Beyond Me

John 7:38 NIV

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

What About You?

This week I have been substitute teaching in a class of second graders.  The level of affection they have for me has been astonishing.  I gave them an assignment to write two or three sentences about a cause and effect event.  For example, I planted seeds in the soil and flowers sprung up out of the ground.  A rainstorm came and the creek overflowed with water.  One of the children wrote, “Mr. Walkup and me went to Starbucks and we got coffee.  It helped me stay up late.”  Now, I have only been in the class three days and why I entered into this narrative I cannot say.  Perhaps it is just proximity, that I was the only adult in the room who could bring the child to Starbucks, but I think it was more than that.  Somehow, I made an impact on that student that was significant enough to enter into the story.  I was taken aback a bit when I heard my name being read by the child, but it also struck me how quickly we can become a part of the narrative of others.  We don’t even have to work at it.  We enter into dreams, we invade the emotions and thoughts of those we barely know, we impact people all around us.  Now you and I must ask ourselves the important question.  What sort of impact do we wish to have?

One of the fascinating people in the Bible was actually a sort of “second banana”.  Even his name is easily mistaken for his more popular mentor.  There are plenty of children named Elijah.  I have known several Elijahs, but I have never come across anyone named after Elijah’s apprentice, Elisha.  It is not always easy standing in someone else’s spotlight; many become jealous of their more illustrious peers.  But not this prophet.  There is never a hint of him wanting to take Elijah’s place.  Rather, Elisha just wanted to not mess up as he took on the critical role of chief prophet of Israel once Elijah was taken away by God in a fiery chariot.  He knew that he could never live up to that responsibility if he did not have the same tools his teacher had so he asked Elijah if he might pass them along to him.  It wasn’t like he was asking for Elijah’s saw and hammer, his stud finder or his stethoscope.  Elijah had something unique that he could not just hand over to his loyal apprentice.  It had to come directly from God.

When it was about time for Elijah to be taken away by God, Elijah asked Elisha what he could do for him before he left.  Elisha’s reply points to just what he thought of the task before him and how tough it might be if he did not have what Elijah had.  "Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit," Elisha replied. "You have asked a difficult thing," Elijah said, "yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours — otherwise not." (2 Kings 2:9-10 NIV) Elisha, if he was to live up to the high standard of excellence his mentor set, needed, not Elijah’s talents or developed skills; he needed all of God that he could get.  He had to have every bit of the Spirit of the Lord that was within Elijah if he were to have any hope at all of leading Israel as God’s prophet.  The wickedness of the nation was too great and the expectation of how a proper prophet of the LORD was to be was set too high for Elisha to have any hope of succeeding if he did not have the same measure of God as Elijah.  That explains his audacious request; a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.  Perhaps you too have felt like the task before you was too great; that you had to have more God than ever to do what was set before you.  If anything truly good is to come out of your life, you need more God or you have no hope of succeeding, at least, not at what lasts forever.

When Elijah was taken up into heaven by God, what was left was Elijah’s cloak.  Not much of an inheritance and yet it was more than enough to provide for Elisha in his life’s work.  He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.  Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. "Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?" he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over. (2 Kings 2:13-14 NIV) Right then and there, the LORD became a part of Elisha and all that Elijah did, Elisha could do…and more.  Let us be clear about this.  God did not give Elisha His Spirit and the ability to do miracles so that Elisha could make something for himself.  He did this so that God might pour out of Elisha and fall upon all he came across.  It was not for Elisha that the Spirit came into him but for the world that was lost and without a Savior.

The Bible has this to say about every Christian.  “You are not your own…”  You are not here for you.  That life of yours is not to make something of yourself.  It is a funnel out of which all of God comes to all you meet.  Jesus put it this way.  On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."   By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39 NIV) What can be said of this promise of Christ?  You do not get the fullness of God so He can stay cooped up in you!  There is no power of prayer, no comfort from His Spirit, no guidance and help in times of trouble for you so you can hold on to it and be happy with what you have.  Christ is not making you into His likeness so it all stays there with you.  You have God so that He might spill out of you and invade the world.  He is a torrent of Living Water that cannot be kept in the reservoir of your life.  There must be no dam blocking up His Spirit in you.

All of God is to break out of you and come spilling over into each person He brings you.  His love and patience and holiness and honesty and encouragement and hope and faith and goodness are all at the boiling point and if they don’t pour out of you, they will make you into a miserable little miser who is no good for anything.  But if His gentleness and His truthfulness and His mercy and His kindness come rushing from you, you will be the happiest person on earth.  There is no good in you that the Lord does not want becoming the good others gain.  It is the measure of Christianity, this matter of being a flowing river of holiness and love that goes out into the world and makes it good.  Before I took this recent assignment in the second-grade class, I wondered why Jesus wanted me with those same children and staff for an entire week.  I asked the Lord to use me as His cup of blessing and encouragement for them and if He didn’t, I did not want to go.  What good are you if God is not pouring out of you, making the world better, not because you are talented or smart or creative but because the Lord is supernatural, and He is the Savior of the world.  This world does not need more cool or successful people; it needs a Savior who can save them from their Sin and if you are available, He can pour out of you and save the world.

