Spirit Journey

Psalm 51:10-11 RSV

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.

Do You Have a Spirit Or Are You a Spirit?

When I was ten years old I made a most terrifying journey that only was about fifty feet long.  I got out of the chair where I was sitting, stood up, and walked to the pastor who was standing at the front of the congregation of Pacific Avenue Baptist Church.  He asked me why I had come to him and I told him I wanted to become Christian.  The pastor had a few more questions for me and as the rest of the church waited, I prayed with him that God would forgive my sins and give me eternal life.  I that day put all my hope in Jesus Christ as my Savior.  About six months later, a new pastor had come to our church and in the church’s brand new baptistery; Pastor Culp baptized me on Easter morning.  I was stunned by how I responded to this.  For no reason that I could figure, I began to weep as soon as I came out of the water.  It was amazing to me because I didn’t think I was nervous nor was there any reason for me to be sad and I cannot say I was overwhelmed by any relief to get my life on track.  My spirit simply broke apart that morning and weeping was my physiological response.  Now I know that it was the Holy Spirit that came over me and after seeing this same reaction in others who have been baptized, I realize that I wasn’t weird or “just a cry baby”.  But back then, I didn’t understand what had happened and no one ever pulled me aside to tell me what I had experienced.  Some would call it a “spiritual moment”.  But what does that mean?

We speak of certain things as “spiritual” but do we really know what that means?  Is going to a Buddhist temple spiritual?  Is walking through a meadow spiritual?  Can sipping coffee at a café be spiritual?  Is it spiritual to sit in on a worship service or to read your Bible or give to a charity?  Are we spiritual?  Is there something real and discernible that we know about the spirit that we can explore and discuss?

One way to make sense of this question is to consider the part the spirit plays in life.  The Bible teaches that each person is comprised of body, soul and spirit. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1Thessalonians 5:23 NIV)  More than that, our spirit is what makes us a living human being.  Until God breathed into Adam, he was just a dead body.  After he gained his spirit, Adam was a “living soul”.  God tailor makes each spirit for the particular person who receives it.  The Lord, who stretches out the heavens, who lays the foundation of the earth, and who forms the spirit of man within him… (Zechariah 12:1-2 NIV)  Without spirit, the body dies.  What we call death is when the spirit returns to God.  …and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.  (Ecclesiastes 12:7 NIV)  Jesus, when He was about to die on the Cross quoted from Psalm 31: 5 as He gave to the Father His spirit.  Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46 NIV)  In John 19:30, the spirit departing and returning to God is synonymous with the declaration, “He died”.  Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (NIV)  Death is the loss of spirit…that is the definition of death…even more so than the brain no longer functioning or the heart no longer beating.  As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:26 NIV)  Consider the great miracle of Jesus bringing back to life a little girl in Luke 8.  She was dead but when her spirit returned to her she rose up and was alive again.  But he took her by the hand and said, "My child, get up!"  Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. (Luke 8:54-55 NIV)  The spirit was not wrecked when the girl died but still existed…Ecclesiastes tells us it goes to be with God.  It lives even when the body and soul die.

The spirit is therefore who we are eternally.  Some would speak of it as our personality.  The spirit processes what the body receives.  John 13: 21 expresses this perfectly.  As He contemplated His coming death, Jesus in His spirit sorted out what this would entail.  After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, "I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me." (NIV)  After Jesus told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven, in Jesus’ spirit He recognized the reaction to His words of the lawyers who overheard His declaration.  Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? (Mark 2:8 NIV)

Consider the most fascinating relationship between one’s spirit and body delineated in 1 Corinthians 14.  For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.  So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind. (1 Corinthians 14:14-15 NIV) The spirit and the body do not have to work together all the time.  Our mind can be completely unaware of what is happening within our spirit.  When we talk about the unconscious, often this is exactly what we mean.  Our spirit can connect with God without our mind knowing anything about this.  But there is another possibility here also.  Our spirit can connect with the demonic realm, with Satan, and not be aware of it either.  This is a most exciting and troubling discovery.  There may be much going on with us that our mind is oblivious to and unable to process.  All sort of wants, hateful feelings and godly interests can bubble up to the surface and we wonder how they got there.  It is because our spirit can interact both with God and with Satan without our mind realizing what this is doing to us.

