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!

Chaos to Order

Genesis 1:2 NIV

 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

What Do You Do About the Chaos?

Several years ago I was leading a Bible Study in a home and when we finished, I walked out to my van but it wasn’t there.  Up and down the street I wandered, hoping I had just forgotten where I parked but the truth was that it was gone.  Someone had stolen it while I was “doing God’s work”.  Inside it was my laptop, an IPod and my digital camera.  I am not sure what hurt the most, the loss of the van which I often had griped about or the fact that it happened while I was hopefully pleasing God.  The chaos in my head was I am certain easily seen as I struggled to make sense of what had just happened. This was unreasonable and not fair and infuriating.  It did not seem right that God would let this happen to me.  

Chaos comes to all of us some time or another. It is usually unexpected and unnerving.  Some seem to manage chaos well but others of us have a tough time coping with it.  We like order.  We want to know what to expect and have a plan in place when troubles come.  Perhaps you handle chaos well.  You rather like chaos and the adrenalin rush it brings.  But it might be that the unexpected storm rattles you.  Suddenly you crack your tooth or you lose your wallet or you get in a car wreck.  In a world broken by sin and thrown into chaos as a result of the rebellion of humanity, we can never assume everything will go smoothly or all our plans will come to pass as we hope.  It is more than just “drama” that you face; it is without warning out and out madness.

Before God created humanity and the creatures of the earth, the Bible says that the world was literally as the Hebrew words indicate, chaotic and disordered.  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:2 NIV)  It was in this state of disarray that the Lord in six days structured the universe and brought to the earth order.  Water was in its place.  Land was separated from the oceans.  Day and night were structured and species of land, air and sea creatures were separated from each other.  Everything was put in place and love and peace ruled the earth.  But then Adam sinned and the world was again in chaos with animals attacking each other, diseases bringing terror and humanity unstable and tossed about by anger and lust and jealousy.

Into this world entered God.  Jesus Christ was born of a virgin and built His life in an isolated part of the world that was largely ignored by all the great civilizations.  God by coming to us, did so in order to make the world once more rational and in every way good.  Jesus had a single mission; to take out of you and me sin and by doing so remove the chaos of Sin from the world. David perfectly describes the chaos of this world and how difficult it can get for you.  …my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief.  My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. (Psalm 31:9-10 NIV)

Not every day is like this but enough are to paint a picture of how far chaos can go in this world.  It is frustrating and sometimes overwhelming; the chaos we encounter and like I struggled trying to make sense of the loss of my van, it is normal to wonder why there is so much chaos.  After Jesus sent His disciples off in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee with Jesus peacefully asleep, chaos erupted.   Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. (Matthew 8: 24 NIV)  It astounded the disciples that Jesus could sleep through all that wild commotion but privately many of them must have wondered why God let such a great storm come upon them when they were doing God’s work. 

While He was teaching some in the crowd mentioned the tragic slaughter of some Galileans by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.  It seems that they wanted Jesus to explain why God let them be killed.  Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.  Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.  Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:1-5 NIV)  Jesus does not welcome at all the hunt for blame when tragedy strikes!  Yes, the world is filled with both sinners and chaos but one person’s sin is not the cause of the chaos we find.  The disciples had a similar question for Jesus when they came upon a man who had been born blind.  His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (John 9:2 NIV) Jesus’ response was perhaps not what they expected. "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3 NIV)

When we look at the chaos all about us, we are asking the wrong question if we are trying to draw a straight line cause-and-effect relationship between who we are and what we face.  The assumption or at least the expectation must be in every case that chaos is to be expected but every time chaos occurs, we must look for God to see what He does.  Why the storm?  Why the massacre?  Why the blindness?  We cannot give an explanation for it other than that we live in a wrecked and chaotic world.  But when you see chaos, always look about for God too.

There is an illustration of how you can gradually develop this approach to chaos.  During a different storm on the same lake, Peter, along with the other disciples was in a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee when a storm developed and the winds began to blow strongly.  The chaos however went beyond the storm.  During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.  When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. (Matthew 14:25-26 NIV)  Jesus though reassured them.  But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I.  Don't be afraid." (Matthew 14: 27 NIV)  Famously, Peter, trusting Jesus to take care of him, got out of the boat and started walking on the water just like he saw Jesus doing.  At that moment, Peter recognized the chaos but looked for God in it.  Soon though, the storm was all he saw and he started sinking into the water.  Chaos has that effect on us.  We can let it overwhelm our sensitivity to God.

Peter had another opportunity to look past the chaos and see God in it but he didn’t make use of the opportunity.  When Jesus was arrested by the Jewish leaders, Peter thought all was lost and even though our Lord told him and the others that this was part of God’s plan, Peter panicked when He saw Jesus beaten and humiliated.  Three times he denied to the people watching with him that he even knew Jesus.  It was a lost cause to Peter and he could not see God in what was happening.  In just a couple years though, Peter was not so lost.

What turned everything around for Peter was that Jesus rose from the dead after He was crucified and as for all other true Christians, the Holy Spirit became a part of his personality.  From that point forward, all the mental strength and moral power of God was a part of him and can be a part of you too, Peter could never get completely lost in chaos.  Although it may not seem traumatic like being caught in a storm or watching as Christ was being beaten there was nonetheless a tremendous challenge Peter faced after the Holy Spirit came on him and the others the day of Pentecost.  The disciples started facing persecution.  James the Apostle was executed for his faith in Christ as was the deacon Stephen and Peter was more than once arrested and threatened with death.  Peter had started to make a regular practice of trying to see God in whatever he faced and after having moved away from Jerusalem he stayed with some friends in the Roman dominated town of Caesarea.  While there, some messengers came to him from a Roman centurion, asking Peter to come to the centurion’s home.  There were two problems with the invitation.  One, Peter was Jewish and Jewish people did not go into the homes of those who weren’t Jewish. More importantly though it was a centurion who wanted to see Peter and this was a great challenge for Peter.  It was the Roman soldiers who executed Jesus.  This quite possibly could have been a threat.  What was Peter to do?  Would he trust Christ within the chaos of going to see the Centurion or let his fear rule him and stay home?

