Bill Tell, Author at Lay it Down by Bill Tell

The Dangerous Virtue of Safety

Posted on February 4, 2016 Written by Bill Tell 8 Comments

The advance of the gospel needs leaders. Leaders who don’t play it safe. Who risk and are ready for adventure. Leaders who will unbuckle their seat belts and get out of their safe comfort zone. Jesus’ 12 disciples quickly saw their comfort zones disappearing in the rear view mirror. For example:

“Okay men, put those nets down, leave that nice job behind and follow me.”
“Let’s go across to the other side. Never mind the storm.”
“I have a little trip for you, but leave behind all your money, food, and other equipment.”
“Stop talking about sending them home. Feed them. There are only 5,000.”
“Why are you scared out of your wits – it’s no ghost. It’s me.”
“Remember the 5,000? Let’s do it again here in the desert.”

The disciples were learning a FOUNDATIONAL LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: comfort and safety are not in the circumstances, but in the One who controls the circumstances.

And so it is for today’s gospel leaders and disciples. Pursuing circumstantial safety leaves you on the sidelines…it leaves you behind. Out of the game. Jesus said, “Where I am there will my servant be also (John 12:26). And that will be a place of adventure!

Remember Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia describing Aslan the lion? Aslan “isn’t safe. But he’s good.” Edwin Freidman in his best-selling book, A Failure of Nerve, writes, “there is real danger [when] we come to believe that safety is the most important value in life…Safety can never be allowed to become more important than adventure”(emphasis mine).

QUESTIONS:

If you need to take a first step out of your comfort zone what would that be? When are you going to do it? Share that with us. You are in a safe place.
Are you already on an adventure with Jesus that is taking you out of your comfort zone? Describe it to us.

ACTION:

Share this post with a friend. We need to build an army of adventurous followers of Jesus.

The Six Steps from Grace to License

Posted on January 28, 2016 Written by Bill Tell 12 Comments

“Their design is to replace the sheer grace of God with sheer license…” Jude 4 (The Message)

For some believers there are a series of subtle incremental steps that cause them to exchange the grace of God for a life of license and sensuality. Grace never promotes sin or makes one want to sin…so something has gone wrong — not with grace but with them. Here are six steps to be alert for in our lives to keep us from sliding down the slippery slope to license.

The first one is not a small step. It’s a leap—a fatal leap that makes it hard to stop and not continue taking the next steps. The leap to this first step is forgetting I still need to mature spiritually and that my sanctification requires effort on my part. I ignore my responsibility to be involved with the Spirit of God in my growth and solely focus on my justification.

My justification is an incomprehensible miracle. Jesus paid the penalty for all my sin. His obedience is imputed to me. God looks at me and sees the righteousness of Christ, not my sin, and declares me righteous. Incredible…but here is where my first step away from grace can begin. I am so convinced (and rightly so) that God sees me as perfect in Christ, I wrongly forget I am a spiritual babe that needs to grow. I forget that even though God sees me perfect in Christ, in my reality I still sin. And so I allow my justification to wrongly tell me that my perfection in Christ is the only thing that matters.

When I believe this then the inertia to the second step away from grace becomes unstoppable. If I think that God only sees my perfection, then I mistakenly conclude that He is unaware of my sin. Now the momentum increases.

Thirdly, if the only thing God sees is my positional perfection in Christ and He is not aware of my sin and need to mature in my reality, then my sin and immaturity is not an issue or concern to God. I can do anything I want and it will not bother God.

This quickly leads to the fourth step, that my sin does not affect God. My only belief is that God is looking at me through the righteousness of Christ and is pleased with me. And He is. I forget that my sin also grieves Him (Ephesians 4:30). He may be pleased with me, but He is not at all pleased with what I have done…and what it is doing to me.

I can now take the fifth step. If God is unaware of my sin, and it is not a concern to Him or bothers Him in any way, then there is no reason for the Spirit of God to convict me of my sin. I can stop feeling guilty. Wow – does this ever feel freeing. I interpret feeling guilty as a sign of my unbelief that God sees me as perfect.

Sixth – if God is unaware of my sin, is unconcerned about my behavior and I can do anything I want then I can stop asking for forgiveness. The confession I was taught in I John 1:9 to practice I now apply only to unbelievers.

And there it is. I have exchanged the best life I could ever have, designed for me from before the beginning of time, for a life filled with the deceitful lure and promises of sin. I think I am free…but I am deeply deceived. “Take heed…” (I Cor 10:12).

QUESTION: What are your stepping stones away from grace? Let’s have a conversation – leave a comment.

ACTION: Remember to subscribe by email. Forward to a friend.

Excellence – a Behavior or a Life?

Posted on January 21, 2016 Written by Bill Tell 2 Comments

As believers, we have not been called to a way of behaving but to a way of living. There is a HUGE difference. It takes will-power to modify my behavior. It took a miracle to change how I live.

I can feel the intensity when Jesus (Mt 23:23-27) rebukes the Pharisees and calls them hypocrites for having only an outward excellence that did not originate from a transformed inner being. “For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful…but within are full of uncleanness.” They had rules galore to excellentize (new word!) their external behavior. But rules and all the effort I can muster can’t go inside me to where consistency begins and hypocrisy is ended.

Judith Hougen in her book Transformed into Fire describes our experience when we, like the Pharisees, focus on excellent behavior; “…you are dedicated to following religious codes but, for all your performance, have only tasted the steel rigidity of rules, not the abundance that Jesus promised.”

Jesus promised a new way of living. We have been united with Jesus so that “we…might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). That is why he continually invites us to stop leading ourselves (Luke 9:23 – “deny yourself”) and follow Him into an excellent life. Into a transformed life where we stop tasting the rigidity of rules but taste the freedom of the very presence of God.

Question: What is a next step you can take to experience the excellence of the “newness of life” that is yours? Leave a comment so we can be in this together.

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