There are crucial ramifications to this.  There is a back door to spiritual forces that can wreck us psychologically.  But there is a tremendous benefit also.  When we pray for someone, God can open this back door wide enough for a great working to take place.  Suppose you pray for Joe whose mind is shut firmly to God.  He has no interest in Him and in fact due to some terrible things that have happened to Him, Joe has a rather intense hatred toward God.  But, the Lord can, as we pray open this back door, interact with him in his spirit and by doing so, prepare the mind for repentance and faith.  In other words, we can never assume that Joe or any of the Joes or Josephines are hopeless cases.  Even a closed mind can be impacted and transformed by an open spirit.  The back door is available for God or Satan to enter and we decide in our praying or lack of praying who gains access.

Now we must turn to the most important part of our discussion regarding spirit.  Perhaps the greatest promise found anywhere in the Old Testament is presented in Psalm 51: 10.  The English translations differ in this verse in a significant way.  The RSV has the best rendition of the Hebrew intention and so we shall use it here.  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.  When Jesus told Nicodemus and the rest of us that we have to be born again, He was referring to this promise.  We do not get a new body when we are born again nor do we receive a new soul...both come much later when the resurrection of the dead occurs.  But now, as soon as we put our trust in Jesus Christ to save us, it is a new spirit God gives us and that spirit is new because it now is joined to the Holy Spirit…we become as Jesus put it, “born of the Spirit”.  The great prophet Ezekiel put the promise this way.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:26-28 NIV)  This work of God in joining our spirit to His Spirit is made explicit by Jesus.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."  By this he meant the Spirit… (John 7:38-39 NIV)

So what do we have here?  We have the most extraordinary finding.  The cross of Jesus Christ has the potential to work out a miracle in you.  If we stake our lives on the forgiveness of God and His mercy to give us eternal life because Jesus Christ took the punishment of God for our sins…the Holy Spirit then becomes a part of us; our personality saturated with the personality of God.  So what is wrong with us?  Why is it that so much of us does not seem like God?  You cannot remember because you were too young but you have seen it in others; when you were a baby and even older, your spirit struggled to express itself through your body.  You spoke gibberish, you threw tantrums, you stumbled about, you misunderstood the world all about you; your disorganized thinking caused you all sorts of problems.  Your spirit was ready to take on the world but your body was young and clumsy.  When we are born again and we gain a new spirit, one joined with the Holy Spirit of God, our body and soul are not ready for it.  They aren’t trained with the new spirit, too clumsy and corrupted by sin to act right, think right.  As Jesus puts it perfectly,  “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." (Matthew 26:41 NIV)

How do we look…how does our personality express itself if the new spirit we have is not developed in us, if we are childish and our spirit, the one joined to the Holy Spirit, is not established fully with our body and soul?  A snapshot of the untrained body is found in Galatians 5:20 and it isn’t very attractive...discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness and the like… (NIV)  We don’t have to live like this though because we have a new spirit.  A similar list describing how we can look if our new spirit is not fully in control of our personality is found in Colossians.  …Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5 NIV)  But how do we look if our new spirit is directing our body and soul?  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV)

How do we get our body to catch up with our spirit so that we look like that?  The spirit must express itself through the scriptures within the structure of the body.  This can only happen through faith.  We must begin to believe that what the Bible says we are to do, we can do because we have a new spirit.  Until we begin to do this actively, aggressively, we will look and act like babies…jealous, angry, given to selfishness, impure actions and thoughts, unforgiving, trying hard to get our way.  The moment we take a behavior or attitude from the Bible, something we are told by God to do, and believe that because of the new spirit we have we can do it, a miraculous change occurs in us.  God will work in us His spirit.  Our habits will look like God.  Our dreams will look like God, our spontaneous thoughts will look like God, our behavior when we think no one important is watching us will look like God.

Until we are born again, Bible thinking and doing will be annoying and impossible to continue.  The moment though we put our hope in Jesus Christ to save us, the Spirit of God will join Himself to our spirit and the Bible will make sense, become reasonable and realistic to follow.  Until then, it is mere disconnected gibberish.  But you, if God’s Spirit lives in you, will begin to look like Jesus Christ Himself if you let the Scriptures unleash the new spirit you have that is fired up to take charge of your personality.  At some point every lion must stop pretending to be a rabbit and fulfill its God ordained destiny.  Christian people are made to live Christian lives.  Why should we look like the devil when God has made His home in us?  We are too good for that!

Spirit Intelligence

Romans 8:9 NIV

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

What Is Your Spirit IQ?

One of the great questions in the field of psychology has to do with intelligence.  What is intelligence?  Is it the ability to solve problems, how quick you think, your verbal skills, your creativity?  Do you have to be great at math to be considered intelligent or able to grasp spacial relations?  Are you intelligent if you have a great memory or are smart people forgetful?  How important is intelligence anyway?  Does it make you a happier person?

