to face the brutal facts and not lose hope. -Jim Collins

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Often, we don’t want to face reality because we allow it to happen, and it reflects poorly on us. Or, as leaders, we think we need to constantly be positive and optimistic about the future. While your mood does determine a lot for your team and organization, you must face the brutal facts and not lose hope. 

Another piece that can be difficult when facing the reality in front of you is if you are new to your church or role and didn’t cause the reality you are facing, but your predecessor did. This situation is fraught with landmines. As a new leader, you come into the church with fresh eyes and see what many others no longer see or no longer want to see. And while you might be correct in how you see reality (at least you think you are), it is only your perspective. For this leader, ask curious questions and listen. The best way to help a church face reality is for them to see reality on their own, not because you tell them reality. 

What do you do if you didn’t lead the church to decline but inherited it?

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What if you are the pastor who led a church into decline, and you are now seeing reality? Is it too late? The short answer is no, but the road ahead is more challenging. 

Any church experiencing decline has been in decline for years, sometimes decades. This means that unhealthy leadership patterns, community, etc., have slowly begun to develop roots and become the church culture or “the way we do things here.” Breaking these patterns is incredibly difficult and takes intentional steps because you will be undoing old patterns and constantly saying, “We don’t do that around here anymore.” 

This leads to the second idea to turn the tide…

The second is to think in terms of years rather than days. Leaders and churches are often caught up in the daily rush of what is next. After all, Sunday comes every seven days. You might be in a season where you need to think in days because your church is in steep decline or you are running out of money. But most churches are not in that situation. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, “Individuals count the days, but leaders must count the years.” This means pastors and leaders must consistently think not only about the coming Sunday or quarter but also about the next five, ten, or twenty years. Where will the church be next year? What does this decision mean five years from now?

Many churches will make decisions around their facilities. These huge decisions can tie a church to debt and hamstring it. Adding that new wing, or not, how does that impact your church in five years? While you can convince yourself about the growth that may come from adding to your building or building a new building (and it might), there will also be some unintended consequences that you must be aware of. If not for yourself, do it for those who will inherit the debt. 

Another one is staffing. You need to hire a new staff member, and finding great staff members is challenging. So, you settle. They aren’t exactly what you want, but you need someone. The hard truth about the wrong hire is that it can dearly cost your church and leadership. The wrong hire can set you back years in terms of vision, momentum, and cost well into the six figures. You are not just hiring someone for today but for the coming years and potentially decades. They will help or hurt your vision and the culture you create or change. 

2 ways to avoid church decline.

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6 Lessons for Leading Change & Transitions in Your Church

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Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

I just celebrated 3 years in my role at Community Covenant Church. It is hard to believe it has been 3 years already, but that is what COVID-19 does to you when it comes to time!

I was talking to a friend recently, and he asked me what I was learning in my new role and about transitions in particular. I’ll share some things over the coming weeks and months (especially as I’m beginning my doctoral research project on “Revitalizing Declining Churches in New England”), but here’s one lesson I learned when I heard a podcast that articulated it.

The person being interviewed came into her role after there had been a revolving door in that role.

One lesson I’ve learned about church transitions.

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I am the fourth lead pastor at CCC since 2015. While some churches have seen a lot more transition than that, that kind of transition shapes a church and its culture.

When I meet someone, whether they still attend CCC or not, I ask them who their lead pastor was when they came and when they left if they left. That tells me a lot about their experience of our church and how they view our church.

This is incredibly important if you’re a new lead pastor or attend a church in transition.

Here’s why: When you start attending a church (and when you leave a church), it goes a long way to determining what you see in that church and your experience there.

Each lead pastor has a different personality, passions, and, sometimes, different visions. They lead and preach differently, emphasize missions or community differently, view the culture around the church differently, and all of that shapes the church. It shapes who comes, who sticks, the kind of disciples made, and so on.

For the church I’m at, a pastor who had been here for over 30 years left in 2015, the next lead pastor left in 2019, and then they brought in an intentional interim pastor. While he was here, COVID-19 hit, and that made significant changes in the church and staff.

Looking back, while it was the same church with many of the same people, in some ways, it has been four different churches since 2015.

