Fresh Start

Isaiah 52:12 NIV

But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

How Does the New Year Look?

Now that Christmas has passed and all the rush of it has settled, there is a certain amount of reminiscing that happens.  Perhaps these stories of Christmas will warm your heart!  One woman told of her business friend’s daughter who refused the gift of a “new, gold Mercedes convertible because, she told her parents, ‘You knew I wanted a black one. ‘’’ Another writer had this horror story to tell.  “My boss told me they had to go to the Apple store after closing to return the iPhone 8 her nephew’s parents bought for the child after he cried all Christmas Day because he wanted the iPhone X.”  Listen to this great story.  “My childhood best friend threw a three hour crying fit when her high school boyfriend propose to her on Christmas.  The reason?  The ring he proposed with wasn’t the one she wanted.”   One more to help you appreciate your own Christmas Day.  “An acquaintance yelled at his aunt after she gave him a $50 Amazon gift card, demanded cash and then when his aunt refused (rightfully)—threw the card at her and left the family party.  He’s 40.”  How would you like to have those family members on your gift list?

Not everyone finds Christmas time to be a happy part of the year and in fact many aren’t all that thrilled about facing a new year either.  Haunting memories and traumatic experiences beat down the future for them.  Recent setbacks and crushing mistakes may give the new year a certain ring of doom to it; a foreboding pinned to it.  Perhaps this coming year is not exciting for you, it carries with it the same humdrum and disappointments previous years offered.  Not everyone looks forward to January 1 with anticipation and enthusiasm.  Some of us, and perhaps you do too, have a bit of dread as you await the coming year.  It is not crazy to feel that way.  You certainly aren’t alone if that is where you find yourself.

Many of us made big mistakes last year.  David from the Bible certainly is famous for several.  One that is rarely talked about is the time he decided to use his soldiers to count how many men he had who could serve in his army.  The commander of his forces was incredulous!  But Joab replied to the king, "May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?" (2 Samuel 24:3 NIV) David would not back down and so for the next nine months Joab and his associates tramped all over Israel counting the men.  Altogether there were 1.3 million potential soldiers in the kingdom.  Something about his order to take the census though did not set well with David.  David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing." (2 Samuel 24:10 NIV)

Somehow David realized that his demand to count the fighting men of Israel was a grievous offense to God and he was right.  Before David got up the next morning, the word of the Lord had come to Gad the prophet, David's seer:  "Go and tell David, 'This is what the Lord says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you.'" (2 Samuel 24:11-12 NIV) The choices were not good.  So, Gad went to David and said to him, "Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me." (2 Samuel 24:13 NIV) If it was me, I would have asked if there was a fourth option, but of course there wasn’t, and it would have been ridiculous of me to pose the question.  We cannot say for certain what about the census was so wrong; God after all ordered a number of them (pardon the pun) when the Israelites were making their way to the Promised Land.  It seems though that David was making the kingdom about himself and the ability it had to fend for itself rather than relying upon God and His power to save them.  Whatever the case, this was a huge mistake of David’s, publicly humiliating, and certainly he regretted it the rest of his life.

We must say that Job had a pretty rough year.  So did Ruth, losing her husband and Silas being beaten within an inch of his life.  Many of us still carry the scars of mistakes we have made, mistreatment we have suffered and losses that have nearly broken us.  Imagine if Thomas ended the year doubting the resurrection of Jesus, Peter suffering through his denial of Jesus, Mary her fears that Jesus had gone insane, and Euodia and Synteche and their humiliating quarrel that created turmoil in the Philippian church.  Your year might not have been very good, and it is certain that nearly every important person in the Bible had a pretty bad year too.

God makes a promise to us through the prophet Isaiah.  But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. (Isaiah 52: 12 NIV) You have trailing you memories of mistakes you have made and hurts you have suffered and perhaps for you they are like a lion hunting your down into this coming year.  They plague your plans and bring a certain amount of dread to the coming year.  God though is your rear guard.  He is the Savior of your past.  There are some things that you have done that were wrong and really wrong; words that never should have come out of your mouth.  Actions you took that were harmful to you or someone else.   Decisions you made that are costing you dearly.  Not only that, you have been hurt by others and the wounds are still tender, troubles have hit you that seem impossible to overcome.  Yet God is your rear guard.  He is the protector of your past and He will carry you out of it into a new day.

When the Israelites stood at the edge of the Promised Land, they had to decide if they were going to leave behind their past wanderings or enter into a new adventure.  It was a fresh day, that early morning as they marched up to the Jordan River.  It was a fresh start.  It was not just what was before them that could keep them back; it was what was behind them too.  You are at the edge of a new year and God is ready to lead you across December and into January.  What lies ahead you cannot say.  You do know what is behind you and it is up to you if you are going to let Christ your Savior take care of it, take it out of Satan’s hands and give it a new life as a step in the right direction.  Plenty let the past keep them from what God has ahead for them.  Surely you aren’t that sort.  You believe the promise God has for you as is recorded in the old King James Translation of the Bible, Behold, I make all things new. (Revelation 21:5 KJV) Whatever is behind, God is making it right so that you can move forward with His creativity and insight and direction and power and forge together, the two of you, a bright and “glorious morn”.  Today is the day you cross the river and start fresh with Christ as your Savior leading the way.