The decision Peter finally made enabled Peter to see God in the chaos he faced.  Before that, God was in the storm, He was there to trust too but he did not see it.  After that, God was in the crucifixion of Christ and He was there to trust but Peter didn’t see it then either.  Now, the invitation to go to the centurion’s house, although frightening and risky had God there too just like with the other two chaotic moments.  There is a crisis of faith for you every time you face chaos.  Do you believe God will see you through this?  Will you trust Him to help you and carry you?  Do you believe He loves you and that the chaos you have now will be worked out by Christ and that although it might be hard now and very hard, He will stay with you no matter how rough it gets?  Peter had to go through some rugged and painful experiences before he became convinced that the Lord was good enough to trust within the storm and not just when the warm and gentle breezes were blowing.  God’s peace is not theoretical, it is practical.  It is of no use if you cannot have God’s peace when chaos comes.  Your chaos is your opportunity to test the Lord’s power to see you through it and as you trust Christ in the chaos, He is proven to be good and really good.  When you see Him there, in the middle of your chaos, you will learn and learn completely, that your Lord is bigger, and stronger and kinder than you ever imagined.

He Meets Us

Nothing argues as fiercely against the presence of God as the unbending hardships we face.  They press against us like pointed spears and we wonder when our deliverance will come.  We wait and pray and cry out for help and yet the oppression remains and we wonder what sort of God would allow what we face.  The Christian community is filled with silent mourners who have grown weary of praying.  Sometimes they rise up against God and bitterly denounce Him.  Other times they simply sneer when given spiritual platitudes that sound good only in theory.  Our world is broken and filled with shame and sorrow and we must face the facts as they are.  Our children's hearts are rubbed raw by their disappointments and our friends sigh without relief in sight.  Is it any wonder that God is ignored today in the very circles where we would expect His name to be praised?  There is within us though a cry rising up; a mourning hope that waits for God with the expectancy of a child.  Like the blind man on the side of the road calling out to Jesus, we wait also for Him.  With the prayer of the woman whose bleeding nearly drove her mad, we reach out to Christ.  The amazing part of God that we overlook is that He too was, as the King James translation puts it, "despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not."  (Isaiah 53:3)  In the Garden of Gethsemane our Lord admitted to His disciples, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death."  (Matthew 26: 38 NIV)  God did not drop us down into a universe where suffering and sorrow continue and refuse to let them both hammer Him also.  As David silently hid in the cave with his men, Christ also huddles with us in our sorrow and pain and waits with us for it to end.  The day is coming when we shall exclaim triumphantly that we are "more than conquerors through Him who loved us" but for now the faith of many is weak and the suffering brought on by a sin marred and Satan infiltrated world stands opposed to our victory cry.  The miracle of our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection is that our Savior is not aloof and His encouragement not mere cliché.  We too shall overcome this world and in the dark of night, our Lord comes to us with a tender touch of love and comfort that somehow carries us past our sorrow and lifts our spirits with supernatural joy and peace.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.      John 14:27 NIV

The Worthiness of Jesus...Heart

Psalm 73: 26 NIV

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

What Is In Your Heart?

This past week our family on the 4^th of July went to the fireworks program put on by the city of Milpitas.  It was not a huge extravaganza but it was fun and a great way to end the holiday.  There is a football field that is used for seating that is first-come, first-served.  I got there early to get a spot for my family but was disappointed to discover that because we did not get our tickets in advance, I would have to wait in line for an hour to get our passes.  My knee had been bothering me a lot and so standing in line was not an ideal way for me to spend the afternoon.  Finally I was able to get my ticket and pick out a spot for our mat and then I began the long wait for my family to arrive.  Because I didn’t have a cell phone and there were lots of people crowding onto the field, I had to be vigilant for my family’s arrival.  Rather than relax and read a book, I was constantly scanning about to see if I could spot them.  Family after family arrived with their coolers, their cold drinks and their dinners.  Kids played with their parents, adults talked together and laughed and told stories and I sat by myself waiting…waiting…waiting.  Finally, two and a half hours later, my family arrived and because I hadn’t eaten much lunch, no breakfast and had been sitting out for so long in the warm sun, I was both famished and thirsty.  But when they arrived, all that was brought for me were chips!  Chips?  Others had barbecue, sandwiches and boxed dinners from restaurants and I was handed some chips.  Not only was I disappointed that I had to sit by myself for so long, I was bent out of shape by the lack of good food and drinks.  Now we would generally speak of my anger and frustration as cause related.  I was tired, perhaps feeling lonely and definitely thirsty and hungry.  The Bible however would describe it as a heart issue.

Have you ever gotten angry or depressed over something that others might call “no big deal”?  Perhaps you lost your cool over someone cutting you off on the road or a friend’s or co-worker’s insult.  Maybe you were so frustrated by your wife or your husband that you would not talk to him or her all evening.  Have you ever hurt someone’s feelings because she reminds you of someone that treated you badly in the past?  Do you let yourself get depressed when things don’t go as you planned?  Have you fallen for someone that didn’t really like you because you were lonely and desperate to be loved?  Do emotions ever spring up within you that don’t seem justified?  Are you surprised by how badly you react to circumstances that later don’t seem so bad?

