Growing and changing can be confusing and perplexing. Sometimes things happen in life that explode like bombs leaving us wondering what is going on and running for cover. Other times we find ourselves under spiritual attack. When these things happen we are tempted to think we are doing something wrong, that we have goofed up, that we have dropped the ball.
The reality is that it is precisely in these times—in the mess and messiness of dealing with the world, the flesh, and the devil—that we are called to bring the light of Christ into. The times when things get hard is when the gospel is needed the most. These times show us why we need His grace so badly. And bringing grace into the dark, messy, confusing parts of life is exactly what God wants us doing. After all that is what Christ did for us.
To love like Christ is to love people when they are a mess.
To love like Christ is to love people by walking with them, encouraging them, holding them up, and incarnating God’s presence and care by being present with them in the mess of trouble.
To love like Christ is to be ready to defend your ground and fight when the Enemy attacks.
We often underplay, undersell, and underestimate the importance of understanding that discipleship is messy.
We underplay the importance of it because dealing with relational, life, and spiritual mess means suffering, and suffering is something we try to avoid. In truth I think this is one of the reasons that redefining discipleship as a program or a curriculum is so appealing. Doing so makes it appear much neater and orderly…it makes it easier. The irony is that in exchanging the life-on-life core of discipleship for a structured program or course we end up making things much harder because the Great Commandment which encapsulates the life Jesus wants us to live cannot be properly taught in a classroom.
We undersell it by not being honest about it. Christian movies like Facing the Giants and Fireproof are great examples of this. Question: Why is my life not going the way I want? Why is my marriage and family struggling? Answer: because you need to let Jesus into your life. Once you do, things will turn around because God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. In both of these films the Christians all have their lives together, their marriages work, and they always win.
Would that we were more honest like Charlie Jones. In his talks he would share that in his 60 year marriage to his wife Gloria there were 8 years he hated to look at her. He would say, “People say, ‘Why didn’t you just let Jesus into your marriage?’ Don’t talk to me like that! I let God into my marriage and things got worse! I used to pray, ‘Jesus take one of us home…I’ll go first…we cannot go on like this!'”
You know why that is funny? Because it is true! We need to be honest with people. We need to let them know that when everything looks like it’s going all wrong, we are not surprised, in fact we expected it. It is normal for things to be messy. In fact, I am much more worried when things run smoothly for too long!
We underestimate the importance of understanding that discipleship is messy because it is in the mess that God grows the fruits of grace. The fruits of grace are like trees, they don’t grow on the mountain top, they grow down in the valley. Grace, mercy, compassion, forbearance, longsuffering, they all need the mess, the brokenness, and the heartache to grow. Grace is not needed where there is no mess. It cannot grow without it. We will not grow in the appreciation or in the practice of grace if we avoid the mess, and it is in the messiness of life where grace and its fruits are needed most. God wants us to excel at grace, mercy and compassion, He wants to grow it, He wants us to show it, to give it, and to work with Him in cultivating it in others.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 