Mary’s Gift

Luke 2:19 NIV

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

What Sort of Gift Are You Expecting?

This past week I was talking with some children and one of them asked what I was going to do for Christmas.  I gave her a brief summary of our Christmas day plans and told her also that we would go to a church service on Sunday also.  Quickly one of the children stated she too was a Christian and commented that several others of them there were also Christian and they all nodded their heads and smiled.   The girl pointed at another child and asked her if she was a Christian too and she smiled broadly and said she was.  One of the children then gazed deeply into my eyes and asked me if I would be drinking at Christmas.  I admitted I wouldn’t, that I didn’t drink at all and she then solemnly confessed that both of her parents drank and then paused.  “I wish my dad didn’t drink so much. I have tried to get him to quit but he won’t.  I got my grandpa to stop smoking but my dad won’t stop drinking.”  Dumbfounded by this child’s openness and deep sadness, I gave no reply.  What sadness there is in this world!  What brokenness and heartache!  I wonder, if that little eleven year old girl has a Christmas wish that goes beyond toys and games and cool vacations.  I wonder what sort of gift she wants this Christmas day!

Recently I spent a bit of time pondering the circumstances Mary the mother of Jesus faced as she went through her nine months of pregnancy.  Was she aware of the internal struggle Joseph her betrothed was enduring?  Did she know just how heartbroken he was upon discovering Mary was pregnant?  Of course she must have seen it in his eyes, in his frowning, in the tension that hardened his smile.  Mary got to take a break from the public scrutiny for a while.  She went to be with her pregnant cousin Elizabeth and celebrate the child she would soon have in her old age.  There was a gift awaiting Mary that she would always treasure.  When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!  But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1:41-45 NIV)

The comfort Mary felt at Elizabeth’s reaction to her walking in the house breathed hope into the young and tenderhearted Mary.  After three months though, she returned to Nazareth, pregnant and unmarried.  Soon the whispers began; the rumors, the gossip, the frowns, the withering stares as she passed.  But then came a second gift, a stunning surprise.  Joseph had a dream and in it an angel told him not to be afraid of Mary’s pregnancy.  “Stay with her,” he was told. “Believe her”, the angel insisted.  It was too good to be true.  Joseph was going to still marry her: he trusted her and believed her story.  But as the day of the baby’s birth grew near, a stupendous demand was made of her.  Mary would have to walk all the way to Bethlehem from Nazareth with nine months of baby in her belly.  In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world… And everyone went to his own town to register.  So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. (Luke 2:1-6 NIV)

We always picture her riding on a donkey as they trudged along but none of the accounts in the Bible say anything about a donkey…or a horse…or a mule…or even a Shetland pony.  Ninety miles they trudged along.  Up steep hills and along dry and weary valleys they plodded.  This could not have been in any of Mary’s dreams of how this would go.  They say that it is good for women to walk a bit the final days of their pregnancy…but not ninety miles.  It was unreasonable.  Miserable!  Swollen ankles and a heavy belly throwing her balance out of whack added to the wretchedness of it.  They made it though…somehow.

Finally in Bethlehem where Mary was bursting with baby and ready to give birth, no place could found where they could stay.  Famously there was, “no room in the inn.”   Where was Mary’s baby to be born?  We say it was a stable but we don’t really know.  A stable isn’t mentioned, just a feed trough where Jesus was placed after He was delivered by Joseph.  Imagine the disappointment Mary must have felt having to deliver Jesus like a sheep delivers its lamb, like a cow its calf, like a doe its fawn outside or in a stall or some cave somewhere.  Alone with her husband and the baby at her side, it would seem Mary may have felt forgotten, certainly weary, and perhaps unwanted.  At the same time as Mary was giving birth to her baby Jesus in some dirty and forsaken place in Bethlehem, shepherds scattered along the hillsides with their sheep drearily kept track of the flocks they managed.  Every night a lonesome watch!  Shepherds may not have been as despised in Israel as they were in Egypt during Jacob’s time but they were certainly shunned by most people.  Dirty, smelly, poor, uneducated, socially awkward, having all the unique personality traits of those out by themselves for hours and weeks and months at a time, they were no one’s role model, living on the bottom rung of the social order.