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.”

About Men

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 NIV

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.

What Makes a Man “Manly”?

There is a fascinating case study presented in the Old Testament that is generally overlooked by most readers of the Bible.  Before the nation of Israel had a king, there were a variety of regional leaders, called judges, who helped guide the people and unify them in times of national crisis.  There was a prophetess named Deborah who was looked to for insight in settling disputes and she was greatly respected by the people of the region of Ephraim.  She sent for Barak of Naphtali to come and lead the local army against a coalition of Canaanites who had been cruelly oppressing the Israelites for twenty years.  She told him, "The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: 'Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor.  I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.'" (Judges 4:6-7 NIV)  Barak’s reply was not what you would call heroic.  Barak said to her, "If you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me, I won't go." (Judges 4:8 NIV)  Deborah was clearly taken aback and it seems clear she did not think Barak to be particularly manly.  "Very well," Deborah said, "I will go with you. But because of the way you are going about this, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will hand Sisera over to a woman." (Judges 4:9 NIV)  In other words, a woman will be a better man than you!  Not exactly a politically correct way of looking at this but certainly the way such cowardice in men was viewed three thousand years ago.  Men were supposed to fight for their towns and the women and children, not the women fight in their place.

One of the difficulties inherent in exploring what the Bible has to say about what men are to be like is that much of the time “men” is used in a generic way and really means “people”.  It is hard sometimes to know if certain passages are really about men or more addressing both men and women.  There are a few times though that the Bible specifically addresses men and just men.  In Colossians 3: 19 married men are told,

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.  Literally it is, “Men, love the women…”  Of course context tells us that it is talking about husbands and wives and speaks of the marital relationship.  Men are commanded by God to love their wives no matter what and not let any disagreement make the marriage lose its atmosphere of love…at least not as far as the husband is concerned.  Later Fathers are told to be certain to not make their children miserable in how they raise them.  Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. (Colossians 3:21NIV)  There is no such command to mothers in the passage.  Clearly this is something that God sees as a critical concern.  Fathers are prone or at least have a propensity to exasperate and frustrate their children.  Perhaps it is because fathers are not always patient with their kids or maybe it’s because men tend to expect too much of their children.  We do know and we have seen this for generations and generations, if there is a parent not on speaking terms with the children, it is far more likely to be the father than the mother.  We men can be too hard on our kids and the Bible warns men to be careful and commands fathers not to demand perfection of their children and not belittle them when they don’t live up to their expectations.

There are two verses that deal specifically with men and are not tied just to the family.  The first is multi-faceted.  Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.  (1 Corinthians16:13-14 NIV)  What is translated here, “be men of courage” is literally, “be manly”.    The four parts to this or if you like, the four points of manhood are pretty simple.  1.  Be vigilant; be awake; be attentive.  Don’t let the devil catch you off-guard, realize when you are being tempted.  Pay attention to what God is doing.  Know when He is speaking to you and recognize what is of God and what is of Satan.  2.  Stand firm in the faith.  This is much different than just standing firm.  Sometimes men play the fool by being stubborn.  “Oh, I don’t need to look at the directions!”  “It’s my way or the highway!”  This is not a command to always getting your way and if you don’t, pouting or throwing a tantrum.  God wants men to make the Bible their roadmap for life and not drift from it because it makes you or someone else uncomfortable.  Don’t be a spiritual wimp.  Stand for what is right and don’t be swayed by what is wrong.   3. Be strong.  Literally it is a command to keep growing strong.  Be a powerful force for good…for God’s good.  Take hold of the power you have with the Spirit in you and make the world better because you work hard at it.  Fight evil.  Take the devil’s strongholds by storm.  Do not let any addiction or unholy habit have control over you because you are a man with Christ living in you.  4.  Do everything in love.  Or literally, “in love do all your things.”  We men struggle to behave loving.  We can think loving and we can profess loving but to do loving is sometimes a great pitfall for us.  It is no accident that God makes love action a critical point of emphasis for men.  The Bible tells us that if we don’t act in loving ways, we are just a loud and obnoxious man.  Love is the hallmark of a man of God.  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  (1 John 4:7-8 NIV)

There is one more verse to consider as you and I close this discussion on manhood.  I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.  (1 Timothy 2:8 NIV)  I heard someone recently argue that it is men who are almost always the ones shooting up malls and workplaces and that it is men who commit the most violent crimes and she is right.  The first known sin after the one committed by Adam and Eve was the flaming rage of Cain against his brother that ended in murder.  We must face this fact about men.  Many men have a tough time with anger and struggle to keep their temper.   God says that His men must become great at praying and get rid of that temper that leads to anger and arguing.  We have all heard of churches splitting apart and collapsing in a heap because of angry arguments.  For men in particular, anger is a warning light and arguments are a siren that you aren’t praying enough.  You do not get angry because someone treated you badly or someone is rude or you have been offended.  You get mad because you do not pray enough to make you into God’s sort of man.  I hear men cursing about things and you do too and it is not a sign of male toughness; it is a sure sign that there is no real strength or backbone in that man.  Men are not made to get their way.  Men are made to pray and always…always…God gets His way.  It is then that the world becomes a better place because men of prayer walked upon it. 

