The Moment of Discovery

John 20:8 NIV

 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.

What Did You Just See?

When I was young, maybe five years old, I heard on our porch a loud stomping and a male voice calling out, “Ho, Ho, Ho!”  I was in shock.  It was night time and Christmas Eve and the thought that Santa Claus was actually tramping around on our porch was astounding to me.  Was it possible that Santa Claus was out there?  Had he come to my home?  What did this mean?  I stood there dumbfounded in front of the door trying to decide if I would go outside and see if it was him.  I must have looked over at my mom to see what she thought.  Was it safe to go out on the porch?  What should I do?  Finally I opened the door and there before me was a brand new tricycle.  I was astonished.  So it was true!  Santa Claus did exist and he left me the grandest of all presents.  How could I ever have doubted Santa Claus?  Of course I later discovered that it was my dad who made all the noise, left the tricycle on the porch and slipped in the house through the back door but in my childhood, seeing was believing for me!

There is a moment when you stand in the gap between belief and disbelief, when you are not certain of what you just saw or heard.  It could be good news like that you were “lucky caller number ten” or that your cancer is gone.  It could be something dreadfully horrible like that a close friend just died in a car accident or that you have been let go from your job of twenty years.  You cannot anticipate such moments.  They come like a bolt of lightning and shatter whatever comfortable plans you had for the day or the week or your life.  You have seen pictures of people who stand in dumbfounded shock with their eyes blinking wildly as they try to process what just happened.  Maybe you have been like that.  Your boyfriend just asked you to marry him.  Your dad just handed you the keys to a new car.  Your mother just told you she was divorcing your father.  Most of your days are pretty normal but then all of a sudden it isn’t normal.  It is shocking.

The account of Jacob found in the Bible is just that sort of matter.  He was fleeing for his life.  Jacob had just tricked his dad into giving him the blessing intended for his twin brother and now that older brother was plotting his murder back at home.  Exhausted from his panicked flight, Jacob found a boulder and put his head down on it as if it were a cushy pillow and fell asleep.  Jacob could not have predicted what happened that night.

Like all of us each and every night, Jacob had a dream.  Most of our dreams we never remember when we get up out of bed.  Some keep us thinking for a while.  Most are completely forgettable.  Jacob had a dream that made its way into the Bible.  He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  There above it stood the Lord, and he said: "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." (Genesis 28:12-15 NIV)

Jacob was so convinced that he had just met God in His sleep that he created a monument to honor the Lord and named the place where he was, “House of God”. Jacob even made a vow at the spot to give God a tenth of all he gained if the Lord took care of him and brought him back to his father’s house.  Most of us never give much thought to our dreams and rarely do even the most ardent of Christians think their dreams are sent to them by God.  Dreams are just too chaotic, too bizarre to take seriously.  Yet Jacob believed his dream was a God moment; that the Lord met with Him that night, the actual and real Lord.

If you had the exact same dream, would you have taken it seriously?  Would you have worshiped the Lord as soon as you climbed out of bed?  Would you have been convinced God had spoken directly to you?  Don’t misrepresent what happened with Jacob.  It was in the end just a dream.  It was no less a dream than you might have had, seeing yourself standing in front of a group without any pants or meeting in some restaurant with a long gone relative or having a raccoon talk to you on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  It was a dream but Jacob knew it was not just something that sprang up from his own unconscious; it was from beyond him, it was God coming to him within his heart.

It is hard to believe that God is really real and that He speaks to people like you and me.  Great intellects like Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan insist God does not exist.  You have friends and neighbors that pay no attention to God.  People you respect ignore Him.  The popular movies do not mention Him or include God in the plot lines.  Even “deep and meaningful” song lyrics have no place for God in them.  The anticipation of God making His way into the normal day you have is nearly dead.  Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we have lost our way and don’t know how we can get back to our place of real life with God.

What do you make of this casually mentioned moment in the Apostle Paul’s normal life?  He was on one of his missionary trips and needed to know where he and his companions should go after they left the region of Galatia, just north of Paul’s hometown.  The book of Acts has an interesting comment on this.   Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. (Acts 16:6 NIV)  How did Paul know the Holy Spirit did not want him and his partners in the province of Asia?  We aren’t told!  It is not clear how God got this across to them.  It could have been through a dream or a prophet or a sign of some sort or just an impression they had that God was directing them.  What we do know though is that Paul and the others all were prepared for God to guide them and ready to believe He was.  This is no small matter, believing that God can and does direct your steps.  It is in fact for many an insurmountable barrier.  They do not accept this to be so and live without any thought given to what God wants them to do.