The Great Revelation

Luke 2:15 NIV

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

My earliest memory of Christmas was when final proof came that Santa Claus was real.  I was perhaps four or five years old and Christmas Eve, I heard a loud banging around on the porch, a boisterous, “ho, ho, ho” and a firm knock on the door.  My mom urged me to open the door and go out on the porch and I found the most beautiful tricycle in the world sitting there.  I shouted with glee, jumped up and down and gazed in wonder at what Santa had left for me.  The joy of Christmas was gloriously physical, encompassing, radiating.  Of course, my take on Christmas is much more sophisticated now and so is yours but, I wonder if that makes us better.

Christmas was not always Christian, at least in regard to the time of the year we celebrate it.  We know that it was first a pagan holiday, a time of drinking and carousing.  Yet, it did not immediately “clean up its act” even after the Christian community took it over and made Christmas a time of celebrating the birth of Jesus.  There was much about the reveling that made it a fearful time for good families who avoided the drunken mobs running the streets during Christmas.  It really was not until the Protestant Christians of Germany embraced Christmas fully as a time of honoring the Christ child that Christmas took on its holiness and wonder.

The night Jesus was actually born a great split in the cosmos occurred as the supernatural met the natural in a spectacular display.  Rarely do we see the supernatural beings of God’s universe; they remain almost entirely hidden from us.  Abraham came upon them.  Elisha did too, along with Samson’s parents and Jacob.  They are generally spotted only in dreams if at all.  Of the many billions who have come and gone, only a handful have ever seen God’s angels and knew they had.  However, that one night, whose date has been forgotten by the world, a small cadre of shepherds were stunned by their sudden appearance.

Only Luke records the moment.  The other Gospel writers and apostles failed to mention it when they wrote their parts of the Bible.  There was nothing notable about the night to warn the shepherds of what was coming as far as we know.  No meteor showers, lunar eclipses or bright Christmas stars paved the way.  It just happened without warning; a split second the shepherds were tired and bored and maybe even hungry and the next, the heavens exploded before them.  And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. (Luke 2:8-9 NIV) A single angel was enough to throw the shepherds into panic.  We certainly must not skirt quickly past the included note that the “glory of the Lord shone around them”, but, it was the solitary angel that shook them violently.  This consideration should not be taken lightly.  When the supernatural crashes down upon the natural, there is shock and amazement.  The senses are almost always dazzled and overwhelmed.  The spiritual core of humanity cannot take in the supernatural casually.  A violent eruption occurs within that shakes the ground of those who come upon it.

We know that the presence of the angel did not bring this to a conclusion though.  More of the night exploded with wonder as the shepherds took in the glory of God.  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:13-14 NIV) Imagine the spectacle of it and how shook they all must have been by what they witnessed.  Not a single shepherd could have been unmoved.  Before the sky filled with supernatural though, the first angel announced happily to the shepherds, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:10-12 NIV)

How would you have responded to this declaration?  What would you have done if you heard this strangely electrifying news?  Would you have continued to stay with your sheep that night?  Would you have kept watching your show or checking Facebook?  Would you have worked on your dinner or gone through your emails or maybe even headed off to bed?  Not everyone who comes upon the supernatural is transformed by it.  Plenty, like the Israelites who gave little thought to the God who revealed Himself to them in a cloud with lightning and great glory, simply go on with the day as if nothing much happened.  Such was not the case though with these shepherds!  When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. (Luke 2:15-16 NIV)

When God reveals Himself to you, it is a supernatural event.  No one comes to Christ without the Spirit of God intervening.  It is not an intellectual exercise, not a logical conclusion, this matter of being born again.  This is always a work of the supernatural Presence of God who makes it clear that you must come to Christ for salvation.  It never is just you and your mind making this connection.  Always God must be there for you to trust Him, want Him.  Any other religious or political or intellectual consideration can spring from just you but not this.  Jesus must enter your mind if you are to ever become actually Christian, truly a new creation in Christ.  The conclusion of the text is one of the most heartwarming accounts found anywhere in literature.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. (Luke 2:17-20 NIV)

When the supernatural meets you; when God invades your heart, you are stirred with either resentment toward Him or devotion to Him.  Satan and the Israelites who rebelled against God each did so because the glory of the Lord was frustrating to them and felt like a hindrance to what they wanted.  For the shepherds, it was the beginning of eternal life, the start of joy.  What does God do for you?  Does He stir up resentment and disappointment?  Do you get aggravated by what He expects of you or are you thrilled by His love for you, captivated by His presence in you?  Have you the pleasure of the shepherds in you; joyful that He is there with you?  You can quickly tell who has your heart, the devil or supernatural Jesus.  If it bugs you that Christ seems to expect so much of you, wants more out of you than you are willing to give, then Satan is more your friend than you might be willing to admit.  But, if there are no boundaries to how far you will go to glorify and bring honor to Jesus, then you are close to where the shepherds were, to where Jacob was and where Mary was as she sat with the crucified Christ in the tomb.  What sort of reaction does the presence of God here stir in your heart as you come before Him now?  Are you with the shepherds in this, full of joy at what the Lord has done in you or are you a bit cranky that He expects too much of you?

