Christ John Otto directs Belonging House, an international community of artists and creative people.
You can find out more at https://belonging.house
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Over the past few years I have gained a lot of wisdom and insight from a handful of marketing and leadership gurus.
Often I find their perspective is closer to Jesus
than most of the Christian teaching out there.
You have heard me talk a bit about Seth Godin.
A lot of how I approach our work comes from the Marketing Seminar.
It was one on the best uses of a Sabbatical I can suggest.
Another person I highly recommend is Simon Sinek.
Often he talks about leadership,
and it seems to come right out of the Sermon on the Mount.
One of my favorite quotes of his is
"Great leaders eat last."
Years ago when the TED talks were just beginning,
Simon Sinek did a talk with a paper flip chart and a magic marker
titled "Great leaders lead from their why."
It is one of the most watched TED talks of all time.
I have learned that regularly I have to come back to my why.
Why am I raising up artists to build Jesus a throne in the earth?
Along with this
I have to check and see if my How and what are following my why.
This is an important thing any leader or freelancer needs to do regularly.
About 90% of the “christians in the arts”
are undercutting their “why” with their “how.”
And our why is in this week's readings.
I live by faith,
listen to God and do what he tells me,
and raise up artists
to make a way for the coming of the Lord.
I live out of a suitcase and keep a simple life
because I am in love with a King
and I long for his returning.
When you are in love
you will do anything for your lover.
This longing for the return of Jesus
is the undercurrent in why God called us.
The Bible ends with all the nations of the earth
bringing the best of their art and culture into the city
for the King.
In that place,
and several others,
it is clear,
the best of human culture is going to last after the return of Jesus
and we are going to lay it before him as an offering.
Jesus came preaching the Kingdom.
He modeled a kingdom lifestyle,
and when he died on the cross,
He instituted and legally established his right to rule and reign on the earth.
This rule and reign was confirmed when he rosed from the dead.
And the ultimate sign of his rule in heaven as Priest and King
was the destruction of the Temple,
and the end of the Old Covenant sacrificial system.
The early church understood this,
and this is why the Ascension is referred to so often in the New Testament and the early church.
And Jesus is laying this out before us in Luke 21.
To us it is confusing
because we look at the passages like today's readings
and Matthew 24 and 25
and we hear them through
inadequate end times prophecy teaching
or religious grids.
When we talk about the prophetic in the Bible,
we are talking about revelation that is coming from eternity.
Many people understand the prophetic as a series of messages or pictures that come from heaven on a wire.
We think that we are receiving a linear message
because we think of these things in a temporal way—
in other words, we think that time exists in eternity.
There is no time in eternity.
Time was created
and it is fallen.
Outside of time,
where Jesus reigns,
it is always now.
Eternity is not a lot of time,
eternity is something other than time.
It is another dimension.
And this is why Jesus can be all places at all times right now.
And so Isaiah can be talking about Cyrus the great,
and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the same sentence,
because he is relating what he is seeing in the eternal realm.
When he wrote those things, he did not know what he was seeing.
Most of the time prophets do not fully understand what they see.
This is why so much of the prophetic movement gets it wrong.
Rather than holding it lightly,
they immediately interpret, and most of the interpretations are wrong.
And those interpretations became more important than the word itself.
When we receive information about more than one thing
in eternity
It is not either/or, but rather both/and.
And in this passage about the destruction of the temple,
Jesus is talking about that event
and also his return and establishment of the Kingdom.
He is seeing both at the same time
in the eternal realm.
This is what Peter was talking about when he said that
to the Lord a thousand years is like a day.
We misunderstand this and try to date when things are happening.
Peter who walked with Jesus knew
that sometimes was relaying information from out of time.
So in Luke 21
Jesus is talking about the way the earth will respond
when his kingdom will be established.
There are really only two words in this chapter that are important:
Signs
and
Watch.
Longing for the King