A Whole New You

How dead is dead to God?  How much of your life can you still hold and make it through baptism into death?  You must completely die if you are to be of use to Him or true to your new self.  The end game of your Savior is for you to be buried and your hopes and aspirations die with you that the Lord Jesus Christ might raise you from the dead and make you good for God and perfect for salvation.  It is the buried seed that springs to life and bears much fruit.  Don't look upon your circumstances as a way for you to straighten yourself up and get things together.  Look at them as the power of God to kill off your old self and make you completely new in Him.  Our hope is not to survive and chase our dreams.  It is to be resurrected with the life of Christ fully alive in us so that the work of God might be manifested in all we do!  The freedom we have as believers is not a license to be some creature other than who we are in Christ.  Imagine a rose bush flaunting its freedom living as a blueberry or a gardenia behaving like a poison oak.  Turtles don’t work at being cheetahs and pigeons never behave like vultures.  Those who have Christ in them are new creations that are nothing like they were before they were born again.  There is a difference of kind between a Christian comedian and an unbelieving comedian.  A Christian physicist is not the same species as a non-Christian physicist and born-again teachers have a different “DNA” than do those still dead in their sins.  God will not be stopped in this process of raising you up in Christ.  He will not allow the diminishing of your soul as His new creation.  The world may look at you as nothing more than a rewrapped version of your old self but the world cannot see into your heart and discover the complete transformation of your being into one who is now joined with Christ and thoroughly remade into someone new.   Be done with the fantasy that nothing changed when God made you one with Christ.  A magical transformation has occurred and you will never be the same again.

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death…  Romans 6:4 NIV

One or the Other

2 Corinthians 4:5 NIV

 For we do not preach ourselves,

but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

Who Runs The Show?

A few years ago a little Chihuahua mix showed up in our yard without tags.  Two of the kids were the first ones to spot the little dog and they thought they noticed someone in a parked car watching to see what happened to the dog and when they picked her up, the woman drove away.  Pretty soon it was clear the puppy was a part of our family and I cannot say which is true: we adopted her or she adopted us.  Early on, Salsa, as we named her, responded to me as the alpha male.  She quickly came when I called her and although others in the family might give her a command, it was hit or miss whether she would obey.  Our daughter taught her cute tricks and Salsa loved everyone in the home and everyone loved her but my voice always brought her obedience even if others might find her stubbornly resistant to doing what they said.  Even now, when someone must get her back, it is me that can push her to obey if no one else can.

The Civil War in the United States was not about slavery although that was the spiritual issue.  The Civil War was fought over authority.  Who would make the decisions for the entire country?  That was the question at hand and it is the chief issue for each person today and from the beginning of time.  Who directs the soul?  We make religion unnecessarily complicated.  Most intuitively comprehend its essence but it is a ball of tangled twine when put in human hands.  The question we face today and since the first humans walked the earth is, “Who runs the show for you?”  We have lots of possible candidates.  Science.  Political figures.  Celebrities and You-tube stars.  Parents.  Spouses.  Employers.  Allah.  Shiva.  Fame.  Fortune.  Yourself.  Christ.

The very first sin in the world was initiated not by lust or even desire but by a question as to who runs the show.  Pay careful attention to the interaction between Satan and Eve.  It begins with a rather innocuous question.  Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Genesis 3:1 NIV)  Essentially Satan was asking Eve if she was sure what God said.  Eve replied without hesitation. The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" (Genesis 3:2-3 NIV)  There was no fumbling for an answer.  She stated precisely what the Lord told her husband Adam before she was made.  And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17 NIV)

So Eve was not unaware of the command of God.  She knew exactly what the Lord’s instruction was.  Quickly Satan came back with the most devious of insinuations.   "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (Genesis 3:4-5 NIV)  It was subtle, this intimation.  “You can’t count on God to tell you everything.  I know what I am talking about and I can help you enjoy life better.  Trust me in this!”  Eve fell for the trap.  Her loyalty shifted and Satan gained her trust.  Most are like Eve.  They don’t even realize what they have done before its too late.  Rather than be God’s through and through they take up some other lord for a bit and then as they go along, it is not God at all but Satan who is trusted.  Nothing about this transaction seemed weird or devious to Eve.  It was not premeditated or spiteful.  Satan gained Eve’s confidence and off she went like a child chasing the ice cream truck down the street

Most of us don’t decide that Satan is our great friend and advisor.  We aren’t a part of some devilish cult!  Yet we give ground to Satan in our hearts and without knowing what we have done, great tracts of our reasoning and decision making become Satan’s.  It killed Eve and it kills us too.  Not immediately and never grotesquely but comfortably, casually.  Nothing illustrates this quite so eloquently as the brief comment the Apostle Paul makes at the end of his life.  Writing to his good friend Timothy, Paul sadly tells of how his once faithful co-worker Demas gave ground to Satan and changed his mind on God.  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)  “Loved this world” is code in the Bible for taking up with Satan.  It sounds rather comfy though.  “Loved this world.”  Warm and cozy like sitting in front of the fireplace as a toasty fire burns brightly, loving the world seems reasonable when put before you by Satan.  It just means that you like to be comfortable, you want to enjoy life.  Do what makes you happy.  Yet, dogging our steps as we slip through the door and into the world is that what was true for Eve and then for Adam is true for all of us.  “The wages of sin is death…”