Here are some lessons for leaders and churches:

Understand the power of memory. If you’ve been through all the transitions, you have a lot of memories and potentially some scars. This group has some incredible stories of God’s faithfulness, but they have also been through the most transitions and change. They have held on and often believe great things are ahead for the church. I was talking with a leader who was in a similar position to me, and he said this group has been the hardest group to win over at his church. Thankfully for me, that hasn’t been the case! This group has loved and welcomed our family and reminded me often of how much they are praying for me.

Celebrate the seasons you remember. As the pastor, celebrate all God has done in the church’s history. You might feel like you are competing with a memory (and you might be), but speak well of the people who have gone before you and what God has done in the past at your church. The last thing you want to do is speak ill of people who are no longer there, regardless of what they did or didn’t do in their time as leaders. You weren’t there, didn’t know all the details, and couldn’t do anything about what they did or didn’t do. 

You don’t know the whole story. It took me years to understand this principle. And while it is important in all walks of leadership, it is especially important during transitions. When someone comes and tells you a story, know that you aren’t getting the whole story of what happened. That doesn’t mean they are lying to you; they are simply telling you what they know of the situation and their perspective. Yes, you need to listen and glean all you can from someone, but you can’t base your decision on something because of what one person said. Get other perspectives, and talk to as many people as you can as you learn the history of a church. When I arrived at CCC, I interviewed over 50 people. I asked them the same questions to learn as much as possible from as many different perspectives as possible before making any decisions. 

Lessons from leading a church in New England.

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Move slower than you want or think you should. If you’re a leader, you likely like to move fast and get things done. After all, that’s what leaders do. We make things happen. But when revitalizing a church, a long history came before you got there, and that history won’t move quickly. There is hurt and grief that people still have to navigate, hopes and dreams that didn’t happen, so you must move slower than you want or think you should. I had an older pastor tell me when we moved here that I should expect 5 years to lead the changes I wanted to lead at CCC. Someone told me, “I was here before you came, and as long as I don’t die, I’ll be here after you leave.” Now, he wasn’t being mean but articulating his reality. He has lived in New England and can trace his family back many generations. He has watched a lot of turnover happen at our church. 

When leading change in a church, move slower than you think or want to move.

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Relationships will win the day. One thing that is true in every church but is even more true in an older church is that relationships will win the day. When a decision is made, or a change is made, people will rarely talk to the new pastor; they will talk to the people they have known for years. This is natural. But you need to be aware of it. As a leader, to make changes, you must know where the power and influence in a church is. If you’re new, it isn’t with you. You have the title. I’ve heard Brian Croft and Karl Vaters say, “An older church lets a pastor make changes.” That’s real. When I arrived, I spent a lot of time observing meetings, watching who could sway the room and who spoke last that everyone listened to. Those were the people who I needed to have on board before making any change. I didn’t make any changes in my first 3 years that didn’t have certain people on board first. 

In a church transition, relationships will win the day.

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Learn what brought people to the church and what has kept them. One of the most important things you can learn about a church you lead is why people came and stayed. Talking with people who have left and learning why they left is also valuable, but those can be hard connections to make sometimes. Listen to people talk about what they love about a church; ask them what they love. 

6 lessons I’ve learned in my first 3 years in New England.

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Are we the Church to do That?

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Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Picture a church staff meeting.

Someone comes in and says, “I was talking to someone on Sunday morning, and they had a great idea for a new ministry. What if we start a ministry to _____?” That blank can be anything: a ministry for moms, men, people who won’t come on Sunday morning, young adults, or senior adults.

How do you know? Should you do every idea and opportunity presented to your church?

What if you should say no? Or wait?

How do you know?

Here are 6 questions to ask before starting a new ministry or program at your church.

6 questions to ask before starting a new ministry or program at your church.

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What is missing? Before discussing the need for a monthly men’s breakfast, college ministry, or the opportunity presented on a Sunday morning, I’d encourage you to step back and ask, “What are we missing?”

Another way to think about this is, “What is the problem?”

Say the problem is that men are lonely and disconnected. This led someone to offer to start a monthly men’s breakfast. But is that the answer? It might be, it might not be.