But then without warning, the sky exploded with supernatural wonder.  And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  (Luke 2:8-9 NIV)  The angel was not alone though.  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:13-14 NIV)  The message to all those shepherds in shocked amazement was astonishing.  But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." (Luke 2:10-12 NIV)

Off the shepherds scampered scattering about the town of Bethlehem in search of this wondrous baby.  When they found him, the mob of filthy shepherds and their dumbfounded expressions as they approached Mary and her newborn baby Jesus must have been quite a confounding sight for the young disheveled mother and her husband.  Can we imagine what alarm and dismay they might have initiated in Mary’s heart?   What else could go badly she may have wondered!  And yet this was the great Christmas gift, an astonishing one.  As the shepherds, perhaps all at once, blurted out the sight of the great host of angels and the message they gave, Mary may have at first listened in stunned disbelief but then, having experience with the supernatural workings of God, realized that it was the Lord who was once more comforting her, once again giving her peace and encouragement.  Over and over the shepherds may have repeated the message.  "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.   With all the chaos and disappointment and hardship this birth brought, Mary had this amazing gift to consider.  The Scripture says that Mary, " treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19 NIV)

The expression “treasured” is the translation of a Greek word that means “to keep safe” or “to protect carefully in mind”.  “Pondered” likewise means to “continuously cast about in mind.”  In other words, Mary thought about this message from the angels over and over again and never forgot what they said.  In a time of great upheaval, loneliness and troubling thoughts, God presented Mary with a lovely gift that carried her past all her doubt and fear.  God, wrapped in the packaging of dirty shepherds who were outcasts from much of the world, gave Mary something to treasure.  “I am with you.  I am in charge and I will take you through this.”  On this very day and in this one place, do you have a gift that God has given you that you have not noticed, that you have not given much thought, not grasped its great value?  Maybe you have not thought enough of what God has done for you, not yet fully seen what a lovely and great gift He has given you.  Perhaps you could wait just a moment with Christ beside you and consider what gift you have that is precious beyond measure.  Do you see it?  Do you have it fixed in your mind?  What great gift has God given you that you can never repay?

A Strange Revelation

John 4: 26 NIV

 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he.”

Are You Ready For A Change?

There is in each of us a strong desire to be right.  We want to be the one with the correct answer…to know how it really is when others are just guessing.  Yet how can we be right when we don’t have an answer, when we just have questions?  When I went away to college, I did not know what I was doing.  I had no idea what to expect, what I would gain from going to college, what sort of career I would have when I finished.  If someone asked me, “What do you plan on doing after you graduate”, I had no idea.  I did not go to a small college to get something out of it or to accomplish something; I went because I knew God was sending me there.  Because I had never before stepped foot on the campus or even been to the state where it was located, I had nothing on which to base my opinion of how it would go or even should go.  I had no answers to give to those who wondered what I thought the future held for me.  You might say that I was “clueless”.  Now that I am an old man and have lots of experience to inform my thinking, I still don’t know what to expect nor do I know why I am here.  I am just as “clueless” as I was back then.  All I have to offer anyone about the state of my affairs is that God makes the plans for my life just as He did when I went away to college.

Perhaps you are wondering what God is doing with you.  You may even question His wisdom, the benefit of letting Him be in charge.  It could be that you do not even really believe that He has anything much to do with you and how things go in your life.  Many think of God as an absent father, a dad who is never there for them.  That might be you.  Or you may have put your trust in Him to take care of your big issues but the small ones might be bothering you.  What should you do about dinner?  How can you get your kids to finish their homework?  What should you do about your retirement funds? Can your career get upgraded?  Is there hope for a happy marriage?  Perhaps those sorts of issues you feel like you must solve on your own if anything is to be done.

