C.S. Lewis is famous for writing a small treatise called “The Weight of Glory.” Basically, he claims that we all, every day, influence people either toward heaven or hell. If you could see the glory that your neighbor will have on the final day, you may be tempted to fall to your knees in worship at what he or she has become.

If you could see the horror that your friend will become when everything is stripped away on that final day, you would be more horrified than all of the horror films ever made put together. And you are the one who has the responsibility, the “weight” of that glory or horror on your own shoulders. You share that burden of glory with Christ of course, but you are involved, and your words, actions, and prayers will be key to their final destiny.

Desert Warrior Ministries has the byline “A Burden of Glory” which comes from this idea by C.S. Lewis (one of my favorite writers). Some people call it a “burden for the lost” which is also correct, but I want to go deeper into this “burden” that we share with Christ as we suffer for the gospel. Our burden for the lost is that they would experience "glory" and not "horror."

Sometimes, when I am listening to one of Pastor John Piper’s sermons (another favorite), and he talks about the power of valuing Jesus above everything else in life, my heart drops a bit. It’s not his fault of course. I haven’t listened to all of his sermons (and they are certainly not all on YouTube in the first place) so this has nothing really to do with him. But still. It represents something that deeply worries me. Many pastors end up preaching to the twenty percent and not to the eighty percent majority. Or even worse, assuming that the majority of the people listening to them on a Sunday morning are actually committed Christians involved in the ministry of reconciliation. Not true. Otherwise, the world would be turned upside down.

It’s called the Pareto Principle and applies to many areas of life. Twenty percent of our efforts gets us eighty percent of the results. In the church, twenty percent are actually involved, and eighty percent are simply observers. We all know that. And it isn’t just a question of wheat and tares either. Some people call the church the “sleeping giant of evangelicalism.” If Jesus could turn the world upside down with twelve disciples (Acts 17:6 NIV), why is it that we can have entire stadiums full of people who sing their hearts out but when they leave, nothing much happens.

We’ve talked about the religious spirit and the curse of church politics and that has something to do with it. We know that God often uses a “remnant” to get his work done. He pares down Gideon’s army so that it becomes obvious that it is “not by power nor by might but by my Spirit” (Zechariah 4:6-9). We know that but it doesn’t change the fact that our “burden” is often for those inside the church as well as the lost outside the church. And what do you do if the eighty percent are the ones in charge of the church?

What I want to point out is that the “burden of glory” whether for the lost outside the church or the combination of tares and wheat who are apathetic inside the church, is a necessary ingredient for an anointed leader who wants to break the curse of church politics and lead people into effective ministry. Maybe it starts just with you. Maybe a few church leaders will get involved or a small group may support you in following this way of the cross. In any event, it will start with some segment of the twenty percent, but the goal is for it to spread like a revival to the rest of the church.

In Argentina in the 70’s and 80´s there was a country-wide revival that still has some aftershocks today in the Evangelical church. We were a country that was just coming out of a dictatorship that “disappeared” thirty thousand people and lost a war over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands. Democracy was on the horizon and people were full of hope for a new beginning. This was also true in the church as well.

It started with prayer as all good revivals do. People were getting together during the week and breaking out in weeping for the future of Argentina both spiritually and physically. They didn’t understand it themselves, but it motivated them to follow the way of the cross. People confessed their sins, forgave each other, and reconciled. There was a great wave of reconciliation that took years to complete between the army and the leftist rebels who fought them. It was a great mixture of spiritual and worldly motives and needs, but God didn’t mind. Most of his best work is rather messy.

But I find that many people today pray for revival without understanding the role of confession, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation, especially at the leadership level. The call to revival has no teeth, no power, no direction and so it goes nowhere. What the anointed leader must realize is that he is praying for a revival within the church. Call it “renewal” if you like. Some people want to reserve the word “revival” for when God breaks out of the church to affect society directly. So, pray for renewal but give the idea of renewal the respect it deserves.