Reality in Love

1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV

Love is patient, love is kind.

What Is The “Look of Love”?

Recently I was working in a classroom that I had been in a number of times before.  They were invited to visit another class at the school to see the exhibits the students of that class had made of different aspects of ancient civilization.  For example, one student made a model of the Parthenon, another a terracotta soldier of ancient China; others exhibited papier Mache maps of Rome or the pyramids of Giza.  Each student had an exhibit to share and explain and they were all exited to make their presentations to the kids of our class.  Before I brought our kids in the classroom though, I poked my head in to check and see if they were ready for us.  About three months before I had worked in that same class as a substitute teacher one day and as soon as I looked into room, several kids shouted, “It’s Mr. Walkup!”  Immediately the class started cheering.  Embarrassed, I ducked back out and returned to the class I was bringing to see them.  I was not prepared for that sort of reception and I think the teacher in the class was a little taken aback by their reaction to seeing me.  I had only been with them one day and it was shocking that they remembered my name and I was overwhelmed by their response.  That same day, I was talking with someone and that person told me I’m not very nice and that others are intimidated by me.  Once again I was stunned and left speechless.  I cannot say that I have ever encountered a day quite like that one where I faced such a wide swing of the pendulum and it was difficult knowing just how to process the feedback I received in just the span of six hours or so.

There is something to be said for honest if brutal evaluations.  Sometimes it isn’t pleasant hearing what others really think of us and it can happen that we are wildly surprised to find out just how loved and respected we are.   It cuts both ways.  We are loved and we sin.  We may not like what God has to say about us but He is honest in His evaluation of us.  The Bible insists that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”, He means it. (See Romans 3: 23) It is worth noting that when the great man of faith Isaiah met God for the first time, he was not prepared for what he saw in himself.  "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."  (Isaiah 6:5 NIV)  Was this an aberration or how it really is when God comes upon us?  Whether it was Moses or David or the Apostle Paul, we have this same sort of experience; the realization that what is within is terribly ugly and corrupted.  It may have taken the witnessing of a miracle by Jesus to get the Apostle Peter’s attention but nonetheless Peter also upon figuring out who Jesus actually was awakened to his own sinfulness.  When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" (Luke 5:8 NIV)  Paul the Apostle expresses the thoughts of all who have ever met God personally.  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.  (Romans 7:18-19 NIV)  There is a freeing discovery when we come to Christ our Savior that we are thoroughly riddled with sin and on our own can’t get out from under it.

You cannot fully appreciate just what kindness God has shown you to die for your salvation unless you meet Him.  Until you do, forgiveness of sin is only a casual determination of God to brush off what petty mistakes you have made.  “Ah, that’s good dude.”  But that is not how it is with us or with Christ.  God did not die on the Cross because we have just “blown it” a few times.  He did so because our sin is thoroughly wicked and completely ingrained in us; it took the violence of crucifixion to remove it all from us.  When we think of what Jesus had to endure to take out of us our sin, it cannot be fully realized without really meeting Jesus.  It is like trying to describe the skill needed to play professional hockey without seeing it firsthand or being told how smart a mathematician is if one has never tried to solve even a simple algebra equation.    When Jesus comes to us in the way He does, we come to grips with how kind He is to die for our salvation.  The Bible, in its magnificently understated way, gives us a hint of it.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 NIV)

Let us for a moment do some theological math.  Or perhaps it would be better stated that we are going to think about this matter of God’s love using the logic of the Bible to shape our conclusion.  In discussing love, the Bible says that, “Love is patient, love is kind.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4 NIV)  The verb that is translated “patient” describes putting up with a lot or continually not letting upsetting matters trouble you.  Kind is a great way of translating this second quality of love, that love is constantly doing what is compassionate.  One way to look at the entire passage on love and in particular these two characteristics is to replace “love” with God.  The Bible tells us that in the equation, God is love or God equals love.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8 NIV)  But then we also see this point repeated later in the same chapter.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  (1 John 4:16 NIV)  It is not a stretch to make1 Corinthians 13 and in particular verse 4 all about God.  God is patient.  He does not let our constant sinning upset Him.  God is kind.  He deals with us gently like a loving mother or father would a reckless and misbehaving young child.

Let’s look at one example from the Gospels to get an idea of just what sort of person God is.  In John 8, Jesus addressed a crowd that had gathered to worship and discuss the Scriptures at the Temple.  Some of them accused Jesus of being demon possessed.  They tried to insult Jesus by calling Him a “Samaritan” which in their minds was about as bad a slam as it got.  Finally, they became so enraged with Him that they in a mad rush grabbed stones off the ground to kill Jesus.  Our Lord’s response was perfectly aligned with patience and kindness.   Rather than call ten thousand angels to decimate the entire crowd, He quietly slipped away.  At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. (John 8:59 NIV)  The patience of God at this moment was astounding.  Do you remember the fire coming down upon Sodom or the plague of the firstborn on the Egyptians.  In an instant Christ could have wrecked everyone there but He didn’t.  He quietly faded into the background.  How many of us, if we had the absolute power our Lord did at that moment would have been so kind.  Consider just how painful it is for Jesus to watch us sin, be lazy and uninspired, disregard His commands and priorities, pay no attention to Him as He waits for us to do what is right.  How much does God put up with you and me?  Are we not ten times worse than those Israelites who were blinded by Satan and trapped by the Devil’s plot?  We know who He is and we still ignore Him!