When Jesus famously chatted with the Samaritan woman looking for water at the village well where Jesus sat and rested; a fascinating conversation ensued.  This lady who had been married and divorced five times and was living with someone new was not exactly a prime candidate for deep theological discussions.  Yet the things that were said there were some of the most important teachings on God and worship found anywhere in the Gospels.  The Jews, Jesus said, had an edge on the Samaritans when it came to worship and living with God. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. (John 4:22-23 NIV)

An important choice of words is used by Jesus that the NIV version captures.  The Samaritans worship “what” they don’t know rather than “who”.  The Jews worship also “what” they know rather than “who” they know.  Worship for both groups was impersonal and not interactive.  It had nothing to do with the actual person God.  It was like a young man falling in love with the idea of a particular woman rather than a woman herself.  We sometimes criticize those who spend lots of time playing on line games with others because they are not hanging out with actual people.  Yet the truth is that they are talking with and listening to real people.  The Jews and Samaritans had quit trying to worship God Himself and had given themselves over to the forms of worship instead.  There no longer was an interaction between two personalities; it was just thousands of ones acting within themselves hoping that God or “luck” would be in their favor if they performed all the right rituals.  It was worship grounded in superstition rather than relationship.  Jesus came to change that.

Jesus insists that that by coming, He established a link between God and all people.  By Spirit you connect with God.  As real as the wind that blows and the breath that passes through the lungs, the Spirit creates the pathway through which you build your life with God.  How many people give up on God because they are not familiar with the way He connects with people!  It seems surreal, even not real like a fairy tale or a Nordic myth when someone who has never met God by Spirit hears of it.  The Samaritan woman expresses this same skeptical hope when she returns to town and tells the villagers, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" (John 4: 29 NIV)  The Greek text which was the original language used to transcribe this conversation makes it clear that the woman saw little likelihood that it would be so, that the man she met at the well actually was the long awaited Messiah but she hoped He was.  Many, even today hope God exists and that He cares about them, maybe even loves them, but they don’t really think it could be so.  Like this unnamed woman, the promise of a loving and healing and almighty God who can raise them from the dead seems too good to be true yet they want it to be more than a fable.

Now what happened next is one of the great miracles recorded in the Bible.  It may not seem like much to many who read of it but it really was astounding what took place.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him….Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  And because of his words many more became believers.  (John 4: 30, 39-41 NIV) How could a woman, who had been divorced five times, who was living with a man not her husband, who did not go to the well to get water at the time when the other women went and socialized, have pulled a crowd together from her own home town and led them out to meet with Jesus, a hated Jew?

If you just give a little thought to human personality and how people are, it was unreasonable for this crowd of villagers to make their way out to Jesus just at the inspiration of their immoral neighbor.  Why would any of them have interest in a despised Jew?  Yet they did.  The text in the Greek tells us that the people left the town but then kept coming and coming to Jesus in a continual coming.  Some force, some supernatural force pulled them out of their huts and away from their fields and over to where a man they should have hated greeted them.  The woman was in such a hurry to tell her neighbors about Jesus that she completely forgot her water jar and the water she came to get.  She rushed off in a flurry of amazement and wonder.  It is not unusual for someone to make us lose track of time and space being around that person.  A celebrity, someone with great creativity or wit or beauty can do it to us.  Yet the Bible tells us that there was nothing about Jesus that made Him attractive…just the force of his life with the Father.  And that force came to bear on the woman looking for water and the people of the town who came to see Him at her invitation.

There is a strangely wonderful shift in the text that must be noted.  This woman, who was a Samaritan woman and a many times married woman and even an immoral woman was relabeled as the account concluded.   Jesus told the disciples that the fields which He probably pointed to nearby were ready to be harvested.   Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.  Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.  (John 4:35-36 NIV) He was not talking about corn or wheat or barley though.  He was speaking of the need for all the people around Him to have eternal life.  “Look at them”, He was saying.  “They all need a Savior.  You are the ones I want to welcome them into Salvation.”  Yet it is none of the disciples who are used by God to pull the crowd there in the Samaritan village to eternal life.  It was the most unexpected of all people to be the means by which this little town became a pocket of salvation, a well of eternal life.  Pay careful attention to verse 39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." (John 4:39 NIV)

