Discipleship

Running Uphill - Part Five of Five

Apr 11, 2009

My fifth hill: personal limitations.

One of the hardest things for me to come to grips with is my humanity. It bothers me because at times I would love to believe that I can do anything at anytime that I want—which is evidence of the sinfulness in me!
When it comes to my limitations it bothers me as a leader I cannot make someone love Jesus.

I cannot make someone respond during an invitation.

I cannot make someone repent of their sin.

I cannot make anyone do anything.

My charge and my commission from Jesus is to keep my eyes on him, do what he says, preach the truth and let him work out the details.

Also the thing the bothers me are my physical limitations. I’m coming up on 10 years of being the Senior Pastor of NewSpring Church. It hasn’t been a sprint, and it hasn’t been a marathon, it has been a sprinted, marathon.

I can honestly say that I am more tired that I have ever been in my life. On Monday the biggest challenge for me every single week is to simply roll out of bed and put my feet on the floor. (If you are a pastor you understand what I am saying. If you’re not a pastor then you don’t.)

Maybe if you are not a pastor you assume that all a pastor does is show up on Sunday, preach a message that God downloaded into his mind the night before, and plays golf for the rest of the week.

BUT…that is not the life of a pastor who is absolutely, passionately, radically in love with Jesus.

I have problems now that I used to not have.

I am not able to preach as hard as I used to preach.

When it comes to exercise, I am not able to run as far as I use to be able to run. I am not able to lift as much weight as use to be able to lift.

My body is getting old, I’m getting tired which has forced me to begin to embrace that the fourth commandment in the scriptures, the one to rest (WHICH is the one commandment God spent the most time explaining!).

I, as a leader, and by the way as a follower of Christ, a husband, a father and a friend have to face the fact am so limited physically and spiritually which should cause me to be more desperate for Jesus and more willing to make the necessary changes that God leads me to make.

WHICH…one of the changes I have been forced to make it to back out of the marathon I had planned to do in May.
I HATE IT…but I have to! I was trying to push through a couple of issues when a friend told me, “You’re call is to prove Jesus…not yourself!”

That set me free!!!

Limitations are not to be feared…they are to be confessed…because THEN, when we realize we can’t do it all…God and others can move in and make up the difference!