The Sin Factor

The miracle of the Cross is not sublime!  There is a mistaken teaching that has been passed around for hundreds of years that when Jesus Christ was crucified, he magically erased our sins, blotted them out as it were like divine suds.  That is not the case at all.  He bore our sins; took them into His own body and they putrefied within Him, sucked the life out of Him, and each one added to His misery.  Why is the Church so reluctant to see sin as the monstrosity it is?  Each sin we commit today adds to the shame and horror of the crucifixion Jesus endured two thousand years ago.  Only God could do this; bear sins committed tomorrow and not just the ones of yesterday.  As we sin and sin unthinkingly, we strike Jesus ourselves with the whip, drive the stake deeper in through his feet, take the rod and break it more ferociously upon his back and sides.  The sins of today are not nothing; they pry out of Christ's body more blood and break His heart even worse.  We may be free of real guilt but that does not mean Christ is.  He bears them all, the sins of yesterday as well as the ones of today and at some point, won't we just stop it?  Won't we fiercely reject the notion that we can sin freely and easily, and it doesn't matter?  John the Apostle says we don't have to keep sinning willy-nilly; we can put an end to it...not because we are evolving into righteousness, but because the Holy Spirit lives in us and empowers righteousness.  We are such fundamentalists when it comes to getting our garbage sorted among the various recycling options, but do we give the same care to the very sin that brought this mess upon us?  Pray with ferocious determination that God would keep you from temptation.  The Christian who comprehends the horror of sins will begin to loath the points where they invade the soul.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV

Seriously?

Isaiah 53:2 NIV

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

What Do You Make of Jesus?

I feel like I am often in the minority.  Somewhere around eighty percent of Americans have bought a lottery ticket, but I never have.  According to Consumer’s Research magazine, lotteries have the worst odds of any form of legalized gambling.  Only eight out of One Hundred million who play the lottery ever win a million dollars.  The odds of hitting the jackpot in California is one in fourteen million.  What is worse, if you were to win, a million dollars, the IRS takes twenty percent off the top.  After state and local governments take their part, you are only left with $560,000.  It gets worse.  The state pays only the first $50,000 in cash and then pays the rest over twenty years, saving itself $100,000.  In the end, the one-million-dollar prize is only worth about $468,000.  It doesn’t always go well for lottery winners either. In 1985, Donna Sobb won $100 in the California lottery, which qualified her for a 2 million-dollar jackpot.  But when her picture showed up in the local newspaper, a police officer recognized Sobb and she was arrested on an eight-month-old shoplifting warrant.  In 1986, the California lottery winner Terry Garret was arrested only months after winning one-million dollars.  He was caught selling cocaine out of the sports car he bought with the winnings.

The other day I was told in a conversation that my view of Christianity was fine for me but not hers in such a way that it seemed this person could not stomach it like a vegetarian looking at my hamburger or a MAC owner complaining having to put up with my PC.  What must be realized is that this person has the majority view of most people, at least here in California.  Many no longer take Christ seriously…certainly not the totality of Him.  They respect much of what Christianity has accomplished but reject the Lordship of Christ and the need for salvation.  There is no comprehension of the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, the Bible is devalued and disregarded and the goodness of a life lived in Christ is disdained.

The Bible predicted this low view of Jesus nearly three thousand years ago.  He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2 NIV) The root coming out of dry ground is worthless; has no future, no hope in it.  Jesus, the Bible said, would not be taken seriously, have no intrinsic value, nothing to draw people to Him. The miracles, the teaching, and most importantly the Cross would go unnoticed and disregarded.  The Bible admits that those who should have been most likely to embrace Jesus, the crowds of Jerusalem, screamed for His crucifixion.    The Pharisees and Sadducees and other religious leaders of His time tried to poke holes in His logic.  The Roman soldiers who took charge of Him when the Jewish authorities wanted Him killed mocked Jesus and cruelly abused Him.  Even today, the major religions of our time have not taken seriously what is said of Him in the Bible.  The Mormons claim He was the brother of Lucifer and never God in flesh.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe He was God and deny that He actually died on the Cross.  Hinduism, Iglesia Ni Christo and Islam all reject the premise that He is God and the only source of Eternal Life.  Jesus is not “good enough” to most of the people of this world and we cannot count on this turning around.

So, what should we do about the reaction of the world to Jesus Christ?  How should you respond to a great crowd of skeptics who work with you, go to school with you, go to the same parties, are at family gatherings you attend and work on your hair?  Make it clear that each person’s sins are monstrous and must be forgiven, that Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world and the one source of eternal life, that God can transform anyone into a new Creation who has the Spirit of the Lord living within, that every person must be born-again and given a new life through Jesus Christ.  What benefit is there to saying these kinds of things If the people hearing it have no respect for Jesus and don’t really believe in Him?  Consider the Scripture’s take on what is possible when God gets involved in a person’s life.