We call her the “Samaritan woman”.  Some label her the “sinful woman”.  Many speak of her as the “woman at the well”.  But here as the account comes toward a conclusion, she is literally termed “the witnessing woman”.  That is a strange revelation.  Someone so off base, so spiritually disoriented, so dysfunctional was named by God, “the witnessing woman”.  How can this have been so?  What force or motivation turned her life around so dramatically that she became someone completely new, someone unknown before meeting Jesus?  It is not a force nor a motivation but rather a person.  When God as Spirit becomes a part of you and works His way through you, a transformation occurs which changes who you are and what you do.  The woman did not understand really who Jesus was and she could not explain what to make of Him but she did know that everyone in her town needed to come find out for themselves and so with God working in her, she gave the rallying cry to go to the well and meet Jesus.  Once God got a hold of her and He worked in her Spirit to spirit, she became someone new to God.  She was the “witnessing woman”.

Are you ready for God’s Spirit to transform you?  What do you think He might make of you?  Is there a name God could give you that would be surprising?  The witnessing woman did not make something of herself or try to rehabilitate her lifestyle.  She simply spent time with Jesus and the Spirit of God worked within her to take what was thoroughly broken and dysfunctional and remake her into someone you might say was a superstar in God’s Kingdom.  She had no great message to offer.  She certainly was not straight theologically.  Her reputation in town was not fixed.  What she did have which made all the difference in the world was time spent with Jesus!  In those brief moments alone with Him, the Spirit of God began to rework her mind so that she got to make something of the life she had been given.  I wonder what the witnessing woman would say now, if you asked her, “Was it worth it spending time with Jesus?”  What could be the benefit to you if you gave Jesus some time alone with Him?  What might happen to you?

Connected

Acts 1: 8

 …and you will be witnesses of me…

Are You Independent or Connected?

One of the early stages of childhood is independence.  As a child develops, she gradually acquires her sense of self, that she is separate from others.  She wants her way, asserts her will and uses biting, hitting and tantrums to get her demands met. Parents often want to throw up their hands in frustration at this stage of child rearing.  Most of us successfully navigate through this phase of life and if we don’t, we develop sophisticated ways to tantrum and bite that make us seem “adultish”.  Nearly everyone at some point begins to reconnect with the human race, finding that complete independence is not a great way to live.  We learn to get along, work as teammates, accept the fact that someone who disagrees with us is not our enemy and perhaps someone worth building a close relationship.  Marriage is one of the great laboratories for developing a balance between independence and unity.  It doesn’t always go well.  Sometimes it is tough accepting the realization that not everyone likes chili with tomato sauce and there might be at least one in the world who thinks Sabrina is a great movie.  The first argument Mary Jo and I had was when I laughed at her pronunciation of the constellation Orion.  What an eye opener for me to discover that someone thought you pronounced it O’ ree on.  At some point we begin to accept the fact that not everyone thinks like us and they are still good to be with anyway.

Perhaps the most important philosophical question of all time is, “What part does God play in my life?”  It pivots on the point of independence.  Either you are completely isolated from God or “godness” or on the other end of the continuum your life is thoroughly bound up to God and His sovereignty.  Perhaps you fall somewhere in between those two sides of the spectrum.  You are somewhat connected to God and somewhat disconnected too.  Most people say they believe in a god but there is a growing disconnect between belief and the sense of self.  Once the journey toward independence is started and you think of yourself as yourself and not others, the shift back to seeing yourself connected and not just yourself is impossible for many.  It seems like intellectual suicide to believe that God is a part of you too and that you are not independent but with Him in a supernatural bond.