The Bible is adamant that intelligence is important but it takes a unique stance on it.  Psalm 53 gives us a measure or a standard of intelligence rarely considered but it is crucial for us to consider.  The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."  They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.  God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. (Psalm 53: 1-2 NIV)  Perhaps we could call this “moral intelligence”” or “spiritual thinking”.  It is easy to discredit spiritual thinking by calling it impractical or just something religious people think about but it is anything but impractical.  Spiritual thinking is the most practical way of understanding intelligence because it is universal in its scope.  Spiritual thinking demands that all of our thoughts must run through the Holy Spirit or else it always comes up short.  Without God in our figuring and evaluating, we lack the most critical component of thinking, the mind that is behind the life of every mind in all creation.  It is like trying to decide what would be best to wear outside without any idea what the weather is.  In Russia yesterday it was cold and rainy despite being the middle of July.  How smart would it be to go traipsing outside there in shorts and a light blouse?  Spiritual thinking gives us the ability to think with facts unavailable to the mind without God.

Let me give an illustration of the importance of spiritual thinking from an event described in Mark 4.  Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat when a great storm arose on the Sea of Galilee.   The panicked disciples, several of whom were seasoned sailors, shook Jesus awake when it looked like they all might drown.  Quickly Jesus reacted to the storm.  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. (Mark 4:39 NIV)  Without God, the mind is chaotic, wild, unpredictable.  After Jesus quieted the elements, the disciples were amazed that even the wind and waves obey Him.  When the Holy Spirit enters a mind, it gains a freedom it did not possess before.  The mind can see things clearly without the wild nature it once had.  What it never noticed because it was too spasmodic to comprehend, the mind can grasp with the Holy Spirit as part of the thinking process.  Important details are processed with spiritual thinking that go unnoticed or are unattainable for the mind without the Holy Spirit directing the elements of our thinking.

The Lord told a story that helps us get a handle on spiritual thinking. There were ten virgins, all pledged to be married to a single man.  The wedding was delayed though because the groom had to be away for a while.  But when he returned, the wedding would begin.  Part of the ceremony was to have lamps ready and lit when the groom arrived.  Without them, they could not participate in the wedding.  Five of (the virgins) were foolish and five were wise.  The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.  The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.  The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. "At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'  "Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.  The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.'  "'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'  "But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.  "Later the others also came.  'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!'  "But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.' (Matthew 25:2-12 NIV)

What was the difference between the two groups of virgins?  All of the virgins had the same information available to them that they had to have their lamps lit when the groom arrived.  What separated the groups was the way each group processed that information.  At the time when they all fell asleep waiting for the groom and even before that, the five of the virgins thought it did not matter how much oil they kept with them.  The other five with varying degrees of urgency believed it was best to have extra oil for this crucial night.  The first group, the group without extra oil provides a clear picture of the chaotic mind, the mind without God working through the thinking.  They did not think far enough or process the information they had with enough clarity to avoid being kept out of their wedding.  The second group had spiritual thinking at work and although they may not have known why they needed to have extra oil, they took the information they had of the coming wedding and made sure they kept with them extra oil.  The second group of virgins thought in a different way than the first group of virgins and the way each group thought was critical…life altering.

There are key moments, and we never know when they will come and rarely know their importance at the time, when we need a higher intelligence, a smarter way of thinking and that is spiritual thinking.  When Jesus came across a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years, the man had no idea the importance of that day.  But then when Jesus healed him, he started to see God’s hand upon him but because he lacked spiritual thinking, he could not process the data correctly.  For some reason, the man did not even pay attention to who Jesus Christ was, did not bother noticing even the slightest bit of information about Him.  When the Jewish authorities found the man carrying his begging mat that day and it happened to be the Sabbath with its regulations against carrying such mats on that day, he was asked why he was violating the Sabbath.  (H)e replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'" (John 5:11 NIV)  When the Pharisees demanded to know who told him to pick up his mat, the man did not know.  Of course it seems odd to us that this fellow did not even know the name of the one who healed him of his thirty-eight year disability but that is the sort of thing that happens when we lack spiritual thinking.  We aren’t able to process the data we have coherently so that it makes sense for what is important.  Later, Jesus met up with the man and told him to stop sinning or else something worse would happen to Him.  What that something worse was, the man never bothered to try and discover.  Instead he just ignored Jesus’ warning and went on with his life.  Without the power of God working through our thinking, we become arbitrary in our actions, disordered and unable to make sense of the most important factors we encounter.  Spiritual thinking allows us to see and think about what is most important and how to understand what we see.

