As Was His Custom: Habits We Need… Because We’re Human- Confession
As a committed follower of Christ, I remember a season clearly in my life when I had found myself ensnared and entangled in a sin. Having given way to the enemy in my mind, I had allowed sinful thoughts to take hold, and somewhere along the way became completely incapable of finding freedom on my own. While I’d turn from the sin for a short while, the thoughts would eventually return. It was only when I shared my struggle with a trusted, godly friend that I found full freedom. I confessed my sin in humility and repentance. And I prayed for God to rescue me and my mind from that dark place. And God was faithful. He met me in my brokenness, and He set me free. The power of sin was no match for the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart and mind, activated and set free through the act of confession and repentance.
As Was His Custom: Serving
We live in a world preoccupied with greatness. As humans, we follow star athletes, celebrities, artists, and leaders, and we yearn for significance in the individual corners of our own lives. We pursue financial gain, popularity, appeal, and admiration. We seek to be known and praised. We find satisfaction in attention and aspire to feel important in the eyes of others. Throughout history, this obsession has taken many shapes and forms, but it is the same, nonetheless: conquering kingdoms, rising to power, acquiring a following, generating wealth, gaining importance.
When Jesus came, however, He modeled an entirely opposite ambition and aim. Instead of seeking greatness by these standards, Jesus turned our entire way of living on its head, swinging the pendulum to the other extreme. He taught that in His Kingdom, the key to greatness is, in fact, found in becoming less:
Jesus both taught and modeled in His earthly ministry a different objective– Serving is the way of God’s Kingdom.
As Was His Custom: Fellowship Part 2
While the gift of salvation is certainly a personal decision one makes individually, the restoration of fellowship with God opens up the gift of fellowship with His church. Eugene Peterson refers to our association with and participation in the body, the church, as “part of the fabric of redemption.” We can’t separate our fellowship with God from our fellowship with other believers and truly experience the fullness of what Jesus offers. They are inextricably tied, and it is within the context of common fellowship that we experience the fullness of what Jesus came to bring, in community with his Body: his imperfect, beautiful, messy, and beloved church. We see the early church experiencing this same fellowship: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
As Was His Custom: Teaching
On hundreds of Sundays, I padded down the blue-carpeted basement steps to our newly constructed Sunday School rooms. I followed as other children walked into their respective classrooms. I looked forward to Sundays, as I enjoyed learning about Jesus, but I especially loved being taught by Doug Livgren. Now, looking back, it's because his love and passion for Jesus superseded just "getting through the Sunday School curriculum." My class would enter, girls giggling and boys shoving to get to seats, and Doug would walk in and command attention from us. What I remember most was having light bulb moments through his teaching, and honestly when I taught third-grade boys Sunday School in college, I thought back often and used Doug's methods.
Teaching is one of the many customs/habits of Jesus. Immediately following his 40 days in the wilderness (Luke 4), he begins traveling, preaching, and teaching in synagogues throughout the countryside. He even taught (albeit briefly) in His hometown of Nazareth. (Click here for a blog post on this topic!) However, Jesus' teaching slightly differed from what we're used to in our Western context. Jesus, more than likely, was educated in rabbinic tradition (see here for more info).
As Was His Custom: Silence
I remember the first time I experienced true silence. I was 11 years old and had just spent a week at my grandparent’s home all by myself. My Grandma Gus and I had attended musicals, gotten my ears pierced, and shopped until we dropped. She’d taken me to tea houses, watched Anne of Green Gables (with Megan Follows- because that version is a part of my DNA!), and rode my Grandpa Gus’ horses at sunset. That week was one of my most beautiful times with my grandparents on my mother’s side.
But in one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, on the way to surprise my Grandpa at work with ice cream, an intoxicated driver t-boned the car my Grandma and I were in. Our vehicle spun, rolling violently eight times into a bean field. When our car came to rest upside down, I was unconscious, pinned between the dashboard and the windshield. My Grandma’s seat belt had snapped, leaving her bleeding out on the ceiling of the car, now on the ground. My parents were over 12 hours away, and even though my Dad left immediately after receiving that awful phone call, I was relatively alone for several hours in that hospital room in Princeton, IL.
As Was His Custom: Solitude
One of the truths that most strongly stood out to me in studying Jesus’ practice of solitude is the foundation from which he operated. Jesus knew and operated from the truth that his strength, security, and purpose came solely from his place with the Father. Thus, he prioritized time to connect solely with Him.
As Was His Custom: Reading scripture
Nazareth. It’s a small village nestled down in the middle of the cliffs and high hills north of the Jezreel valley. Back in Yeshua’s time, this valley was a major intersection for non-Hebrew people groups to travel through and sometimes settle as it was the easiest to navigate east to west from the coast to the Sea of Galilee. (I mean, who wouldn’t want to settle there when there is 365 feet of topsoil in the Jezreel Valley?!?!) This valley holds so much deep meaning for Israel and Christians alike. (For a video by Daily Bread featuring my professor, John A Beck, regarding the importance of Jezreel Valley, click here.)
Today, Nazareth is the fastest-growing city in what was ancient Israel. But this small village is where Yeshua’s parents raised him. (Essentially, he was a small-town boy). Surrounded by high cliff faces (see in the above video at time stamp 0.01-0.38), Nazareth was isolated from these Gentile and pagan people groups, to say the least. It was tricky navigating to Nazareth back in Yeshua’s time (probably only accessible by climbing on foot or with a donkey or mule). Even today, they’ve had to blast the cliffs to provide transportation to the community.