If you knew Demas, you probably would say that he was a good guy.  He may have been witty, smart, talented, working for good causes.  Yet, there was something terribly wrong with him and it was that Jesus was not Lord of all for him.  Christ was a companion, a great source of insight and important to him but not Lord and that is the dividing line in life.  Either, Christ is Lord and King over you or Satan is reasonable and makes sense to you.  It is fascinating the account of Joseph and his unyielding allegiance to God.  We cannot say how Joseph acquired such persistent loyalty to the Lord.  It probably was not his mother who pushed him along there because she famously stole away from her father his household idols.  Joseph was firm in his commitment to God and it manifested itself in his response to temptation.  When Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and came to be a servant of the Egyptian Potiphar, Potiphar’s wife tried her best to seduce him.  Joseph’s response to her revealed his fidelity.  How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?"  And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.  (Genesis 39:9-10 NIV)  This was real commitment to God that transcended cool interests and enticing opportunities.  It was loyalty.

When Jesus gave the summons to James, John, Peter and Andrew to come follow Him, it was not about what most stress.  Nearly every teacher of the passage emphasizes the wrong aspect of it.  Read Jesus’ invitation in its entirety. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19 NIV)  When you follow Jesus and really do follow Him, not just when it is convenient or necessary or reasonable, He remakes you.  What is so damaged and wrecked by sin becomes His to heal and make perfect.  In the disciples’s case, Jesus said He would make them into fishers of men.  What might He do with you if you choose Him over Satan at the moment there is a choice between the two?  It is impossible to know just now but you will find that He will do this.  He will remake you and could there be a more wonderful and desirable gift you could ever receive?  Depression and discouragement will be taken out of you when you are fiercely loyal to Jesus.  Anger and addiction will be removed also.  Even the hurts and brokenness caused by sin will be carefully and tenderly done away with in you if you are loyal to Jesus.  So many Christian people struggle to be free of the damaging effects of sin in them and they could be made right by ceaseless loyalty to Christ.

Elijah put it to the people of his time this way.  "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." (1 Kings 18:21 NIV)  Either it is God or it is Satan.  Waffling between the two leads to every plague of the heart.  Consider just how badly warped both Adam and Eve were psychologically after only one time choosing Satan over God.  They were afraid of God, disconnected from each other and self-loathing.  Imagine the complexity of brokenness hundreds and thousands of times choosing Satan over Christ brings.  Jesus put it another way.  "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  (Matthew 6:24 NIV)    It is either Christ or Satan at any moment and you must decide who it will be that runs the show.  You can always tell when someone has let Satan lead them around and be the one guiding them.  They lack the supernatural peace only Christ can give those who follow Him.  Remember just what Jesus says to each of us who come to Him.  "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28 NIV)

Living by Faith

James 2:14 NIV

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

How Does Your Faith Look?

One year when our oldest son was just eight, we went camping up in Sequoia National Park.  At the south end of the park the middle fork of the Kaweah River squirms along and near the Buckeye Flats Campground it gathers into a large pool and then works its way down out of the hills.  Our family spent a day swimming there and found two aspects to this pool exiting and fun.  One was the way the river spilled over a giant granite boulder as it poured down into the pool below.  The water had created a smooth groove in the rock that resulted in a sort of water slide that made for an exhilarating ride.  It only took a couple seconds from the top of the rock down into the icy water below but it was hilarious fun.  At the foot of the boulder the water was probably six feet deep so as you dropped into it after your slippery ride down the rock you landed with a great splash into the snow fed water.  Holding in my lap our second son who was only six, we went down together and as we each bobbed up to the surface we both burst out into laughter.  Our oldest son went down the slide too and we all found it a thrilling adventure.  As we sat in the sun together at the edge of the pool getting warm, we watched as a boy a little older than our son along with his dad climbed up a steep path that went up a cliff on the other side of the pool.  They made it to a rock outcropping that was about thirty feet above the pool of water and jumped from it and splashed into the river.  Our jaws dropped at the unexpected sight of them plunging down into the water but they came up safely and made their way back up to the outcropping and dived into the pool again.  Our oldest son was intrigued by this and after the father and boy assured us of how safe the jump was, he decided after I gave my approval to make the same dive.  He asked me to go with him and jump from the cliff but I shook my head “no”.  I had plenty of faith in my son to make the jump but I wasn’t so sure of myself doing it.  Faith is funny that way.  We all pick and choose what sort of faith we will have and when we will practice it.

If you were asked about the kind of faith you have, how would you answer? How does your faith look?  What sorts of actions define your faith?  Is your faith noticeable to others or is it quieter, almost silent?  Do you think there is a universal quality to faith or is it more individual…something each of us decides is faith?  How would it go if you were forced to prove your faith through eyewitnesses?  Who would testify to your faith and what would your witnesses say about it?  We often hear of authors and speakers building a case for faith, for having faith but rarely do we come across those who give evidence for that they themselves have faith.  Faith for most is too personal to talk about, let alone put on display.  And yet doesn’t the Bible tell us to exhibit our faith, show that we have it?

Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount seems to command us to make our faith public.  "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Mathew 5:14-16 NIV)  Although “faith” is not the word Jesus uses here, it certainly is the fundamental point being made.  Don’t just keep your faith to yourself, let your actions proclaim the sort of faith you have.  The expectation of Jesus is that what you believe about God will show up in what you do.  The book of James insists that faith is an activity and not just a way of thinking about things.  What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?  Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:14-17 NIV)

Miracles in the Bible almost always were connected to a requirement for action.  Something had to be done by those who were the recipients of God’s supernatural help.  Naaman, the Aramean general was told to dip in the Jordan seven times before the Lord would heal him of his leprosy.  The Israelites, as they began their conquest of the Promised Land had to step into the Jordan River before the Lord would make it part and they could go through it on dry ground.  Before that, in order to leave Egypt, the entire Hebrew nation had to step between the great walls of water piled up on each side of them and trust God not to drown them in the Red Sea.  The crippled man who sat beside the pool of Bethesda day after day for nearly three decades hoping God might heal him unexpectedly was healed but not in the way he could have expected.  Jesus came upon him and told the man to pick up his mat and walk before He would do anything for him.  When he did, the crippled man was healed.  The woman who suffered from bleeding first reached out and touched Jesus’ clothing; then she was healed.  Lazarus’s sisters had to order the stone in front of the tomb to be moved away before Lazarus stepped out alive.  The people of Israel were given by God specific instructions about marching around Jericho before He would make the walls miraculously collapse.

One of the few times Jesus celebrated someone’s faith was when a Roman centurion told Jesus He did not need to go all the way to his house to heal his servant.  His trust in God generated an action, sending a servant to Christ and telling Him that his servant did not need Jesus’ touch, just the promise of the Lord to save him was enough.  When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." (Luke 7:9 NIV)  It took steely resolve for the centurion to believe that Jesus did not have to go all the way to his house to miraculously heal his servant.  Jesus called that “great faith”; not the message pleading for Him to help but the action of not needing Him to actually touch the servant who was dying.

I saw that a priest of one of the churches bombed by Muslim assassins in Sri Lanka called for the people of his congregation to pray for and forgive those who planned and organized the atrocity.  That is how faith looks.  It has a face; the face of someone who does what Jesus says to do even though it is painfully hard.  A friend asks for prayer that he would get a job.  When he gets that job and begins to take ten percent of his income and return it to the Lord, that is faith.  When a mom who has cancer is healed, what she does with her Sundays will tell us about her faith.  A man I met recently saw firsthand the love and kindness of a family that his mother worked for as a nanny.  These Christian people talked about the Gospel and practiced Christianity at home.  The boy himself became a Christian because of what he saw in this family.  That is faith.  A couple who heard about the terrible condition of orphans in Haiti became convinced the Lord wanted them to adopt one of the children there and although they already had two kids, they took what extra money they had and spent countless hours going back and forth to Haiti until they finally were able to bring one of the boys in an orphanage home to be their own.  That is faith.

We do not hope in a Savior who does nothing.  He took His life in His hands and offered it up on a Cross to die for our salvation.  He believed in the will of the Father and because of that faith He did whatever the Father told Him to do.  If you have faith in Christ, you will show you have faith in Christ by obeying Him.  What will you do today that shows your faith in Jesus?  Will you pray more for others than you have been doing?  Will you help someone who doesn’t deserve your help?  Will you bite your tongue and keep your criticism to yourself?  Will you go visit someone in the hospital and pray over that person?  Will you be more generous in your offerings, pass out Gospel tracts to your neighbors, make plans to go on a mission trip, say something encouraging to someone who has treated you badly?  What will you do today to show your faith in Christ as Savior and Lord?

The Breakthrough

Micah 2:13 NIV

One who breaks open the way will go up before them;

they will break through the gate and go out.

Their king will pass through before them,

the Lord at their head."

  

Are You Stuck In A Rut?

Years ago, not long after we moved to California, Mary Jo and I decided to take a trip back to see her family in New Orleans.   The road trip is forty hours of driving plus whatever stops you might take along the way.  We had two foster children with us and it felt like a great adventure for us all.  Our car was an old Chevy Malibu that the kids in the church called a “hooptie”.  The cloth lining to the roof was hanging down because the oldest boy had poked at it and stabbed it with a pencil.  Carved on the outside of the door he had put his name.  The Malibu had a rebuilt engine and new tires but the air conditioner was shot and it had nearly two hundred thousand miles on it.  We thought our hooptie could make it all the way and back but we weren’t sure and so with a bit of trepidation we took off down the highway.  I always drove whenever we went anywhere together; I guess I had learned that from my dad who never let my mom drive when the two of them went places together.  Our plan was to drive all night after the first day of driving and it had worked until it started raining buckets and we could barely see the road in front of us.  Not only that I got the flu and a fever began to rage through my body.  A few hours later my back went out and I could not stand when we stopped to get gas.  Mary Jo tried to take over the driving but it was clear she was too tired to go any further and so we gave up the fight and checked into a hotel.

