Unmasking Christ

Isaiah 48: 6 NIV

"From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.”

What Do You Know About Jesus?

The other day I stood at the door while eighth graders filed past me as they entered the classroom where I was to be their substitute teacher.  I heard one say, “Oh, we have a sub!”  I don’t know if that was good or bad.  Was she happy there was a substitute teacher or disappointed?  I wasn’t greeted.  Eye contact was not made with me.  The girl just walked past me and made the declaration, “We have a sub!”  She did not know me and I did not know her and it seems unlikely we would ever come across each other again in this life unless of course I was a substitute teacher in another class of hers.  What struck me was that I was a category, not a person.  The only characteristic I possessed that this young teen cared about was that I was a sub.  She was not wondering about me at all.  It did not matter if I was young or old, married or single, a father, a Raiders or a Patriots fan, a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu, an intellectual or a high school dropout, a nice guy or mean and disinterested in what I did.  The girl did not even worry herself over whether I was a human being or some creature from another galaxy.  I was a sub and that was all that mattered.  This girl did not have any interest in knowing anything else about me.

When someone like the famous atheist Carl Sagan makes clear that he has no interest in finding out anything about God, no one is surprised.  It seems normal for him to not even have a bit of curiosity about the Creator.  When someone who is Hindu or Buddhist makes no effort to learn about Christ, we aren’t shocked.  But if a person who claimed to have an interest in Christianity did not care about finding out what God was like or how Christ thought about things, we might wonder about that.  It would maybe be odd if you did not show interest in knowing more about God; if you were in fact satisfied that you knew all you cared about knowing when it came to Christ.  Now we come against a rather stunning discovery.  Many Christians without saying it have decided they know all they need to know about Christ; that they have come far enough in their understanding of Him to be satisfied.  What about you?  Have you gone as far as you care to go in your familiarity of God and what He is like?  What is your true interest level in God and how He is personally?

When we think of heaven and eternal life and the rewards of God, we don’t generally think along the right lines of all this.  Jesus defined the chief characteristic of eternal life when He was praying in front of the disciples just before being arrested and crucified.  He declared, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3 NIV)  Eternal life is knowing God; knowing Jesus Christ.  That is all there is to it.  Nothing about streets of gold or great food or new bodies!  The most crucial aspect of eternal life is knowing God.  The verb translated “know”, has two qualities to it.  It is intimate knowledge, not hearsay, not proclaimed and overheard but personal knowledge that is experienced.  Second, it is a knowledge that keeps developing, keeps happening.  It is not the knowledge of a moment but the knowledge of everlasting, of never-ending.  Eternal life is God and more God and more God.  It is like falling in love and never wanting to back away or take a break but being so head over heels in love that you cannot get enough of the one you love.  There is always something more wonderful and beautiful to discover, always something more fascinating and electrifying to learn.  That is eternal life.  Getting to know God more and more and never being bored of it, never getting weary of it because it is too good to quench.

Here is the problem we face.  We have the heritage of Adam and Eve as our own.  Before Adam sinned, he walked with God and enjoyed Him continuously but as soon as he sinned, Adam hid from God and did not want to be seen by Him, did not want to talk with Him or be with Him.  That is the heritage of the human race.  Sin has made God irrelevant in us; unattractive to us and uninteresting.  We certainly want Him to give us something but the interest is more in what He gives than who He is.  It is like Jacob, who when he found out his father Isaac was going to bestow a blessing on Jacob’s older brother Esau, he dressed up as Esau to fool his blind father into giving him the blessing rather than who his father wanted to have it, Esau.  Jacob did not care how it hurt his father to be fooled.  He did not love his father enough to let him do what made him happy.  He did not want to know why his father felt strongly about giving the blessing to Esau. Jacob just wanted the blessing…but…and we are not being too judgmental to see it…Jacob was not very interested in the father behind the blessing.  That is the curse of sin in us.  It makes God less inviting and less desirable than whatever He might give us.

