John 1:1-14 has always grabbed me, especially these words in verse 14:

“The Word became flesh and dwelled among us.”

It was very interesting to me when I learned that only three of the miracles Jesus performed (recorded in the Gospels) took place in the synagogue. Only three. All of the rest of His many miracles occurred when He was walking among the people.

Think about it: the boy blind from birth, the lame man at the pool, blind Bartimeaus, the woman caught in adultery …

All of these miracles and so many more occurred not in the synagogue nor at an organized ministry event, but when Jesus was simply walking among the people.

This presents me with a problem: I have searched for scriptures after Christ’s resurrection for a teaching or statement or something that commands us to stop walking among the people and instead institutionalize ministry to the point that we don’t know the hurt and needs of our neighbors, the people in our workplace or schools, etc., but I cannot find it. However, we sing plenty of songs about loving God every Sunday and even repeat them over and over again on our iPod. We wait for some kind of organized ministry event rather than living every day with spiritual eyes open in the expectation that this waitress, this plumber, this grocery store stock boy, this UPS man, this Facebook friend or anyone else … need God, and this moment may be the most strategic time in their lives that they can feel His love and know His truth!

You may be the only message of hope that someone hears today!

Imagine living with that kind of expectation every day?

This thinking has transformed the way I live my life and the way I see walking every day in a world of people who are hurting, lonely, and in need of grace, peace and truth!

I recently learned something that I did not know about myself and our community in Fort Apache, the South Bronx:  The people in the South Bronx were curious and intrigued with me the first few years we were there because … I was the first white man who would walk the streets of our community that wasn’t a cop or a homeless drug addict. … and it was that way for many years.

The fact is that God used this “oddity” to begin radical change in our community, a community that was once ridden with violence, unsafe to walk the streets, shootings at least four times a week, parks and playground controlled by drug dealers, AIDS, disease, homelessness, decrepit slum-lord housing, witchcraft, corruption, and the highest unemployment in the nation.

God just needed someone who would walk the streets as He walked, loving people with His love, sharing truth with boldness and compassion, and be there day after day after day after day to do it again and again until some people began to respond to the Gospel!

And now, as a result, our community has radically changed. Those of you who have never been there during those years cannot understand the “war zone” that was the South Bronx. And this change was entirely done by my God and for His glory.

But He needed someone to walk among the people and be the Word made flesh among them!

On Mission with God

One of the greatest lessons that we can learn in life is that we are on mission WITH GOD. When we get to wherever we are going, HE is already there! He is always working, always moving, always preparing, always sculpting a masterpiece for His glory!

God is always about His purposes, moving and working the things in our lives and the things around us to accomplish the plans He has foreordained in us and through us to make a mark in this world for the glory of His great name!

It’s not about us; it never has been. But it is about us being faithful, holy and available when He calls to use us.

Isaiah 26:8 says, “… Your name and Your renown is the desire of our hearts.” If this were really true in God’s church, nothing – nothing! — could stop us from turning this world upside down through the power of our Savior Jesus Christ in us, among us and through us.

When your mission becomes God’s mission, then and only then can powerful, anointed and truly eternal things happen.

I didn’t know that God’s destiny for me involved befriending drug dealers, making dirty cops mad in a corrupt precinct, standing against injustice, repeatedly cleaning the sacrifices of witches from our doorsteps, death threats, rat infestations, living among uncanny moral depravity, pursuing the will of God and being sent by the Spirit to the heart of the statistically worst inner city community of our nation at the time, and from there to places like Detroit, the favelas of Sao Paolo, Cuba, and Vietnam … and I have seen His glory in all of these places!

This has been God’s design for our lives! . . . and all of this with college and graduate degrees in music performance and composition!?

I have heard this said:  “God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called.”

I pray that we will hear the challenge of the Lord this week – in church, in school, at the job, on the streets, in conversations, wherever we go:

• To not tie ourselves down to what is humanly possible;
• To be among those who take the kingdom by force, who are unafraid of the Lion’s den or fiery furnace and stare it in the face with faith, vigor and an unshakable commitment even unto death;
• To live with the faith of a mustard seed to say to this mountain, “Be removed and cast into the sea!”and then persevere until it is accomplished!
  
• To live a pure and holy life that is worthy of the grace that He has given us, and
  
• To passionately pursue of the glory of God anywhere and everywhere He will send us!

Jesus is worthy of our faithful commitment to move out of the mundane and impotent, to live co-crucified with Jesus and walk under the power of the Holy Spirit in humble submission to His Lordship!

As Paul said to the Ephesians, let us “lead a life worthy of our calling, for we have been called by God!”

You – all of you! – have been called by God. From your mother’s womb, God ordained a plan and purpose for your life. How you reconcile that with your choices today and for your future will determine the legacy you will leave on this earth.

Perhaps you can pray this prayer with me. It is the prayer of A.Z. Tozer:

“O God, be exalted over my possessions. Be exalted over my friendships. Be exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please You even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten. Rise, O Lord, into Your proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even life itself. Let me decrease that You may increase.”

Amen!