When There Is Nothing You Can Do

The most frustrating of people are those who have been born again but turned away from the Lord and dismissed His fellowship.  We have the impulse to feel sorry for them; to compassionately coddle them but the Lord isn't in such misguided nurturing.  They must be allowed to go off to the far country, to squander the riches of heaven on "prostitutes" (any substitute for living in close communion with Christ) and wallow in the muck of pigs.  It is only when they reach the end of their rope that they can get a handle on the lunacy of their ways.  But if we try to keep them away from the far country, we usurp the wisdom of the Father who let His son go and did not go off chasing him down the road.  There is much to lose for the prodigal and many may be hurt by his corrupted decisions but it is no use trying to change his mind once he has taken the inheritance and left.  Husbands and wives have shed countless tears over their prodigal spouses, fathers and mothers have sat in a dejected stupor over their prodigal children but it is hopeless trying to herd them back into the pen.  They are gone and the facts must be faced courageously.  So what should be done?  As the father in Jesus' parable waited for his son, so we too must wait for the return of the prodigal.  It is the prodigal's decision alone that must rule and if he chooses to come back, then we throw a party and rejoice.  If he does not, we must accept it and let him have his way as God works the circumstances in his life to pinch him in tightly enough until he is able to face himself squarely.  Our praying does something; it unleashes the full resources of heaven on our behalf as we mourn the departure of the prodigal.  We cannot expect the Lord though to "make him return."  The prodigal is not some trained rat; he is fully human and free to decide for himself whom he shall follow.  When your own prodigal walks away, mourn as terribly as the pacing father in the Lord's story but do not extend him a lifeline.  He must make his way back himself, repent because he chooses to repent and seek out the Father because that is what he has decided to do.

When he came to his senses, he said…"Father I have sinned against heaven and against you…"  Luke 15: 17, 21 NIV

Unperturbed

What seems to frustrate us most, at least for those who live actually, acknowledging  tragedy and wreckage are  the normal parts of life, is that we can't ever swing free of our troubles.  We may hide from them for a while or even make light of them as if we are indifferent to their bite but in the end troubles square us up and make full contact.  The soldier on the battlefield as well as the mother nursing her sickly child is matched up with troubles and they make a mockery of the misty dream-state concocted by teachers of Biblical positivism.  You would think, if you believed some, that the disciples never died, Mary Magdalene never got sick and John found Patmos a paradise.  It is there before us though.  We do get tired of our husband's mood swings, limp with arthritis and wake up to unemployment.  The bank does foreclose on our house and our daughter slams the door on us.  This stuff of life is here and we must recognize the root of it as it is.  We are a fool if we think Jesus never stubbed His toe, woke up with a migraine or failed to sway the crowd.  He, whose own brothers and sisters thought Him a fool and whose mother convinced herself He had lost His mind, lived out fully the farthest reach of sin and taking it within Himself buried that sin in the Cross.  Our sin has been crucified with Christ but its stench remains at every crack and mound.  Its damage remains like scars that seem to get worse with age.  What Jesus Christ has done for us though in taking our sin from us is make it possible for His life to live within ours, for Him to actually transform us that He and us become one new being.  This means that the same strength Christ had as He worked His way to Jerusalem is ours and the faith He had that made Him fearless as the storm threatened to swamp the boat where He slept is the faith we hold too.  We have no monstrosity to fear, no rejection to dread.  With Christ working His way through each part of us, we can be happy as sorrow strikes but not with the happiness of a lunatic but with the joy of the redeemed,  the joy flowing out of the One who has been baptized by death and come up again alive to the brim.  You can, in Christ, face your day not in some drunken stupor brought on by the old wine  you drank before but in the life you have now with the Lord Himself welling up as a fountain of Living water within you.  Drink deeply from that spring and face what comes to you with the strength God provides.  Nothing is too terrible to bear if Christ's very own blood flows through your veins.  It is not God who incites you to worry, not Christ who pushes dread upon you.  The word of God is always "fear not" just as surely as you breathe.  Don't dread the coming storm...be glad God has given you the opportunity to find out just how strong you now are and how unperturbed you can be.