The Bible presents a unique perspective on human personality and what sort of people we could be.  Nearly every other religion in the world is built upon the premise that you are independent of God and not a part of him or her or them.  There is a god or gods in those religions but they are separate and different and operate outside of people.  There is a clear boundary between the god or gods and the individual human being.  Yet here is what the Bible says is the case when you become Christian.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 NIV)  This is in a sense the destruction of the self and the creation of a new self.  It is the joining of you and God.  The Bible says that this is a mystery, something that does not make sense to those who don’t know how magnificent God is.  To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27 NIV)

The field of psychology, when God is not seen in how things are has no explanation for what we find here.  There is the possibility of a completely new personality in the place of the old.  You and Christ become someone that was never before in existence.  It is like the combining of oxygen and hydrogen and the result is water, something totally different from just oxygen and just hydrogen.  You are a new substance when Christ becomes a part of you.  It is like a seed that is buried but emerges as something different.  The different you, when Christ literally joins Himself with you, is a connected personality, never again independent but in union with God.

As long as we want to live separate from God He will let us.  If we don’t need Him, the Lord will not stop us from going our own way.  The moment though we realize we are sinners and we need a Savior to give us a new life, Christ comes with His forgiveness and His mercy and makes us someone completely new, what the Bible calls born again.  In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."  "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"  Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (John 3:3-8 NIV)

What our Lord is describing is a transformation by the Spirit of God that no magician, psychologist or psychiatrist can recreate.  It is the work of God as He enters into the human personality and makes that person new.  We see the physical manifestation of this work described in John 20 when Jesus gathered His Apostles together after He was crucified and returned to life.  Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."   And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”  (John 20:21-22 NIV)  Perhaps though the Apostles did not think anything really happened that day.  It was so silent and seamless; the Holy Spirit becoming a part of them that the Lord put on display for them and the world what it actually is to have the Spirit of God become part of you.  When the day of Pentecost came, they (the Apostles) were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. (Acts 2:1-6 NIV)

What we see coming into clarity is the great miracle of the ages.  The mind of God, joined with the minds of His people.  How did they all know this really happened?  They were able to think beyond their natural capacity, with the ability God possessed.  Languages the Apostles never had learned they could speak with the mind of the Holy Spirit part of them.  Something so mystical, so wonderful as God being a part of you must make a difference in how you live.  Yet, it is so common that God’s people live as if there was nothing as supernatural about them as the Spirit of God joined to them that the question is raised in the Bible, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV)

Do you know and really know that God has become a part of you?  Do you live like it?  Are you in fellowship with God or mostly ignoring Him, disconnected, acting as if you are independent?  Paul reported that one of his close friends who had the Spirit of God a part of Him turned his back on that great miracle and started living as if God wasn’t there in Him.  Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. (2 Timothy 4:9-10 NIV)  It is so easy for you to do, to grow indifferent to God joined to you.  You begin to lose the power of Christ in you as your mind disconnects from Him.  Your ability to love, to forgive, to pray with supernatural power, to encourage and to live at peace and free of worry diminishes rapidly as you disengage from the Spirit of Christ who is a part of you.  What a waste of life to act as if you do not have God in you, as if you are independent of Him!

Connect with the Holy Spirit.  In faith pray through Him.  Talk with Him.  Believe He will work through you as you go about the day.  Meditate upon Jesus Christ crucified.  His death on the Cross is the power of God to be a part of you.  That is the entry point to connection with God.  Think about the details of His lashing, His humiliation, His last breath.  Pause and then receive all the goodness and joy of having Him a part of you.  Take time through the next hour and see the living Christ joined with you in each thought of yours.  Connect with God.

Patience

2 Peter 3:15 NIV

 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation…

What Is It You Really Need?

There is one day that every parent dreads from the moment a child is born.  It is more feared than the first discussion on “the birds and the bees”, produces greater anxiety than the anticipation of going into debt to pay for college tuition and makes parents cringe more than the start of music lessons.  It is that first day a parent starts teaching her child how to drive.  It is then that all those times when you caused your parent grief comes back to haunt you.  One friend of mine told me that her sister took her out to learn how to drive using her mom’s car without permission before she got a permit and she sideswiped a telephone pole and broke off the mirror.  They quietly returned the car to its parking spot and it took them thirty years before they had the courage to tell their mom what they did.  My dad broke into a sweat the day he taught me how to drive and his face was white as a sheet when we got finished.  The parent who patiently endures this traumatizing day of reckoning is superhuman.  You find out quickly just what sort of placidity you actually have when you sit in the passenger seat the first time your teenager pulls out of the driveway and careens off into traffic.  I am certain even the Buddha screamed “watch out!” the first time he took his daughter driving.