There are times when life gets too big for us to handle.  We try our best to keep going but we have nothing left in the tank.  Maybe you have never hit that low spot when things seemed hopeless; when it felt like if you did not get some help you might fall apart.  The world is filled with people who have, who face trials and difficulties that are too big for them, too painful and too long lasting to manage on their own.  You certainly aren’t alone if what is before you is daunting, maybe even frightening.  Some have cancer and haven’t told anyone.  Others have a son who won’t try to find a job or who drinks too much.  You might know someone who has a mother with Alzheimer’s or a daughter battling depression a grandchild who is autistic or a husband who no longer can work.  The bright sunshine of the morning may cheer the hearts of many as they climb out of bed but not all of us.  You might be one who just wishes you could pull the covers over your face and stay in bed for the day…or the week…or the month.

The Bible has a number of case studies of those who came to the end of the rope.  One in particular brought most of his difficulties on himself.  Those of course are the worst kind, the ones that have years of guilt and regret attached to them.  Famous for his other name, Israel, Jacob might be described as a momma’s boy by some.  He had somehow got his twin brother Esau to trade his family right as the firstborn for a bowl of his brother’s lentil soup.  It must have been pretty good or Esau was unfathomably hungry to let go of such an important privilege but he did.  The problem with a birthright is that it doesn’t do much for you until your parents die.  It might mean you don’t have to do the dishes as often or clean out the latrine but it is a pretty inconsequential honor for the majority of your life.  Jacob had it but what was he to do with it?

His mother had an idea.  When her husband Isaac announced that he was going to bestow a special blessing on Esau which would be binding and supernaturally inspired.  Jacob tricked his blind father into thinking he was Esau and dad unwittingly gave the blessing to Jacob instead of his favorite son Esau.  Imagine what sort of fireworks this generated.  Isaac’s wife Rebekah had put Jacob up to the plan.  Isaac could not have been very pleased by that.  Esau became enraged and promised to kill his brother Jacob after his father died.  One can only guess how Isaac felt about Jacob.  The family became a boiling cauldron of fury, disgust, jealousy, distrust and fear.  Out of it jumped Jacob when he realized he had no future there.  His mom told him he needed to leave; he needed to get as far away from his brother and his steaming hatred as he could.  “Move north and move in with your uncle and see if there is someone in the family you can marry”, he was told.  He was after all forty years old.  It was time to stop being a momma’s boy and make a life for himself. 

Not all changes of course are depressing.  Some are exhilarating.  This one could not have been.  It was for Jacob the end of his world.  He had to hike over four hundred miles with the fear of his brother’s wrath nipping at his heels.  The safety of his home, the help of his servants, the doting of his mom…not to mention the wealth his family enjoyed now in his rear view mirror as he trudged along.  What a forlorn sight he must have been.  Perhaps there were tears trickling down his cheeks as he thought gloomily of the mistakes he had made, the fool he had become.  He had hiked somewhere around fifty miles when Jacob came to the outskirts of a village closed for the night.  It was out beneath the open sky housing the stars of the universe that Jacob’s life took a new turn.

When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep.  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 28:11-15 NIV)

If you come to grips with the fact that God is behind every event of your life and that nothing happens to you that He is not turning into your benefit, you can take great comfort in what happened to Jacob.  God let his life explode so that something completely new could be made out of him.  It is clear that was what He was doing with Jacob…blowing up everything that made Jacob who he was and remaking him.  There is such mercy and generosity in God’s words here.  “I am with you”.  “I will watch over you.”  “I will give you…”  “Your descendants will be…”  “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.”  God doesn’t blow up your life to wreck you.  He does it so that something lovely and good can come out of it that wasn’t possible before He did so.  When you are content and pleased with yourself and comfortable it is hard to do anything with you.  You become disengaged from God, you lose your urgency to hear from Him, lack motivation to give Him room to work His way through you and often are resistant to do what He commands.  That is what it is like to have the nature of Adam.  We all are like that.  You aren’t alone in this.

Would Jacob have been able to believe it was really God coming to him in his dream if he was living comfortably at home, pleased with himself in his successful plundering of his brother’s fortune and standing?  It is hard to say but we do know that he was this night, destitute, on the run, shattered.  He was eager to have God come to him and comfort him.  Finally, Jacob was ready for the Lord to truly be a part of His li…the most important part.  It is interesting, the choice of words used to describe how Jacob was the next day.  Certain that God was with him and that the Lord “had his back”, Jacob started off with a new way of seeing this adventure he was entering.  Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the eastern peoples. (Genesis 29:1 NIV)  Literally the Hebrew of the verse reads, “Then Jacob lifted up his feet…”  There is a joyfulness in this description.  We would use the expression, “He had a bounce to his step.”  For the first time in days, maybe even weeks or months or even years, Jacob was ready to trust God with his life and not make a mess of things.

God almost always blows up things for us before He takes hold of us and makes us new.  It was not going to be easy for Jacob.  He would work like a slave for fourteen years just to get his wife.  He would be cheated and humiliated by his father-in-law and have to bear the blazing sun and the miserable nights sleeping on the ground out in pasture lands just to keep his sheep safe but in it all, he became a man of God with great strength and faith.  It is so frequent that it is almost an axiom of life that before God can build His life in you and give you peace and joy and freedom from lust and worry, He must break you apart and take away every crutch you have propping up your life.   But then, slowly yet surely you will become the sort of person you hoped you would be when you realized you needed Christ to fulfill you.