Some may have thought I was too hard on Abraham recently with my critique of his faith.  Take a look at one incident that tells us a great deal about Abraham’s patience and kindness.  Genesis 13 provides a synopsis of just how Abraham’s mind worked.  His brother’s son Lot had traveled with him from Haran to Canaan and settled with him there.  Abraham had become extremely wealthy and acquired vast amounts of livestock and gold.  It seems apparent that he shared his good fortune with Lot.  Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. (Genesis 13:5 NIV)  One would think that Lot would be grateful for what his uncle had done for him and do everything he could to stand behind him but such was not the case.  But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.  And quarreling arose between Abram's herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot.  (Genesis 13:6-7 NIV)  This conflict between Abraham’s employees and Lot’s became so bad that the only solution seemed to be to go their separate ways.  So Abram said to Lot, "Let's not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers.  Is not the whole land before you? Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right; if you go to the right, I'll go to the left." (Genesis 13:8-9 NIV)  It is critical to note that it was not just the employees who were arguing, Lot was quarreling with Abraham.  How was this possible?  How could Lot have had one single word of disagreement with his benefactor?  All he owned was due to Abraham and his generosity and kindness!  Is it conceivable that Lot would have for even a moment let his staff fight with Abraham’s workers?  Would not someone who had been so blessed by another have done all he could to have supported and stood loyally for that one’s cause?  Lot did not and it seems there was not an ounce of gratitude in Lot for all Abraham had done for him.  Selfishly he stood his ground and demanded that Abraham give him his way.  Finally Abraham could not take the tension between them any longer and rather than force Lot out, he gave him the option of where to settle.  He did not demand his right to the best land.  He simply in kindness and patience made peace with his nephew and gave to him whatever he wanted.

Jesus put it this way.  "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'   But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.  If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38-42 NIV)  This is perhaps the most elegant and practical teaching on patience and kindness you will find in any book ever written.  What if, with God and all His power and goodness living in you, you take one of these commands and look for an opportunity this week to practice it.  God will give you the opportunity if you are willing to be His disciple.  Many would not take up this challenge, but perhaps you will.

Spirituality—an Infused Presence

Genesis 2:7 NIV

…the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

What Is In You?

What makes you unique?  For me it is my last name.  In high school kids made fun of it.  Often when asked my last name, I have to spell it because receptionists reflexively start writing it as Walker rather than Walkup.  Just recently I was substitute teaching at a high school and kids in two different classes made fun of it.  My son did an internet search of our last name and it turns out a descendant of ours with our last name was a member of Scottish royalty and named his castle after our name.  My wife’s first name, Mary Jo is unique in Northern California.  Combine it with Walkup and it seems inconceivable that anyone else has the same name.  Well it turns out there is another Mary Jo Walkup in the Bay Area and when we first moved here, we started getting her mail and the library confused the two of them.  Yet you cannot hide behind someone else.  You are different from every other person that has ever existed and nothing you do can keep this from being true.  You may have plastic surgery to make you look like Barbie or feign a British accent so that you sound more charming but in the end you are who you are and no one else and that cannot be changed.  You are made by God with a unique soul that no one else can ever possess.

When God put together his first human being, it was such an ignoble work.  He scraped together some dirt and formed him out of the common stuff of the earth.  It was like a child scooping up clumps of mud and patting the mess together into a shape of his own imagining.  No fanfare or shouts of acclimation greeted the new creation.  But the Lord wasn’t finished yet.  At the end of it, He did something that is difficult to assess.  The Lord breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and from that point forward he and each one who came from his line became a “living soul”.

The Hebrew term translated “being” in the NIV and “soul: in the KJV is “nephesh”.  It describes you as you, distinctly different from every other person that has ever been or will be.  Without the breath of God, Adam was just a body, an organic collection of matter.  Once though God breathed into him, Adam came alive; became “him”.  A parallel term found in the Greek Bible is “psuche”, from which is derived the English word “psyche”.    The idea of both words in their Biblical context is that they describe you as the combination of body and spirit.  Take out the spirit and the psuche or nephesh ends.  You have a body stranded without life.  James the brother of Jesus references this body without spirit condition and uses it to compare it to faith without works.  As the body without the God,spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:26 NIV)  The Apostle Paul hints at the time when a separation will take place between him and his body.  Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.  We live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 NIV)

The book of Proverbs speaks of the souls (nephesh) of animals and says that the righteous man cares for the animal soul.  A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal… (Proverbs 12:10 NIV)  It is literally, “A righteous one knowing the soul of his animals.  The word translated animals is a term used for any creature other than humans and comes from a root that means “tongue tied” or without language.  It is all those beasts that God did not breathe into and make living souls.  The Bible differentiates between the spirit the animals possess and the sort of spirit people have.  Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" (Ecclesiastes 3:21 NIV)  The question raised has to do with the ultimate destination of the human spirit vs. the animal spirit but the point is that they are different; animal spirit and human spirit.  What separates one from the other?  All we have and it is an important difference is that the Bible says that God breathed into the first human being and by doing so gave people something He did not give animals…something called a “living soul”.