On a scale of 1-10, what level of patience do you maintain when you are driving…when you are cooking for your mother-in-law…when someone makes you late…when your children start fighting…when your family members leave the dishes in the sink for you to wash…when you spend an hour teaching a co-worker how to do something and you realize she hasn’t paid attention to you…when the sales clerk forgets to put in your bag the one item you went to the store to get…when the person sitting next to you on the metro sneezes in your face…when you lose your keys…when your sister loses your keys…when someone eats the food you saved in the refrigerator for lunch…  Do others see you as patient or easily perturbed?  Is patience one of your strengths or a weakness of yours? 

The New Testament of the Bible insists on patience as a critical component of a healthy personality.  Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12 NIV)  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2 NIV)  In the Old Testament, patience is the sign of one having wisdom.  A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly. (Proverbs 14:29 NIV)  The first characteristic of love is patience.  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. (1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV)

Patience does not stand alone as a virtue though.  It requires resistance; a force acting against it to bring it to life.  To know you have patience, you must face something trying, something that pushes you.  Patience does not come into existence until it goes up against an adversary.  When you are humiliated or ignored or mistreated or disappointed or kept from asserting your will then there can be patience but otherwise it is just an idea, a concept or an idealization grounded in myth.  You can say you are patient but until you “come up against it”, you don’t really know.

The ancient account of Job and his troubles is a classic example of someone who really did come up against it.  What makes the documentation of his personal experience so crucial for our study of patience is the clear delineation of what we all face in a world dominated by spiritual forces that are too often ignored or discounted.  The Bible insists that there is a literal spiritual being that has great power in this universe.  Satan is not a metaphor for evil; Satan is the force behind evil.  What we learn from the documentation found in Job is that Satan has access to God and can go to Him and ask permission to try and wreck people.  In Job’s case, Satan was given permission to attack Job physically and psychologically.  Satan killed Job’s children, ruined him financially and then made him endure terrible sores that were painful and debilitating.  The terrible suffering of Job continued until God finally put a halt to it.

There is no patience without suffering of some sort, whether it is psychological or physical.  Some suffering we bring on ourselves but clearly there is suffering that Satan has been given permission to inflict on us.  When that suffering hits us, we can either be patient or not. It is up to us.  Do we think the same sort of activity is happening today as it did in Job’s case?  Of course it is.  Satan is making life hard on us, putting us in situations that make it painful and distressing.  But we can stand up against them with patience.  Patience is the capacity to weather the storm, to be bent under the force of the wind but not broken by it.  The New Testament term translated patience is literally “long soul” or “long to passion”.  In other words, one who is patient does not let the passions take over the personality.  Wisdom remains in control.

There are two levels of patience.  The first is just what you can deal with in your own strength.  Some have more patience than others because of the experiences they have had, the role models they emulate and just the basic make-up of how they are put together.  There is a limit though to the patience any of us have and when Satan pushes us too far, we fall apart.  We get angry, we become depressed, we isolate ourselves, we use alcohol or drugs to mask the pain, we strike out in revenge, we engage in sexual immorality or perversion, we abandon our careers, those who love us and/or the faith we once had.  When our patience is shattered, we come apart in some way that hurts us or others.

The Bible tells us that one of the psychological benefits of having God a part of you is that He produces in you patience.  But the fruit of the Spirit is … patience... (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV)  This means there is a certain level of patience that only God can produce; different than what you will ever naturally possess.  It is supernatural patience that belongs to God that you can have.  His patience, which is available to you is the same patience that enabled Him to endure the Cross without lashing out at those mocking Him, that allowed Him to speak kindly to the thief on the cross who had before ridiculed Him, the same patience that upheld Him when He faced His death.