The Bible is filled with case studies of those who first had to be wrecked before they could be bright stars in God’s universe:  Daniel, Moses, Job, Peter, James, Paul.  Jesus might not come to you in a dream or with a bright light or a great voice but He will come to you.  You will have to decide if you trust Him to remake you, to start over with you and take all the damage to your personality brought on by sin out of you and make you free to be loving and full of hope and peace.  It takes faith to believe that every experience you face has God in it and that each person who aggravates you is used by the Lord to make you good and holy but through Christ you can have that faith and be ready to be transformed by your Savior in every part of your day.  Take a deep breath and thank God He cares enough for you to save you from you sin and make you completely new.

Risen

Galatians 1:3-5 NIV

 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

What’s Bothering You?

During my sophomore year in high school I decided I wanted to become good at basketball.  Day and night I played on any court where I could find someone to challenge.  I lifted weights, did push-ups, ran and used a jump rope with five pound ankle weights to increase my speed and power.  Every day I shot hundreds of jump shots and played against anyone who came to the courts where I was.  I played so often that the insides of my fingers split open and burned with pain.  My basketball became so worn by constant playing that it was smooth as glass.  To play as often as I did, I had to give up something and it was my homework.  It seemed like a good trade-off for me, basketball glory for a few good grades.  My senior year I finally tried out for my high school varsity basketball team.  I played hard, took rebounds away from players stronger than me, made my jump shots and dunked in the practices.  Finally Friday came and the head coach pulled me off to the side to tell me my fate.  He said I didn’t make the team.

Have you ever been surprised by how things turned in your life?  Have you failed when you knew you would succeed?  Have you tried your best and it wasn’t good enough?  Do you know someone whose health suddenly fell apart, someone who lost his job when he was good at what he did?  Are you ever stunned by how badly things go; your planning of no use, your decisions not working out for you?  What do you think of a world that has so much difficulty?  Do you ever complain about the troubles you face?  Do you get upset about the stock market, distressed over your bad knees, frustrated  that a coworker doesn’t show you the respect you deserve, discouraged with how your career is going or how your kids are doing in school?

Jesus has told you how it will go for you.  “In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33b NIV)  If you are expecting everything in your life to work out nicely, Jesus said it won’t.  Let’s get this out of the way, that success and good health are promised you.  They aren’t.  You might not face cancer.  You could have a great career.  Your children might do very well.  But in all of that, you will have trouble.  It will find you and most likely you won’t be prepared when it arrives.  Jesus however does not just dump this bad news on us without a promise.  “But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16: 33c NIV)

God does not look at life the same way most people do.  Nearly everyone cares very much about finances, health and relationships.  If something goes wrong, you try to fix it. It weighs on your mind until your trouble goes away.  Our Lord though has a completely different take on matters.  Consider carefully what Christ prioritized during His physical life on earth.  Several things went quite well for Him.  Great crowds came to hear Him speak, mesmerized by His story telling and insightful teaching.  He performed spectacular miracles that brought health and wellness to vast numbers of people.  There was a movement among the Jews to make Him king after He fed a crowd of five thousand with just two small fish and five barley loaves.  He was a brilliant debater and charismatic leader.  Jesus could have had as much wealth as He desired.  He could send His disciples off to pluck coins out of the mouths of fish if He wanted more money.  Our Lord was on the verge of enjoying one of the greatest lives ever and yet he threw it all away.

At the height of Christ’s popularity, when everything in His life was trending upward, our Lord let it all unravel.  He stopped doing miracles.  He quit preaching to crowds.  He no longer debated with His critics.  He let His popularity disappear.  He did not concern Himself with His health.  He chose to let His successful ministry fall apart.  What could lead to such absolute disregard for one’s well-being?

There is something far worse than deadly diseases, worse than school shootings and child abuse, worse than poverty, sexual harassment, sweat shops and human trafficking.  It is worse than pornography, corporate corruption and even the threat of nuclear war.  It is the reason why Christ gave up all the promise His life held.  The great enemy of all of life; of the entire universe was on our Lord’s mind from the moment He could begin thinking about it.  His whole life had one mission and one alone.  He lived to save the world from Sin.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21 NIV)

Sin is the source of every evil in the world, from disease to death; it all springs out of Sin.  Jesus Christ chose for everything to go absolutely wrong for Him, to take every terror sin brings, whether it was pain, hatred, abuse or sorrow and suffer it all for one reason.  By doing so, by letting every bit of sin rip His life apart, He took sin out of us. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (1 Peter 2:24 NIV)

Jesus let His friend Judas betray Him, to even kiss him on the cheek as he did so.  He did not resist as the Jewish guards arrested Him.  Jesus took quietly every slap on the face, every bit of spit that was rained down upon Him.  Jesus let bizarre accusations be hurled at Him without defending Himself.  The blows on the head, the thorns jammed into His scalp, the whips shredding His back and chest and legs and arms, all accepted without protest.  Sin wrecked Him.  And more Sin came and battered Him.  Every sin you committed slugged Him and still He accepted more in His body.  The sins of your neighbors, of your friends, of your relatives long gone, of people you have never met, of enemies that have damaged your heart, of lovers who have adored you and those who turned on you, every sin of every person who has ever been, Jesus let each one come into His body and they all sank into His flesh and pounded it with the pain of ten billion heart attacks, of ten trillion broken bones and concussions.   Each sin of every man, woman and child blasted within Him and exploded with pain and Jesus took them all in without complaint.