There is a fascinating case study in the Bible of just what it is like to begin the journey of eternal life and it is a mirror of our own experience.  When Jesus invited Peter to follow Jesus, he knew enough about Christ to do so.  What information he had, we cannot say exactly but it was enough for Peter. As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.  "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."   At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-20 NIV)  Sometime later, after having seen some of Jesus’ miraculous deeds and listened to Him teach, Peter made a most surprising decision.  When a great storm arose on the Sea of Galilee and Peter was with the other disciples, off in the distance came someone walking toward them on the water and everyone in the boat thought it was a ghost.  It was of course Jesus and when the Lord reassured them that it was Him, Peter asked if he could climb out of the boat and walk on the water too and Jesus told him to come on out and join him.  But after just a few steps, Peter looked at the waves and his faith in Christ sank.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:29-31 NIV) Now Peter knew by experience, personal experience, something about Jesus he did not know before.  He could trust Jesus to take care of him in even the worst of circumstances.  That is eternal life; knowing more of Christ.

Later, Peter was on a hill with James and John and Jesus when something wild happened.  About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.  As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.  Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.  Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.  As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what he was saying.)  While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.  A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him." (Luke 9:28-36 NIV)  What an amazing experience.  Peter got to meet the legends Moses and Elijah.  What he did not know until then was that Jesus was not on a par with Moses and Elijah.  He was not their equal, not their peer.  He was the Son, He was their God.  He did not know this before.  He thought he knew who Jesus was but He was much more than Peter realized.  He was the Son.  This was eternal life.  He knew more about Christ than he did before.

A fourth experience of Peter gives us an even better idea of what eternal life is.  Boldly, before Jesus died, Peter announced to everyone including Jesus that he was far more brave and loyal to Jesus than any of the others.  Jesus was not very encouraging.  He told Peter that Peter would in fact deny that he was one of Jesus’ followers three times in the next few hours and that of course is what happened.  Peter was heartbroken later when it came to pass and he felt like an absolute failure.  But after Jesus returned to life and began meeting with the disciples and others, Christ pulled Peter aside and three times asked Peter if Peter loved Him, the exact same number of times, Peter cowardly denied knowing Jesus.  In the end the Lord gave Peter a special mission one that required great courage and dedication.  Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."   Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!" (John 21:17-19 NIV)  Here, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Peter found out how merciful Jesus is.  Christ did not hold Peter’s cowardice against him.  He did not lose confidence in Peter.  He gave Peter a mission, to take care of the new community of Christians who would soon join them and He did so without any sort of warnings against failing.  Jesus, Peter learned does not hold our sins and failures against us but builds up our lives and gives us honorable work to do.  Peter learned something new about Jesus and that is eternal life.  He discovered how kind and generous Jesus is.

One more moment we can consider about Peter’s life.  After Jesus went back to heaven and physically left the disciples, now known as Apostles, they all were gathered together praying when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they began to speak in all sorts of foreign languages that were supernaturally given to them.  A crowd was nearby made up of people from various parts of the world.  As the Apostles preached to the mass of people, each one understood perfectly in his or her own language what the Apostles were saying.  This was a miracle and one that was stupendous but that was not the greatest miracle that day.  What the Apostles discovered and Peter in particular was that God took them all in, regardless of race or national origin; gave each of them salvation.  Peter saw, and more fully than he had ever seen before, that Jesus is Savior no matter who you might be or what you have done or where you have been.  Christ takes the sin out of you and makes you perfect in every way.  All the heartache, all the anger and bitterness, all the hard feelings and held grudges, all corrupt lusts and selfishness and wrecked parts, Christ saves you from them.  There is not a part of you that Jesus will not make perfect and completely good and lovely.  He will do this for every person who comes to Him for salvation.  He is Savior.

This week, become attentive to Christ.  Think about Him.  Let your thoughts turn to Him again and again.  Assume He will talk to you.  There is so much for you to learn about Christ.  So much you don’t know.  You and I are like little children.  We have just begun to begin to get to know Jesus and to find out what He is like.  If the Bible is true, and we say it is, then God is love and the more you know the love of God, the more joyous and peaceful and full of hope your life will be.  Make Christ the center of your thinking this week and every time He comes to mind, be prepared for our Lord to show you something you have never seen before.