Renewal isn’t just getting back to a good place that you were at once before. It isn’t playing second fiddle to the idea of revival. It is in fact a prerequisite to revival and therefore more foundational, more important, more lasting. Revivals are spectacular. They are often filled with Signs and Wonders, and they have a real impact on society. At least for a couple of years. Funny thing about revivals, they don’t seem to last very long. Renewal on the other hand, has the opportunity to last for the lifetime of the person who is being renewed. It is the transformation of the individual, not just of society in general, as good as that may be at the time.

So, the anointed leader who is following the way of the cross in the context of a ministry of reconciliation and is dedicated to passionate and fervent prayer rooted in spiritual authority must pray specifically for renewal/revival within the church. He must seek out like-minded people within his church or denomination and continue to pray that God would honor their commitment to the way of the cross. Remember that it is messy and there needs to be a lot of grace, but prayer always comes before renewal/revival, and that prayer needs to be focused and passionate and become a true “burden of glory.”

There are twelve prayers that I have added to my Spiritual Prayer Map. Remember we talked about how important it is that our prayers are in alignment with the will of God. You can find all the details in the previous post.

I want to talk about my favorite prayer which I call the Living Sacrifice Prayer. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1,2 NIV).

I tell God that I am willing to be a living sacrifice for the sake of my kids, my friends, and my church to be a true and faithful witness so they can be brought into the kingdom of God. A living sacrifice, just like Jesus, always has a redemptive purpose. And when you have that level of commitment to the lost, and you know them by name many times, you start to “agree” with God’s “good, pleasing, and perfect will.” It doesn’t matter what happens, if it has a redemptive purpose, then I am willing. I no longer fight God’s will especially when it comes to suffering for the gospel. In fact, I agree with it, even if it hurts.

And don’t ever think that my prayers are perfectly “honest.” Not at all. I don’t always want to be a “living sacrifice.” I don’t really want to suffer for the gospel. I am a coward when it comes to pain. But my prayers are prayers of faith, not fact. I pray them and I ask God to make them real in my life. I walk by faith not by sight and my spirituality isn’t that deep. All I can do is pray these prayers and ask God to make them so in my life even if I cry and weep all the way to the cross along the road of suffering.

After all, it is still true. I would do anything for my children, my family, my friends. The problem is that God has this tendency to do things differently and with my luck he will make me suffer for someone I don’t like at all, a frenemy or a straight-out, no-hold-barred enemy. It would be just like Him. Goodness. But still….

I even have to pray that God would truly give me a burden for the lost. I write it in my byline, and I call myself The Desert Warrior when I am more like The Desert Weakling. But these are prayers of faith that God is creating a new person out of the old one, that he is the author and finisher of my faith, and that I will be presented without spot or blemish on that final day. Even I have to learn to treat myself as I am in Christ and not as I am in the flesh or in the present. That is not easy to do but it needs to be done in faith in the work of Christ. We have to learn to treat each other that way and it begins with ourselves.

Still, there are two things that are key to developing this “Burden of Glory” when we are praying for renewal/revival in our own lives and churches. After all, if we are honest about our motives, there may be some spiritual pride involved in leading a church that is experiencing effective ministry. That would be normal (but not spiritually healthy). Very seldom are our motives all that pure. That is called “the pollution of sin” which is like the background radiation of the universe that just exists and is there whether we like it or not. But still, as I study the Word, I have come to the conclusion that there are two things that I need to pray for if I truly want to have this “burden of glory” for the lost within and outside the church.

And don’t forget that these two truths are not “simple facts” that we have to agree to but rather feel deeply in the depths of our souls. That is not the case yet with me. I am praying and sometimes I am surprised that it shows up in some small measure but again, it is a question of faith in the author and finisher of our faith.