The time came, when after so much horror fell upon Jesus and His body became completely filled with all the carnage of Sin, He knew it was finished and came out of His body saturated with all of our sins.  The Bible makes it completely clear that Jesus decided this, that He knew when His work of taking our sin from us was finished.   Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty."   A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips.    When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28-30 NIV)

How can we ever thank Jesus enough for what He did for us!  Every sin you committed He took into His body and suffered for each and every sin.  The pain and sorrow each sin brought Him careened through His body like the echoes of a train wreck screeching in the night.  And yet the universe waited in hushed horror as Jesus’ body of sin lay crumpled in the tomb.  His spirit was gone but the body still remained and with it was our death, our sorrow, our pain.  Another day came and the body was still there.  Our dying sat with it and the demons with Satan watched and waited.  The body was dead.  Sin remained within it.  But then the morning of the third day the greatest miracle of all time took place.  The magnitude of that early Sunday morning has been lost to nearly all across the generations but the Apostle Paul reminds us what we have forgotten.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6-7 NIV)  Carefully go over this one more time.  On that day, that first and greatest of all Easter mornings, on that bright and shining morning we were raised with Christ from the dead and brought into the Heavenlies with Him.  Before you were born, before your parents knew your name, before you ever knew you needed a Savior, Christ and you were raised from the dead and made eternal with God.  We cannot begin to express the wonder of this.  We cannot explain it nor do we understand it.  We just know that on Easter Sunday, you were raised from the dead along with Christ and you became glorious as the sun.  Let this sink into you.  Literally the Greek text reads that “He (God) together raised and together seated (us) in the Heavenlies in Christ Jesus”.  Easter Sunday, when Christ was raised from the dead, we were raised from the dead too and in a world of death and dying, of sin and suffering, that is nearly incomprehensible.  Easter, that first Easter of all history is not just the triumph of Christ, it is yours too.  For that, we celebrate!

Snapshot of Life Together

1 John 1:7 NIV

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

How Well Do You Get Along With Others?

When I was in Seminary, studying to be a pastor, I did not really think much about what made a church a church.  I was well aware of the various models of church that were practiced around the world and I did ponder which church model I would like to join.  There are mega-churches with theatrical productions, charismatic churches, traditional churches with older forms of worship, house churches and cell group churches along with multi-site churches that use videos to present the preaching of the pastor.  Of course ethnicity brings even more diversity to how churches function.  It was not until I was confronted by the deacons of the first church where I was a pastor that I gave serious thought as to what made a church a church.  I had made an announcement that the following Sunday during the morning worship service we were going to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  This was a major alteration in protocol for this church because always before they conducted the Lord’s Supper on Sunday evenings.  The change in scheduling brought great consternation to the deacons and at first I did not grasp just what bothered them so much.  It turned out that the church did not believe casual attenders of the church services should receive the Lord’s Supper with them, only members of the church were to participate.  It thus was convenient that the service on Sunday night was poorly attended and there almost never were visitors or non-members present.  That was for the deacons a perfect time to serve the Lord’s Supper because it saved them the embarrassment or stress of having to refuse to serve non-members.  Being forced to defend my actions in providing the Supper to non-members, I had to come up with a clear and articulate view of what the Church is and how it is to operate.

One critical term we use to describe the life of the church is “fellowship” or to be more precise, the Greek word “koinonia”.  Koinonia is by definition “communion”, “close relationships” or “participation and sharing”.  Fellowship might be defined as “life together”.  It is oneness brought about by a bond that keeps everyone together.  In 1 John 1: 7, the union is the result of our “walk in the light” or to put it another way, being in union with the wishes of God the Father.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  The Christian community, or the Church, is put together into a union by staying in step with what the Father wants and by the purifying work of Christ’s blood as it cleanses the people of the church of Sin.  In other words, it is the relation to the Father and the Son that determines the fellowship or union that exists between the people of the church.

Let’s look at a few snapshots of the Church found in the New Testament.  The first is seen in Matthew 4 where is recorded the invitation Jesus offered to two sets of brothers to come follow Him.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:19 NIV)  This was not a call to salvation but rather a call to adventure, a call to absolute surrender.  Each of the four fishermen faced a critical fork in the road. 
Do I go with Him in union with the Father or do I stay and keep doing as I am with sporadic moments of faith and devotion.  They chose of course to go with Christ wherever He led.  At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:20 NIV)  Union with the directing of Christ is what puts Christian people together and really together.

