The Elevated Road.

I have a friend named Trenita. I seriously loved her the first time I met her.

She’s fabulous.

She’s witty.

She’s got a spunk like you would not believe.

She’s got a passion that’s contagious.

And, she’s just a rock-star. For. Real.

Trenita serves with me along with our amazing-best-ever-group-of-volunteers VIP team at Elevation Church.

Every other Saturday night [rain or shine] we make our way to the parking lot and spend most of our night giving first-time guests to Elevation Church the red-carpet treatment.

Elevation LOVES guests. We feel like they are the most important people that walk through the doors each weekend and we want to honor them for visiting with us. [You should really come visit us!]

I love watching Trenita interact with first-time guests. She takes that spit-fire passion that she has and uses it in a way that brings Jesus some major glory.

Well a few weeks ago, I watched Trenita interact with a less-than-ideal conversation. It was one of those situations [that we have all been in] where there were two roads to take.

1. The let me tell you what I really think road.

or

2. The elevated road.

As difficult as it was, I saw Trenita take the elevated road with so much grace, goodness and love.

She inspired me because sometimes I don’t always want to take the elevated road.

The elevated road looks like this:

~We are all moving up together.

~I’ll show you grace…you show me grace.

~I don’t have to prove you wrong.

~I don’t have to be right.

~Sometimes words unspoken are the best.

~If words are spoken they are words of life.

The let-me-tell-you-what-I-really-think road looks like this:

~I need to be ahead of you.

~Its my way or your out.

~I’m in control.

~My words are more important than your opinion.

~If I don’t like something, I’m going to tell you.

Throughout the gospels we saw Jesus continually taking the elevated road. While He always spoke the truth, He took many hits for the Kingdom of God. Sometimes while I’m reading the Bible, it makes me angry to see how much Jesus went through for the Kingdom.

But, one of the greatest lessons we can learn from the way Jesus handled difficult situations  is:

Sometimes, you just gotta take one for the team.

This doesn’t just apply to church situations either.

~Marriage mis-communications

~Neighbors who do not understand the meaning of personal space

~The rude clerk at the grocery store

~The guy who pulls out in front of you

~The snippy person on the other line of a phone call

~The one-sided story that gets told

We always have this amazing opportunity to take people [and ourselves] to a higher place.

The elevated road is a gift.

It offers room to breathe. Room for mistakes, mis-communication and the chance to write our errors in the sand -not on stone. It moves us from the voice of condemnation to the truth of forgiveness.

And it allows us to get better not bitter.

I want to leave you with this thought today from Bill Hybels book, Axiom.

Bill was getting ready to resign from a church he had served at as a youth pastor. There had been a lot of frustrations along his journey there and he had written a letter of resignation filled with the voice of, “the let-me-tell-you-what-I-really-think-road”.

As he went over his letter with a wise friend, and his friend suggest he NOT go this route.

He offered up these wise words to Bill,

“Bill, I cannot urge you enough to take the high road on Sunday. Bless what you can bless. Thank everyone you can thank. Cheer on what is appropriate to cheer on. And be done with it.”

I think that is an excellent summary of the elevated road.

Let’s do this today. Let’s live this pursuit of spurring other’s on towards the elevated road. The Kingdom of God is better for it.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. – Matthew 5:11-12