There is much about us that we can’t give a rational explanation.  It makes for good TV to make some people out to be like robots but none of us are.  We are complicated and the root of nearly all of our senseless reactions is found in what the Bible calls “the heart”.  Our modern view of the heart is different than how the Bible uses the term “heart”.  Just a few passages from the Psalms will illustrate this.  No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth. (Psalm 58:2 NIV) If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; (Psalm 66:18 NIV) Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12 NIV) My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. (Psalm 131:1 NIV) Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (Psalm 139:23 NIV)

When the Bible talks about the heart, it is referring to what we commonly speak of as the mind.  But it really is more than just the mind, the heart as the Bible uses the term, is the very core of our personality, who we are and what we shall be forever as people. Within our heart we process our experiences, decide what we will do or not do, settle on our relationship with God and take in from God His attributes and spiritual gifts.  Joy comes to the heart as does sorrow and wisdom.  The heart is bigger than our minds can comprehend and within the heart is far more than we realize.  The body may die but the heart continues to live for it is who we are eternally.

The Bible speaks of the heart of Jesus a few times.  Christ says of Himself, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29 NIV)  This revelation of Jesus that He is gentle and humble in heart should make us pause and consider exactly the ramifications for us.  The God who created the universe is gentle and humble in heart.  He does not lord over us His power and although this world is tough and often full of pain, He is gentle.  We must always take this into account when we think of God and what we face.  His heart is gentle.  His heart is humble.  We also need to acknowledge that the heart of Jesus is compassionate.  In the small town of Nain as Jesus was walking and teaching, he noticed a funeral procession.  A widow’s only son had died and a large crowd was mourning with her.  Gazing at the poor widow, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." (Luke 7:13 NIV)  Jesus then walked over to the casket and raised the son from the dead and restored him to his mom.  Later on, during the week that Jesus was betrayed, He admitted that His heart was in turmoil over what He faced at the end of the week.  "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say?  'Father, save me from this hour'?  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!" (John 12:27 NIV)

There is one more characteristic of Jesus’ heart that is critical to note. His heart is without sin.  There is not a hint of corruption to it, cruelty, bitterness, worry, or hatred for people.  He is called in the Bible a high priest who understands all the pain and sorrow we face and realizes in His heart how difficult it is to do what is right.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15-16 NIV)  In contrast, our hearts are thoroughly warped and distorted by sin and they generate all sorts of shocking behaviors.  Jesus, who understood human psychology better than anyone ever, has asserted, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 NIV) We like to insist that we would never do certain bad things others do and have done yet in this vast ocean of human personality called the heart is all that is needed for murder, slander, sexual immorality and theft to immerge.  There is a depth of evil in our hearts we cannot calculate but God knows exactly what is there.  As the prophet Jeremiah, speaking for the Lord put it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV)The misperception of many is that the heart is basically good but that is not the case.  Our Lord says it is tremendously wicked and warped and there is a monumental amount of evil each heart, yours and mine, can produce.

Although we are clear on how Jesus forgave our sins by dying on the Cross, the overlooked aspect of what Jesus Christ accomplished at the Cross is His work to recreate us so that we can live happily without sin.  Perhaps the most profound couple of statements ever made on the psychology of the human condition brought about through the death of Christ on the Cross are found in Romans 5.  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:1-5 NIV)

Peace with God is not possible given the condition of our hearts.  We are irrational and uncontrollable with the heart each of us has.  Hatred and worry and lust and selfishness are always possible with us.  But something rarely ever discussed occurred when Jesus Christ died for us and in faith we gained God’s grace.  Part of that grace, perhaps the biggest part of that grace is not just that our sins are forgiven but that God has made it possible for us to have good and holy hearts.  How can that happen given what Christ has said about our hearts?  The miracle of the Cross also includes the amazing decision to pour into our hearts God’s own love.  The Holy Spirit does this and it changes the entire composition of our hearts.  They now have God’s love working out of them the corruption of Sin and making them good…good at the level of God’s goodness.  Another English translation says that God has “shed abroad” His love into our hearts which essentially means He floods our hearts with His own love, washing them of all the filth of collected Sin and hurt.  The Holy Spirit makes our hearts able to empower righteous and moral and loving actions that could not happen with God’s love not there.

Your heart though will be at war and you will never be at peace with God as part of it unless you give up your right to govern yourself.  The most miserable people in the world are those whose hearts are a battle ground between Sin and the love of God.    As soon as you let Christ take charge of your life, your heart will be at peace.  Jesus put it this way, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” (John 14:1 NIV)  A simple practice can make the peace of God a reality for you.  When lust pops up, say to the Lord, “I trust you with this lust.”  When anger boils within, say, “Lord, I trust you with this anger.”  When it is jealousy, “Lord I trust you with this jealousy.”  You are feeling sorry for yourself, “Lord I trust you with my disappointment.”  You feel bitter about mistreatment, “Lord, I trust you with my hurt feelings.”  The happiest and most contented people in the world can be Christians if we let our Lord have control of our hearts by trusting Him with our lives.

Refuge

2 Samuel 22:31 NIV

"As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless.  He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

Do You Have A Hiding Place?