When the rich young ruler who met up with Jesus as described in Luke 18, was told that if he wanted to inherit eternal life, he had to sell what he had, give it to the poor and follow Jesus, he mentally collapsed at the words.  He could not process how important it was to leave behind his wealth if he was to have a happier and more joyful life that could never be ruined by circumstances or even by death.  Jesus was not good enough for him and that was because of the inability he had to utilize spiritual thinking.  Zacchaeus on the other hand without even having to be told, as soon as he met Jesus, realized that he had to pay back everyone he cheated four times over and give up half of all of his possessions to the poor if he was to be happy.  You cannot be talked into such a decision.  Who willingly would do such a thing with a glad heart?  It is not logical in any way unless of course you process it using spiritual thinking.  Of the two men, who made the smart decision?  The rich young ruler met Jesus, looked carefully at him with all his mental acuity and decided it was best to hold on to his wealth.  Zacchaeus used the same mental skills as the rich ruler but added to it was spiritual thinking, and he decided to give away his wealth.  One famously went away sorrowfully.  The other was joyful in his decision.  Spiritual thinking determined the quality of life each gained.

There are two parts to spiritual thinking.  The first is a determination that the Bible is the ultimate authority in our decision making.  If this is not decided, we will be unclear in our thinking and unable to process rightly what we face.  Who knows what to think of the person who gossips about us at work?  The Bible gives a clear answer.  Who knows how to respond to being unemployed?  The Bible tells us.  Who knows what we should do if we can’t stand our neighbor?  The Bible has a plan for that.  The Bible has an answer for every moral decision we face.  The second part of spiritual thinking is that it thrives off a craving that borders on desperation for the Lord to direct us in an ever growing way.  To develop spiritual thinking, we must be eager to be led by God.  For us, it is a sort of Promised Land.  We can stand on the edge of spiritual thinking like the rich ruler of Luke 18 and watch as others enter into a joyful and intelligently peaceful life or we can enter in and be like Zacchaeus, glad beyond measure to be with Jesus.  Others may not think much of the decisions you make but you will know, as you let the Bible and the Spirit of God dominate your thinking, that you have a better life than they can ever imagine.

Do You Know Who You Are?

There is no one quite so disoriented and frustrated as the man or woman who has gone part-way with Christ...the Savior is neither Lord nor rival but somewhere in-between.  The commands in Exodus are acknowledged but the ones of Matthew 6 are for another day and time.  Faith is some sort of murky variable rather than a clear and certain way to face each decision of the day today.   Charity is an institution rather than a lifestyle and contentment is more like shrapnel from an exploded hope.  The whining of the Israelites when they stood at the edge of the Promised Land the first time is such a distant thunder for us but are we certain the lightening does not strike at our feet too?  Are we ready to abandon ourselves to the wild God who told the rich young ruler to get rid of His fortune and follow along the path of disciples?  Will we hold tightly to what we have or pursue the vision our Lord has set before us of holy abandonment to God wherever that may take us?  Is there within us a leaning forward as Christ calls to us to come or do we lurch back at the tug upon the bit.  Many are called but few are chosen!  Are you chosen or do you do most of the choosing?  Something deep within us calls to go into the raging waters of the Galilean Sea but do we hesitate within the boat?   Have you decided to put your plans into God's hand and let Him reshuffle the deck and then show you how you are to make your next move?  Are you confused by your uncertainty to follow Christ or do you have a clear determination to let Him be fully Lord and thereby bring your rebellious disposition into alignment with His plumb line?  Are you a "true Israelite in whom there is nothing false ?"

 "How do you know me?" Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you."

John 1:48 NIV

Transcendent Doing

Just because you have believed in Jesus Christ does not mean you are His disciple.  You may have heard many good things about Him and acknowledge what He has done but not be His disciple.   You can even have powerful times of prayer and work with great and marvelous ministries tied to His name and not be His disciple.  The disciple of Jesus Christ lives out of a paradigm that is the fulfilment of Salvation.  It is a most explosive moment for the Christian when the realization strikes; "by myself I can do nothing".  It is not a partial accomplishing; it is not an imperfect doing.  It is nothing that can be done by myself.  We bark at the personal inadequacy expressed by this determination.  What is wrong with you?  Why are you so pessimistic?  Why do you give up so easily?  Don't quit yourself!  You can do it!  But the disciple realizes, "I cannot do it."  No matter how hard I work at my projects and goals, I am incapable of doing anything on my own.  Where we stumble on this is our view of "nothing".  I can build a computer program but to what point?  I can read an article but for what reason?  I can make lunch but why?  Everything hinges on the determination of the soul.  Am I at this moment in Christ, living through Him and by His might or am I on my own?  Does Scripture have its hold on me or am I just loosely associated with it?  Is the Holy Spirit worked through both my will and my reach?  It seems to the one without the Holy Spirit that Jesus' contention that even He by Himself could do nothing is gross irresponsibility.  Yet, nothing in eternity can be worked out on our own.  It is only in Jesus Christ and through Him that we take hold of heavenly purposes.  Everything else will be consumed by fire but what is done in God endures forever.  The disciple lets himself be held in the grip of Jesus Christ and decides by rugged determination to stay there regardless of the contending needs all around.  There were plenty of places our Lord could go during His life but He only went where the Father led Him.  Are you ready to take that next step?