Too often, a church jumps into an idea or opportunity without asking, “Is this something we are missing? Is this a gap in our strategy? Is this a “problem” or “need” to be solved?

Is this a need? Too often, we jump into opportunities that are not needed.

Does your church have several _____ people who would be served by this ministry? Is your church doing anything right now that might meet this need? Or is your church doing anything that would compete with this new initiative?

A lot of times in churches, things get started because the church down the road is doing something, someone’s last church did it, or because the pastor went to a conference recently and heard about this amazing new idea that is reaching hundreds at a church in a different part of the country.

And while all those things might be true, it doesn’t mean that it is a need for your church to meet today.

Is anyone near us filling this need? Here is a forgotten truth that churches must remember: Just because it is a need doesn’t mean you should meet it. Your church does not have to meet every need in your community, nor can it.

Your church does not have to meet every need in your community, nor can it.

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This doesn’t mean you reject something, but you do need to stop and ask if someone else is filling this need. Is there a way for you to partner with them, come alongside them to help, etc.?

My hunch for the future is that more churches must partner to meet different needs or serve different groups of people in their community.

My hunch for the future is that more churches must partner to meet different needs or serve different groups of people in their community.

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Is this the only way to meet this need? Back to the men’s breakfast idea. Is a monthly men’s breakfast a way to connect men? Yes. Is it the only way? No.

Once you decide something is a need and that you can and should meet it, don’t jump into doing what has always been done or even what other churches are doing. Those are good ideas you might pull from, but start brainstorming how to do something.

I think every church needs to consider how to move more things away from being an official church ministry or even in a church building. Being a ministry or at the building might make sense, but a men’s breakfast at a local diner might make more sense than at the church.

Do we have the people, resources, and bandwidth to do this? Sadly, this question is rarely asked.

Just because something is a good idea, it might not be the right season. You may not have the financial resources or bandwidth to make it happen as a church and team.

That’s okay.

It might be a great idea, but the wrong season means it is time to wait.

Or, it is time to cut something else to make room for this new thing.

Every church has a limit to what they can and should do.

Just because it’s a great idea doesn’t mean now is the time for your church to do it.

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And finally, a question that I wish more churches would ask themselves.

Are we the church to do that? 

Your church doesn’t have to do everything. 

Your church isn’t meant to do everything. 

God has given your church specific people with specific giftings to reach certain people and to make a certain impact in your region and the world. 

As a church, you must ask, “Is this our calling to fulfill?” 

The most important question for churches to ask themselves before starting something new.

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The Halfway Point of the Year & the Top 5 Posts so Far

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Photo by Isai Ramos on Unsplash

It’s the middle of summer.

In New England, we do whatever we can to be outside (and survive the humidity) to replenish our vitamin D and enjoy the long days!

The year is more than halfway over. I hope you are closer to the goals you set in January.

If not, don’t fear.

The year isn’t over, and it isn’t too late to hit restart and try again.

In case you missed them, here are the 5 most read posts of the year so far. Hopefully, they will be encouraging to you and will also help you reach your goals as a leader and a person. Thanks for reading!

  1. Pastors Lose 5 – 7 Relationships a Year
  2. How to Know It’s Time to Leave a Ministry
  3. Love Is…
  4. 8 Things I Wished Everyone Knew about Enneagram 8’s
  5. 18 Things Every Husband Should Know about His Wife

If you’re looking for something great to read this summer, check out what I’ve read so far this year to find something!

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Where Your Heart Is (The Parable of the Sower)

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

One of the struggles many people have is trying to figure out where their relationship with Jesus is. 

There are seasons and moments when things feel like they are going well. You are in community, spending time with Jesus through prayer, reading scripture, and practicing other spiritual disciplines. And then there are times when those things fall off, and we wonder, “What happened?”

It isn’t just about practices or disciplines but about where our heart is or is not. 

But how do you know?

Because discerning our hearts can be very difficult. 

Yet, many of Jesus’s parables address this idea, helping us to see where our hearts really are. 

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the parable of the sower, seeds, and soils. While this is often called “The Parable of the Sower,” the parable is, in many ways, about soils. Through this lens, we begin to see where our hearts are or are not. 