The first truth that we need to feel deeply is again in imitation of God. We imitate God when we forgive others by the blood of Christ and when we reconcile with others (and ourselves) by treating people as they will be in Christ. But there is a deeper more intimate imitation of God that we need to learn, feel, and experience in the depths of our souls. The Book of Revelation gives us the clue. It is a book that was written to give us God’s perspective on the entire history and tragedy of mankind.

The Bible calls it the “second death” and it is a horrible thing to even contemplate. There is no coming back from it. It is final, permanent, and the absolute worst thing that can happen to his children (all humankind). Yes, it is also called the “lake of sulfur” among other things but there are hardly any words to describe what it will be like. The Bible talks about fire and pain and suffering but that doesn't even touch the surface. There is no avoiding it (other than through Christ). Although God, as the Judge of all Mankind sends us to hell, our feet hurry to leave his presence because we are full of the fear of even looking in his direction. Fear can be changed to love in this life but it is permanent and everlasting if you enter eternity without the "perfect love" that casts out fear (1 John 4:18 NIV). So there is some urgency to the situation.

Hell is deeply relational. It is the flip side of spirituality. It is permanent because there is no longer any way to reverse the problem, to heal the relationship with God, to turn fear into love on that side of the grave. It is in the nature of things that evil cannot abide the presence of God and that God cannot abide the presence of evil. As it should be. The problem is that people are involved. If it were only the Devil and his demons. So be it. But real people, just like you and I, will enter into eternity not realizing that their rebellion against God, conscious or not, has already condemned them to flee His presence, to hide in the bushes, to dread his gaze upon them, regardless of what they have done. It is the nature of things.

Yes, you can say that God is even now putting up with evil every day but only because of the promise (Old Testament) and the fulfillment of the promise (New Testament) of the coming and ministry of Christ to bridge that gap, to heal that relationship, to rescue at least some of his people. But that truce will not last forever. Sooner or later it must end. That is also in the nature of things.

What we do know is that God is deeply and personally committed to saving us from that horrible end. Jesus once told his disciples not to fear those who can kill the body but rather those who can kill both body and soul in hell (Matthew 10:28 NIV). Hell is not a very popular topic but until you get your head (and heart) around it, you won’t understand God at all. He is paying the greatest price that can be paid, doing everything, moving heaven and earth to save people from that horrible destination. Above all, God has a “burden for the lost.”

Sometimes, when I am with the people in the hospital waiting for an appointment with the doctor or being patient as chemo is forced into my veins for over two hours, I can almost not stop myself from weeping. Yes, sure, I suppose I am more sensitive these days with all of the things I am going through myself, but the truth is that my path is nothing compared to the others in the room. The children who won’t see their next birthdays, the older folk who have resigned themselves to a slow death. It isn’t just the pain that they are going through but rather that they have no hope, nobody to tell them that they will be alright on a fundamental level, that death cannot touch them, that someone has overcome death on their behalf.

To tell you the truth I am quite torn when I look at these people. I hear all of the wonderful worship songs that talk about our desire to see an end to all things, to enjoy heaven with our Lord, to worship him with all of our hearts for all eternity, and to enter into a world that no eye has seen and no ear has heard and neither has it entered into the heart of man (1 Corinthians 2:9 NIV). Boring it won’t be. I’m getting excited just talking about it.

But then I look at the people around me, each one a precious individual with a mixture of gifts and problems, with children that they love and parents that they are taking care of as they go through their last days. Normal people and my heart breaks for them. I am not oblivious to the sin within and the multitude of problems in, around and because of each one of us. The problem is that I also have that disease, that pollution of sin, being prone to evil even as a Christian. And it is true that God’s justice will be absolutely fair, but hell is still hell, and I am deeply grateful for God’s patience (2 Peter 3:8 NIV) even as I despair at the depth of sin around and in each one of us.