A second snapshot of the Church is seen beautifully in Matthew 14.  The Disciples were sent out by Jesus in a boat to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  By obeying Christ though, the disciples found themselves in deep peril.  After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. (Matthew 14:23-24 NIV)  This is so typical of what happens with the Church in fellowship.  They face some difficult and perhaps even terrifying event together.  In this case, as the Disciples fretted over the growing storm, Jesus came to them, walking on the water and that frightened them even more.  When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. (Matthew 14:26 NIV)  Is that not often the case?  In the midst of unity within the Church, sometimes there is a period of collective chaos when God is not trusted and His ways frightening.  But then God gets ahold of one or more in the fellowship and they have real courage and faith.  "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. (Matthew 14:28-29 NIV)  When a Church is in fellowship, God always provides someone in the group with clarity and faith enough to see the way.  This is a miracle, a mighty work of God.

There is one more snapshot of the Church that is almost mesmerizing in its sublime rendering of the Church at its finest and most obtuse.  After James, the brother of John, was arrested by King Herod and executed, Peter also was imprisoned.  The church however quickly went to work.  So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.  (Acts 12:5 NIV)  Amazingly, the Lord intervened in a new way.  He sent an angel to the prison who opened the prison doors and led Peter out of the jail.   Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. "Quick, get up!" he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists…Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision.  They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. (Acts 12:7, 9-10 NIV)

The account turns somewhat humorous when Peter heads off to the home where the group from the church is praying for Peter’s release.  However after hearing knocking on the door, a servant girl named Rhoda came to see who it was.  When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!"  "You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."  But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. (Acts 12:14-16 NIV)  So here you have a group of believers praying for the release of one of their own but not really believing God would answer their prayers.  How else would you explain the questioning Rhoda’s sanity when she returns to them with the announcement that Peter himself was at the door?

Let us though not miss the main point.  Fellowship is Christian when the group gathers together to pray.  That is what a Christian group has as its most spectacular possession.  It can pray and change the world.  When fellowship gives up on praying, it loses its soul.  Prayer is the most fundamental characteristic of Christian oneness and if it is cut short or eliminated altogether, it is no different than the unity members of a union possess or the board members of a corporation.  Praying together makes a church a church and gives it the supernatural quality that no other group of people in the world possesses.

There are four specific behaviors that mark Christian fellowship and determine its quality.  We shall simply list these without having the time to give each its proper attention.  Whether the fellowship exists in a small group of three or four or in a large body of several thousand, these patterns of relationship are critical to determining whether or not a church has a healthy fellowship.  These are not listed in any sort of order of importance; each can make or break the life together of a church.  In a truly Christian fellowship there is unlimited forgiveness.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:13 NIV)  The second pattern of relationship is unrelenting encouragement. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV)  Along with these two must be a stubborn refusal to judge those in fellowship.  You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat…Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. (Romans 14:10, 13 NIV)  The fourth pattern of relationship in every healthy Christian fellowship is difficult to quantify…perhaps even impossible to measure but it is just as critical as the others in determining whether or not a church lives together in true fellowship.  Each person sees Christ in all the others and with deep reverence for God respects what Christ is doing in them.  …the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 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 1:26-27 NIV)

How important is it that you are a part of a Christian fellowship?  Is it important enough that you will help create an environment that can make fellowship flourish?  Are you willing to change your own attitudes about life together so that God can use you to transform the church and make it the “Kingdom of God”?  What sacrifices are you willing to make that Christ can live through you and make His people better because you are a part of their lives?

Broken Bread

Luke 24:35 NIV

Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

Does It Matter To You What Christ Wants?

The world is morphing at light speed.  Yet the most important parts of life have not changed a whit since Adam and Eve left the garden and pursued their dreams with Sin permeating their thinking.  We must contend with the same concerns David, the second King of Israel, did as well as those of the disciples who followed Jesus.  Last week I was asked by someone whose opinion matters to me, “Why do you stay with that same little church?  Why don’t you do something different?”  Someone else wanted to know what I planned on doing with the books I have written.  The implication was that my life might improve if I made certain changes.  Of course I was glad that people I love care about me and I knew they meant well but both times I found my heart pricked by a pang of disappointment that troubled me.  Why do I face so many difficulties?  What can I do to improve my life?  Do I need to make a change?  Should I be a bit more proactive in meeting my own needs?  Have I thrown away my life doing what I do?

You have important decisions to make about how you will use the time you have been given.  It is a bit daunting trying to have the best life possible because you only have one shot at it and then you are finished, at least with this temporal existence.  Without becoming overly melodramatic, there is a certain urgency to your decisions, as probably you want to make the most of what you do and squeeze out of your life the greatest amount of fulfillment you can.  There has been a philosophy which nearly all people around the world have adopted and it is illustrated by a request two of Jesus’ disciples had for Christ.  Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."   "What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." (Mark 10:35-37 NIV)

Is it crazy to want something for yourself?  Don’t you have a right to try and make the most of your life, to achieve your goals and fulfill your dreams?  The Christian community generally believes James and John were philosophically in step with the great human push for fulfillment and personal achievement.  Much of the Church promotes this line of thinking and in fact usually celebrates it.  Jesus however seemed perturbed by the request and His response to the brothers reflected that.  Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you.  Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. (Mark 10:42-45 NIV)

This of course was not what the disciples were expecting and if it were not for our familiarity with the text, it would not be for us either.  Consider carefully Jesus’ response when told by the twelve disciples that the huge crowd He had been teaching was famished.  "You give them something to eat." (Luke 9:13 NIV)  What were they supposed to do?  They didn’t have the money to pay for food for the crowd of thousands and although they were able to come up with two small fish and five loaves of bread between them, it seemed ludicrous to think they should provide food for all the people.  Keep in mind what Jesus demanded.  He did not expect them to be able to feed everyone.  He did tell the disciples to give the crowd the food they had after He blessed it.  There was no room here for the twelve to get a snack for themselves first before they started giving away the bread and fish.  They had to hand over all they had without any promise of getting any of it back.

