What is the Point?: Discovering Life's Deeper Meaning and Purpose (16 page)

I want to join that great cloud of witnesses and run this race with endurance, being faithful to the end. In Hebrews 11 the men and women of faith were those who were anchored to another set of eyes and had their hopes on another homeland. We are not of this world. Though we love it, we are not of it. We must never forget this.

Throughout history there have been men and women who have exemplified this kind of faith and love. They have been shining lamps in the midst of a dark world. They have denied themselves, taken up their cross, and followed Jesus with hearts full of fire and love. They are rare men and women, but they are beautiful. They are beautiful to us, and they are beautiful to Jesus.

I think of men such as Francis of Assisi who was the son of a rich man and had all of the pleasure of life given to him. In his youth he loved to party and was really popular among his rich friends. Yet when he heard the words of Jesus telling him to sell all and follow Him, he actually did it! His father rejected him, his friends left him, and he took all of his wealth and walked away from it in order to follow Jesus. He became one of the most influential men of church history and lived a life of abandonment until he died.

Another man I think of is David Brainerd, the missionary to the Native Americans in the 1730s. He was a young man who got so hungry in his pursuit to be pleasing in the sight of the Lord that he ended up leaving the comforts of his life to serve as a missionary to American Indians.

There are many great men and women who are shining examples of love and abandonment for Jesus. We have a rich history of men and women who lived so devoted and wholehearted to Him, and we are from a long line of people who were rich in love for Jesus. What He is asking of us is not too hard. Men throughout history have proven that it not only can be done, but it is also the best way to live. We were created for this kind of love. We were made to go all the way and to live for someone other than ourselves.

C
ROSS
D
REAM

To further emphasize the need for a lifestyle that imitates the cross, I will tell you a dream I had in my early twenties that painted a vivid picture in my mind. It was one of the most powerful dreams I have ever had. In the dream I was a child in a moonlit graveyard. The gravestones in this cemetery were huge, and there was an open grave that was massive. I was dancing around this open grave. A man at the foot of the grave kept telling me, “You better be careful. You better be careful.”

I was being careless and childishly dancing and twirling. Suddenly I got too close to the edge of this open grave, and I fell in. My heart stopped then raced in panic and fear. (This dream was so real and vivid. I can feel the terror even now.) As I was falling, I grabbed ahold of the side of the grave. I could feel the grass roots breaking under my fingernails and could taste the dirt. I looked over my shoulder as I clung to the wall of this grave and saw nothing but blackness as the cold darkness of this grave was biting at my back. I was petrified. I was sober minded and focused. I had to use all of my strength to get out of this grave. With all of my might I began to climb. It was such a struggle, and it took all of the focus and energy I had. My clothes were being ripped, my face was smudged with mud, and my body ached as I pulled myself out of this grave. I barely made it, but I finally got to the top and pulled myself back onto the solid ground.

In the dream I stood up and was an adult. I was sober minded and determined. I walked to the head of this grave. The man at the foot of the grave was still there, and he was watching me. I was on a mission and knew what I had to do. I stood at the head of this grave and slowly began to extend my hands in the form of a cross. I was slow and deliberate. My heart had no fear but a calm joy. I did not have childishness anymore, but I had peace of heart and determination. Whenever my arms were stretched fully into the form of a cross, the man at the end of the grave pointed at me and shouted in anger, “Don’t do that! It looks like you are being crucified!”

When he said this, I stood at the head of the grave, my arms outstretched and my body in the shape of a full cross, the Lord Himself came from behind me and stepped into me. I cannot describe the feeling or what happened. But I knew it was the Lord. I did not see Him. I just felt His presence step into me. When He stepped into me, suddenly I came off of the ground. I looked down, and I was clothed with bright light. Light was beaming from my hands, face, and feet. Light was all around. I looked at this massive graveyard, and all of the gravestones started to crash down to the ground as the open grave that I had fallen into was swallowed up and disappeared. I was coming off of the ground with light. The power of the Holy Spirit was like electricity all over my body and all through me. I was hovering above the cemetery as it was being swallowed into the ground and light was coming from within me.