In other words, the price of Christ’s return is the loss of all these people. I cannot cry “Maranatha, come Lord Jesus” without also crying out “Be patient with us, O Lord.” The only way to respond to those two truths is to have a burden for the lost and get to work bringing the gospel to anyone who will hear us. Our tears will be accompanied with joy because we know that “he will wipe away every tear from our eyes” (Revelations 21:4a NIV). Sure, those will be tears of pain and trouble that we had to go through in life, but, I believe, that they will also be tears of sorrow for those who were lost.

Perhaps if we lived in more terrible times (or places) like during the Second World War with Hitler and his death camps, we would be more likely to focus on asking Jesus to come back quickly. But even during those dark times, God was able to bring many people to salvation and provide deep and lasting testimonies of his grace (read Corrie Ten Boon). So, I stand by my statement that we must yearn for his return and weep for his patience at the same time, which is what it means to have a burden for the lost.

After all, I have my wife and family but most of all, I have God. He loves me so much that he paid the greatest price to save me from sin, from myself, from my own self-sabotage, my own rebellion. At the end of a life full of starts and stops, mess-ups, and half-hearted attempts, he still loves me and promises me that death is nothing but falling asleep and that he will be with me through it all. Not very many people have that hope, that relationship with God, and it often breaks my heart.

That isn’t really me, you know, but rather the Holy Spirit who is groaning within me (Romans 8:26,27 NIV). But he is expressing something that I actually feel even if it is only the size of a mustard seed. Perhaps it would be better to say that we feel it together. Yes, that’s it. We feel it together.

Until you feel that “burden for the lost” in the context of the second death and understand how deeply God is committed to saving as many as he can (2 Peter 3:9-13 NIV), you won’t find the motivation to give up everything, do anything, pay any price to save even one person from that horrible end. In other words, we must think in terms of eternity and not in terms of this world. From an eternal perspective, certain things matter more than others. If you don’t feel it yet, pray fervently that God would develop this “burden” in your soul that you can carry together with Christ when you take his yoke upon your shoulders (Matthew 11:28-30 NIV).

But what is this other thing that we also need to believe deep down in our souls?

The incredible thing is that as we work for the furtherance of the gospel, the Lord will reward us. It isn’t about a big budget, or a world-class reputation but rather the rewards that only the Lord can give us. Remember that our motives normally live in a cesspool of selfish interest and ego-boosting opportunities. God forgive us. The only thing we can do is learn to desire the rewards that God has in store for us.

So, what are those rewards? Glory.

That’s it. Isn’t it great?

Not if you have no idea of what it means. The glory of God is his character, the fact that he fulfilled his justice with his love at the cost of his own son. That is the glory of God. It is most clearly seen on the cross of Christ where the Son obeys his Father even if it leads into the jaws of hell. That character is what the Bible calls “glory.” It is beautiful. It is breathtaking. It is better than standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and seeing glimpses of eternity. It may not seem that way to us right now because we aren’t all that interested in our own character, much less getting the character of Christ.

Anyways, don’t we all get the character of Christ just by being “in Christ.”

Yes, and no.

Paul tells us that if we suffer with Christ, we will also be glorified with him (Romans 8: 17 NIV) and that when we suffer with Christ for the gospel in the context of the ministry of reconciliation, we will drink from the same cup that he drank from even (potentially) to the point of death. Did you think that the disciples, or even Paul, knew what they were getting into when they first started to follow Christ? Of course not.

By the way Peter, you have a choice between being a normal fisherman and being a fisher of men. Problem is that the second option will have you crucified upside down before you turn sixty years old (or so the legends tell us).

Paul, did you know beforehand that you would be whipped with forty lashes less one five times in your lifetime? He must have had permanent welts all over his body. You will be stoned, imprisoned, left out in the open sea for a day and a half, bitten by snakes, and finally, beheaded by Nero in some dark prison cell (2 Corinthians 11:24-25 NIV). That last part is again a part of legend, but it rings true and doesn’t change the point.