In Luke 13: 18 is a most provocative and critical statement made by Jesus.  He said that the Kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed.  Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to?  It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches." (Luke 13:18-19 NIV) A mustard seed is the most insignificant and inadequate little package of life you will ever encounter.  It holds absolutely no promise when you gaze upon it yet the most wondrous and glorious of flowering beacons of splendor rise up out of it.  You may tell a completely disinterested and self-satisfied soul that she needs Jesus to put her life together and it could seem like a waste of time and effort on your part, but it won’t be.  Immediately, God will plant a little bity seed of doubt in that heart.  A slight, imperceptible crack in the self confidence of that person will develop.  No one may see it.  No human eye will spot it but the doubt will begin to take root that everything is “fine with me”.  “It is not well with my soul” will begin to develop.

It is this planted Gospel mustard seed that will trigger a chain of events that can be devastating for the soul clinging to the lie that salvation is not needed and sin inconsequential.  God will bring circumstances that make unbelief illogical and untenable.   Questions will arise about eternity and life after death and relationships and purpose and direction.  Christ will become the elephant in the room; always lurking in the mind but avoided like the plague.  Something will happen though that will force a decision about Jesus; turn to Him for help or reject Him and hide from salvation.  It will be a great battle in the soul, a spiritual crisis of epic proportions.  What will come of it, we cannot say, but this will be true.  Jesus will be faced and given serious thought.  If He is received as Savior, all of Heaven’s power will come and join those souls and what seemed so meaningless and small will become the greatest force of good found anywhere in the universe.  When Christ becomes a part of them and He begins to transform them into mighty children of God, the amazement they will have as they look back on what they once were and how beautiful their lives are now with Jesus, they will wonder how they ever thought they could get along without Him.  If someone would try to convince them once they have Christ that salvation is unnecessary and the putting away of sins inconsequential, they would shake their heads and have this one response, “Seriously?”

Poured

Every marriage has its quirky side to it.   Ours is no exception.  When I throw something out, either in the garbage or into a recycling bin, it invariably returns, rises from the dead so to speak.  Sometimes this little dance between my wife and I will go through three or four cycles.  I throw something out, it shows up on the counter, I throw it out again, it is back on the table.  We are not always on the same page when it comes to what to keep and what to “recycle”.   A growing number of us are becoming increasingly conscious of the evils of wastefulness.  You are probably like me.  You recycle, you reuse, you repurpose.  You try not to buy items without having a legitimate reason for getting them.  This way of thinking filters down to other areas of life.  You don’t want to waste your time so when stuck in traffic you listen to podcasts, books or informational radio programs and you avoid areas where you know there will be backups and delays.  You count your calories and the minutes you waste waiting in line.  You probably were cut off by someone recently who was not wanting to lose a second by being behind you in traffic.  If someone in my family leaves a glass of milk on the counter, I am tempted to pour it back into the milk container rather than throw it out.  Maybe, you are like that too!

In an age of recycling and repurposing, there are two accounts in the Bible that come across as ridiculous. One is in the Old Testament and the second is in the New Testament.  David was a hero king.  He fought numerous battles, expanded the borders of Israel and forced several kings into subjugation.  It was not always easy; many times, he fought superior forces who had the upper hand.  In one such military endeavor, he found himself and his army surrounded by the Philistines who were bent on his destruction. Holed up in a cave, he had a craving. At that time David was in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was at Bethlehem.  David longed for water and said, "Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!" (2 Samuel 23: 15) Bethlehem was his hometown and the water from the well there was more precious to him than the finest of wines.  Three of his mightiest soldiers decided to break through the Philistine lines and grab some of the water and bring it to their beloved king.  When they arrived back with the water, David refused to drink any of it. … instead, he poured it out before the Lord.  "Far be it from me, O Lord, to do this!" he said. "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it.  (2 Samuel 23: 15-17 NIV)

This was of course a colossal waste of time and effort and no one would begrudge these three men for being furious with their king for not drinking the water they risked their lives delivering to him.  Yet that is the point.  We all are heading to dust and ashes and everything we gain, hold, make, earn, save or grab will slip from our hands and either be a treasure of Satan’s or an offering to Christ.  We decide the fate of everything that comes to us; we are the judge and jury.  David realized, and perhaps you have too, that love, and courage and loyalty and devotion are bigger than this world.  They are the fabric of Heaven and no human being can hold any of them as his own.  That water was not H20, it was supernatural and could not be “bottoms up”.  It belonged to God because it came from Him.  A Christian cannot measure the worth of her life by what she possesses but only in what she gives over to Christ.  It is astounding, the emptiness that so many accept as normal.  They hold onto all sorts of things: their talents, their time, their social skills, their money and their relationships all the while failing to see what wonderful things our Lord might do with them if He had them.

In the New Testament we have the oft discussed account of Mary, a follower of Jesus, who poured out an entire bottle of expensive perfume on Jesus.  While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume?” (Mark 14:3-4 NIV) Indeed, what a great waste!  And yet the Lord’s reply reveals what God thinks of such actions.  "Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.” (Mark 14:6 NIV) He went so far as to declare that what Mary did would always be remembered and honored!  Have you ever done anything that could be categorized as eternally unforgettable?