Imagine what it would be like if you took seriously Jesus’ statement in John 15: 5.  "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (NIV)  The “if” of this proclamation indicates that you may or may not remain in Him.  That is completely up to you.  No one including God will force you to remain connected to Christ.  You can cut yourself off from Him like an angry daughter who refuses to talk with her parents.  A famous porn star who has been in the news recently has for twenty years refused to have anything to do with either of her parents.  You can do that, ignoring Christ and making no effort at being connected to Him.  But the consequence of that is that you can do nothing.  You don’t matter, what you do, how you think, what you accomplish does not matter.  You go nowhere, do nothing, make nothing of your life.  That is an option that you can take and many are completely satisfied doing this.  They are thoroughly disconnected from Christ and happy living that way.

To be connected to Christ, you must pay attention to Him.  Look for Him to guide you.  Ask Him to direct you.  Listen for Him to speak to you.  There are a thousand different ways Christ can show you something and make your life matter.  Who can know what it will be next?  Was Moses expecting a burning bush?  Did David expect the high priest of Israel to come to his house?  Could Elijah have anticipated the small still voice?  Was Nathaniel prepared for someone from Nazareth to be the Messiah?  God does not announce His presence with trumpets and does not shake you out of your sleep to get you to notice Him.  He will come to you at any moment with any sort of way of getting through to you that He chooses.  One thing though is clear.  If you do not keep your mind on Christ and set your heart on being directed by Him, nothing you do will matter.  That is certain.

Don’t be embarrassed that you haven’t been paying attention to Christ.  Admit it.  Start over.  Pray and ask the Lord to guide you, to show you what to do next.  Perhaps you are lost and don’t know how to find your way.  Turn to Christ and ask Him what to do.  He will guide you.  Somehow, you will know what to do and it will be the Lord who will make it clear.  Just like the sparrow knows somehow where to look for food, Christ will direct you too.  You must trust Him though to guide you perfectly and as you follow Him, everything you do will matter, whether it is how you make your bed or the way you respond at a board meeting or what you say to your kids at home.  With Christ in you directing your life, you are no ordinary mortal; you have all the glory of God living through you!

The Loss of Innocence

Matthew 26:41 NIV

 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

Do You Ever Enjoy Being Tempted?

When I was a sophomore in high school, I took a third year French class.  I did not bother doing the homework so I was dependent on my tests to get a passing grade.  That was not exactly a recipe for success so when my final came, I was in trouble.  The teacher gave us a long passage to translate in preparation for the final and I barely looked at it.  Like everyone else, I brought the study sheet into class the day of the final to go over it just before taking the test.  When I saw the exam, I realized my ship had come in, that I had a way to do well on my final.  It was word for word the French version of the English passage we were told to translate in preparation for the test.  In other words, my notes were the complete set of answers.  The only problem I had was finding a way of looking at the notes as I was taking the exam.  I slyly slid my notes under my test paper and started to try to translate the text on the exam.  I had two problems though.  I did not know my French well enough to do the translations and I was too scared to pull my study sheet out from under my test and actually use it to cheat.  When I realized that I was not bold enough to use the study sheet to get my answers and no matter how long I stared at the test paper, I would not be able to come up with the translation, I just got up and turned in my paper which most certainly would leave me with a failing grade.  Now I could claim that I did not cheat on my final exam which would actually be true but I certainly wanted to and only my fear of being publically humiliated by getting caught kept me from doing so.  You might say that when it came to cheating, my spirit was willing but my flesh was weak,

How many times a day do you think you are tempted to do what is wrong?  Are you ever tempted to lie, or gossip, or criticize someone to boost your ego or keep you from looking bad?  Are you tempted to be angry or drawn into lust?  Are you prone to feeling sorry for yourself or ever sucked into worry?  Are you tempted to keep your faith in Christ to yourself rather than share the Gospel with others?  Do you struggle with greed?  Have you been tempted to not give your ten percent to God because you want something or are afraid to part with it?  Have you been tempted to turn your back on someone in need or to pretend to not know someone needs your help?  Are you ever tempted to ignore God when He gives you direction?  What sort of temptations are you facing right now?

Temptation is typically thought of as something external and sin as internal.  You are responsible for your sin but not for the temptations facing you.  Of course in the moral climate where you live most sin is not considered sin and temptation is rarely given much thought either.  Yet Jesus insisted that you must think constantly about temptation; that you are responsible for not only sins you commit but temptations you don’t avoid.

Jesus had very little to say to the disciples as He went through the spiritual and psychological agony of Gethsemane.  He was laser focused on the Father as He processed the cross that was before Him.  There were no parables shared, no special teachings explained, just a command was directed to His followers.  "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." (Matthew 26:41 NIV)  Clearly Jesus did not think of temptation as a passive experience that overtakes you but rather something you can avoid.  The NIV translation weakens Jesus’ take on temptation.  The verb is not “fall” like something you might stumble into but “enter into”.  No one, unless he or she is acting chooses to fall, but entering into something is different.  It is you that must decide if you will enter into temptation, not Satan or some demon or even a tempter.  You are the one who chooses or does not choose to enter into temptation and Christ makes that very clear.   Much like the decision to enter into a park or a house or a church building, you decide if you will enter into temptation or not.