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."   John 7:38 NIV

The Good Life

Jesus told us not to rejoice that the demons fear us but that our names are written in heaven.  Christianity has become to a large degree a results oriented club rather than what God intends, the opening in which we all build our lives in Christ.    We can feed our lusts by doing this or that, all good and noble activities perhaps, but the Lord isn't interested in those things.  He wants to form Himself in us that what is found as we are uncovered in the light of human scrutiny is Christ there.  The crucible is not the great place, the thrilling spot, the electrifying moment but it is at the sink where the dishes we wash are for God's glory and we do not just tolerate the task but thank the Lord that He might shine there.  As we make the presentation or help an ungrateful child with his homework we have the form of Christ jutting out from the task and it is up to us if we are going to let Him be seen.  We can complain about our classmate or gossip about our co-worker and all the while entertain someone with our craftiness but is that what we want our lives to be?  Are we satisfied with the same personality as Adam and Cain or do we most want to be joined to Christ?  Sodom was not destroyed because it was the center of homosexuality; it was wrecked because God could not do anything with the people who lived there. They resisted to the end the love and mercy of God and if we can't let Christ seep out of us when the work gets tedious and our efforts go unnoticed, then what good are?  It is just when Jerusalem hated Christ most that He did His greatest work.  Can it be said of you too that the love of Christ and His mastery of your soul takes the stage when you future looks grim and your fruit is blighted?  Do you have the look of God as you come to your own Cross?  The imitation of Christ is not some sort of faking it, the play acting of a movie script; it is the deliverance of the human heart from sin by the blood of Jesus Christ resulting in His life working His way through ours in real moments of common actions.

Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.  3 John 11-12 NIV

Uncommon Peace

Are we disturbed by our circumstance, unsettled by our place?  Have we grown weary of the dreary, of the humdrum common existence we share with so much of the world?  Are we tired of doing the same things over and over again,  of having to make do with what we have and of living with so little excitement?  Do we dread the boredom and despise the tedium?  Nothing smacks of the Devil's temptation more than the resistance to God's placement of us.  Lust, coveting and gossip are the symptoms of a misshapen view of what living in God is.  Solomon proved exquisitely the hopelessness of trying to get every itch scratched.  The more his craven mind searched for another syrupy substitute for the joy of God's salvation, the more insatiable his thirst.  We are not made for such wanton wandering.  We are made for righteousness, peace and satisfaction.  The last place the world searches for happiness is at the Cross of Christ.  The blood and guts of Satan's fury resulted in the one hope this world has.  Jesus Christ crucified calms the storm that rages in the human heart and satisfies the thirsty soul.  You will continue washing dishes, putting up with selfish people and unfair circumstances but you can have joy if you look to Christ for your satisfaction.  One moment of closeted prayer, a single cry for help to the God of your salvation and you can find yourself peace in front of the pile of laundry or the critical evaluation.  You are not alone in your weariness but the one who is with you will not let you remain in your self-pity.  He will lift you up from your clouded grind and give you joy if you let Him have a place with you.  Take your Bible and don't try to find something in it, some promise or bit of direction.  Simply go to it so you can be with Christ and let the Holy Spirit wash over you as you read the Words prepared for you this very day.  Let God meet you here...here where your drudgery catches up with His climb to Gethsemane and beyond to Calvary and all self-pity will be consumed by the fire of His raging love for you.  Nothing, not even the tedium of your day, can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.  Find a way to rest in Him wherever the Lord's hand may bring you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.  John 14:27 NIV

Indwelling Love

The closer we look at the true morality of our heart, the less confident we become of ever having a family resemblance to Jesus.  Our actual affections should sicken us if we care much about being holy.  If we have come to the conclusion that we are spineless and lack integrity between what we confess about Christianity and what we are, then something supernatural can begin within us.  God is not waiting breathlessly to see if we can make something good of ourselves; the opposite is actually the case.  He is watching for our tipping point when we become available for Him to rework.  At the point of our hopelessness, we may open ourselves to the intervention of Holy Spirit and His marvelous transforming power.  Jesus Christ did not tell us that we were to love our neighbors as ourselves because He thought we could ever do it.  We can barely love our children in some approximation of it, love our best friends as best friends, but our love of the neighbor who takes our legs out from under us somehow is not going to be adored with the affection God wants for him.  We can only hope that Jesus Christ will do our loving for us; that He will assert His will and power in our actions.  The cross dangling from our mirror or hidden within our heart is not a reminder of distant God keeping an eye on us.  It is the statement that Christ in us is the hope of glory and that He is violently at times working His way out of us and into our world.  Let us not try to love through Him but rather let Him love through us.  The purity we seek is not some gilded try on our part but rather bloody holiness brought in by the presence of the Lord Jesus Himself.  True loving of your neighbor as yourself happens only if you give Christ room to do that loving, if you make yourself available to Him to bless those who hate you and cherish the enemies God died to save.  Nothing is more sure than the ability Christ has to make you full of love;  your faith in Him will do the trick. 

...grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.   Ephesians 3:18-19 NIV