 

More than a decade ago when our oldest son was only nine or ten, we went camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Somehow we stumbled upon a beautiful swimming hole on the Kings River at the western end of the park.  The river cascaded down giant granite boulders into a large pool that was formed in a giant basin of granite.  The pool was quite deep in places, more than twenty feet or so.  The river had carved a natural water slide that dropped into the pool and I held Noah, who was pretty young and together we slid down the rocks and splashed into the pool a number of times.  Jacob though was intrigued by a father and son who stood high above the pool looking down.  The son was not much older than Jacob and it seemed like they both were going to jump down into the water.  The spot where they were going to jump was more than twenty feet above the pool.  The cliff jutted out over the water and was directly above the deepest part of the pool.  When both father and son jumped, screaming as they fell into the water, Jacob thought he would like to do the same thing.  After the father and son climbed out of the water, Jacob asked me if I thought it was dangerous to jump there.  The father and son insisted it was perfectly safe so Jacob and I went over to the spot where he would land and studied it carefully.  The water was crystal clear; we could see the bottom perfectly and it looked plenty deep to land.  The only problem was that you had to jump out from the rock to land in the deepest part of the pool.  Jacob pondered the risks, stared up at the cliff, looked down into the water and after much encouragement from the father and son that had jumped before, began to make his climb up to the ledge where the others had leaped into the pool below.

There is for each of us, a time when you need to know if there is a safe place to land.  You will, and maybe already have, find yourself falling without a net to catch you.  It is easy to pretend like Job’s friends that only really bad people face tragic and traumatic circumstances but you know that is not the case.  Because you live in a sin corrupted universe, real troubles spring up without warning and you must face them.  Hardship and pain are here with you and sometimes it is a calamitous illness, other times a sudden loss of income, a relationship that falls apart, depression that can’t be shaken, failure crushes your sense of worth, a habit that you know you should break but you just can’t or an accident that brings irreparable damage.  When you look down from the cliff where you stand, what do you see?

Perhaps like me, you have been intrigued by the story of Ruth found in the Bible.  Newly married to a young man she clearly chose to love, Ruth was suddenly a widow.  The more we read of her story, we find ourselves captivated by her kindness, generosity and loyalty.  Why a tragedy like this would happen to someone with such a warm and loving heart is difficult to comprehend.  We can of course just wave off this calamity as a slight roadblock in her life because she later remarried and gave birth to the great-grandfather of a mighty king but that would do a tremendous disservice to the actuality of her heartbreak.  Tragedy by definition is tragic and just because some good is awaiting us down the road from it does not mean we can shake it off as inconsequential unless we have been damaged psychologically and do not respond to disasters in a healthy way.  Ruth did not “just shake off” the calamity of her husband’s death and nor should she have.  She was without the love of her life and that pain was significant.

Ruth made a dramatic decision that clearly changed the course of her life.  She decided to make the God of her mother-in-law, the God of Israel her God.  This was a conscious choice on her part based upon what she had seen in her husband, her father-in-law and her mother-in-law Naomi and how belief in God had shaped their lives.  When Naomi decided to leave Moab and go back to her hometown in Israel after the tragic loss of her own husband and two sons, Ruth was determined to leave with her.   Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16b NIV)

Ruth was not merely changing her religion; she was completely rearranging her life with God.  Life is tragic and there is a tremendous amount of heartbreak in our world.  We cannot explain it all and like we discover about Job, there are supernatural forces working that are unseen to us bringing tremendous amounts of pain and sorrow to good people.  Ruth realized though like the Psalmists and her own great-great-grandson would later proclaim, God is a refuge for those who turn to Him.  Ruth’s future husband Boaz could see clearly that Ruth had turned to the Lord in her sorrow and found Him a great comfort.  He tenderly prayed for God to be her strength and help, “May the Lord repay you for what you have done.  May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge."  (Ruth 2:12 NIV)

Ruth may have been the inspiration of David who also found God to be a refuge where we can go in our troubles and hardship.  O Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, (Psalm 7:1 NIV)  The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. (Psalm 9:9 NIV)  Keep me safe, O God for in you I take refuge. (Psalm 16:1 NIV)  There is a supernatural work that God does for us and within us when we turn to Him in our times of trouble.  This work cannot be explained by logic or by psychological theories.  Those who have experienced this work of God have a terrible time trying to explain exactly what happens when they turn to God for refuge but that doesn’t alter the facts of His help and comfort.  You cannot explain what happens when you turn to God for refuge but like the Psalmist, you simply know what you have experienced.  God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. (Psalm 46:1 NIV) 

Before he became physically king of Israel, David as a young man became the actual enemy of Israel’s king.  David hadn’t done anything wrong but Saul had become paranoid and saw David as a threat to his throne.  Saul led an army into the desert regions of Judea to hunt down David and kill him.  But David and his small band of men avoided capture.  With Saul’s soldiers camped just below where David was hiding, Saul entered the cave where David was to go to the bathroom.  There in the dark of the cave, with Saul oblivious to David and his men hidden from view, David’s men urged David to kill the king.  David crept up to Saul and cut off a part of Saul’s robe without Saul knowing.  David was conscience stricken though by how close he came to killing Saul the Lord’s anointed.  He said to his men, "The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord's anointed, or lift my hand against him; for he is the anointed of the Lord." (1 Samuel 24:6 NIV)

This is a perfect example of what it means to dive into God and make Him your refuge.  Rather than take matters into his own hands and kill Saul, he gave Saul back to God to do with as the Lord wished.  He could have violently grabbed the kingdom of Israel by assassinating Saul in the cave but he trusted God to take care of him and make him king in God’s time.  Many were dependent on David to save them from Saul and his own soldiers were pushing for him to kill Saul then and there but David refused.  David took his stand in the cave that regardless of how bad it all seemed, he would make God his refuge.  This determination to dive into God and let Him protect and comfort you is found in the Psalms.  Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. (Psalm 62:8 NIV)