What are we to make of this breath God put into Adam?  The only other time we see in the Bible God pushing out His breath into someone, it is when Christ during His resurrection breathed upon the disciples the Holy Spirit.  And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22 NIV)  There are three considerations here.  The first is that this is something from God that the animals don’t possess.  Second it is spirit; something beyond physical.  Third it is of God, it comes out of Him.  In our modern age we think of anything “spiritual” as not really real.  Like a metaphor, something spiritual stands for a way of seeing, a way of viewing an aspect of life.  If it is spiritual, then that is code for this is deeply personal, it flows out of me and how I live my life.  Yet the Bible insists that the things of the Spirit are super real, are eternal real rather than temporary real.  God and Spirit are not just real, they are the basis behind all reality.  They make reality actual, not just digital imagery or something coming out of a machine.  The fact that God’s breath is in you and sustains you is why you are not just a thought; you are by God’s action, “really real”.

What is exceptional about God breathing into the first human being and the result of the breath being passed along across every generation and through every person that has been conceived is that something of God is in each of us.  The Biblical term for this is that we are made in “God’s image”.  What a marvelous miracle that is!  All of us have “Godness”; it is in a sense, in our DNA.  No matter how bad we might be, how corrupted by Satan and debased by our behaviors, God is still a part of who we are, the life behind our being.  When Jacob, after a twenty year absence finally met up with his brother Esau and found him full of forgiveness and no longer holding against Jacob his grudge, Jacob said of him, “For to see your face is like seeing the face of God”. (Genesis 33:10 NIV) Perhaps there is more truth to that statement than Jacob knew at the time.

What is possible for someone who has God a part of him or her?  Love and forgive with supernatural strength come to mind.  Author Philip Yancey in his book Rumors of Another World  reminds you and me of the great power those who have Christ in them possess.  When the transition of power took place in South Africa as the apartheid government based on racial injustice was replaced by a demographic coalition of blacks and whites led by the recently released Nelson Mandela, there were many atrocities of the past racist leaders that needed to be addressed.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Bishop Desmond Tutu brought white policeman and army officers in to face their accusers over crimes they had committed while in power.  The rules were these: if when voluntarily facing his accusers, the officer confessed his crime and fully acknowledged his guilt, he could not be tried and punished for the crime.  One police officer told of a time when he and his fellow policeman shot an eighteen year old and burned his body to ashes to destroy the evidence.  Later the same officer returned to that house and seized the boy’s father.  While his wife was forced to watch, the police tied her husband to a wood pile, poured gasoline all over his body and set him on fire.

After hearing the police officer describe his crimes, the widow, who was also the mother, was given the opportunity to speak.  “What do you want from Mr. van de Broek?” the judge asked her.  She replied that she wanted him to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body, gather the dust and make it possible for her to give her husband a decent burial.  The police officer hung his head in shame and agreed to do so.  But then the widow added, “Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.  And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too.  I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”  As she left the witness stand to go to the police officer, the widow had to stop because overwhelmed, the officer had fainted. (p. 223-224)

What can you do with God a part of you, what is possible with Him living through you?  Adam had a chance to find out just what sort of goodness could flow from him into the world all about him.  Now that we live in the age of sin and death, it is certainly more difficult to believe that we possess the love and kindness of God but we do.  The promise is still valid today.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13 NIV)  Today you can love like God.  Today you can forgive like Jesus.  Today you can be kind like Jesus.  Today you can get rid of your temper, be done with your addictions, leave behind your lusts and be patient in any and every circumstance just like Jesus.  With Christ a part of us, it is possible!

Surprise Ending

John 21:21 NIV

When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"

Are You Surprised By How Things Have Gone?

I like a story with surprising twists and turns.  Whether it is a book or a movie, I want it to have some unpredictability to it. I have recently been reading To Kill A Mockingbird.  It has been fifty years since I read it the first time and I had forgotten enough of the storyline to be caught off guard by parts of the book.  Yet based on popularity alone, it seems that most Americans want their stories to go as predicted.  The cute couple eventually gets together, the villain is caught, the aliens are destroyed, the good guys survive and win in the end.  Every once in a while a La La Land comes along that catches me by surprise but generally like most, I want stories to end the way I expect them to end.  There is comfort in predictability.  I get Campbell’s Tomato Soup because I know how it will taste and it is good enough for me.  That is why I choose Gala apples and vanilla ice cream.  I know what I will find when I bite into it.