James Montgomery Boice has a helpful lens of these four soils: 

  • The hard soil = The Hard Heart
  • The Shallow Soil = The Shallow Heart
  • The Strangled Soil = The Strangled Heart
  • The Open Soil = The Open Heart

The Hard Heart

The hard heart wants nothing to do with Jesus or the things of God. 

They are completely turned away from God. They love their sin; they love being in charge of their life. 

Paul described this person in Romans 1 as suppressing the truth of God, being spiritually ignorant or against God. They love their sin. 

In many ways, our culture is like this. 

But it isn’t just about sin; it is about ruling your life. This parable and many others that Jesus tells are about the kingdom of God. 

Who is the king of the kingdom of God?  God. 

This is the key to the hard heart, the one who wants to be king of their life. 

The hard heart is not just someone who doesn’t attend church. Many people who sit in church every Sunday have a hard heart. This is the person who says, “I know what God says about money, sex, loving my enemies, forgiving those who hurt me, but ____,” and then they tell you why they don’t have to follow that. 

That’s a hard heart.

Do you have a hard heart? What about this soil resonates with you right now? Is there anything you need to confess?

Is your heart hard towards God?

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The Shallow Heart

This is the person whose faith cannot handle difficulty. 

Much of their faith is built on emotion and their feelings about God. How they evaluated Sunday mornings or Bible readings is based on whether they “felt God” or had a “good feeling during worship.” Did the hair on my neck stand up?

The shallow heart is here for God’s promises and “the best life now” that Jesus promises, but the moment that difficulty comes, I have to take a stand for Jesus. They tap out if God doesn’t answer my prayers the way I prayed them. 

Another example is the person who has attended church for years and is still a spiritual infant. They have experienced no growth. 

Do you have a shallow heart? What about this soil resonates with you right now? Is there anything you need to confess?

Is your faith shallow or deep?

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The Strangled Heart

Jesus is very specific with this soil: They are unfruitful and choke the word out because of the worries of the age and the deceitfulness of wealth. 

The worries in every age and every culture. A few things to consider are: What keeps you up at night? What things give you that empty feeling in your stomach? Do you worry about your health, wealth, kids, or other relationships? This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t worry about those things, but it does start to reveal what takes up space in your heart and mind or things you are trying to control that you need to hand over to Jesus and trust Him. 

Another one is the worry you feel about the upcoming election. Will you be okay if your candidate loses? If the answer is no, as a follower of Jesus, that reveals something in our hearts. 

Do you have a strangled heart? What about this soil resonates with you right now? Is there anything you need to confess?

Is anything strangling your heart instead of trusting God?

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The Open Heart

As you read through the parable in Matthew 13, you see that all of this leads to the soil where the seed takes root and grows, “the open heart,” as Boice calls it. 

An open heart that receives the word of God and obeys. When it says “hears,” that means “to obey.” 

Not just in one ear and out the other. 

This means that when we hear the word of God, read the word of God, and feel the move of the Spirit of God in our lives, we obey. We don’t say, “That doesn’t apply to me. I don’t feel like doing that.” We do it. 

This parable warns us against superficial hearing. And shows us what real hearing is. 

Hearing the word of God = Obedience.

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Fruit comes from obedience. 

But how do we know? How do we know if we have an open heart?

The fruit. It produces fruit. 

The fruit of a changed life evidences an open heart. 

The fruit of a changed life evidences an open heart.

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I love that Jesus says, “Some will be a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.”

The fruit that comes from your obedience might be a world-changing fruit that is 100x. 

It might not. It might be thirty. 

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “Shoot for 100 times.”

He says, “There are different levels of fruit, and they all matter and are important. One is not better than another.”

This truth should free us from having to produce what someone else does. 

Jesus doesn’t judge us on a curve or compare us to others. 

The question isn’t, “Did I produce what the person next to me produced?” The question is, “Did I produce the fruit I was supposed to produce?”

Do you have an open heart towards God? Here’s how to know.

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How to Live Life without Regrets

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Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

At the end of 2 Timothy, Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 

Imagine getting to the end of your life and saying that. Saying I had done what I was supposed to do. I left it all on the field of life. I kept the faith. I ran my race.

