A Meaningful Life

 

My wife shared a poll this week. In the poll the question was asked. “What makes your life meaningful?” 23% of those who took the poll said nothing, nothing in their life brought real meaning. This group of people didn’t have anything in their lives, even harmful or ungodly things, that they could point to that brought significant meaning to them.

 

Jesus shares an incident where He encounters a man looking for meaning.

 

Matthew 19:16

And behold a man came to Jesus saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”

 

The man was works-oriented. What “good deed” must I do to get eternal life? What deed do I need to do, what action do I need to take, or what rituals do I need to do. He wanted something that he could do to earn or deserve eternal life. He wanted meaning and he wanted to do something to get that meaning.

 

Matthew 19:17

And He said to him, “Why do you ask Me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

 

Jesus tells the young man that if he wants life to keep the commandments. This is not just about eternal life; this is about living with meaning in this life and having the assurance of eternal life also.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is living life with meaning and eternalness.

 

Matthew 19:18-20

He said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

 

The young man’s question is which commandments do I need to follow. He doesn’t want to do any more than he has to do. He wants the minimum effort for the maximum results.

 

Jesus shares six commandments and all of them are human to human. They show this young man is outwardly a very good and moral person. It also shows that he has no real relationship with God. He lives motivated by what he looks like and how others view him.

 

The young man says that he kept all of these. So, he wants to know what does he still lack.

 

He had done all he knew to do and he knew there was something lacking.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is living in moral uprightness out of love for Jesus and the desire to obey Him.

 

Matthew 19:21

Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow Me.”

 

Jesus tells him that his riches are what is hindering him from experiencing meaning in his earthly life and having the assurance of eternal life. Jesus tells him to go sell his possessions and give to the poor so that he can have treasure in heaven as oppose to having treasure on earth which will fade away. Then come follow Jesus. He can follow Jesus because he had gotten rid of what he had put ahead of God, his wealth.

 

Jesus doesn’t tell anyone else in the New Testament they have to do this.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is making Jesus Lord, the sole ruling authority in your life.

 

Matthew 19:22

When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

 

The young man was presented with the chance to put Jesus first in his life and have an eternally meaningful life. He was given the opportunity to have an abundant life. He chose to keep his wealth which could not and would not bring meaning or eternal life.

 

There is a world wanting to experience eternal meaning in life. What they are really looking for is Jesus.

 

The question is: Are we who claim to know Jesus going to show the world Jesus or settle for just being good moral people?

 

With Jesus as Lord Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                 Joe

The Greatest

 

In Mark 10 James and John come to Jesus and ask Him if He would do whatever they ask Him to do. Jesus asked them what they wanted and they said they want Him to grant them to sit at His right and left when He comes in His glory.

 

James and John wanted to be the greatest in God’s kingdom.

 

When the other ten apostles heard about what James and John had asked, they became indignant with James and John.

 

What does it mean to be great or the greatest?

 

The world sees great as:

Being Wealthy

Being in a Powerful Position

Being Famous

Having Others Serve You

 

Jesus shows us that His view of great and greatest is very different than the world’s view.

 

In 1 John 2:15 John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

 

We as followers of Jesus cannot love the world, meaning we are not to love the principles of the world or the values of the world or the material things of the world.

 

We as followers of Jesus are to be different and have the values of God’s kingdom and love the things of God.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is living differently by loving God and the things of God and not loving the world or the things of the world.

 

Jesus tells the Twelve that if they want to be great then they have to be servants and if they want to first then they must be servant of all.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being willing to serve others.

 

Jesus then tells the Twelve that He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

 

Jesus says that He came to be a servant.

 

If anyone who has ever lived had a right to demand that He be served, it was Jesus.

 

Jesus is:

The Messiah

The King of kings and Lord of lords

The All-Powerful God in the Flesh

 

Jesus chose to give that up and become a servant. Jesus as a servant provided food for thousands, healed many with diseases, and washed His disciples’ feet.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being willing to give up any rights we have or think we have so we can serve others.