The very nature of God is to pour out His life for those who love Him and those who hate Him, to die for the foulest of sinners and the most indifferent of unbelievers.  His life was the ultimate waste.  He was smart, holy, good, creative, beloved and a leader.  He had every reason to live and do something with His life and He threw it away for you and me.  You might argue that the salvation of the world was worth His life but that is because you are on this end of it.  If you were on the other side of the Cross, you would have seen it much differently.  The disciples did.  Peter rebuked Jesus for insisting He would soon die.  For what?

If the nature of Christ is in you, then it is a part of your personality to give up to God indiscriminately anything and everything just because you love Him.  There is no career, no home, no retirement, no friendship or prized possession that is so big you must grasp it tightly and keep to yourself.  Whenever you hold something and tell God that He can’t have it, you shrink spiritually and become a smaller person.  But when you open your hands to Christ and offer Him anything and everything you have, the size of your life grows into a supernatural one.  God takes everything you give Him and makes them is God-sized and God transformed.  We look at some of the things we do as menial, as trivial, insignificant and unnoticed.  When Christ is a part of them, He sees them another way.  He considers them sacred.  You have the opportunity at each moment to become one with God, to live in the vastness of the Holy Spirit.  Open your hands and offer Him whatever you have there.  Christ who is holy will make it holy and you will have joy in exchange.

A Whole New You

How dead is dead to God?  How much of your life can you still hold and make it through baptism into death?  You must completely die if you are to be of use to Him or true to your new self.  The end game of your Savior is for you to be buried and your hopes and aspirations die with you that the Lord Jesus Christ might raise you from the dead and make you good for God and perfect for salvation.  It is the buried seed that springs to life and bears much fruit.  Don't look upon your circumstances as a way for you to straighten yourself up and get things together.  Look at them as the power of God to kill off your old self and make you completely new in Him.  Our hope is not to survive and chase our dreams.  It is to be resurrected with the life of Christ fully alive in us so that the work of God might be manifested in all we do!  The freedom we have as believers is not a license to be some creature other than who we are in Christ.  Imagine a rose bush flaunting its freedom living as a blueberry or a gardenia behaving like a poison oak.  Turtles don’t work at being cheetahs and pigeons never behave like vultures.  Those who have Christ in them are new creations that are nothing like they were before they were born again.  There is a difference of kind between a Christian comedian and an unbelieving comedian.  A Christian physicist is not the same species as a non-Christian physicist and born-again teachers have a different “DNA” than do those still dead in their sins.  God will not be stopped in this process of raising you up in Christ.  He will not allow the diminishing of your soul as His new creation.  The world may look at you as nothing more than a rewrapped version of your old self but the world cannot see into your heart and discover the complete transformation of your being into one who is now joined with Christ and thoroughly remade into someone new.   Be done with the fantasy that nothing changed when God made you one with Christ.  A magical transformation has occurred and you will never be the same again.

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death…  Romans 6:4 NIV

Philippians Thankfulness

Philippians 1:3 NIV

I thank my God every time I remember you.

How Can You Be Thankful Now?

The other day someone sent me a message complaining about how hot it was.  Someone else was upset with the behavior of one of her children.  I had problems moving my wrist because of the pain and wondered why it had to happen to me.  My son had a flat tire.  My daughter lost her volleyball game.  Someone broke into the fellowship hall and stole the hotdogs, hamburger meat and drinks.  School has started.  I didn’t sleep well last night and I can’t stop feeling tired.  So how was your day?

Some people are naturally thankful and others have to work at it.  Most of us are thankful sometimes and a little whiney at others, grateful and complaining within the same hour.  Where would you say you fit on the frustration/thankfulness scale today?  We have in Philippians 1: 3 a rather soft call for thankfulness.  It is not a sermon on it and you could not say Paul is really pushing us to be thankful.  Yet there is an important lesson for us in this short declaration of the Apostle worth talking about today.  This often overlooked verse has been somewhat difficult for translators to be certain what Paul was indicating.  It can be translated two different ways. First, as we read in the NIV text, “I thank my God every time I remember you.”  The second way to render the verse is, “I thank my God for your every remembrance of me.”  Translators choosing the second option believe that vs. 3 was Paul’s subtle way of showing gratitude for the gift they sent him as described in 4: 18.  However the context of the verse and the word order in the text would seem to point to the first translation as being Paul’s intent.

It is interesting phrasing for Paul to use to describe his thankfulness.  Every time he thought of the Philippians he thanked God.  Nearly every memory we have is at least somewhat mixed.  Even the happiest sources of celebration had aspects of struggle and difficulty.  Paul’s time in Philippi was not always easy.  It was there that he was mercilessly beaten and thrown in jail.  Synteche and Euodia were bickering and dragging others in the church into the conflict.  Jews in Philippi were beginning to stir up trouble and casting doubt in the hearts of at least some in the church that faith in Christ was not sufficient, they also needed to follow Jewish laws and regulations in order to be right with God. To say that it was easy for Paul to be thankful to God for the Philippians every time he remembered them would not be necessarily accurate.