I heard recently of a Muslim girl who decided to become Christian despite the opposition of her family.  She risked the hatred of her parents and perhaps even physical harm to take refuge in Jesus.  This high school student did what Ruth did and what David did and what we can do too.  She has hidden her life in Christ and is trusting Him to take care of her.  What about you?  Will you trust God with your finances?  Will you tithe?  Will you trust God with your friendships?  Will you talk openly about your faith in Christ?  Will you trust God with your family?  Will you pray for them and encourage them?   Will you trust God with your work and school?  Will you let Christ guide you and direct your steps rather than just do whatever methods the world uses to get ahead?  How serious are you about being Christian?  What great things might God do through us if we put our trust in Christ and dove into Him…made Him our refuge, our source of safety and peace?

Dynamic Change

There are many of us who are weary; we have tremendous burdens that wear down our souls and we are tired of all the difficulties we face.  Not everyone is like this.  Some are cheery and pleased beyond measure with their lives.  All the "breaks" seem to fall their way and nothing much troubles them.  There is though, a great number of us who are going through the motions at work, just trying to get by at home, trudging through mud at school and we need more than just a pat on the back; we need the supernatural hand of God upon us.  Thomas the disciple lived in such a gloom that even the good news of his fellow disciples that Jesus was alive could not shake him out of it.  Only Jesus Christ Himself could lift the despair of his heart.  Our age is one of disbelief; that there are no devils tormenting souls, no satanic power working amongst us.  It is just the circumstances, broken relationships and troubled pasts that we have in the middle of our darkness.  Amateur and professional counselors alike do their best to try to "get at the root of our issues" and after years of probing and manipulating and prescribing, the "terror of the night" is still there.   The misery and torment so many of us suffer is real and it cannot all be explained by our experiences; the wise must take into account the very real presence of unseen evil forces in our world.  Perhaps you have tried your best to get at what is wrong with someone you love dearly and you have gotten nowhere.   You are at the end of your rope with this person and you don't know what more could be done.  God may never show you what is causing the "jangling of nerves" and anguish but maybe if you would give the Holy Spirit space, Jesus Christ could be brought in contact with the broken soul and do what was done for Mary Magdalene.  Are you willing to intercede with desperate determination for the weary souls you know and by God's grace, bring Jesus Christ to them through your praying?  Remember that Jesus told His disciples that some people could only be helped through prayer!  Prayer was not in Jesus' mind the feeble alternative of weak and unsophisticated minds; it was the great blast of dynamite that alone could break loose certain people from their despair and turmoil when the "wise and skilled" come up against those cases too big for them to handle.

After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"  He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer."     Mark 9:28-29 NIV

Planning For Tomorrow

We make all sorts of plans.  We plan our vacations, plan for retirement, plan our work schedule, plan when we will have kids, plan our class schedule and plan on getting our haircut.  We strategize how to succeed, how to invest, how to stay healthy and how to raise our children.  There is though only one strategy in the Kingdom of God and it is as simple as turning on your computer or starting your car.  In Jesus' final instructions before going to the Cross He provided the Disciples with the only plan He had for them to operate as children of God and succeed in what the Father had in store for them.    He put it metaphorically so that it would be clear as day to us what it was.  "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing". (John 15:4-5 NIV) Our laser-like attention and focus must be on this one effort.  Remain in Christ and let nothing take you from it.  Anything that distracts you from keeping your mind fixed on Christ must be hated with all the disgust you can muster.    It is not that we are to leave this world in abandonment to some monastery in the hills.  God never gave His disciples an assignment like that.  He left them in the hard scramble of life and did not pull them from it until He called them home.  It is in the crash of living that we are to remain in Christ and stay there in Him when anything from disaster to triumph arrives.   There is no panic or fear of "night" for the one whose mind is fixed on Christ.  We can be as peaceful as a cooing dove if we will do this one thing without fail.  Look to Christ in the earthquake and the storm, in the sunset and the gentle breeze.  Refuse to give in to the temptation to fuss about what you will wear or what you will eat or how mistreated you are but glue your mind to Christ and tomorrow will "take care of itself".

But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves.  For I will give you...   Luke 21:14-15 NIV

New

A year is full of promise.  Everything is new and fresh about the days coming because "anything can happen" in them and yet we all know that we are full of calcified habits and mummified behavior patterns that we rarely undo.  Extra weight almost always stays on us; trapped in a body of routine.  It is the crisis that awakens us to change.  The crisis comes like a lightning bolt, the new day like a wave of the sea.  Inexplicably we welcome the wave and despise the bolt.   The pink slip and the cancer diagnosis we dread and yet they carry with them a hope we don't have in the new day.  Something must change when the lightning strikes and it does.  We see people from a different angle, think of our habits with critical awareness.  The person we took for granted morphs into a trusted friend; the walk in the park becomes alive with brilliant colors we hadn't noticed.  Not everything turns grey when the lightning strikes, sometimes neon green and strawberry reds explode out from the shadows.  Satan engineers a crisis when he is afraid we have begun to inch our way back to God but he miscalculates.  He thinks he wrecks us with the stormy blast but in fact the drenching rain can awaken us to what we have missed, what we might have if we just turn the boat around.  The old term "backslidden" describes the vast majority of us.  We have fallen back into our old crusty patterns of Godless doing.  We have stopped looking to Him for guidance, given up our electrifying dependence upon God for help and gotten by on mindless habitual religion rather than living faith.  Perhaps today you could cast your habits to the wind and do something wildly new with God.  Scream into the stars your praise.  Throw all the money you have in your wallet into some stranger's hand and invest in love rather than something more reasonable and rational.  Lock yourself in your room and sit with God until you are thoroughly uncomfortable and bored to tears.  Confess your hidden sin and make right your wrong.  Take someone's hand and pray for her.  Finally forgive your father or your coach that despised you.  Read out loud an entire chapter of the Bible and make each sentence pop with the joy of an angelic choir.  This is a fresh new day God has given you!  Make the most of it!