Mind Re-oriented

Philippians 3:15 NIV

 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

Are You Aware Of Everything Going On Around You?

There is nothing quite as disconcerting as discovering something has been going on without you being aware of it.  We now have webcams that can keep tabs on our homes, our pets and cities that we have never visited.  The spy in the sky is now visiting our neighborhood and looking into our backyard.  It hasn’t always been that way and even now we can be caught off guard by what we didn’t know had been happening around us.  I used to read to my children just before bedtime and often I did it while lying down on the floor with the kids on each side of me.  I read everything from the Chronicles of Narnia to the Little House on the Prairie series.  When our two oldest boys were little, I started reading to them the Lord of the Rings.  Many times I found myself dozing off as I read; slurring the words and one or both boys would immediately start shaking me to get me to read further before falling asleep.  More than once I did fall asleep in the middle of a sentence and my kids knew I was then a lost cause.  I remember waking up perhaps at around one in the morning and finding that my wife and the boys were all up and about, playing, talking, making cookies.  I was stunned; why were they still awake?  Why hadn’t they gone to bed?  What else had they done while I was asleep?  For all I knew, they could have shaved my head, taken all the money out of my wallet, gone joy riding in the car and had a drunken party in the house while I was out cold.  I had no idea what I missed while asleep and no one ever really told me either.

Perhaps you too have felt like you were left out of it, not aware of everything that was happening.  Maybe at work others seem to know more than you about what the company plans are.  Perhaps your friends seem to have the “inside scoop” and you are oblivious to it.  You might feel like you are the only one who doesn’t get the joke at the company picnic or the only one in America who has no idea why Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are as popular as they are, why your teacher suddenly blew up at the class or why your mom treated you and your brother so differently.  In our information age, there is much we do not know and have no way of finding it out.  The internet is a blank page when it comes to some matters you care very much about and no amount of research may help you understand why your parents got a divorce or what led to your son dropping out of college.

There is within our era of information overload, a serious degree of information poverty that must be considered.  The Bible hints at this and it would be important for us to consider the possibility that there is a vast array of knowledge we could access that we are not even aware exists.  We should be disturbed by an account in the Bible that alerts us to how little we really do know about what is going on about us.  The ancient prophet Elisha faced a grave crisis or so it seemed.  A foreign ruler wanted Elisha dead and sent his army out to find him and kill him.  Elisha was staying in a village that was unable to defend themselves, let alone Elisha.  Elisha’s servant panicked when he saw the soldiers descending upon the town.  Elisha’s reaction was surprisingly calm and relaxed.  He reassured his servant that all would be well despite appearances.  "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:16-17 NIV)

We have here clear evidence that there is a significant amount of information we aren’t aware exists and never access.  Some would call this the supernatural aspect of our universe.  But it was not supernatural for Elisha or his servant.  It simply was not “seeable” before this but once their eyes were “opened”, they could see all the chariots of fire and hills full of horses and it was clear as day to them.  Afterward, if they had been asked how they could be certain of what they said they saw, they would not have an answer to give that would sound logical or even acceptable to most people.  That doesn’t mean that what they saw wasn’t really there on the hills; the inability to explain why they could see what they did doesn’t mean they hadn’t seen it.

Consider the situation here closely.  There was a great army of soldiers who had no idea that the hillsides around them were covered by horses and chariots of fire and there was an entire village that did not see any of this either.  Only two people in this huge crowd could see what was very certainly there.  This same sort of occurrence is described by the prophet Isaiah in the sixth chapter of his book.  He was in the Temple and Isaiah became aware of the Lord present there sitting upon the throne and seraphs with six wings flying about glorifying the Lord so loudly that the doorposts and thresholds shook and the room was filled with smoke.  Now it is highly unlikely that Isaiah was the only person in the Temple at the time but it may have been so.  If he was the only one present, it is strange then God’s question.  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" (Isaiah 6:8 NIV)  It seems that this is not a personal call directed only at Isaiah to go but rather a general call to anyone who is listening.  If that is the case, then who else was to hear this?  The Seraphs?  It doesn’t seem likely.  Was there someone else present who was to hear this too?  Perhaps it was all a dream…it just happened in Isaiah’s mind.  But again, the call for someone to go was not just for Isaiah it seems.

