Go, Jesus said.\u00a0 Go into all the world and make disciples baptizing them in my name\u2026\u00a0 Go.\u00a0 And be prepared to give up everything.\u00a0 Leave behind everything.<\/p>\n
Did I think he was exaggerating?\u00a0 Or that he didn\u2019t mean me?<\/p>\n
God has called Larry and me to Mercy Road Church.<\/p>\n
It all started with Men\u2019s Fraternity.\u00a0 Larry listened.\u00a0 And he talked to the other guys on Tuesday mornings for three years.\u00a0 And he started thinking about his life.\u00a0 His life divided up in thirds.<\/p>\n
The first third, he didn\u2019t even know Jesus.<\/p>\n
The second third, he poured himself into our family, raising our kids.<\/p>\n
And now he is on the threshold of what, God willing, would be one third more of life.<\/p>\n
He started hearing voices.\u00a0 Well, not plural really. He began to hear the quiet voice of God.<\/p>\n
And he began to get a picture of what this final third of life could look like.\u00a0\u00a0 How it could be spent in ways that would yield eternal fruit.\u00a0 And we started talking.\u00a0 And it was exciting.\u00a0 God had plans.\u00a0 But they weren\u2019t going to start right away, because our kids were not fully on their own yet.\u00a0 But soon.\u00a0 Very soon.<\/p>\n
And Grace planted Mercy Road.\u00a0 And we were excited!\u00a0 Great!\u00a0 Redford needs this!\u00a0 Yes!<\/p>\n
We will help as much as we can, but of course we won\u2019t leave Grace.<\/p>\n
So there is Larry, serving part time at Mercy Road and part time at Grace.\u00a0 And there am I serving overtime at Grace.<\/p>\n
And Larry wants to worship together again.\u00a0 But he misses Mercy Road when he\u2019s not there.\u00a0 So maybe he\u2019ll keep his fingers in the Mercy Road pie and Grace too.<\/p>\n
And then God says, Son, I need you to be \u201call in\u201d somewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n And Larry looks at me and thinks, well, then it\u2019s Grace of course.<\/p>\n And God says, You are so excited to go on mission in the future and willing to go to far away places, but you can\u2019t even go on mission right now in your backyard.\u00a0 Does this make sense son?\u00a0 I\u2019ve been calling you.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been ignoring you Lord.\u00a0 My wife is very committed at Grace.<\/p>\n Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n Lord?<\/p>\n Son?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I know.<\/p>\n And so Larry comes to me and says, for your sake I would stay at Grace.\u00a0 And we realize he has been Jonah, ignoring God for many months for my sake.<\/p>\n How absolutely ridiculous are we?<\/p>\n That God has called us to Mercy Road did not come as a big surprise to our kids, \u201cIsn\u2019t that what Doug has been preaching for years?\u00a0 Go into your neighborhoods with the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n But it was a surprise to me.\u00a0 The bigger surprise, however, has been my emotional reaction.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t want to leave Grace.<\/p>\n For Pete\u2019s sake, I\u2019m not being asked to go to another country, or serve in a foreign culture, where I don\u2019t know the language.<\/p>\n I\u2019m being asked to go to my hometown.<\/p>\n How selfish am I?<\/p>\n Jesus wants Larry and I to take the good news of salvation in Jesus to the people in our neighborhood whom we have known for years.\u00a0 Jesus wants us to work in Redford alongside other believers we have known for years.<\/p>\n This is a big hardship, eh?<\/p>\n We\u2019re talking the lost here.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not really all that hyped up to reach them am I?<\/p>\n Did I think I was?<\/p>\n This is absolutely nuts.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if I can communicate how disappointed I am in myself for feeling this way.<\/p>\n I have been writing blogs for Graceworks for several years now.\u00a0 I read back over them all recently.<\/p>\n I know I have enjoyed a rather small readership.\u00a0 And from those who have read my blogs, I haven\u2019t had much feedback.\u00a0 Sometimes I wondered if anyone was paying attention.<\/p>\n Re reading the blogs I get the distinct impression that God has been wondering the same thing.\u00a0 About me.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n All these great little bits of truth and pieces of the picture he has given me over the years and I think he\u2019s wondering, Robin, were you paying attention?<\/em><\/p>\n Not as much as I thought, I guess.<\/p>\n I\u2019m embarrassed by how I feel.\u00a0 But there it is.\u00a0 I have cried.\u00a0 I have grieved.\u00a0 I felt like my whole life was being turned upside down and ripped apart.\u00a0 And I didn\u2019t know what would be left.<\/p>\n So, now, after a couple of months, what is <\/em><\/strong>left?<\/p>\n The gospel.<\/p>\n The truth that apart from Jesus I am not<\/em><\/strong> a \u201cnice person who occasionally does bad things\u201d.\u00a0 Apart from Jesus I am a selfish person who occasionally does good things and is darn proud of them.<\/p>\n What is left is the gospel.\u00a0 The truth that I am completely corrupt and owe God a debt I cannot pay.\u00a0 Jesus paid it for me. \u00a0And having received his righteousness, his life, I am being transformed.\u00a0 And while that transformation takes place I will take the gospel to Redford.\u00a0 I will do that because Jesus lives in me, not because I am anything at all.\u00a0 I\u2019m not. I proved that pretty well these past few months.\u00a0 I hope I will remember, but I will probably forget again, that the truth I share about Jesus is the truth I <\/em><\/strong>need, every day.<\/p>\n Thank God he is willing to remind me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back in April 2010 I wrote three blogs titled “Jesus wants what?” About how the things Jesus asks us to do seem crazy, sometimes stupid. Now I share with you a real life story in which I no longer “discuss” what Jesus wants, but must now choose to actually do it. If I am a follower of Jesus, I must actually follow Jesus. Part Four: The application….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2O0qX-do","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.choosingcomedy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}