These two issues (one close to me personally and causing personal conflict, and one causing more corporate conflict for our young church and how people view us) immediately filled me with two very strong emotions; those of you who know me will be very interested at this point to know I have an emotion outside of “ticked off” (don’t worry, it this is actually me & we’ll get there too):

1) The first of which was great disappointment at so many things in this world done in the name of Jesus & His Bride that are done clearly from either ignorance or flat-out pride, and that then result in the very people that need to hear the truth of God’s Great Story & Wondrous Gospel turning away due to “false representation” (of which I sometimes wish Jesus would come back and sue them for, because the evidence would be overwhelming), and then result in the hurt and broken seeing very clearly that there is no real hope, real peace, real joy, or real love in much of which is deemed “the church” in today’s world because those things cannot and do not exist outside of Jesus.

2) I then transitioned to a much more familiar emotion for me, Ticked Off. I searched my heart asking God to make sure I was ticked off at sin and not at the perpetrators that He had allowed to storm into my morning. After reflecting on this for a few minutes God reminded me that it is alright to be angry for His sake. I confess that I often mask my anger with it being for Him when it really is for me.

I had to ask myself a couple questions:

“Burns, are you ticked because if they mis-represent Jesus because it defames the name of your Savior? Or are you ticked off because you’re a Pastor, and if they make a bad name for Him it makes you look bad too?”

“If your name was dragged “through the mud” so that Jesus could be made much of would you be able to live with that? Or would you still be ticked off?”

I will spare you the details of my answers to both of those but to sum up: After some confession and repentance I had a renewed sense of “ticked off” that I believe is Spirit Driven, and here’s why:

-I see much of myself, the mistakes I have made in the past, and the filth/crap that God has brought to light in my own life in both of these situations.

The first situation being someone I deeply care about walking a path that I am afraid of because I have walked it (and have seen my sin in it) and I would love to spare him, and others involved, the pain that comes with learning the hard way.

The second situation being one that I have also seen my own propensity for; wanting people to remember my name, and the lists of people that have done great things for God, and leave myself a legacy instead of living my life so people forget about me and remember Jesus and His legacy. Gotta say I have not exacted the surgical extraction of this one effectively yet, thank God for 1 John 1:9.

All this to say that I come to a couple conclusions after doin’ some work with Jesus on this:

-As Christians, those who bear the name of our Saviour, do we represent Him well? Have we asked the hard questions that reveal our heart & motives? Resulting in Actual Humility (not this fake humility that gets tossed around lightly but the gut wrenching one that comes with recognition of our own sin and His Holiness) because we are reminded that all good things come from Him and if we are left to our own we will jack it up quicker than my 6 year old can eat a slice of pizza (which is pretty fast).

-As Churches, are we focused continually on making Great the name of Jesus and allowing people to completely forget our name if necessary?  175 years from now, if Jesus waits that long to rescue us, when we are all dead and gone what will the story of our church be?

Will it be one that lists how well we used people’s money to get out of debt, or will it be an ignorantly long list of mortal (dead) people that should have been about Jesus’ name, or will it be the recording of a figurative, or possibly literal, train wreck that happened because we wouldn’t learn from the lessons God has taught others and sought to learn them all ourselves?

OR will it the name of JESUS be all that they remember? Will they say things to others like, “I don’t totally remember the guys’ name, Rob something, but I definitely remember who he told me about, Jesus.”

In the meantime we pray, and yearn for, the scene that we see in Revelation 21:1-9 “…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold,  the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and GOD HIMSELF will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be any mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away…Behold, (God says) I am making ALL things new.”, and in the meantime we work for the King to make Him known and make His Name Famous and His Glory Shown throughout a world that desperately needs it.