Only the Holy Spirit can give you God’s patience so that you aren’t rattled by the sorts of things that shatter the best of human beings.  I once had a friend who was wrecked by the fire that ruined her house and she took out her anger on her husband.  Her anger destroyed his affection for her and he left his wife for another woman.  Some things are just too big for you and only God can see you through them.  Go to Christ right now if you wish and ask Him to anoint you with the Holy Spirit.  He will pour His patience into you if you give yourself over to Him.  The great storms will not overwhelm you; the earth shattering quakes that topple others will not make you fall.  When Christ died to take your sin from you, He said that you could have the Holy Spirit as a part of you.  When our Lord bought you out of your slavery to sin and the forces of evil in this world, He did so that you would not be alone to face all this.  He comes to you now.  Invite Him to join you.  Ask for the Holy Spirit to make His home in you.  Have God’s patience; let the strength of His personality get you through every trial and difficulty you face both today…and tomorrow.

What Is This?

"Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears.”

Ezekiel 24:16 NIV

Is Your Life Going Smoothly?

Perhaps you have had a day like this.  I got mad at my kids.  I was late to work.  I argued with my wife.  I had a headache.  I got grease on my dress shirt and it was too late to change it.  Someone cut in front of me on the freeway.  I was frustrated by my job performance.  Did I mention that I had a headache?  For someone without food or water living in war ravaged Somalia this probably would have been considered a great day.  I did not see it that way though and I admit that I complained to God about my circumstances.   I read recently about the acorn woodpecker which beats a hole with its beak into wood posts and then carefully stuffs an acorn in it.  Later, the woodpecker returns for a tasty snack.  However, sometimes squirrels climb up the posts and snatch the acorns and feast on them before the woodpecker gets back to it for a winter snack.  That is a bad day for the woodpecker when it discovers the thievery and no acorn to quiet the rumbling in its belly.  I could imagine it squawking up to the heavens in frustration.

What do you consider a bad day?  We all have them…or at least we think we do.  No one else decides for you if your day is going well or poorly.  You are the judge of that.  Sometimes you may wonder why so much trouble comes your way.  What did you do to “deserve” what you have faced?  Is it karma, bad luck or some punishment from God?   What sort of God lets such trouble afflict good people like you?

One of the most enigmatic moments described in Scripture is the time God told his beloved spokesman Ezekiel that he was going to lose his wife.  The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears.  (Ezekiel 24:15-16 NIV)  Try to explain this demand of God’s and the action He took and you most likely will be stumped.  Justify this to your nonreligious friends and you won’t have a receptive audience.  We know of course that this stoic response to his wife’s death was to be a sign to the Israelites living in Babylon that they were not to weep or complain when God let the Babylonian army destroy Jerusalem.  It was divine judgment upon a wicked and arrogant people who were murderous and corrupt.  Yet, does that make it any easier for Ezekiel who lost the “delight” of his eyes?  It was not like Ezekiel was tired of marriage and coldly indifferent to the fate of his wife.  She was his beloved, someone he adored.

No one is immune to devastating losses and tremendous hardships.  As Jesus Himself noted, “He (the Father) causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.“ (Matthew 5:45 NIV)  We are told in Scripture that every person who has been born again is going through a transformation process on this side of heaven.  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:16-17 NIV)  What you and I call the trials of life or maybe even more correctly, the unfair hardships of life, God calls the normal transformation process all Christians experience as He reworks them.  Consider it the universal maturation experience worked out in us by the Father.   It is spiritual aging as it were, normal and to be expected.  We look at these problems and hardships as terrible or dreadful; God sees them as the means by which He peels away layers of sin wrecked and contaminated parts of our personality.  Like an onion, our Lord uses troubles and even pain to strip away from you the scales that are no longer useful or helpful to living in Christ forever.