But how does that happen? How do you and I get to where we can say that?

Much of 2 Timothy is Paul telling Timothy (and us) how to make that truth true in our lives.

In chapter 2, he tells us three things that are true of a person who can say that: they are approved by God, they are pure, and they are servants.

3 truths about every follower of Jesus.

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Approved by God

A follower of Jesus is approved in God by God. As a follower of Jesus, God cannot more approve you than you are, and you don’t need any more approval than you have. Paul tells us that a follower of Jesus, a worker approved by God, is not ashamed and rightly handles the truth of God’s word.

We shy away from risk, passion, and what God has called us to because we worry about what other people think. This is why we don’t share our faith, aren’t generous, don’t serve, take chances, or we sit on the sidelines—we care what others think more than the God who created us.

How do we know?

In verse 19 of chapter 2, Paul tells us that God knows who belongs to him.

This verse has always blown me away. God knows who belongs to him. 

Pure

Paul says in a house, there is gold and silver for special use, honorable use, and some things made for dishonorable use. God uses those who are holy, set apart, different, and clean.

This is purity the way we often think of purity, but it is more than that. 

This is connected to our motives and why we do the things we do. 

Why we make the decisions we make. 

Do we do what we do to please and honor God or to please and honor those around us? 

One of the themes in 2 Timothy is Paul’s statement that he has lived his life without regrets and has a clear conscience. This doesn’t mean there aren’t things in your past you wish had never happened. Before following Jesus, Paul was a terrorist and a murderer. But because of what Jesus did, he was made clean.

It does mean that the truth of the gospel changes us. 

Here is a truth that is often hard to remember: When God looks at you as a follower of Jesus, he doesn’t see you standing there in your sin; he sees Jesus standing in front of you, saying, “He’s mine. She’s mine.”

Servant

When we think of a servant, we think of someone who opens a door, maybe a meek and quiet person standing in the corner, or maybe even a doormat in a relationship.

That’s not what Paul is talking about.

He returns to holiness and says, “A servant flees youthful passions.”

This can mean a whole host of sins, but he focuses on things we do when we are young.

This might mean if you are 40, act 40, not 22.

Stop bouncing from relationship to relationship.

Stop bouncing from job to job and be a hard worker who provides.

Stop giving your heart and body away.

Stop having silly arguments on the internet. 

Instead, pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Purity. God’s servants should be known for these things. They don’t get caught up in controversies and quarrels.

But you might say, “I’m an arguer. I love a good debate.” A follower of Jesus should not be known as an arguer or an angry person. Nowhere does Jesus say, “My followers will be known because they are good debaters.”

Nowhere does Jesus say, “My followers will be known because they are good debaters.”

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A follower of Jesus should not be someone no one wants to work with or can’t get along with. If you struggle to keep friends or work well with people, at some point, it has to stop being them and start being you.

An immature follower of Jesus loves to sit around and debate theology and end-of-the-world beliefs, not to learn and grow but to win and be right. Not so with God’s servants as they mature and grow. They learn, grow, and ask questions, but they don’t argue theology to win and be right.

He goes on…

The Lord’s servant is not quarrelsome, is not a fighter, an arguer. We don’t argue people into the kingdom of heaven or beat them down with Facebook posts; we love them into the kingdom.

We don’t argue about stirring controversy, gossip, or trying to split churches apart. 

The Lord’s servant is kind to everyone (even those they disagree with). If we asked people in our lives, those we disagree with their political or religious beliefs, would they say we are kind to them in our disagreement?

The Lord’s servant can teach. This doesn’t mean preaching or standing in front of people but being able to communicate what they know of the gospel.

When you share the gospel, you say, “I was once lost, but now I’m found. I was once broken, but now I’m set free.”

Why does this matter?

The people who matter most determine a lot in our lives. How our spouses, parents, teachers, or coaches look at us can give us enormous confidence or take away our confidence. The same is true with God. If we believe God sees us as approved, pure, accepted, and loved, that will determine how we live. But, if we think God is disappointed in us or sees us as unloveable, that will also impact how we live and where we end up.