When I was young and studying chemistry I was surprised to discover that electrons did not revolve around the nucleus in simple and predictable orbitals.  New information threw the old pictures of atomic structures out of whack.  It turned out that electrons move about chaotically.  One can never predict where a given electron will be.  It might be within a certain area but its action is irrational and chaotic and you cannot even know where it is when you try to find it.  Many philosophers describe the universe in a similar way.  There is chaos and unpredictability to it.  “The universe is irrational without any intelligence behind it”, they contend.    Some people are comfortable with that notion.  They like the idea that nothing is certain or trustworthy.

When it comes to Christianity, the majority of church people believe there is one place of certainty and predictability.  It is God.  They speak of Him in ways that a mathematician speaks of her field.   We want our God to be predictable, mathematically determinable.  If we do this, God does that.  When this happens, it is because God has this in mind.  God is stable.  He goes this way or that but always in a logical and understandable process.   We want God to be reasonable and sensible to us.  There must be formulas that he follows, certain equations that determine His actions.  No one would design a god who can’t be counted on to run smoothly, to make His payments and provide His dividends.  The world has its eye on a mathematical God.  Do you?

Job and his friends were certain that God was bound up in rules and obligations…that there were formulas they could use to predict his actions.  What makes the book of Job so disorienting is that all the main characters discovered the Lord was not programmable.  He did not give Job an easy life because Job was honest, moral and generous.  Job’s friends knew God had to behave in certain ways and when He didn’t, they decided something must have been wrong with Job.  Like the jurists in To Kill A Mockingbird who could not recalibrate when the evidence went against their determinations, Job’s friends could not comprehend that God would put Job through so much pain and suffering it Job was not a bad man.  They thought God was mathematical when He isn’t.

Jonah had the same problem.  He had in mind a mathematical God when he heard God tell him to go to Nineveh and preach judgment to the people there.  Jonah did not expect that kind of job.  The Lord was predictable to him.  A terrible and cruel people like the Assyrians would be burnt to a crisp by God.  They didn’t need any warnings…just fire from heaven.  Yet that was not what happened.  God gave the Ninevites a chance to repent, they took it and God mercifully gave the Assyrians the opportunity to try again.  That did not fit Jonah’s God formula and he fell into a deep depression over his miscalculations.

Consider the strange case of Josiah, one of the last kings of Judah.  He was young when he became king, just eight years old.  His grandfather was perhaps the cruelest and most ungodly king Judah ever had.  Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end — besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord.   As for the other events of Manasseh's reign, and all he did, including the sin he committed, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?   (2 Kings 21:16-18 NIV)  His father was no better a king and after two years of reigning, the people were so fed up with him that he was assassinated.  That left Josiah as next in line.  After eighteen years being king, Josiah ordered that the Temple of God be cleaned and restored.  For nearly sixty years it had been a center of pagan worship and it fell into ruin.  Josiah though loved the Lord and when a book of the Law was found in the wreckage, Josiah turned his life over to God and dedicated himself to following Him wholeheartedly.  Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem.  He went up to the temple of the Lord with the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets — all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord.  The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord-to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.  (2 Kings 23:1-3 NIV)

How would God treat such a man as this, let alone a king like him?  It would seem that God would do with him as he did with Josiah’s great-grandfather who also was faithful to the Lord.  When faced with a great international threat and insurmountable odds, the Lord intervened on Hezekiah’s behalf and wrecked the army that came against him and the people.  That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning — there were all the dead bodies!  (2 Kings 19:35 NIV)  Plug in the variables, use your God formula and you have your answer for how things will go.  When the Egyptians formed a great army and posed a threat to Josiah’s kingdom, Josiah pulled together all his fighting forces and went up against the Egyptians in battle.  Everything would turn out fine he probably told his wife and kids as he left to go battle the Egyptians.  His generals he reassured that if they fought hard, the Lord would bring them victory.  Everything fit the God formula.  Good king.  Growing faith among the people!  What could go wrong?

While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Neco faced him and killed him at Megiddo.  (2 Kings 23:29 NIV)  So what do you make of that?  What should any good Christian brother or sister just trying to follow Jesus faithfully make of it?  How does that fit into the mathematics of God?   Even the Apostle Peter wanted to know what algebraic equation to use when trying to calculate the Lord’s plans for him.  As he and the other apostles were meeting with Jesus on the shore of Galilee after Christ rose from the dead following His crucifixion, the Lord revealed to Peter what would come of him.  “I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."  (John 21:18 NIV)

This  was in fact Jesus’ way of telling Peter how Peter would die.  That certainly didn’t fit into the equation Peter had of how God would deal with him and it must have thrown him.  It would have thrown you.  He then asked the Lord about the Apostle John, "Lord, what about him?"  (John 21:21 NIV)  He wanted to recalculate God with a better equation.  He thought He knew and understood God but now He realized he didn’t.  Christ’s reply took it all out of the realm of mathematics.  Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me."(John 21:22 NIV)  In other words, “Don’t try to predict what I will do.”  “Don’t think I can be understood with a calculator.”  The Lord is not bound by the rules of physics or logic.  His actions are not determined by what you think is best.  He does as He pleases whenever He wants.  He is absolutely free. 