By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.     John 5:30 NIV

More Than A Difficulty

It is nearly impossible to get the sufferer to believe that what is happening is for good.  Etched in our personality is the determination to want none of the trials we face.  Adam and Eve groaned under the weight of Satan's temptation and refused to endure it courageously; consequently the rest of us are marred by their heritage.  For most seeds to sprout, the ground must be broken and torn apart, a violent tearing of what was settled and at peace.  Even the seed itself must be blown to bits before it can find its place in God's design.  The Lord's yoke is the most profound way He transforms us into living, breathing images of His perfect glory.  No trouble or hardship or difficult person comes to you without God's loving hand making the gate swing wide open.  The yoke is easy as long as you keep your mind fixed on Christ and do not let it be split apart by Satan's accusing and your own whining.  There is kindness and goodness and humility and patience and sincere faith and hope ready to be born in you if you will just settle your thoughts on the crucified Savior who has suffered for your complete salvation.  Nothing is finished with you; you must bear the yoke before you can move along into perfection.  The character of the yoke bearing Christian is the loveliest sight in all the universe.   Imagine the hunk of marble barking at Michelangelo for wrecking his day.  Look in the mirror.  Are you the canvass upon which Rembrandt is recklessly slopping paint or the paper that Mozart is scratching his notes?   Are you not in the hands of a far greater genius who has a plan for you that will be worked out perfectly?   "But the yoke", you cry.  Why this yoke?  The greater the yoke, the more settled your Lord's determination to make you into a masterpiece of love and glory.

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 11:29-30 NIV

Unsettled Christianity

It is so easy to live spiritually when sitting at a cafe sipping a coffee or while the great preachers of our time captivate us with their intoxicating messages.  What happens though when your co-worker cheats you out of your bonus or your dad ignores your accomplishments?  How well does your spirituality fly when the sales team meets together at a local club; what sort of religion do you possess as the argument in the kitchen spins out of control?  Where is your love for God when you are disappointed, frustrated or filled with itching desire?  Christianity is not a religion of clear mountain streams and golden sunsets.  It is the blossoming faith of those who face connivers and debaters and humilators and wreckers of days.  Christianity is for the tele-conference, the sales floor, for the Google search and the hospital waiting room, for the shattered dream and the wasted day.  Christianity is for all those times you feel angry and confused and tempted and proud.   We do not read the Bible and pray and pay attention to anointed sermons to be able to live on pause spiritually until the next time we can relax with God.  The Lord gives us His power and conviction so that we might express His life in us at the darkest and ugliest moments and rather than just be ourselves, we find we are more than ourselves, we are Christ joined to us in holy revelations of God's glory.  Of course we can't forgive our mother but Christ in us can.  Of course we can't say "no" to one more drink or having the last word but Christ in us can.  Of course we can't be kind when we have been ignored or belittled but Christ in us can.  Every place we go and each circumstance we face is an opportunity for Christ to shine more brightly through us than ever and for our character to be upgraded into a purer form of godliness.  Nothing surprises Satan more than Christ suddenly showing up where He hasn't been noticed before.      Who better to make Him known than you, who better to reveal His power than you when no one expects to find Him in the room?

And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.   Luke 9:52-54 NIV

How Are You Doing Your Calculations?