Is it possible that there were hundreds, maybe even millions to whom this call to go was directed but no one else was available to God; everybody within “earshot” was too busy with their own thoughts and concerns to receive God’s call?  Their natures were not adapted to comprehending anything so rich and pure as the call of God.  There is something largely overlooked which Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3.  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. (John 3:5-6 NIV)

We must sit here at the foot of this great statement of Jesus and let its implications sink into us.  It is often misunderstood at a very great point.  Many think the kingdom of God is heaven, that to get into heaven one must be born again.  This of course is true but it is only part of what this implies.  The kingdom of God is all that God inhabits and it is His Kingdom where He rules as supreme over all.  That Kingdom can only be entered by the one who has been transformed by the Spirit into someone completely new.  The Kingdom of God is all externals for the one not transformed.  It is books and lectures and church buildings and music styles and talent and rules and entertainment and possessions and personal improvement and issues and did I say rules?  But entrance into the Kingdom of God through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit is all about God…His presence, His direction, His love, His power, His mercy, His goodness and His life.  Christ is the Gate, He is the Way, He is the Life…the Kingdom of God is Him in every place.

Why are we so out of touch?  Why are we so oblivious to God all about us?  Perhaps it is because there has been so little God worked in us that we are unaware of Him.  We face a problem…a problem person…a problem with our bodies…a problem with our family or friends…a problem with work or school…and we go at it within the confines of only this kingdom, the kingdom of mankind and that is all we have…none of what is Kingdom of God decides for us how we think about a matter and how we approach it.  Until you enter into the Kingdom of God you cannot see anything or hear anything with certainty beyond the kingdom of mankind.  But when the Cross of Christ has formed Christ in you and the Holy Spirit begins leading you deeper into the Kingdom of God, you shall begin to hear the voice of God guiding you in matters and the power of God will begin to work through you and accomplishments that are impossible outside the Kingdom of God will be done by you because you are not the you that existed before the Cross of Christ formed Christ in you.  You are now Christ and you and that is the personality that exists.  It is a new personality that can see God, hear God and be empowered by God and that personality as it goes further into the Kingdom of God becomes more and more alive to God.

The temptation of Satan presented to Adam and Eve ran along two lines and for us it is the same fundamental temptation.  Satan inserted into the mind of Adam and Eve two thoughts.  God is not good enough and God is not competent enough.  If we accept either of these two thoughts, our mind will be shut out of the Kingdom of God, we will become deaf and blind to all that is opening up to us in the Kingdom of God.  Only the Kingdom of Mankind will be accessible to us because to approach God you must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrew 11:6 NIV)  Remember when the disciples wondered why they could not cast out the demon who was causing a boy to have seizures and Jesus replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:19-20 NIV)  It is as easy as breathing to stay with simple-minded determination in the realm of the kingdom of mankind and not go any further than that.  If you do, you have access to all there is in the kingdom of man but nothing more.  Faith in Christ however opens your mind to the Kingdom of God where the wisdom and power of God seep into your mind like living water nurturing the lovely plant which is your life. 

Do an experiment this week.  Make yourself completely open for God to guide you and empower your work.  In faith ask Him to guide you, ask Him to talk to you.  Only by faith in Christ will your mind be prepared ground for God’s seed to be planted there and if God has built His life in you, there will develop even this week a growing awareness of Him thinking in you and His thoughts will become clearer and clearer.  Power will be given you to see what only God can show you and bit by bit the Kingdom of God will become visible to you.  But you must start to make your mind open for Jesus Christ to work within your mind and that takes discipline and determination to not fall for Satan’s lie that God is not good enough and not competent enough to guide you!   Breathe out this prayer to the Lord. “Enable me Lord Jesus to do Kingdom of God things in a Kingdom of Mankind world.  Fill my mind O Lord with You!”  