But we must consider the object of thankfulness if we are to understand thankfulness properly.  True and life-changing thankfulness requires an object.  For Paul that object was his God.  It is not accidental that Paul says, “I thank my God” rather than “I thank God.”  If he was merely thanking an impersonal God with whom he had little if any relationship, he probably would rarely have been thankful when he recalled the Philippians.  For the casual Christian whose relationship with God is built on watching “Touched by an Angel” episodes or looking at sunsets and feeling warm inside, this exalted level of thankfulness is frankly almost never possible.  But Paul knew God intimately.  He drew close to Him when he was alone and when he was in a crowd.  As God spoke to Paul, either intuitively or through scripture, by practicing obedience to Christ, Paul had developed a trust in God which was no longer shaken by the frustrating and demoralizing behaviors of others or the difficulties of life that plague us all.

This cannot be better illustrated than by Paul’s letter to Philemon, a Christian slave owner who needed prompting his servant Onesimus.  Onesimus had fled Philemon in an apparent attempt to escape his slavery but somehow Onesimus met up with Paul while the apostle was imprisoned and through that time together Onesimus became a born again Christian.  Although Onesimus was a great friend and tremendous help during Paul’s time of need, the Apostle sent Onesimus back to Philemon.  However, Paul also gave Onesimus a letter for Philemon, calling for him to set Onesimus free.  Paul, as he writes Philemon, tells him that he always thanks God for him when he remembers him in his prayers.  I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers,  (Philemon 1: 4 NIV) What a stupendous statement to make to a fellow who contrary to Paul’s wishes maintained ownership of Onesimus as a slave, a man free in Christ.  It would seem that there were times when Paul thought of Philemon and he had to have pondered Philemon’s selfishness and greed came to mind.  It would only be natural for Paul to consider Onesimus’ bitter plight as slave and become angry with Philemon for allowing this to continue.  But such was not the case.  Paul says he thanks God every time he remembers Philemon.  And this was not mere religious bluster or sanctimonious flattery, Paul was genuinely thankful to God for Philemon.  Why?

Paul learned a most crucial lesson as he built his life in Jesus.  Everything that comes our way, whether it is the gossiping coworker, the critical supervisor, the arrogant son or daughter, the chicken pox, the house break-in or the financial crisis is used by God for the benefit of every single man, woman or child whose heart has been given to Jesus.  Not one occurrence in the Christian’s life is accidental and each one has been carefully orchestrated that our lives might improve and prosper.  So if that is true, then certainly Paul would thank God every time one of the Philippian Christians came to his mind.  Because their contact with him and the events associated with them were blessed by God and used by Him to prosper Paul’s life, Paul most certainly thanked God for them every time he remembered them. 

To illustrate Paul’s extensive confidence in God, he wrote in Romans 8 that although others may be flummoxed by trouble or hardship or persecution or danger, those things did not disturb him, because they merely were precursors to conquest and victory through Christ.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:35-39 NIV

Without ultimate faith in God’s good will in every circumstance, thankfulness is a rather flighty ambition.  If though we don’t have a thankful heart, we can easily become bitter and distressed and self-centered.  It could be said that thankfulness to God is the one key that unlocks the heart imprisoned by hardship, pain and bitter memories.  It puts everything into an eternal perspective that enlightens the murkiness of difficulties and difficult people.  A thankful heart is a joyful and peaceful heart and for most of us, that is all we really need in life.

Good

Luke 18:19 NIV

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good — except God alone.”

What Is Really Good?

Can I be blamed for thinking that California is one of the best places on Earth to live?  Of course there is much that is wrong with the state but nearly all of its problems can be pinned on the values and actions of those who live there.  There is something to be said though of a region that has both Yosemite and Muir Woods, the beaches of San Diego and the San Francisco Bay.  California certainly isn’t perfect but there are some aspects of it that approach perfection.  I was driving with a friend through Mississippi and he introduced me to the woods there, pointing out how lovely the forests were.  It was about like when I went with a classmate to visit his family living in Southwest Missouri and he commented on the beauty of the Ozark Mountains.  Now I am not one to denigrate another person’s “pride and joy”  but I had difficulty complimenting the skinny pine trees of Mississippi after hiking through redwood groves in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  And I must say that there are mountains and then there are MOUNTAINS.  Who am I to tell someone what to like and not like.  Perhaps New York pizza really is better than Chicago style and Japanese cars are better than Russian ones.  Yet am I correct in telling you that you would be happier living in the San Francisco Bay Area than you would be  staying in Amsterdam or Beijing, or Branson, Missouri?  We have a right to our opinions…and every one of us has them!

Goodness has the feeling of being just another aspect of opinion.  If you say you’re good, does that mean you are?  Serial killers and pedophiles and vandals who tag sidewalks may say they are good and really believe they are but is it true?  Probably even Stalin’s mom saw something good in him and Hitler was respected and honored by quite a few people.  It is funny though how easy it is for us to see the good in ourselves and not see it in others.  We use a sort of sliding scale when we evaluate people…whether it is ourselves or others.  Part of the reason we can see good in “bad” people is that there still is in each of us the hint of the good God put in us when he made us.  It may not be developed goodness or disciplined goodness we see, it might only be strand of what was left in us when the Lord put us together but it is there and we fool ourselves into thinking that is who we are rather than the hint of the good of God Himself. 