Our time is one of great interest in supernatural activity and powers.  And yet we explore it not as Columbus or Magellan did looking for something actual and determinable but as creators who let our imaginings do all the work of it.  We are entertained by thoughts of the supernatural but we don't take it seriously.   Jesus on the other hand lived within the reality of unseen forces and personalities and He both attacked and allied Himself with them.  Demons He cast out of people and angels He let serve and nourish Him.  At one time we treated the atom as a straight forward and quite logical entity until we discovered the wild unpredictability of electrons and subatomic particles.  When will we face facts?  Our personalities are far more complex and unreliable than the field of psychology can reckon because there are unseen forces and beings that wreak havoc upon us and interject themselves in every nook and cranny of our lives.  Paul spoke of doing things without predictability or self-control and we should give this credence too, not because the seen world is so at variance with logical outcomes but because the unseen world is far more vast and influential than we grasp.  How often has our Lord told us to pray?  Do we take at all seriously this grave command?  Do we realize how critical prayer is to us and to all those who surround us?  Jesus did not quiver over the unseen world but He didn't calculate without taking it into account either.  He showed us how to respond to supernatural surroundings and it was the simplest of all strategies.  Pray.  Pray for direction.  Pray for help.  Pray for protection.  Pray for eyes to see what is beyond the senses.  Pray for reactions that can handle the split second changes in direction caused by supernatural forces, both demonic and angelic, that impose their wills upon our circumstances.  If it is not warfare at the highest levels, do you think Jesus would have agonized as He did in the Garden of Gethsemane?

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Ephesians 6: 12 NIV

Happiness or Joy

1 Kings 4:20 NIV

The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore; they ate, they drank and they were happy.

What Is The Value of Happiness?

San Francisco used to have a rather famous local celebrity who was known as “the bush man”.  It wasn’t that he was from some remote part of Africa, but rather it was how he used to torment tourists who came to Fisherman’s Warf.  He kept with him a big, leafy branch that he hid behind as someone approached him on the sidewalk.  The bush man waited until just the last second as the tourist came up to him unawares and he suddenly threw his branch aside, rose up from his haunches and screamed.  Tourists would immediately scream themselves and some would drop their bread bowls and cokes, most would just jump aside in fear.  Then everyone on the sidewalks on each side of the street who were anticipating the prank would laugh and for his effort, the bush man expected the startled tourist to give him some money for being the butt of his joke.  My pleasure in all this came afterwards as I watched the embarrassed tourist walk away.  Some would smile broadly and laugh with their companions, happy to have been made a public spectacle.  Other shuffled off clearly disgruntled, perhaps their entire day wrecked by the experience.  All the rest of us in the impromptu audience of the bush man were mostly happy…perhaps because what we saw was funny, perhaps because we were glad the bush man had not humiliated us instead.

What makes us happy?  Is it good health?  Are we made happy by winning the lottery or getting a promotion?  Do children make us happy?  Are we happy on our birthdays?  Perhaps when our favorite team wins the championship…or just a game…we are happy.  Do romantic evenings make us happy or exotic vacations?  Does your pet doing a new trick make you happy?  Has an effective medicine ever made you happy or a tax refund?  Have you found happiness going to school or to a movie or at the mall picking out shoes?   Were you happy on your wedding day, your graduation day, your last day at work before your retirement began?  Have you ever made someone else happy?  Are you happy?  Do you think you will be happy tomorrow…or next week…or next year?

Thirty times or more a form of happy or happiness is used in the Bible and it nearly always describes the reaction to some sort of external circumstance.  Leah said she was happy because she had given birth to a son. (Genesis 30: 12)  The people of Israel and Judah were happy over the prosperity they enjoyed with Solomon as their king. (1 Kings 4: 20) Haman, the assistant to the Persian king Xerxes was happy that the queen had invited him to a private banquet she was hosting. (Esther 5:9)  Yet later his happiness was usurped by fury when the Jew, Mordecai refused to bow to him.  Paul the apostle recounted the observable happiness of his friend Titus who upon his return reported how refreshing it had been to spend time with the church at Corinth. (2 Corinthians 7:13)  As sick as it may sound to us, the Psalmist indicated that anyone who bashed in the skulls of Babylonian children would be happy. (Psalm 137: 8-9)  We know it is possible for this sort of happiness because we have seen it ourselves that miserable people can find happiness by bringing misery to others.

The challenge facing happiness seekers is how to sustain happiness.  It is fleeting in most cases; usually dependent on everything breaking the right way.  Some have a personality that tends toward happiness but unfortunately not everyone is so disposed.  Many have a tough time finding happiness even in normal circumstances, let alone when times are tough.  Is there any hope for the majority of us who find it difficult being happy, especially when we can’t find a good reason for being happy?

Joy is usually considered a synonym of happiness but there is a distinct difference between the two terms, particularly in the way the Bible applies them.  Joy often is no different than happiness.  It is simply the reaction to some sort of pleasure and joy means no more than the celebration of the soul over some accomplishment, acquisition or change in circumstances.  But there is another way joy is mentioned in the Bible and how this usage differs from the normal discussion of joy is the source of it and that is what we must examine now.

Nehemiah hints at the difference in the Bible’s use of the terms joy and happiness. 