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."  Lamentations 3:21-24 NIV

Loss Syndrome

Luke 17:32-33 NIV

Remember Lot's wife!  Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

What Have You Lost?

Loss, or the threat of loss, is one of the greatest enemies of our peace of mind.  When I was in graduate school, I was fired from a part time job as an attendant at the campus gym.  After being told I was “relieved of my duties”, I went back to my dorm room and I wept.  This was a terrific blow leveled against me.  I felt humiliated.  I wondered what my worth was as it was just a goofy little job that anyone could do…but clearly not me.  I was afraid to walk down the streets of the campus knowing students would be looking at me in a new way; I was the one fired from the gym job. I was afraid of what others now thought of me. I was afraid of how I would pay my school fees without the job.  How could I find another job as good as that one?  It felt like my world had fallen apart and I was afraid that it could not be put back together.  All I could think about in my little room while I sat on my bed was all the losses I would face now.  I had lost a great job and I had lost my sense of worth with it and possibly my ability to stay in school.  The losses were too great for me to bear!

Losses come upon us often without warning and in dreadful ways.  A good friend suddenly cuts off all communication with you.  You get sick and the days you lose can never be regained.  A ministry ends that you loved and believed would have a tremendous impact.  The career you once believed would be so great is now a dead end.  Your degree has become worthless and now you have to somehow pay off the debt you owe for your college degree.  A love you cherished fades and someone you respected so much before has let you down.  Some losses are barely noticeable and others take your breath away.  Losses seem so unfair, so cruel at times.  You had hoped for so much more but losses made you cynical and moody.  What are we to do about the losses we face?  How are we to respond to loss?

If the ancient book of Job tells us anything, it is that Satan can hurl great big boulders at us, terrifying boulders.  Some of us have felt like Job because there are boulders that have hit us squarely too.  A friend wants to talk with us and it turns out he is deeply insulted by something we have said or done.  The owner of the company tells us layoffs are starting.  The doctor calls us into the office to discuss our test results.  We make an investment and it wrecks us.  A child of ours renounces Christianity.  The boulders slam us and we have a terrible time knowing what to do with Satan’s attacks upon us.  When Satan went after Job, the patriarch did not think a bit about Satan…all he could see was the loss he encountered and how unfair it all seemed.  It was unfair and Job was right about that.

Satan is a master at bringing us loss.  Satan disrupts our plans.  For we wanted to come to you — certainly I, Paul, did, again and again — but Satan stopped us. (1 Thessalonians 2:18 NIV)  How many of us have looked forward to a holiday that when it came, fell apart!  Satan has wrecked many long anticipated events.  Satan also torments us with worries and dissatisfaction and injuries and hardships.  To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (2 Corinthians 12:7 NIV)  Satan can make our friends a stumbling block for us.  Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Matthew 16:23 NIV)  Who hasn’t at some time or another felt betrayed by a friend who we trusted!  That is a terrible loss and Satan is the master at taking apart friendships.  We also know that Satan turns authorities against us so that those in positions of power can be used by Satan to multiply our losses.  Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you… (Revelation 2:10 NIV) There are some losses we face that are due to our bad decisions and poor planning.  Satan even disrupts our thinking so that we go up against God to our loss.  Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? (Acts 5:3-4 NIV)  It is impossible to calculate how many bad decisions we have made because we have let Satan have sway over our thinking!

When Elijah the prophet fled the evil Queen Jezebel who threatened to kill him, he wound up in a cave and something that is enlightening for us occurred there.  As Elijah recuperated from his terrifying and exhausting flight, he was greeted in that cave by a series of horrifying calamities.  Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. (1 Kings 19:11-12 NIV)  Famously, after the fire was a whispering voice that Elijah heard which was either external to him or placed by God straight into his mind and that whisper was God.  Each of these terrifying events…the great wind, the earthquake and the fire were clearly not from God or at least God was not “in them”.  So who was in them?  Would we be off-base if we said “Satan”?  They seem to have been supernaturally caused.  It’s not like rock shattering winds, earthquakes and fires pile up together in the normal, natural realm.  Regardless of their point of origin, we do know that if we were there, we would have been frightened by it all.

We suffer many losses in our lifetimes and most we barely notice.  They may be irritating or even a bit maddening but never really frightening.  Every once in a while though, like Elijah’s wind and earthquake and fire, they are stunning and mind-numbing and we care very much about them.  And the Lord is not in those losses.  Satan is behind them and we must remember who the taker is, who the thief that robs us is…who is behind the storm we fear. 

