out from the behind the altar

"I meet so many people who have superwhatever rattling around in their head. They have this person they are convinced they are supposed to be, and their superwhatever is killing them. They have this image they picked up over the years of how they are supposed to look and act and work and play and talk and it’s like a voice that never stops shouting in their ear.And the only way not to be killed by it is to shoot first.Yes, that is what I meant to write.You have to kill your superwhatever."- rob bell

I was reading in Matthew yesterday, about how Jesus was telling the disciples to serve (23:11), and it struck me that Jesus was a servant both in attitude and ACTION. So i started looking through matthew, looking at the words connected with Jesus' name; the things He did.This is what I found:-Jesus GAVE (26:26)Jesus MOVED (back to his hometown after John the Baptist's arrest to take up where he left off)-Jesus TAUGHT (5:1-2)-Jesus REACHED (8:3-4)-Jesus REASSURED (9:20)-Jesus BLESSED (14:18)-Jesus DIDNT HESITATE (14:31)-Jesus HEALED (19;1-2)and the thing is, like rob bell says, we have this picture of servanthood, in our heads, that we need to be in africa or uganda to serve, that we need to give away our cars and live in a dirt hut (which maybe would help), but Jesus DIDNT HESITATE. He was a servant in the way He did things.

thats why his name is attached to verbs. not adjectives. and like I told a friend today, sometimes even christians (myself included), can decide that, since we cant do something huge, we will just be silent. and like I told him, we hide behind our altars and we crouch down in our pews. and the world forgets who we are. in order to see real change, in order to watch a revolution, in order to experience real love and to BE real love, we have to start acting. and it has to be real. No more super-christians. God has been speaking into my life to pray for real, not just words that sound right, but words breathed out of scripture, words that are not what I think God wants to hear, but the words pouring out of love for a God big enough to understand my messy spirituality.

"Here's what I want you to do. Find a quet place where you won't be disturbed. where you wont be tempted to role play before God. Just be there as simply and quietly as you can. The focus will shift from you to God and you will sense His grace. the world is full of so called prayer warriors, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. dont fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with. He knows you better than what you need." -Matthew 6:5-13 (message trans)

Here's to being real. Crawl out from behind the altar.