Hidden But Never Far From You

The last time we saw an age of "no morality" and "no religion" we witnessed the bloody French revolution.  Rationalism brought with it the loss of religious faith and the era of amorality but there was no freedom in it.  There never is such a species of man who lives outside law; the morals of the whorehouse are just as binding as those of the monastery and the debased sorority is far more dictatorial than any fundamentalist.  Jesus said that out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.(Matthew 15:19 NIV) This is not modern; it is ancient morality that began in Adam.  We all have this mush of values roiling about below the surface of our consciousness and it is our moral baseline.  The myth of our time is that we can live above ourselves somehow, beyond  the values of our grandparents but it is a lie.  The morality of this age is just as rigid as that of the Canaanites and Philistines.  The drug dealer's moral code is more fundamental than a Baptist's and of much greater risk to cross.  Stalin had the morality of Cain etched upon his soul; millions would have wished it were instead the morality of Christ.  One's conscience is nothing more than the biggest values he holds and a conscience is of no use if the morals it knows are of no higher standard than those of Picasso or Jack London.  We do not need a conscience, we need a Savior and it is the Cross of Christ that dips down below our consciousness and raises us up to a new morality, one of love and patience and faith.  The blood of Christ does not make us more aware of right and wrong; it buys us back and transforms us that we can begin to be holy, not out of fear of a rampaging angel but out of a redeemed heart that has been changed with the heart of God implanted within it.  Your thoughts, if you are honest have never been as warm and cool as a teddy bear; you are more like  a snake in your deepest points.  Only Jesus Christ can make your thoughts pure and clean and vibrant with love as you let Him have His way with you.  The Lord is not your polish to bring out your shine, He is the furnace out of which all things are made new.  Never put faith in yourself; but always trust God to make you right.

Trust in God.  Trust also in me. John 14: 1b

The Shore of Your Choosing

We are prone at every turn to look for something new, something hidden, something interesting to entertain us.  Somehow we think we are better for our curiosity and wiser for our breadth of gathered experiences.  Since Adam, we have an insatiable interest in the side corners of our world and do our best to get at them.  Adam, unlike Eve, was not fooled by Satan's ploy; he embraced the rebellion within it.  Hidden knowledge became a lust for him and he grabbed at it hungrily.  Before the fall, knowledge and insight came directly from God; the fall provided a new way of seeing, of searching out things.  The actualization of self became the idol of Adam and it is ours too if we are not careful.  We are not made to search things out on our own but to see everything through the eyes of God.  The only way we can do this is if we obey Him at each turn.  Faith brings us to recognize our need for God.  Obedience gives us His eyes.  I cannot know love if I am not obeying God nor do I know what to do with it if I am not letting Him be King of my actions.  Lust has been thrust upon us as love; it is the unwillingness to wait for God to show us the way through each holy desire we possess.  Once we turn from Him, we grovel in lust and make no headway whatsoever in seeing and understanding.  Romans 1 is the clear way we head when we let lust take hold of our Godly longings.  Matthew 5-7 is the way we look when we obey God in our longings and let Christ live through us.  The distance between Romans 1 and Matthew 5-7 is a great divide that can only be crossed through the cross of Jesus Christ who has made the way for us to love and hope and faith in the grind of daily living.  There is nothing fascinating or captivating in the moment a man or woman of God gives a cheek to a bad man.  It is an absurdity, a clownish act for all those who have taken the way of Romans 1.  And yet, for the one walking in Christ, doing as He directs, it is the pearl of great price, the stuff of heaven and that has a fascination for him.  You can tell who directs your boat by which shore grabs your attention.  Have you found Romans 1 your harbor or do you lean out after Matthew 5-7.  No law can turn you one way or another.  You must in the end choose who you will serve…

See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.  Romans 9: 33