The account of James and John thinking they were good because they wanted fire to come down from heaven and burn up a poor Samaritan village because the people had the audacity to not want to pay to feed and house Jesus and His disciples is too true to human nature ever to have been fabricated.  As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.  And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.  When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?"   But Jesus turned and rebuked them,  and they went to another village. (Luke 9:51-55 NIV)  I am sure, and probably you are too, that James and John thought they meant well, thought their hearts were in the right place but clearly Jesus saw things differently.  It was not good that fueled their anger at the Samaritans although if you had asked them before Jesus rebuked them, they probably would have seen themselves as good people.  You and I can’t judge them.  We might just as well have said exactly what James and John did if we were there.  This though is the problem with the strand of good we all have and make much of.  All too many of us think we are so good that we don’t need God…don’t need Him to significantly change us, don’t need Him to remake us.

I can’t imagine Jesus was very happy with one of the discussions the disciples had when He was gone.  If it were not for the fact that it was so very telling of the human condition, we might get a good laugh at it.  Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest.  Jesus said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors.  But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. (Luke 22:24-26 NIV)  Now if we just think a bit about this whole argument, there is a critical observation we must make.  At no point do the disciples consider what part God must play in their lives for them to be good!  It is all about them and their abilities, their morality, their skills, their religion.  God is not even needed.  Did they have to be saved?  Was there any hint in them that salvation was required?  It is fascinating, this strange reluctance to see ourselves, to really look at who we are without God.  We have that strand of good in us to keep us content but the truth of who we are eventually hits us.  We need a Savior.

Consider the sad case of Joseph and his brothers.  Joseph’s brothers were fed up with Joseph.  They had enough of Joseph being the favorite of their father, enough of his proud strutting about with his fancy coat and enough of the dreams he claimed to have had that according to Joseph foretold that they all, even their mothers and father would bow before Joseph one day as if he were some sort of king.  The boys decided to fix Joseph and with their dad not around, sold him into slavery.  So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe — the richly ornamented robe he was wearing — and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.  As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.  Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?  Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood." His brothers agreed.  So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt. (Genesis 37:23-28 NIV)

Evil like that is tough to comprehend.  How could anyone do such a thing and yet it was done.  Each one of those brothers thought he was a better person than Joseph.  Each believed Joseph was arrogant, selfish and self-righteous.  You don’t sell your brother into slavery if you haven’t decided he is pretty bad.  Here is the irony of this.  Each brother felt like he was good, a decent soul because that strand of good was in him, and yet…At least two of them became murderers, one slept with his father’s common-law wife and one sought out prostitutes after his wife died.  We don’t know about the rest…they were at least bad enough to sell their own brother into slavery.  Here is what we see in all of us.  Each brother thought he was the good one…at least better than his brother was and each brother thought his brother was worse than he was, more evil and needing to be fixed.

There is a passage in Isaiah that does not receive the attention it deserves.  It has a profound message describing what God is going to do with us.  He will save us, that is true…or we should say He does save us.  The prophecy was made eight hundred years before Jesus brought us our salvation though and it says something quite important about what that salvation will do for us.  A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.  And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.  For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." (Isaiah 40:3-5 NIV)  You and I are that desert.  You are the one God will Himself make right so that you are a fit place for Him to live.  The good you think is good will be made perfect.  No strand of self-righteousness will be left to it for God Himself in Christ will make it truly good.  The evil in you will be leveled, and torn out and the glory of the LORD will be revealed in you.  Everyone will see it…that you are perfect, lovely in every way.  God will walk in you and make His home in you and nothing, not the worst of your sins, not the ugliest of evil that could ever be found in you will be there anymore.  There will be no corrupted goodness, no pretend morality or broken love or fractured peace.  Only goodness, real goodness that perfect God can make of you.  He has spoken.  And once again God will say of you.  “You are very good.”

One or the Other

2 Corinthians 4:5 NIV

 For we do not preach ourselves,

but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

Who Runs The Show?

A few years ago a little Chihuahua mix showed up in our yard without tags.  Two of the kids were the first ones to spot the little dog and they thought they noticed someone in a parked car watching to see what happened to the dog and when they picked her up, the woman drove away.  Pretty soon it was clear the puppy was a part of our family and I cannot say which is true: we adopted her or she adopted us.  Early on, Salsa, as we named her, responded to me as the alpha male.  She quickly came when I called her and although others in the family might give her a command, it was hit or miss whether she would obey.  Our daughter taught her cute tricks and Salsa loved everyone in the home and everyone loved her but my voice always brought her obedience even if others might find her stubbornly resistant to doing what they said.  Even now, when someone must get her back, it is me that can push her to obey if no one else can.

The Civil War in the United States was not about slavery although that was the spiritual issue.  The Civil War was fought over authority.  Who would make the decisions for the entire country?  That was the question at hand and it is the chief issue for each person today and from the beginning of time.  Who directs the soul?  We make religion unnecessarily complicated.  Most intuitively comprehend its essence but it is a ball of tangled twine when put in human hands.  The question we face today and since the first humans walked the earth is, “Who runs the show for you?”  We have lots of possible candidates.  Science.  Political figures.  Celebrities and You-tube stars.  Parents.  Spouses.  Employers.  Allah.  Shiva.  Fame.  Fortune.  Yourself.  Christ.

