Wednesday, June 20

Packing my bags...

I’m a pretty visual person…(that’s why I love the Message version of Scripture…Peterson uses ‘visual words’ as he translates/interprets).

I read this week a section of a book about ‘distilling the message of Christianity’.

In talking about the underground church (both in Acts and more recently in China) Alan Hirsch writes, “They have to condense and purify their core message that keeps them both faithful and hopeful. For an underground church, all the clutter of unnecessary traditional interpretations and theological paraphernalia is removed. They must ‘travel light’.”

I’m trying to process this idea of ‘traveling light’. Using a visual helps me do this...

If you don’t mind, play along with me here for a moment…

Looking at faith through the metaphor of ‘journey’ (which, of course, we must do if we are to be ‘hip’ and ‘cool’), and thinking about preparing for this journey… What, for you, must you ‘pack’ for this trip? What gets put in your bag, and what gets left behind because you are ‘traveling light’?

Mark Nelson at 11:16 AM 6comments

6 Comments

at 12:31 PM  Anonymous said...

get your junk out of the trunk and you'll get better gas mileage!

unforgiveness, prejudice, pride, legalism, gossip, all take up valuable space that could be used for food and fuel

 

at 12:38 PM  Preston Searcy said...

In the bag: The call from hating each other to loving each other.

Out of the bag: Anything that enslaves people. The twisted thought that God loves any one person more than another.


...And the rapture

 

at 1:42 PM  Mark Nelson said...

I assume that 'and the rapture' implies the Left Behind books?

My favorite Calvin Miller quote..."When Jesus comes back the only thing that will be 'left behind' will be those books."

 

at 2:12 AM  Paula Clare said...

Hi Mark!
"Traveling Light" and "baggage" are often discussed in my line of work. As a counselor, I am boggled to see the determination with which some folks hang on to their luggage. Bear in mind it is not luggage of "necessity" or even "benefit". They are often bags of unforgiveness, wrath, anger, bitterness, jealousy.

On missions trips, when we minister to folks from other cultures, we recognize that our most effective ministry seeks to tell the simple truth: Jesus loves you. Desperately. Passionately. Period. We take with us the bag of the Gospel and leave it at that.

We rely on the grace of God to illumine Truth in the hearts and lives of folks we minister to. We "travel light" because to carry the excess baggage of doctrine or philosophy into the Gospel message tends to convolute the reality of the journey...so while we do NOT water down the truth, neither do we intentionally complicate it.

Because of His reckless love for us, Jesus, the Son of the Most High God, the Creator of the Universe, played "Bellboy" and carried our "baggage" to the Cross. WHY would we EVER want to pick it up again?

Which bags do I take? The Gospel Message of Jesus Christ. If we are living as authentic Christians, our LIVES should DRAW people...we in turn, then, show people the beauty and simplicity of a baggage free existence. In today's "2 bags and a carry on" reality, it is a breath of fresh air.

 

at 2:51 PM  Anonymous said...

lots of grace and peanut butter crackers.

 

at 8:39 AM  Anonymous said...

This thermos, this lamp, the TV remote, and this paddleball game.

And that's all I need, too!

 

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