Nehemiah said, "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Nehemiah 8:10 NIV)  The reason Nehemiah needed to prod the Jews in Jerusalem to celebrate was because many of them were upset over how terribly they and their descendants had acted and the extent to which they all had violated God’s law as found in the Scriptures.  Instead, Nehemiah encouraged celebration and feasting because of God’s mercy and generosity.  He then made a critical observation.  “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”  God’s joy is your strength.  Not your joy, but His joy.  Notice also that joy is not due to circumstances as we normally think of it.  The joy is found in the existence of God.

Later in the book of Nehemiah is found this statement.  And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and children also rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away. (Nehemiah 12:43 NIV)  The people of Jerusalem rejoiced because God had given them great joy.  The subtlety of this should not be ignored.  It was not because God had made their city safe that they rejoiced nor that their hard work had paid dividends or even that now they were prospering after all the difficulties they overcame.  The cause of rejoicing was as simple and complex as this.  God had given them great joy.

The prophet Habakkuk was a pioneer when it came to joy and how to gain it.  As he considered the coming onslaught of the Babylonian army and the leveling of Judah and Jerusalem, he made a determination.  Even if there was nothing left of the land and all forms of income were gone, he decided, “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” (Habakkuk 3:18 NIV) Note carefully the wording.  He is not saying he will rejoice because of the Lord or due to anything God was doing for him.  He was not going to be joyful as a result of some outcome he hoped would occur.  His joy was not about the Lord; his joy was through the Lord.  The source of joy was neither his situation nor his impression of God.  Habakkuk’s joy came directly from God like a pitcher pouring its contents into a cup.

Jesus declared this very means of gaining joy, was not only realistic, it was His promise to us that we could have joy this way.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11-12 NIV)  It is so imbedded in our approach to life that we must somehow find an accomplishment, a purchase or a relationship to have joy that it seems almost absurd that we can have joy simply by being connected to Jesus Christ.  But He reiterated this later that same evening.  "I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. (John 17:13-14 NIV)  This is certainly not a logical approach to happiness and joy.  We dig in our heels at this point.  If I get a new car or a boat, or if my wife stops arguing with me or if my husband would finally treat me affectionately or if my finances improved or if my test scores got better or if I have a great time on my date, I will have joy but if something turns sour, I am left bummed and frustrated. Paul completely flipped the normal joy equation around when he explained, For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. (Romans 14:17-18 NIV)  Not only is joy not determined by what we do or gain, it is ours as a result of God giving it to us freely.  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13 NIV)

Let me use a story Jesus told to illustrate the difference between typical happiness and the joy that is infused from God.  There were two brothers who had completely different life goals.  They shared the same father, the same upbringing and the same advantages in life.  One decided to kill the golden goose and get his inheritance early.  He spent all his father gave him and wound up impoverished and in despair.  The other brother remained a hard-working productive person who never placed any demands upon his rich father.  When the younger brother returned home a beggar, to the older brother’s shock and great displeasure, the father threw a lavish party to welcome the younger brother back into the family.  The older brother stomped around and bitterly denounced his father for his actions.  The father had never thrown him a party!  He had worked faithfully in the family business and he never got so much as a barbecue.  Looking at this story from the outside, you wonder how the older son could have been so upset.  Why did he not realize that all the father had was his too?

Here is the great issue of joy.  Just as the older son forgot that the source of his true happiness was not in what the father doled out but it was the father himself, so we too err greatly here.  We fail to see that all true joy comes from Christ through the Holy Spirit and if we would keep our eyes on Him, we would have enough joy to fill the entire world.  It is when we look away from the goodness and mercy found in God and turn to all the things we wish we had or hate we now have or might have, we lose the joy that is ours at any moment.  The typical reaction when discovering that Jesus turned the water into wine is that a big deal is made out of that act as if that were the great miracle.  That was not and still is not the miracle, but rather just the sign of the miracle.  The miracle is that Jesus Christ can and will infuse us with Himself at any moment and the water transformed into wine is the sign of what Jesus can do within us if we are ready for His joy to overflow throughout our total personality.  What sort of home might we develop if the joy of the Lord entered it, what sort of work environment could we help develop with the joy of the Lord there, how could we change the way our churches operate if we had the joy of the Lord invading them?  There is plenty of joy in Christ for us to be happy if we would simply turn to Him in prayer at any moment we feel overwhelmed or disappointed or scared or angry or frustrated and just like the water was turned into wine, Jesus Christ can turn the mood of our personality to joy.

Why Are You Praying?