I woke up, standing in the room with my arms extended like a cross, praying in the Spirit with God’s power like electricity moving all around me. He spoke to me and said, “You will either die in your immaturity and sin, or you will die to yourself willingly and experience My power and light.”

I want to become mature in love and not just live as a child. I want to be conformed into the image of love by denying myself, taking up my cross, and following Him. I want to be like Paul the apostle and count all else as nothing for the glory of knowing Christ. I want to embrace the way of the cross to a greater extent than I currently am, and I am continually asking Jesus to show me the way of love.

Death to self is a key to life in the Spirit. We must take up our cross and follow Him in order to come into unity with Him. It is in this unity that we come into our created purpose and the Creator’s original intentions. He wants to be one with us in fellowship, but we must be conformed into His image. We want more than the introductions of faith and more than the introduction of love. We want to be bound to Him, one with Him in mature, holy love that has power in it. The Holy Spirit will not fail, and the Father will prepare a bride for His Son that will be equally yoked in abandonment and mature in love and faith. It takes faith to live radically, but God will have a people who will love Him as they are loved.

Jesus used the right words when He called us to a cross. Death to self requires spiritual violence (Matt. 11:12) that radically deals with my sin and selfishness. It requires a continual yielding to Him. We have been given the process of life in order to “work out” our salvation (Phil. 2:12). This means that we have a lifelong process of being conformed. Even in our weakness and even though we stumble many times, there is a love stronger than our failure. If we will turn to Him instead of running away from Him, He will help us.

This love is stronger than death itself and is as demanding as the grave (Song of Sol. 8:6). It demands everything and will remove all that gets in the way. We want to be one with that fire and not resist Him. We want to wholeheartedly embrace the flame. Throughout history this love has been proven through the lives of men and women who were burning and shining lamps. In the generation that the Lord returns, His worth and beauty will be seen, causing such a response from His people that the end-time church will be victorious in love. It’s unstoppable. The waters of fear, shame, failure, greed, or even persecution and martyrdom will not quench the fire of love (Song of Sol. 8:7). It is love that will motivate and compel a great company of people to stay faithful to the end!

I want to be one with that holy burning heart even today. This is where I find my primary life purpose, in His eyes, caught up in Him. How far can we go? How abandoned can we be? How much grace will He empower us with in order to leave all to follow Him? I don’t want to ask how much sin and compromise I can get away with and still get into heaven. I want to know the exhilaration of burning the bridges and paying my vows. Like Paul the apostle, John the Baptist, and Mary of Bethany, I want to express love to the fullest degree that the Lord will empower me to.

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IF YOU DON’T QUIT, YOU WIN

O
NCE THIS VISION
lays hold of us and we get our primary life purpose clear, we sign up to live before His eyes, loving Him with abandonment and walking it out through loving others by becoming a servant of all. Then we have to take a deep breath and get ready for the marathon. We have great need of endurance. It is one thing to write the vision or talk it. It’s another thing to walk it out for the entirety of our lives.

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EBREWS
11–12

The writer of Hebrews wrote about the need for endurance in his letter to the early believers who were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus. These Jewish believers were being put out of their communities, synagogues, and families for choosing allegiance to Jesus. The political and religious environment of the day was hostile toward believers, and by choosing Jesus they were literally giving up their lives.

When the Book of Hebrews was written, many of these believers had been following Jesus for some decades. They had taken their stand and given their hearts to Him, but some were growing weary in the process. After a few decades some of them started to draw back from their faith in Jesus. They were second-guessing their decision. I imagine they thought, “I don’t know if He is really going to come back.” When they said yes to Jesus, they were saying it through the paradigm of the Jewish Old Testament promises of Messiah. They were looking forward to a Messiah who was going to come to the earth, rule from Jerusalem, set up a kingdom, and take over the world. They said yes to this Messiah. Then there was a delay they did not expect.

