I like Mary. You know, the woman who came to a dinner party and dumped a insanely expensive pound of perfume on Jesus feet and then bends low to wipe his feet with her hair. Jesus had rescued her from a church stoning social so that would explain the radical gratitude. You know the thing I find most interesting about this story? Jesus never asked her to do this, and yet, (pause, think) He praises her act of love and even solidifies it as a moment that will shape history.

There is a base level of being a Christian where we learn to live as decent people in an indecent world becoming neither an asset to light nor a threat to darkness. Then there's a level we could call servanthood where the movements of the Spirit nudge us in one direction over another and we have opportunity for compliance. But is there a step beyond obedience? Mary here, offers Jesus an original expression of love, and it got me thinking. How many times have I done something for God only to hear people ask the question, "Are you sure God told you to do that?" As if the end of the Christian life is confined to merely awaiting orders. Thankfully, He invites us from servanthood into friendship. In that place, I can both walk in obedience and exercise the freedom to have an original expression of love. "I'm going to go down and pray while walking the campus." you say. "Did God tell you to do that?" says another. With a smile, you reply, "No, actually He didn't. It's something I thought up on my own." Sound strange? It shouldn't. How about this scene? "Hey, what are you doing?" "Oh, just buying flowers for my wife." "Did she ask you to do that?" "Uh, no. I just did it because I was thinking about her." "What? Are you crazy? I don't buy my wife flowers unless she asks me to. What a crazy way to be married. I mean it's downright foolish to go off thinking of things on your own. Just wait until she directs you and tells you what to do." By this point I would begin to wonder if this guy actually loved his wife or if this marriage was just an arrangement of convenience. There are some things you just don't do without direction, but then there are expressions of love which are strengthened by the fact that they come from you who are using the very arms God created to reach out in a willful expression of worship. Your body is the ultimate example of His design subjected to your desire. His creation at your command.

You are the bride of Christ, in a covenant that's solidified in the reality that we love Him because He first loved us. No matter which way you look at it, the core is love, and love without expression is dead. Basic obedience is beneath the standard of love. A private is not required to love his commanding officer. Just obey. Jesus calls us beyond obedience into radical expressions of love. Don't deny the significance of these moments. You just might make history.

It's become common to embrace doctrine contrary to the example that Jesus gave as a coping mechanism. I used to preach that as a way to address questions God didn't seem to address and herein lies the birthplace of bad doctrine. I used to teach that when disease and affliction came upon you, if you rebuked it you just may be rebuking God (because He allowed it or else He would do something about it). Of course because it's dangerous to rebuke God, people stopped praying prayers of faith. As time went on, I realized that I had scared people out of standing against disease and left them with one option, to pray that His will would be done. Something happened after that. We stopped seeing breakthrough in healing and miracles and the faith level of the house moved from revival to survival.

So why don't people get healed? There are a few clues that we have from the life of Jesus that give a hint. Jesus touches a blind man who afterward sees men as trees walking. He needed a second touch from Jesus to get the full manifestation of the breakthrough. Persistence. I don't believe it is always a lack of faith on your part. One man who needed a miracles said to Jesus, "If you're able..." questioning even His ability to do it. You don't get much smaller in the faith department than that. Jesus replies challenging the mans ability to believe and then provides the miracle. Another man needing a miracles says, "if you're willing..." basically saying, I know you're able but I don't know your heart. Questioning the nature of God to offer an expression of love in healing. In both cases Jesus provides the miracle building their faith in the process. We also live in a place of great tension where we have promises in the Word of God and yet an enemy that would like to kill both us and the promise. So we have prayers that go unanswered and pain that persists. I believe this is the suffering of the believer is living in that tension between the Kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. The agreement that every believer needs to settle in their heart is that light is ALWAYS superior to darkness. When the man came to Jesus and said that the disciples couldn't cast out the demon from his son and Jesus said this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting, then he neither prays nor fasts for the situation but casts out the demon, He revealed the reason He spent so much time alone in communion with the Father for it afforded Him the anointing and power to overcome every obstacle to the Father's will.

When God said to Paul (who asked that the "thorn" be taken away three times) and said, "My grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected in weakness." (NASB) He wasn't saying be happy with what you got, or, hey, at least be happy you're going to heaven when this thing finally does you in. He was revealing to Paul that I have placed divine favor upon you and contained within that grace is the answer to every obstacle that you face. If you not allow your weakness to derail you from pressing in, you will find that place of power that will not only set you free but set free every captive and prisoner around you. Keep in mind that in the boat, Jesus calms the storm and then rebukes the disciples because of their failure to release what He has placed within them when He said, "Let's go to the other side." In the commission He revealed His will and in that commission was contained the grace to overcome every obstacle to His will, yet when the crunch time came, they cried out (prayed) for Him to do what He has equipped them to do and He rebuked them for it. Paul never records anything but asking God to take away this thorn, and true to the pattern of Jesus, it's revealed that He already contained the grace to overcome it. Paul accurately exposes the source of the thorn when he says it was a messenger of Satan to buffet him. 1 John 3 says that the purpose of the manifest presence of Jesus Christ the Son of God was to "destroy the works of the devil". If He lives within you then you are now equipped to live with that end in mind.

The question of the will of God has been answered. The highest measure is the standard of on earth as it is in heaven. Is there Leukemia in Heaven? No. So anything we pray that opposes that standard is contrary to what Jesus told us to contend for. God may have sent you into a battle but He never sends us into a battle we are not equipped to win. For now, however, we press deeper into the unknown for there's still a mystery to this and we haven't fully arrived. When we learn to embrace the mystery and persist in the process, we'll see the greater breakthrough that we all know is coming.

I was describing the worship experience in Maui to someone recently. Words like wild, crazy, out there, liberating, exuberant, all come to mind. But it's so hard defining the experience by a single adjective. It narrows it down to where you lose the sense of Spirit that exists in the reality of the moment. Unskilled communication often tarnishes the beauty of an experience that goes beyond whatever creativity we employ to explain it. Imagine you've been going to church services for two decades. For the first few weeks you're excited and thrilled until you notice other veteran Christians sitting around you who have settled. Like silt in the bottom of a lake, the surface says peace but beneath they know there's just dead fish and a foot of mud. You thrill to the wonder of the new while their attention wanes in the tranquility of nostalga. New songs make you fly and old songs make them cry. Eventually though, your new becomes old and others embrace a new that, to you, has painfully replaced what defined your Divine moment that now seems so very long ago. What you used to call a song service has now become worship and the expressions of those around you aren't what you learned during the first steps of your walk. Yet within you is a longing, a hunger, a vortex of youthful strength that, upon eagles wings, desires to soar. To extend the fullness of your physical reach, stretching without to dig deeper within, pressing in with every fiber of what now seems to be such feeble strength in that place of Presence. To lift your closed eyes if only to better gaze beyond the veil, to rise above every voice around in an audible declaration of freedom. Like the medieval town crier making known that which is unknown, issuing by decree the revelation of this newly discovered level in the endless depths of the raw creative force known as the love of God. That's the people in these pictures. That's worship in a place of freedom where you truly give your heart, mind, soul, and strength to the passion that comes from the Presence of Jesus Christ.