The Sermon on the Mount is often read but rarely taken seriously.  We solemnly proclaim it as “God’s word” but mostly ignore it.  Notice the theme woven throughout.  Here is just a quick overview of some of what is found in it.  Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.  If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:39-42 NIV)  And then He tells us what to do about our enemies.  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...(Matthew 5:44 NIV)  Further, we are not even free to entertain ourselves however we want in the sanctity of our own mind.  I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  (Matthew 5:28-29 NIV)  Even if we are justified in our anger over how we are treated, we do not have the right to hold a grudge.  We are to forgive immediately any mistreatment we have received.  For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  (Matthew 6:14-15 NIV)  Perhaps most difficult of all, we are not free to criticize others.  "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matthew 7:1 NIV)

If you put all of these admonitions of Christ together, you do not find a formula for success!  In fact, it does not even seem to matter to God how things go for you, whether you are liked or not, whether you have fun or don’t, whether you get what you have earned or you are cheated out of what you deserve.  You are here it seems, to make the lives of others better no matter how much it costs you.  That of course is not the Christianity we find promoted but it is what Christ has said Christianity is.  I recently heard of a pastor who discovered a couple of bags of trash dumped in the church dumpster by someone from the neighbor and not with the church.  He found somehow the address of who it was that left it there and brought all the trash back to the person’s house.  Is that what we find described in the Sermon on the Mount?

The Old Testament has a lovely picture of how Christianity is intended to look.  In the badly corrupted kingdom of Israel, a pagan king and queen ruled.  The person they put in charge of their palace was Obadiah, a man of faith who risked his life to save over a hundred prophets of God from being murdered by King Ahab’s soldiers.  The great prophet Elijah approached Obadiah while Obadiah was walking through the countryside.  Elijah wanted a meeting with King Ahab and asked Obadiah to arrange it due to his connection as palace administrator. 

As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed down to the ground, and said, "Is it really you, my lord Elijah?"   "Yes," he replied. "Go tell your master, 'Elijah is here.'"  "What have I done wrong," asked Obadiah, "that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death?  As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they could not find you.  But now you tell me to go to my master and say, 'Elijah is here.'  I don't know where the Spirit of the Lord may carry you when I leave you. If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn't find you, he will kill me. Yet I your servant have worshiped the Lord since my youth.  Haven't you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord's prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water…And now you tell me to go to my master and say, 'Elijah is here.' He will kill me!" (1 Kings 18:7-10, 14)

Obadiah faced a very real dilemma.  Would he risk his life to do what Elijah asked?  Without complaint he already had done more than enough to qualify as a good and godly man but now it felt like too much to ask of him.  Many will only go so far when it comes to practicing Christianity.  When it gets uncomfortable or inconvenient, how easy to just walk away from the tough demand of God!  Many Christian people are good at telling God, “No!”  Obadiah took the demand of Elijah as some sort of punishment. “What have I done wrong?”  He had not done anything wrong!  He was in fact gloriously right in his actions.  So why did God put him in such a dangerous spot?  God chose Obadiah to bless God’s people by giving up his right to manage his life as he saw fit.    How would he do it?  By opening the door for Elijah to speak with King Ahab!

We do not choose how God will use us to feed the world.  Like bread that is broken off and shared or juice that is poured into a cup and passed along, we are nourishment for a world hungry for God.  Your ignoring of an insult, generous gift, kind words, moral purity, love for people who should be despised is the bread God uses to feed starving people.   You may say that it does not matter if I hold back my criticism but you cannot know who will notice what you have done and be drawn to Christ by it.  When you are not aware of God using you, when you are simply doing the good thing our Lord has said to do, Christ will use that good thing to nourish someone, encourage someone, strengthen someone or heal a wound in someone.  You may not know in your lifetime what a great deed you did simply by forgiving someone or not paying attention to the mistake that person made but someday you will see how you were nourishing bread for a person starving for the generosity of God; thirsty for His mercy.

Imagine the tiny desert lily, hidden away next to a rock but without warning a gentle breeze carries its fragrance off to an unsuspecting soul who at the moment it reaches her, gains courage to try to put her marriage back together, stop drinking or find enough hope to go to one more job interview.  In that instant, the forgotten lily becomes the hand of God when He seemed to be no longer there.  You are that lily and by just doing what God says to do, your fragrance brings hope once more to those who may have lost hope along the way.  Never underestimate the power of Christ to transform your simple actions of generosity, kindness and forgiveness into the power God uses to put together new lives through the Gospel of Christ.