Jesus tells us there are two things we must do to not make the choice of entering into temptation.  They are watch and pray.  Both, Jesus says, must be done constantly, not once and move along but over and over again wherever you are.  Watching seems obvious.  Look out for temptations and be careful.  How many people have ruined their lives because they did not pay attention to the danger of a temptation?  The Titanic sunk because the captain did not pay attention to warning signs.  A friend of mine got into a car accident because he wasn’t paying attention to warning signs and now his car is wrecked.  Families have fallen apart because warning signs were ignored, addictions develop and crush lives because warning signs go unnoticed, people lose their jobs because they carelessly ignore warning signs.  What can we say about David and Adam and Solomon who suffered greatly because they did not see the risks involved in decisions they made!  How many lives did they wreck because they ignored warning signs involving temptation!

Rarely are we consciously aware of how great the risk a particular temptation carries.  Solomon probably did not know just how disastrous it would be for him to marry an Egyptian princess and David on the fateful evening was not aware of how going up on his palace roof one evening would tear apart his home and even his nation.  Was Adam aware of how great a temptation it was for his wife to listen to the serpent in the garden?  Probably not!  Would Custer have wished he could have been enlightened to the risk he was taking engaging the Sioux in battle at the Little Big Horn?  It takes supernatural powers to assess the true nature of most temptations.

Jesus did not just say to watch out for temptations, He commanded us to pray that we might not enter through the gates of temptation.  In a world that is growing increasingly unaware of the powerful spiritual forces working within it, prayer for any reason seems nonsensical.  “Just work harder”, you are told.  “Strike out on your own and make your dreams come true”, you are encouraged.  “Make your life your own”, it is proclaimed.  The supernatural working of God is declared an antiquated myth and yet there it is.  Christ says to pray so you won’t enter into temptation.

There is another factor that argues against praying you won’t enter into temptation.  Sinning often seems reasonable.  Why pray to not be tempted into sinning if you really do want to sin.  People who skip out on attending worship services or Bible studies do so because it makes sense to them to miss.  Those who don’t tithe have good reasons for not giving a full ten percent to God’s Kingdom.  You look at pornography or lie about something or get angry or hold a grudge because it makes sense to you.  You don’t think of sin as sin.  You think of it as pleasant or reasonable or your right but never as a temptation when you have decided to power on ahead into temptation.

Do you honestly think Judas Iscariot believed he was doing something terribly wrong and needed to pray about his decision to betray Christ?  Of course he didn’t.  It seemed like the right thing to do and he did not bother praying about the temptation.  When Lot’s wife looked back at Sodom being destroyed, did she think she was doing something horrific and wrecking her life?  Of course she didn’t.  She didn’t bother praying about turning back and looking at Sodom because she wanted to do it and it was reasonable to her.  Of course Judas did not realize the temptation to betray Jesus would wreck his sanity and destroy his life.  Lot’s wife did not consider that by turning her eyes back toward Sodom she would leave her daughters without a mother and her husband without a wife and the three without her would fall into moral depravity.  Temptation is not the sin but it is the entry point into sin.   Going into a bar does not mean you will become drunk but it is the entry point into drunkenness.  An advertisement is not materialism but it is the entry point into materialism.

Your temptation is not always mine and mine isn’t always yours but it is real and if you pray and watch, you can know when you come to it.  At the point of temptation, your will to follow God weakens and your reasons for staying faithful to Christ lose their power to sway you.  Sin makes sense to you and you shut off those voices that try to stop you.  And then sin enters you and changes the course of your life.  How sin affects you and how severely it damages your life varies from sin to sin and person to person.  Yet there are some universal aspects to sin and its effect.  There are at least six signs that sin has corrupted your life with Christ.  1.  You become irritable and your peace fades away.  2.  You lose your way.  You make bad decisions.  The ramifications of how bad your choices are may not show up at once but eventually you will regret what you have done.  3.  Critical relationships become disrupted without a clear cause.  People get upset with you or you with them and you don’t know why.  4.  God disappears.  You don’t see Him at work and you lose interest in Him.  5.  Many times sin damages the normal health of your body. You suffer from pain and sickness brought on by rebellion against God.   6.  You grow increasingly anxious and have a hard time understanding why.  Your anxious thoughts may lead to trouble sleeping and bad dreams.

Temptation is like a mosquito bite.  It may just result in a minor irritation or it could lead to malaria.  Christ said you must do all you can to avoid temptation.  Watch for it and pray you do not enter into it.  How serious are you about living without sin and not letting it wreck your life or the lives of others?  Bend your heart before Christ and ask Him to protect you from temptation.  Pray He will keep temptation from you at this moment and to build within you a hatred for all forms of sin in you.  List the last three sins you know you committed and choose to despise them and confess them to God and acknowledge that they are evil.