Jesus was very clear in telling his Disciples that His new over-arching command for his gathered people, his congregation, was 'Love one another as I have loved you'! Those were his marching orders. In doing this—in exposing and turning away from selfishness, self-interest, self-preoccupation and self-preservation—we take a narrow path, especially as we live in a culture that pushes in the opposite direction.

Jesus intended His gathered people to be a life-giving flow of love, life, grace and hope. His point, first, was that His Kingdom would change everything. The old rules, categories, bottles and containers wouldn’t fit any more. His Kingdom wasn't about a set of laws we keep to make God happy and get something from Him. Do you get it? The whole thing was flipped... and Jesus turned the world upside down!

There’s a saying that if we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it. To really understand Jesus’ coming and why He HAD to come to earth, we really need to understand how God’s mission to bless the nations, make all things new started with Abraham, led to creating a nation and a covenant. But as we go along, see Israel’s history, how God led them for hundreds of years and then the hope of the Messiah — then, with the arrival of Jesus… Things really changed with Jesus; which sometimes causes people to ask “Why did God change tactics?” Some even ask “Why does the God of the Old Testament seem so different than Jesus?” And does hold any meaning for us 2,000 years later?

Matthew 16:13-20  Jesus wants His gathered people back—back to their first love, back on mission—to BE the Church...not to DO church! It’s no secret that the Church at large has gotten off track, but why?

So, you ask all these great questions, and then you make some truly great decisions — some stunning moves that get you where you want to go. But the question that underpins the 5 that we’ve been asking is SO WHAT? What is YOUR what? Or worse, do we have the WRONG what? God has given us all this ‘what’ and we need to define it.

Most of the other questions we've talked about, bring immediate results in our lives. But, this question – the one Jesus specifically calls us to – usually has a delayed reaction to it. Eternal results. Legacy results. Loving is a long term thing – and is always about SOMEONE.

Sometimes we hit our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and we’re still making decisions like a little kid. We’re chasing what catches our eye, we’re retaliating like we’re still inside the chain-link fence around the playground, we’re calling people names, trying to prove we’re better!  We need to ask ourselves: Is this WISE? Am I being responsible, am I thinking clearly, am I making a mature, wise decision? And what will I think of this decision 2 years, 5 years, 10 years from now? Asking yourself, 'is it WISE?' can spare you a lot of pain.

Every once in a while – before we decide, make a move, choose a direction – there is an inner STOP sign in our conscience. Sometimes what we’re planning is clearly outside the lines of God’s plan and will, but we do what WE want to do... and then, as an after-thought we ask God to come in and bless what we’ve done. No decision we make is ever totally irredeemable, but most can’t be unmade... not without a lot of pain. God gave us a conscience for a reason.

Someday, those who follow in our legacy will remember the life we led — some of which may affect them. Most of what we are facing right now will one day be just a story we tell. And the questions we need to ask ourselves are: What story do I want to tell? What story will be retold about me? Do I leave out chapters because they're too embarrassing? Too shameful? The truth is we see events and the decisions we've made as private, stand-alone events — when in fact, they are connected to everything else about our story. The story we write one decision at a time.

We are suckers for our own story lines (and outright lies) as they serve for justifications for what we do and why we’re doing it. When we really want something, despite our best wisdom, we tell bald-faced lies to ourselves; things that if told to us by someone else, we’d laugh in their faces and say, "Give me a break! What do you think I am, stupid? Naïve?” Yet, we all do this! We tell the lie — and believe the lie!  When we’re about to make a decision, the question we really, really need to ask has to be the Integrity Question: Am I being honest with myself? Am I being honest with myself...REALLY?