The last part of the book of Acts gives the account of the terrifying storm the Apostle Paul endured while being transported by sailing ship to Rome to face trial in front of Caesar.  Not only was he being unjustly imprisoned for crimes he did not commit, he also had to suffer near starvation conditions and drenching rain for two weeks as a raging tempest pounded the vessel.  It was not fair and certainly unwanted but Paul had to go through it anyway.  In 2 Corinthians Paul listed the experience as one of the many horrific miseries of his life after he became a Christian.  The truth is that being in the terrifying storm and then shipwrecked was perhaps one of the less painful distresses he faced.  Yet this is what Paul thought of all the troubles he had.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV)

Who would consider it natural or normal to think of suffering as something good and beneficial?  We do our best to avoid it and certainly don’t look forward to it.  The Bible never encourages Christians to look for opportunities to suffer.  There is no masochistic theology within Scripture; only a realistic understanding of what suffering accomplishes.  I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  (Romans 8:18-21 NIV)

It is not just you that is frustrated by your suffering; all of creation is frustrated.  Perhaps you have not thought of eagles or redwood trees or mountain ranges as frustrated with what they face but there is in the universe a ubiquitous groaning as it were, a straining in trial that is comparable to childbirth.  What mother looks forward to the searing pain as her baby prepares to leave her body?  Have you known any smiling as they go through the final moments of birthing a child?  Yet each and every contraction is a movement toward joy.  Would a woman consider her newborn a punishment?  Perhaps some in the most trying and horrific of circumstances might but in a normal delivery, the strain of the mother is cause for hope and coming happiness.  What is God doing in you when you go through the normal suffering and troubles of life?  He is birthing a new you.

At this point we shall speak of something that is much too profound and mystical to have any sort of depth in discussing.  Let us admit that we are entering at a point in Scripture that is beyond our knowledge base but must be given great thought.  In Hebrews comes this magnificent declaration.  During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.  Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5:7-9 NIV)

Suffering made Jesus a better man.  It completed Him as God’s perfect sacrifice for Sin.  Something was missing in Him that only suffering could produce.  If Jesus needed suffering to put in Him some part of His personality that would make Him “perfect”, how much more so is suffering a requirement for us to be complete as God’s children.  Try and think of the best people in Scripture who we have an abundance of data to study that did not suffer.  James and Peter and the mother of Jesus and before them to Joseph, Jacob, Abraham, Ruth and Sarah all suffered great sorrow and hardship.  Suffering is the transformative catalyst God uses to put in perfect order the Christian personality.  It is like sunlight for a plant or yeast in bread.   It is how God instills holiness and goodness in His people.  You must suffer for the strength of God to be built in you.

Consider any of the great leaders of American history and you will find they all suffered horrific pain or sorrow.  Whether you look into the life of George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, suffering built the character of each of them.  Just think of Moses who many call the “Savior of the Jewish people.”  He failed miserably at his first attempt to lead his people out of slavery.  He was mocked and despised by them and then spent forty years in the blazing sun of the Middle Eastern desert before God was ready to make him his leader of Israel.  How many years did Moses question the goodness of God and wonder why his life was so wrecked?  Yet in it all, in those thousands of hours baking in the wasteland the Lord was watching over him and putting in Moses the humility and patience he would need to be the perfect servant God wanted to carry out His work.

What about you?  What sort of trouble and pain are you going through now?  What kind of desert are you in at this moment?  It is not wasted, this time of waiting and enduring.  God is perfecting you. Making you the kind of person He can use for the most important matters on His agenda.  Bread must be broken before it can be eaten and grapes must be crushed before they produce juice.  Your life is broken bread for others to consume.  The patience you acquire and the humility that is built in you are critical for some who God will and is putting in your life.  Remember this.  You are not and never have been your own.  You belong to God and He must make you in such a way that your life will feed others and provide them with nourishment to be perfect.  Someone is watching you and needs the strength your suffering and sorrow has generated.  It is up to you what you will make of the trouble you have faced and how you will respond to God’s work in you through them.  Will you be bitter vinegar that must be spit away or sweet juice that brings joy to those who drink from it?

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.