There is only one way to think along God’s lines.  There is only this law through which He operates.  It is the Law of Love.  Not your love.  Not my love.  Pure, undefiled love is how you see into God.  John the Apostle, who knew Jesus as well as anyone has made this clear when He stated,  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  (1 John 4:7-8 NIV)  The only way to get into God’s mind is to love His people.  You are as confused about Him as a rock in a creek bed if you do not love.  Love is the map to His personality, it is the glasses through which we understand His actions.  The lowest of minds can think along the lines of Jesus if love is at play but the great intellects of the world are at a complete loss to comprehend even the smallest thing of God without love.  How can you understand God and know what He is doing with you?  Stare with fixed attention upon Jesus crucified, His hands riveted to the horizontal beam with rough iron nails, His feet fixed to the vertical wooden beam with another nail and the blood drops oozing down from his head.  That is how you understand what He is doing with you.  Watch Him as He dies to take from you your sin.  Gaze upon Him as He dies to give you a new and perfect life.  That is how you figure Him out.  It is love through and through that decides for Christ what He will do at any moment.  It is love that determines His actions.  Take heed to this.  The only ones who get a grasp on God and understand His ways are those who love and invest with love in the lives of others.  Let this be the way you think about all you see of God and hear about Him.  Let it be your rule of thumb whenever you look for what the Lord may be doing with you.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. (1 John 4:16 NIV)  It may be a surprise ending when it comes to what happens next for you but you can be certain of this.  It will be because God loves you and died to save you from your sin.

Follow

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said…

Matthew 4:19 NIV

Are You A Follower?

The mushroom is an interesting plant.  It does not require sunshine; it can be found in dark corners under logs or tucked away beneath a shroud of leaves.  Mushrooms provide for the forest a critical function.  They fasten themselves to dead logs and gradually break them down, thus clearing the forest floor of stockpiling old wood.  Because the mushroom is a fungus, it sends out tiny spores that are too small to be seen by the naked eye.  These spores flit about upon the wind, having been found as high as thirty-five thousand feet, soaring about in the jet stream with commercial airliners.  When a spore lands upon some dead piece of plant material, it starts to grow, taking out of either a log or a fallen pile of leaves the nutrients it needs to thrive.  As we well know, although mushrooms are tasty on pizza and in spaghetti sauce, the wrong types of mushrooms when eaten can kill you.  Suppose you have a friend who is an expert on mushrooms and warns you not to eat a particular mushroom growing in your back yard.  You had plans for that mushroom and had hoped to add it to your salad.  How would you respond to her admonition?  Are you the sort to be offended by the directive to not eat the mushroom or would you be grateful for the correction?

The other day I was in a church service when a college student gave her thoughts about what her church should do to stay relevant in an ever changing society.  She shared her concern that if young adults are going to be a part of churches, they want be free of judgment and condemnation.  Of course I can’t think of too many of us who want to be criticized for our behavior; we all like to get a pat on the back and be affirmed.  Yet, should the church metaphorically chop out the rules and commands in the Bible that many find incomprehensible or even reprehensible to keep everyone happy?  What are we to do with all the “thou shalt nots” and “thou shalts” found in the Bible?  Is God too restrictive for our generation or those who follow?

The student, during her presentation on what the church must do to stay relevant and inviting, made as the centerpiece of her talk the contention that her church must be all about love.  Without love being exhibited she argued, young people will not want to be a part of the worship services or Bible studies.  Who could argue with her!  What sorts of people want to join a church that is hateful and mean spirited?  Yet here is where we must careful.  Is it “loving” to ignore the commands of God or never speak of them?  Should we pretend as if the commands of God don’t exist to get those outside the church to “buy into” Christianity and believe the Church is comprised of loving people?

The Bible insists that God is love.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16 NIV)  Rightfully, we emphasize our own behavior in this equation.  Because God is love, we too must live in love.  But let us turn this around for just a moment.  God is love.  That is the insistence.  God is love.  Continually God is love.  In every circumstance and interaction, God is love.  With every determination God makes God is love.  This reaches into every single aspect of God…what we know of Him and what we don’t.  God is love.  His motivation is pulled out of love, His relationships all come out of love, each word that comes from Him is determined by love.  Consider this carefully.  The verb in the statement is one of continuous being.  In every single way and at every moment in time, God is love.  It is not that God is loving which of course is important but not the critical point.  It is that God is love in every way…not just in what He does but also in how He thinks, what He believes, the way He makes decisions and what He commands.  God is love and that filters down to what He insists His people do.  Even the commands of God are love.

