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  • Mark 9:46 am on March 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Stupid Faith 

    Hutz-pah is the Hebrew notion of “guts.”  It means that you’ve got the gumption to do the unthinkable.  Though related, it is more than bravery – it is bravery mixed with foolishness, with just a dash of genius.

    Abraham had this sort of hutzpah when he came before God and began negotiating with him in Genesis 18:22-33.  The fear…the absolute penetrating fear of standing before the Living God and questioning him!  And yet, God was pleased with this kind of faith – in fact, we call Abraham “the father” of our faith.  It is in large part because he had real hutzpah.

    Jesus too mentions the notion of hutzpah, this wild, brazen gall – promising those that “seek and keep on seeking will find; those that knock and keep on knocking, will have the door opened…”

    He tells a story of someone banging on the door of his friend’s house in the middle of the night, demanding the friend get up and get him what he wants.  It isn’t necessarily out of kindness, but out of sheer exhaustion that the friend will do exactly as he asks.  It is this strength-in-persistence that Jesus says qualifies as real, healthy faith.

    What might a hutzpah faith look like today?

    • It is praying…without ceasing.
    • It is this borderline STUPID insistence that God cares enough to respond to your requests.
    • It is begging that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then going about in God’s power, being the answer to your own prayers.
    • Want to see heaven on earth?  Then put your whole life on the line to see justice accomplished, to see salvation for the oppressed, sight for the blind…
    • Pray desperately for more workers in God’s harvest fields, as there is so few workers and so much work to be done.  These are things that God wants far more than you ever will, so go ahead and pray boldly – then go about seeing it done!

    Don’t forget, when a child asks for bread, his father will not give him a stone…and how much more wonderful is God?  When we pray with hutzpah; when we ride the line between audacity and reverence in our prayers…we can see the boundaries of hell pushed back - and God comes rushing to our aid.

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    • Greg 4:00 pm on March 21, 2011 Permalink

      Interesting post. Would love to have you explain this part of it a bit though: “It is begging that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then going about in God’s power, being the answer to your own prayers.”

    • Mark W 12:55 pm on April 2, 2011 Permalink

      “Being the answer to our own prayers” sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but I believe one (not the only) reason why we pray is to seek how God wants us to live. When we beg God for workers in his harvest field (Lk 10:2) then we get up off our knees and get to work…we in essence are saying “Here am I, send me!” You can see this in Luke 10 when Jesus asks his disciples to pray for workers, and then he sends them out 2 by 2 to be the workers they just prayed for. There is a HUGE danger in simply praying, and not doing. We need “contemplative activists” in our churches.

      Great to “see ya” Greg! How is everything?

    • Rbfuzzyqjones845 2:37 am on April 28, 2011 Permalink

      Great article mark…… Street ministry here in Detroit in the month of July. We’re working on it know……
      Fuzzyqjones845

  • Mark 10:04 am on March 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply
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    You Go First 

    Leadership in the most basic sense is going first. Many of us want our leadership to look and feel glamorous – cresting a “leadership” hill to see the beautiful horizon before you and your adoring crowds applauding your valiant efforts.

    But leadership usually means you have to “go first” into less desirable places.

    For instance, if you want to be a leader in a community centered on Jesus, you have to die to yourself “first.” You have to take the first step to humility; apologize first, without prompting from others.  Even if your part in the problem was only 1% – apologize for it; and be sincere.

    You can’t lead others where you are not willing to go yourself.

    That’s why Jesus didn’t take the exit ramp on the road to Golgotha.  He led us right to the end of the journey – our own death.  His is pure leadership – being willing to “go first.”

    —

    …But that’s not the final chapter – after the journey toward death is complete; we see Jesus striking out again.  In the book of Hebrews, movement and leadership are central pictures – Jesus is nicknamed “the Trailblazer” (Hebrews 2:10) – and in chapter 13; after cresting Mount Zion (Chapter 12) he sneaks off – refusing the pomp and circumstance, and is out leading – outside the camp, outside the place of glory, to make us holy.

    13 So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore. 14 For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.

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  • Mark 12:29 pm on January 27, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Disowned by Your Dad, Owned by Your Father 

    I don’t know the relationship you have with your father, but if you are like many across this great big world, it may have its rocky points.  Maybe you were even traumatically abused, or disowned by your dad.  There’s little that can do more damage to a young boy or girl than to have a broken, immature dad in the household… but possibly worse is not having one in the house at all…

    63:16 Surely you are still our Father!

    Even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us,

    Lord, you would still be our Father.

    You are our Redeemer from ages past.

    Much of what you see in God, for better or worse, you originally got from your dad.  Even Jesus Christ, the very image of God, called the LORD his “Father” – Abba his word for “Papa.”  This kind of intimacy was scandalous in Jesus’ day – but as one who’s earthly dad was suspiciously absent, Jesus understood that God was to be his father now.

    Were was Jesus’ dad, Joseph?  After such a display of faith at Jesus’ conception and birth, he is never mentioned as Jesus enters adulthood.  Was he killed in a masonry accident?  Could he have abandoned the family?  Whatever the case, he was not there when Jesus was at his most crucial moments (his baptism, his temptations in the desert, his crucifixion…the list goes on and on.)

    A young man wants a mentor, a father to show him the way – to point out the path he should go in this life.  But truth be told, we have a lot of men in this world, and in the church who’d rather wallow in isolation, immaturity or passivity; and refuse the gift of fatherhood they’ve been given by God.

    Jesus only did what he saw his Father doing, and even with the absence of his earthly dad, he moved beyond the earthly example of fatherhood and pursued intimacy, and mentoring from his heavenly Father.

    Papa God wants this for each of his children – for you and me.  In an age where fatherhood has lost the vitality and the adventure and the abiding love it must have to create healthy, maturing people – God is ready to offer you that kind of relationship.

    Being disowned by your earthly father is not the end. Let it be what propels you into the arms of Papa God who is ready to train you as his son or daughter.

    What does being ‘fathered by God’ look like?

    You will be given his characteristics!

    First off, you may have to learn God’s capability to forgive - starting with your earthly father. He is still fighting through things himself, and will need your forgiveness.  But after that, only God knows where he’ll take you.  One thing is for sure – you will be given increasing maturity and capacity that only God has to handle the inevitable wounds of life, and the attacks of the Evil One.  You will charge out with God on mission – you will be given a new name, a new identity – sons and daughters of the King!

    All this – through God’s grace.  Thank you, Father.

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    • Sean Durbin 7:19 pm on January 27, 2011 Permalink

      Mark, there is so much good stuff from the LORD in this writing. One of the ways I can tell if someone is bringing up a principle that is of God is when the Spirit brings a scripture to my mind. This is the scripture He brought to me while and after reading your blog:Galatians 4″And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” LOVE IT. ad maiorem Dei gloriam

    • Mark W 3:42 pm on January 28, 2011 Permalink

      We have been adopted into God’s household! This means we live under a new kind of leadership – and we are given a new name (see the previous post “You are Whose You are”.) I want there to be an awakening across our nation – those that call themselves children of God – to begin to understand what that changes about how they actually live!

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