The very first sin in the world was initiated not by lust or even desire but by a question as to who runs the show.  Pay careful attention to the interaction between Satan and Eve.  It begins with a rather innocuous question.  Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1 NIV)  Essentially Satan was asking Eve if she was sure what God said.  Eve replied without hesitation. The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 NIV)  There was no fumbling for an answer.  She stated precisely what the Lord told her husband Adam before she was made.  And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV)

So Eve was not unaware of the command of God.  She knew exactly what the Lord’s instruction was.  Quickly Satan came back with the most devious of insinuations.   "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (Genesis 3:4-5 NIV)  It was subtle, this intimation.  “You can’t count on God to tell you everything.  I know what I am talking about and I can help you enjoy life better.  Trust me in this!”  Eve fell for the trap.  Her loyalty shifted and Satan gained her trust.  Most are like Eve.  They don’t even realize what they have done before its too late.  Rather than be God’s through and through they take up some other lord for a bit and then as they go along, it is not God at all but Satan who is trusted.  Nothing about this transaction seemed weird or devious to Eve.  It was not premeditated or spiteful.  Satan gained Eve’s confidence and off she went like a child chasing the ice cream truck down the street

Most of us don’t decide that Satan is our great friend and advisor.  We aren’t a part of some devilish cult!  Yet we give ground to Satan in our hearts and without knowing what we have done, great tracts of our reasoning and decision making become Satan’s.  It killed Eve and it kills us too.  Not immediately and never grotesquely but comfortably, casually.  Nothing illustrates this quite so eloquently as the brief comment the Apostle Paul makes at the end of his life.  Writing to his good friend Timothy, Paul sadly tells of how his once faithful co-worker Demas gave ground to Satan and changed his mind on God.  Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.  (2 Timothy 4:9-10 NIV)  “Loved this world” is code in the Bible for taking up with Satan.  It sounds rather comfy though.  “Loved this world.”  Warm and cozy like sitting in front of the fireplace as a toasty fire burns brightly, loving the world seems reasonable when put before you by Satan.  It just means that you like to be comfortable, you want to enjoy life.  Do what makes you happy.  Yet, dogging our steps as we slip through the door and into the world is that what was true for Eve and then for Adam is true for all of us.  “The wages of sin is death…”

If you knew Demas, you probably would say that he was a good guy.  He may have been witty, smart, talented, working for good causes.  Yet, there was something terribly wrong with him and it was that Jesus was not Lord of all for him.  Christ was a companion, a great source of insight and important to him but not Lord and that is the dividing line in life.  Either, Christ is Lord and King over you or Satan is reasonable and makes sense to you.  It is fascinating the account of Joseph and his unyielding allegiance to God.  We cannot say how Joseph acquired such persistent loyalty to the Lord.  It probably was not his mother who pushed him along there because she famously stole away from her father his household idols.  Joseph was firm in his commitment to God and it manifested itself in his response to temptation.  When Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and came to be a servant of the Egyptian Potiphar, Potiphar’s wife tried her best to seduce him.  Joseph’s response to her revealed his fidelity.  How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?"  And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.  (Genesis 39:9-10 NIV)  This was real commitment to God that transcended cool interests and enticing opportunities.  It was loyalty.

When Jesus gave the summons to James, John, Peter and Andrew to come follow Him, it was not about what most stress.  Nearly every teacher of the passage emphasizes the wrong aspect of it.  Read Jesus’ invitation in its entirety. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19 NIV)  When you follow Jesus and really do follow Him, not just when it is convenient or necessary or reasonable, He remakes you.  What is so damaged and wrecked by sin becomes His to heal and make perfect.  In the disciples’s case, Jesus said He would make them into fishers of men.  What might He do with you if you choose Him over Satan at the moment there is a choice between the two?  It is impossible to know just now but you will find that He will do this.  He will remake you and could there be a more wonderful and desirable gift you could ever receive?  Depression and discouragement will be taken out of you when you are fiercely loyal to Jesus.  Anger and addiction will be removed also.  Even the hurts and brokenness caused by sin will be carefully and tenderly done away with in you if you are loyal to Jesus.  So many Christian people struggle to be free of the damaging effects of sin in them and they could be made right by ceaseless loyalty to Christ.

Elijah put it to the people of his time this way.  "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." (1 Kings 18:21 NIV)  Either it is God or it is Satan.  Waffling between the two leads to every plague of the heart.  Consider just how badly warped both Adam and Eve were psychologically after only one time choosing Satan over God.  They were afraid of God, disconnected from each other and self-loathing.  Imagine the complexity of brokenness hundreds and thousands of times choosing Satan over Christ brings.  Jesus put it another way.  "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  (Matthew 6:24 NIV)    It is either Christ or Satan at any moment and you must decide who it will be that runs the show.  You can always tell when someone has let Satan lead them around and be the one guiding them.  They lack the supernatural peace only Christ can give those who follow Him.  Remember just what Jesus says to each of us who come to Him.  "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28 NIV)