With Jesus resting peacefully at the back of their boat, the disciples encountered a great storm.  Now this storm must have been bigger than usual because although several of the disciples were seasoned fisherman, they all were panicked by the storm.  Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!" (Matthew 8:24-25 NIV)  Let us now make a point that perhaps is unnecessary but pertinent to our discussion.  First, Jesus was not going against the Father in calming the storm.  The Son never opposed the Father in anything. His work as Savior was to put an end to the wreckage brought on by Satan and sin and in that deliverance came the calming of the storm.   Second, the storm did not frighten the disciples.  It may have been wild and potentially deadly but it was not what terrified the disciples.  What brought on their panic was the possible loss of life they faced because of the storm.  The storm itself was exciting, maybe even thrilling with the giant waves, the billowing, boiling clouds, the claps of thunder and bolts of lightning. The thought of terrific loss though made them scared out of their skulls and they could not take it.  Loss is not our problem; it is the fear of loss that we must battle.  Now how did the disciples cope with their fear of loss?  They went straight to Jesus Christ.  They did not paddle harder or duck behind the walls of the boat, they went directly to Christ.

There are two key considerations when it comes to losses.  The first is that if God is not in the losses, then the probability is that Satan is involved.  Therefore, it is not God who we blame and avoid when the storm comes that threatens to take away from us what we love.  It is Satan.  Second, the loss is rarely as grave and horrifying as the fear of the loss.  Many have suffered terrible losses in their lives and been just as peaceful and calm as Jesus sleeping in the back of the boat.  They may have been completely overwhelmed emotionally by the coming losses but afterward, they found comfort.  King David comes to mind.   He wept and fasted and begged God to intervene while his son was deathly ill but once the child died, he became calm and unperturbed.  Now this may sound cold and inhumane on David’s part but perhaps we have left out the supernatural component to loss.  Maybe David was helped by God when the loss came to pass.  Perhaps in his begging for God to not take his baby away, it brought into the event the supernatural kindness of God to comfort the inconsolable soul when the loss did come to pass.  Like the disciples who turned to Jesus when the storm raged, David went to the Lord when the storm he faced raged.

Because this world is wrecked by sin, dying is all around us and it hits us directly.  Dreams of careers die.  Marriages die.  Plans we have for our children die.  Vacations fall apart and investments collapse.  This happens and Satan is directly involved in many of these “deaths”.  We must face squarely this matter of death and dying in every realm we travel.  Friendships die and dinner arrangements die and much of what we hope to have goes up in smoke.  But there is one matter we must put into our equation of loss.  Jesus Christ is “in the boat”.  Satan may take our lunch but Jesus Christ is in the boat and when the disciples went to Him, they gained peace...a supernatural peace.  It is hard when the storm strikes to go to Jesus Christ then and there.  We are captivated by the storm and all we can think about are the losses we are going to face and perhaps we are angry with God for the storm.  We are in a way mesmerized by our fear and frustration and even anger over what is happening but Christ is in the boat.  The storm that rocks us rocks Him too.  When we turn to Him, we may not lose what we thought was lost.  He may completely take the storm away.  He can do that and He may do that.  We must have a little bit of faith but if we do, He might take our storm from us.  But if He doesn’t and He lets Satan steal something from us, He will give us peace…a supernatural peace.  Anyone can have peace when it is smooth sailing; but Christ gives us peace when the storm comes headlong into us.  You may not think you need the peace of Christ now…everything is nice and easy for you.  But the time will come when Satan will throw a great storm at you, a storm too big for your peace to handle and when He does, remember that Christ is in the boat and if you turn to Him, He will give you His peace…and you will have peace that is supernatural and big enough to carry you through whatever loss you face.

The Psychology of Pain

Psychology of Pain

Job 16:6 NIV

"Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.”

Why Do We Have To Face Pain?

I can’t make up my mind.  What is the worst form of pain to face?  Unconscious pain, manifested in nightmares and unexplained depression and anxiety is debilitating.  Conscious pain, brought on by clear and obvious events that make us miserable and breed anger and despair.  Physical pain which can be excruciating or more or less just tolerable is terrible too.  When I was in high school, I separated my shoulder playing goalie for our soccer team.  We didn’t have anyone else to play goalie so I finished the first half and then the second half.  I could not lift my hand above my shoulder which made it pretty tough diving to stop shots and that night I could not sleep because of the pain.  In fact it hurt to even breathe for two weeks.  The pain prevented many of my favorite activities…I could not play basketball, couldn’t practice with my softball team and could barely take notes in class.  I often prayed during the next few weeks that God would take the pain away, that He would help me get to sleep and that He would (I thought this somehow was needed) forgive me of whatever sins I had been committed that led Him to push such pain upon me.

When we are pain free, we are also many times carefree.  We can think about anything we want, daydream, put plans into place and take on whatever projects we care to start.  But when we are suffering from pain, we get swept away by it.  If you have lost your job and you are dumbfounded by your bills, the pain of your circumstance clogs your mind and makes it so you can think of nothing else.  When you have suffered a great trauma in childhood, the pain of it never really leaves you and it bubbles up in your dreams, your relationships and in your handling of problems and trying times.  Physical pain numbs your brain to everything else.  A broken finger, a bad back, an upset stomach and it takes a tremendous act of the will to think about something other than the pain.  You have done it and so have I, tried to get rid of pain with aspirin, Motrin, or perhaps illegal drugs or heavy drinking.  We go to counselors when our psychological pain is too much to bear and to chiropractors for the physical pain.  But why do we have to suffer pain at all?  What is the good of pain?  Why would God let us face pain if He could stop it?