 

Jesus also says that He will give His life as a ransom life for many. Jesus chose to become the sacrifice for sin.

 

Jesus is our example for service and sacrifice.

 

Jesus serves others no matter who they are and we are to serve others no matter who they are.

 

Jesus sacrificed His life for humanity and we are to be willing to sacrifice to help people come to know and follow Jesus.

 

Jesus’ invitation to James, John, Andrew, Peter, Matthew, and Philip is to come follow Him.

 

When we accept that invitation we are committing to:

Living life not loving the world but loving God

Being willing to serve others

Being willing to sacrifice so others can know and become followers of Jesus

 

The people of the world will never care what we believe until they see that we care about them.

 

Jesus loved people, served people, and sacrificed for people. In doing so, He attracted people to Himself.

 

He attracted:

The Sick

The Outcast

The Weary

The Hurting

The Hopeless

The Sinful

 

We are to follow Jesus and serve others and sacrifice for others so that they can come to know and follow Jesus and receive forgiveness and eternal life.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is following Jesus.

 

Serving and Sacrificing with Jesus

by Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                  Joe

Before and After

 

I want to start with a question. What is your “before”? What is your “before Jesus”? All of us have a before Jesus. According to Romans 3:23 all of us have sinned and come short of God’s standard. So, all of our befores are as sinners.

 

The good thing is that all of us can have an after. We can all have an after, an “after we receive Jesus as Savior and Lord”. Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Peter’s before was as a prideful fisherman and his after, a humble proclaimer of the gospel.

 

Matthew’s before was as a materialistic tax collector and his after, a follower of Jesus who died as a martyr.

 

Paul’s before was as an angry persecutor of the church and his after was a planter and builder of the church.

 

Mary Magdalene’s before was as an immoral demon-possessed woman and her after as the person who Jesus first appeared to after His resurrection.

 

My before was bigoted, apathy toward God, and a bored-with-church young man to a young man who loves Jesus, wanting others to know Jesus, and serving through His church.

 

Raise the Roof and Removing the Walls is letting Jesus turn your before into your after.

 

All of our befores are as sinners, but not all sinners are alike.

 

Acts 10:34-35 says, “So Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.’”

 

You can be the President of the United States or a homeless person living on the street. It does not matter to Jesus.

 

Jesus wants all people, no matter your standing in society.

 

Jesus called fisherman to follow Him.

Jesus called tax collectors to follow Him.

Jesus called Zealots to follow Him.

Jesus called rich people to follow Him.

Jesus called poor people to follow Him.

Jesus called conservative people to follow Him.

Jesus called liberal people to follow Him.

 

Sinners are sinners, even if they look very different and all sinners need Jesus. We all need Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is seeing our sin and coming to Jesus to be forgiven and changed.

 

The church is called the Body of Christ and the Family of God.

 

A body is made up of many different parts and all of those parts are joined together and work together though the brain. Jesus is the head, the brain, of the church.

 

A family is made up of many different members with many different personalities and many different backgrounds. Jesus is the head of the church; the family and the church are united through relationships.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is come together as people redeemed by Jesus and forming His family to serve Him and grow His kingdom.

 

God’s people are going to look different, have different backgrounds, have different personalities, speak different languages, and worship and serving Jesus differently. The thing that will create unity is knowing we all have a before Jesus but are living together in our after in Jesus.

 

Living in Our After in Jesus and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                   Joe

Jesus Our Life

 

Life: what is it? This is a question that many people have asked over the years. The dictionary says it is the existence of an individual being. Basically, for many people, life means simply existence.

 

In Genesis 2:7 it says, “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Humans were created by God and God made humans living beings.

 

In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Jesus says that He is our life. 

 

The Bible connects life with God. God is the one who gives us life and the one sustains our lives.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing Jesus as our creator and the sustainer of our lives.

