Seriously?

Isaiah 53:2 NIV

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

What Do You Make of Jesus?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poured

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.