There is nothing speculative about pain…we all face pain and some of us experience it every single day.  At the risk of being misunderstood and misinterpreted, it would be worthwhile to consider the point at which pain became a part of the human experience.  When Adam and Eve first sinned, the outcome was that Eve would suffer pain in childbirth and Adam pain in trying to get his work done.  To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." (Genesis 3:16 NIV)  That is both physical pain and tremendous potential for psychological pain for the woman.  To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (Genesis 3:17 NIV)  Again, we have for Adam physical pain and psychological pain built into the struggle to make a living.   Pain, in its most raw sense is the result of sin, of Adam and Eve deciding to be the master of their souls, to live as if God is absent.  That is the essence of all sin, the declaration of independence from God.  Sin is the force behind all that is wrong in our world and all that is wrong in us.  Both the sins we commit and the sins of others warp our personalities and our thinking.  Enough sin and God becomes an enemy and a prison guard rather than our joy and freedom.  Sin wrecks us from top to bottom and we often don’t even know it.

Pain knocks the legs out from under our independence.  If I have come to think that I am the boss, pain makes a fool of the thought.  Pain makes itself king and it refuses to be carelessly cast aside.  Try to ignore pain and if it continues, you cannot.  You can medicate pain but it comes back up and rules over you as a fierce tyrant.  You can go to Disneyland, hang out at a jazz bar, watch your favorite team on TV or start a new relationship but pain won’t let go of you and you cannot just shake it off.

The ancient book of Job located in the middle of the Bible is a sort of case study on pain.  It gives us a fresh understanding of what pain is and why God lets it continue for now.  Job lived a pretty care-free life up to the moment God and Satan had their monumental meeting in the heavens.  God pointed out just how good Job was and Satan contended that he was only good because God kept him from pain.  God insisted that Job would still be loyal to Him if he faced pain and Satan replied, “Let’s see!”  However, God only let Satan bring Job psychological pain.  This is not to belittle Job’s pain!  What he faced was horrific.  In one day all his kids died and he lost his wealth.  It is fascinating though to see that this psychological pain did not knock him off his feet.  At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."  In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.  (Job 1:20-22 NIV)

For many, psychological pain is the worst sort of pain and it renders them unable to function practically.  The loss of a loved one, the abuse suffered as a child, the devastation caused by financial ruin, the experience of rejection all create a level of pain that can be unbearable.  But Job was not brought to his knees by psychological pain and so Satan demanded (if one can demand anything of God) that the Lord let Job suffer physical pain…and that did the trick.  The sores Satan used to afflict Job knocked Job off his feet.  He was wrecked by his pain.  He wished he had never been born.  "May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, 'A boy is born!'” (Job 3:3 NIV)  He wished he could just die. "If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed!” (Job 14:13 NIV) The pain was so intense that Job was forced by it to turn to his friends to help him cope with it.  But his friends did not have the capacity nor the will to really help him in his pain, and so Job did what pain is intended to stir in us, Job turned to the only one left to him.  God!

Before the pain, Job was carefree and unperturbed by what he faced.  When pain attacked him though, Job had only two categories of thought…pain and God.  Now we must admit Job’s thoughts about God were not civilized as we think of religiously civilized thought.  He said God was unfair.  "As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul, as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit.  I will never admit you are in the right; (Job 27:2-5 NIV) He thought God didn’t care.  “…then know that God has wronged me and drawn his net around me.  "Though I cry, 'I've been wronged!' I get no response; though I call for help, there is no justice.” (Job 19:6-7 NIV) He decided God was his enemy.  “God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.” (Job 16:9 NIV)

Something happened though with Job as his pain continued.  He began to think of God in a new way…as the one He needed, as his redeemer.  The Hebrew word translated redeemer is a fascinating term.  It describes one who is a relative that has the means to get you out of debt when you sold your land because you were too poor to keep it or a relative who marries you as a widow to protect your family or one who buys you out of slavery.  The redeemer was a savior who paid the price for your rescue.  When pain comes upon you and when it is deep pain, you can only think seriously of two matters: your pain and the hope of someone saving you from your pain.  Job voiced this well as his pain had evolved from psychological pain to physical pain and then to spiritual pain.  “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another.  How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27 NIV)  If you read closely the last parts of Job’s comments before God intervenes, all he can think about is God…His mind is on nothing else; not his marriage, not his friendships, not his finances; he is laser focused on God.  He does not need a tasty dinner, a new flock of sheep, a house with more rooms, an upgrade on his computer, a better smart phone, a wife who listens to him or friends who respect him.  He needs, and really needs a redeemer…he needs God.

Pain is the psychological button God uses to awaken us so that we will not waste our life with Him.  Imagine someone brilliantly talented at singing never developing her voice, a savant mathematician never bothering to study math, a greatly gifted inventor never working out one of her ideas.  The absurdity of unfulfilled talent is a terrible tragedy and yet there is not a talent we possess that compares to the opportunity before us to live our lives with Jesus Christ.  To cast our time with Him away is the greatest mistake of our lives and when we risk doing so, God pushes the button and pain erupts.  Suddenly we are thrown off our game, disoriented and like a driver trying desperately to get his car straightened when it begins to spin in a patch of black ice, we find pain shutting down every single concern we have but these two…our pain and our God.

Job’s story is about two matters only:  pain and the need for God.  Your life is the story of one matter…your life with God.  If you get distracted from this; if you lose your mind on something other than Jesus Christ saving you, it is a terrible tragedy for you.  Set your mind on Christ again and again and again.  When your mind is set on Christ and fully upon Him, then your mind is aligned with the mind of God and every thought you have has the power of God working in it and through it.  Why waste that great and glorious opportunity?  Why wait for pain to snap you back to reality?  God is present, God loves you, and God will work through you if you give Him the opportunity to do so!