 

Colossians 3:3-4 says, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

 

Jesus is not just our Creator and Sustainer; He is also our life.

 

According to Luke 9:23 it means that we are to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Jesus.

According to John 14:23-24 it means to love and obey Jesus.

According to 2 Corinthians 11:3 it means having a sincere and pure devotion to Jesus.

According to Galatians 2:20 it means letting the resurrected life of Jesus be lived in us.  

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting Jesus be our life. 

 

How do we make Jesus our life?

 

Mark 12:30 Jesus tells us to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength.

 

Letting Jesus be your life means loving Jesus with all your heart – your will. We let Jesus be our life by letting Him direct our will. We make decisions by our will and we let Jesus be the authority that determines the direction of our lives.  

 

Letting Jesus be your life means loving Jesus with all your soul – your personality. We love Jesus with our emotions, our talents, our passions, our experience, our learned abilities; the things that make us, us.

 

Letting Jesus be your life means loving Jesus with all your mind – your intellect. 1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us that we have the mind of Christ. We have been given the ability to think and we are to let Jesus direct out thinking and understanding.

 

Letting Jesus be your life means loving Jesus with all your strength – your body. 1 Corinthians 6:20 tells us to honor God with our bodies. We don’t just intellectually agree with God; we also obey with the way we live.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting our whole life be directed by Jesus.

 

Everything that the world tells us about us and uses to define us are things that divide us.

 

Race

Nationality

Ethnic Background

Political Affiliation  

Financial Standing

Social Groups

 

Jesus tells us that we are all His creation. That truth can bring us together and bring unity to us.

 

We who have placed our faith in Jesus are His children and that makes us family.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting Jesus unite us in Him.

 

Let Jesus be our lives and come together as the Body of Christ to do the work of Jesus in the world.

 

With Jesus as Our Lives Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                             Joe

In the Fire

 

Do you ever feel like you are in the middle of something that is creating great stress in your life but you don’t see any way to deal with it, let alone how to get out of it? That is the way I have felt since April 2020. I have felt like I have been in a fire storm. The truth God has showed me is that I am not the first to been in that fire storm.

 

Deuteronomy 4:20

But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of His own inheritance, as you are this day.

 

God tells His people Israel and reminds us, His people the church, that He delivers His people out of furnaces, fire storms. He does it so that we can experience the reality of being His inheritance.

 

We live in a broken world. Nothing in this world works the way God designed it to work because sin has corrupted everything in this world. So, as Jesus says in John 16:33, in this world we will have troubles. But Jesus has overcome the world and will deliver us out of the troubles or out of the furnace.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing we will have troubles in this world but looking to and trusting God for deliverance.

 

God shows us a picture of being delivered from a fiery furnace in Daniel 3.

 

In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are commanded to bow and worship before a huge gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

 

In Daniel 3:16-17 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego tell Nebuchadnezzar that they will not bow and worship the image. They say that they believe God will deliver them from being burned to death if they are thrown into the furnace. They then say that even if God does not choose to deliver them, they will not bow down before the image.

 

They are thrown in to the furnace and in Daniel 3:25 Nebuchadnezzar looks into the furnace and sees not three men being burned to death but four men walking around in the furnace unhurt.

 

God literally delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of a fiery furnace.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is standing firm in our faith in Jesus and experiencing Him delivering us from the power of sin.

 

God promises us that He will go through the fire with us and protect us.

 

Isaiah 43:1-2                                                               

But now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you.”

 

God promises that we will walk through the difficulties of life.

 

The difficulties will not:

 Overwhelm us

 Burn us

 Consume us

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing Jesus delivering us from the penalty and power of sin in our everyday life.

 

In 2 Corinthians 1 Paul talks about the hopelessness that he felt. In verse 10 he says, “He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.”

 

Jesus will walk through the fiery furnaces of life and deliver us.

 

With Jesus Delivering Us for Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                Joe