Some of these believers wanted to draw back. They said, “Let’s just go back to the way of our childhood. We can stay with our families and keep our social status. We do not want to lose our jobs or our lives. This is way too difficult. Who really knows if Jesus is the real thing or not? Who can tell? He is not even here anymore. They say He was resurrected from the dead, but who knows?”

The writer of Hebrews spends a large portion of the book telling them, “Once you have met the person behind the laws and the prophets, you cannot go back.” The writer is persuading them that all of the Old Testament— everything Moses did, Abraham, all the Law, and all the prophets—was all about Jesus the whole time. When Jesus stepped onto the earth introducing Himself to them in the flesh, face-to-face, they did not have the option to go back anymore.

A person standing in the sun will cause a shadow of himself to be cast on the ground. The old covenant was a shadow. Jesus is standing there from all eternity past, and there is a shadow cast, an outline of the person. That is the old covenant. It is a shadow. It gave them a very dim picture of what God looked like. Throughout history the nation of Israel was supposed to be telling His story the whole time, even though it was just a whisper and a shadow. The Tabernacle, the sacrifices, the feasts . . . He says, “Those are about Me. You were supposed to be telling My story the whole time.” Somewhere along the way they got confused and started thinking the shadow was it. The shadow became their story, and they lost contact with the person whose shadow was being cast.

The writer of Hebrews was saying, “The old covenant was a shadow of a real person.” Moses saw a real tabernacle. When he set up that tent in the wilderness, it says he was doing it as a replica of what he saw (Heb. 8:5; 10:1). He must have seen the city. He saw the real tabernacle and shadowed it. Moses was a man of faith. He knew it wasn’t primarily about the tent in the wilderness. That tabernacle was pointing to something else. It was always by faith, and it was always pointing to the greater, “the real,” the person behind the shadow. The writer is trying to convince them through this letter that they cannot go back. He is not telling them to stop practicing Judaism or to stop being Jewish. He is saying, “Come all the way; come to Me.” He says, “I am the fulfillment. It was all about Me the whole time.”

When He came to Israel and was talking to them in the synagogue, He was saying to them, “If you had really understood Moses, you would know that it was Me that he was talking about” (John 5:45–47). There were a few who said yes to Him, and those few then started to waiver in their faith because of the persecution.

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E
C
ANNOT
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O
B
ACK

Persecution is happening in many parts of the earth today, but in the West we cannot fully relate to what these believers are going through. Our challenge today is the challenge of distraction, boredom, anxiety, and fear. These are the things that weigh us down (Luke 21:34–36). We have a different tension. The application for these chapters for us today is different, but the truth is the same. Who do you say Jesus is (Matt. 16:15)? The issue is going to come down to Jesus.

At the end of the day it is going to come down to one man, and the entire earth is going to be obsessed with one man. It is going to come this: Who do you say that He is? What do you think He did? Is He the only way to God? Is He the only truth? Our temptation is not to go back to the old covenant, but our temptation is to go to humanism or universalism. Some think, “Maybe there is more than one way.” Others are not tempted to give up the truth of salvation in Jesus, but they just give up pressing into the deeper things of His heart. Many in the body of Christ are in this category.

This passage in Hebrews applies to us too, those of us who are tempted to coast along and love Jesus from a distance. We give up our primary life purpose to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We subtly lose faith that He is watching, and we stop living before His eyes. A little compromise sneaks in, and over time our hearts grow cold. We once had fiery devotion and were willing to give up all for Him, but now we are comfortable and complacent. We once had a life vision of knowing the deepest things He would give to us, but now we find ourselves rarely in prayer and even more rarely in the Scripture where those deep things are revealed. This is the struggle that we have today, and it is a dangerous place to be because once we start sliding backward, it is a gradual thing, and over time we lose our center. We might even lose our faith altogether.