His disciples were generally ill-treated and probably all martyred for their faith. That most likely won’t happen to us in the same way (although that depends) but my point is that this willingness to sacrifice everything to suffer for the gospel and focus their entire ambition, their desires, their fulfillment on this nebulous idea that they would be glorified with Christ in some particular way that other Christians would not, is a strange and beautiful motivation that most of us don’t really understand.

The Book of Revelation once again gives us some clues, although they are strange ones at best. The first one is rather straightforward. We will receive the “crown of life” if we suffer (and potentially die) for the gospel (James 1:12, Rev. 2:10 NIV). We will become a “pillar in the Temple of our God” (Revelations 3:12 NIV). We will share a special name with Christ that only he and us will know (Revelations 3:12 NIV). We will get some "hidden manna" and "a white stone" with a new name written on it (Revelations 2:17 NIV). And it goes on.

Stimulating stuff.

Lots of metaphors of course and you have to unpack them just a bit to get at their meaning but when it all comes out, the point is that we will have a special relationship with Christ that is a result of that shared experience of suffering for the gospel.

The most important thing to God, to Christ, and to the Holy Spirit is the salvation of the lost. It is the only reason that the sun comes up in the morning (2 Peter 3:9 NIV) and all of the resources of heaven are dedicated to this one great rescue attempt. When we participate in that suffering for the gospel whether it leads to our martyrdom or not, we share an intimacy with the Godhead, and especially with Jesus, that others simply will not have.

You can joke about it and tell Peter that he is about to be crucified upside down so that he will get a white stone with a new name on it, but Peter would probably just laugh out loud for the sheer joy of knowing that he will experience an intimacy with Christ that is worth a thousand deaths and more. According to legend, Peter refused to be crucified upside right because he did not feel worthy to die in the same way as his Master.

Paul felt it too. “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18 NIV). Not worth comparing with the forty lashes minus one that he received five times? Not worth comparing with the stoning he received, the beatings, the shipwrecks, the snake bites, the beheading that was probably his end at the hands of Nero who burned Christians at the stake covered in tar to light his night garden parties? It’s not worth comparing? Were these guys crazy or did they know something that we still haven't learnt?

Peter and Paul both had the “burden of glory” but in this case we can call it the “desire for glory.”

The burden of glory and the desire for glory are the two sides of the kind of motivation that truly inspires God’s people to do great things for him at any cost. Jesus called it “life” and others “abundant life” which we have a foretaste of here but have it in overwhelming waves of joy that no eye has seen, and no ear has heard and neither has it even entered into the mind of men (1 Corinthians 2:9 NIV). After all, God has to keep some secrets just to keep it interesting.

But really, the problem is that we just can’t comprehend the joy that comes from this intimacy with Christ through shared ministry and suffering. If you don’t value it above everything else, then you must start to pray to God that he would develop in you this “desire for glory” while, at the same time, he gives you this “burden of glory.”

And they do go together, you know. They both grow together as you get involved in ministry. Once you have been used by God in the transformation of a particular person, your "joy" will start to grow, and you won't be able to stop. Don’t worry about the suffering or whether you will actually “rejoice” in it. I’m still looking for the joy in my cancer, but I know it’s there. It always has a redemptive purpose. It will be revealed when the time is right (or probably only in glory). In the meantime, the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Ministry is the missing link.

We cannot grow in the likeness of Christ if we are not involved in the ministry and purpose of his life. As we become more like him, we will learn to value what he values and desire what he desires. His food and drink were to do the will of his Father (John 4:34 NIV) but he also learned obedience (or the value of obedience) through what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8 NIV). Even for Christ, it was a process and for us even more.

Without a “burden and desire for glory” why would you bother to do all this work? Why pray fervently? Why put up with the abuse? Why take the risk of getting fired? It’s too much work. I have often said that new pastors have a three to five-year window in which to decide whether they will follow Christ into the wilderness or conform to the expectations of the Board.

What price are you willing to pay for this burden and desire for glory? That is the only question that matters. His presence. My reward.

The Desert Warrior