Let us go back to the discussion of mushrooms.  If you know that the person who tells you that you must not eat a certain mushroom ever is filed with love and only says what He does to you because love directs Him to do so and not just any love but perfect love, then the way you think about the command to not eat a certain mushroom must be evaluated with that in mind.  Suppose that the person who told you not to eat that one mushroom also knows all the ramifications of eating the mushroom and all the particular outcomes of eating the mushroom and out of love has given you the command.  What do you make of what you have been told?  Is it restrictive?  Is it limiting?  Is it hard to accept?  It might be.  But the way we view the command must fit the character and the knowledge of the one issuing the command.  Should you be embarrassed to tell your children not to eat the certain mushroom that is growing in your backyard?  Should you keep the warning to yourself because you are afraid of what others will think about you if you tell them not to eat the mushroom growing in your backyard?  What if everyone in the world insists that eating that mushroom in your backyard is the best thing for you and that only fools would demand the mushroom remain off limits?  Does the command become less loving or unnecessarily restrictive simply because six billion people don’t like it?

Admittedly we must decide if we are to believe the Bible is true or not but if you do, then you cannot throw out the commands of God as something mean and reprehensible if they came from God and He is in every way love.  The commands too are love because He issued them and they are for our good because He tells us that we are to obey them and it is His love that forms and shapes every command of His.  Jesus began His public ministry by issuing a simple invitation.  “Come follow me.”  Many chose not to follow Christ just as it is today.  They did not trust Him.  They did not think He loved them.  They were afraid He would not take care of them.  But some did follow Christ.  It may not have been easy for them to go with Him.  They might not have all received support from family members and friends when they made the decision.  Some may have been despised for following Christ.  Eventually though, each one discovered that Christ is love.  They kept on following Him even when it got rough.  Even when it was frightening and they did not know where Jesus was taking them they kept following.

You cannot follow Jesus and disregard what He says to do.  It is like a Himalayan guide taking her group to the left and one of the members going right instead.  At that point the climber is no longer following.  In John 21 is the account of Jesus talking privately with John and Peter during the period of the resurrection meetings.  Christ told Peter of the painful trials he could expect and the horrible death he would suffer as an apostle but did not mention any troubles that John would face.  Peter asked Jesus what he thought was a reasonable question. "Lord, what about him?" (John 21:21 NIV)  “What about John?”  Our Lord’s reply closed the discussion.  Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." (John 21:22 NIV)  If you are to follow Jesus, then He is in charge of what you do and how you do it.  You can decide to not follow Jesus and He will let you go on your way.  If you are going to follow Him though, then he makes the decisions for you.

At least forty times in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the Lord tells us to follow His commands.  The idea that it doesn’t matter what we do as long as we just love God is ludicrous.  Jesus Himself made it clear that there is no love for God without doing what He says to do.  Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.  (John 14:23-24 NIV)    If we do not obey God, we run the risk of not having Him make His home in us.  This does not mean we are not saved or that we will be condemned for our sins.  It does mean that there is no intimacy with God if we disobey Him, no closeness.  Jesus asked, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?”  (Luke 6:46 NIV)

Six times in the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus said to different ones, “Follow me!”  Some did, many didn’t.  Plenty believed He was the Messiah, countless others knew He was sent by God to be a prophet and teacher.  Only a few though decided to follow Jesus.  In Mark 10 is the fascinating account of a fellow who was a great success story.  He came to Jesus though in tremendous need, falling on his knees before Christ, wanting to know how he could inherit eternal life.  Jesus never answered the question though.  Instead He peeled back the layers of religious garb that were strangling his faith.  "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good — except God alone.”  (Mark 10: 18 NIV) Jesus put matters in this passionate Jew’s hands.  He had to decide then and there what to make of Jesus.  Was He good?  Then He was God.  If He wasn’t, then there was no point in continuing the discussion.  Jesus pushed harder. “You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'" (Mark 10: 19)  Was this man going to obey the commandments or walk away from following God?  He replied quite firmly, "Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."  (Mark 10: 20) Now remember this most important fact about God.  He is love.  Everything He does comes out of love.  God never acts without love driving every part of it.  Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Mark 10:21 NIV)

Some may say that this was a cruel and mean spirited response to this spiritually thirsty soul.  Why tell Him to sell all he had and give it to the poor?  Why push the envelope like that and make the man give up so much to prove his loyalty to God?  Not everyone is willing to follow Jesus and many will turn away.  We cannot say with any real certainty why Jesus told this one man to get rid of his wealth but we can be sure He did so to bless the man and make his life much better.  Some do fine with wealth but most do not.  Some can handle success and fame but the vast majority of us cannot.  If in love our Lord told Him to give his wealth away, then we can be certain Christ was not testing him like a school boy in a class.  Nor was Jesus giving this eager young disciple an initiation rite to see if He was fit to come follow Him.  Notice the psychological reaction of the man when he stumbled over his wealth.  At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:22 NIV)

Shouldn’t he have gone away with tremendous happiness because he had great wealth?  When we don’t believe God loves us beyond measure and knows perfectly what is best for us, we walk away from His commands with sadness.  God has a command for you and to follow Him, you must obey it.  It might be Sunday worship.  It could be tithing.  It might be sexual purity or forgiveness or kindness.  The command before you could be some sort of ministry or service or sacrifice.  It might be some habit that you need to quit.  Whatever God is telling you to do, remember that Christ loves you perfectly and His way with you is just what you need to have the best of lives, one that will fill your heart with joy forever.