One of the great misconceptions in Christian circles is that God must give us what we ask because of our great need...or because we are so fervent in our praying...or because what we ask is not selfish or intended to feed some ungodly lust.  Our Lord answers our prayers because of the work of Christ on the Cross.  Sin is the great destroyer of all praying and, regardless of our determination to get what we want, it is fool's gold to reach out to God for anything but His forgiveness and transformed life.  Have we come to realize that Satan can give us what we ask and we can gain great treasure on earth without a drop of God in it?  The only proof you have that God is coming to you in your praying is if your faith is in Christ alone to save you.  His blood upon your heart is the mark of your citizenship and family heritage.  What good is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul!  What good is it to have a new car, a better job, a string of new friends or a fixed home if the blood of Christ does not seal them with redemption?  Prayer is the grand opportunity we have to give ourselves completely over to Christ to care for us and transform our will which we have from conception as a gift of God.  Wants and needs are never to be the center of praying.  It is the remade personality we have through the crucified life of our Lord that must take center stage.  At some point, we will discover in our praying that we have not a shred of worrying in our praying, that we have become like little children who trust absolutely in the Good Father due to the transforming work of Christ in our crucified praying and the fret will be gone that perhaps we have been abandoned in our needs and wants.  The theology of praying must never be bound up in the getting but always in the receiving.  These are two very different ends and it can take a lifetime to know the difference between the two.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.  Mark 11:24 NIV

Watch Attentively

It is astounding how quickly we turn aside to some vulgar strategy for solving our relational problems!  We get angry, pout, pull in allies, defend ourselves, sulk, hold imaginary conversations in our heads, plot revenge, nurse grudges, take out our frustrations on others.  Yet have we considered the response of Habakkuk to the coming onslaught of the Babylonians?  I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, (Habakkuk 2:1 NIV)  We would rather do ten thousand things other than watch for God and look to see what He might say about our relationships.  We forget in a millisecond the astounding work Christ has done for us on the Cross.  He did not die the brutal death to get us independent and up and running. Through the Cross He became our husband spiritually but not figuratively.  Literally He has joined Himself to us in a perfect union of love, faith and hope.  Consequently, every relationship we have can be worked through that triplet because God is in us.  Love, faith and hope will each become the guiding force of Christ in the community God has given us if we would just watch and look for what   God will say to us.  Any fool can get mad when he is frustrated by someone's bad behavior.   Where is God in the sulk, in the grudge?  What miracle of the Cross is found in the bitter feelings?  If we are born-again, there is no enemy beyond the reach of the love, faith and hope God has given us nor is there a relative or friend Christ cannot take back into our hearts.    Just one look at the word our Lord has given us will correct us if we are watching for it and the miracle of the Cross will awaken us again to Christ in us, the hope of glory.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.     Matthew 5:43-45 NIV

What Do You Want?

It was such a seemingly harmless request of James and John.  “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”  We too have this way of going about our business.  It is in fact the essence of much Christianity.  God is the god of doing for us what we ask.  Whether it be honor, achievement, affection or some sort of toy, we expect God to give us something so that we can have a good religion, a comfortable religion.  The Christian world leans into stuff as much as the sensible unbeliever.  We have seen it; much of the Christian world grabs and gathers just like all the good neighbors who never open Bibles.  When Jesus asked the brothers if they could drink the cup He was drinking and be baptized with His same baptism, James and John hardly blinked.  “Of course they could”, they insisted.  It turns out they were going to drink from the same cup and be baptized with the same baptism but they were as dumb as doorknobs when it came to realizing what that meant.  And fortunately for us, so are we generally when we enter into real discipleship.  This is when many good Christian people start to fade into the shadows.  They slip away into the night.  Are they willing to take rejection, loss, painful ministries or isolation?  Will they absorb as Christ did the damage brought by world sin?  A famous missionary once wrote, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  How many Christians believe that?  Is there much real sacrifice and painful holiness in the Church or are most of our claims of following Christ lip service.  Many name Christ as a giver of good things but stop short of taking up the cross.  How many of us will drink the cup He drank and not squirm out of His baptism?  Will you be His disciple and not a caricature of what one is?  The call is clear.  Come follow me!  To do so means that you must take the path through Gethsemane and into Golgotha before you will ever make much progress with Christ as Lord.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Mark 10: 45 NIV

Living by the Moment

The danger for the Christian is not that he or she might fall into terrible sin.  It is that the comfort of one’s own goodness and intelligence is enough to get along.  Great sin creates a rush of horror and it wrecks the personal confidence one has.  It is then that the Shepherd is known intimately to be good.  Experientially the blood of Christ must work its way through and through until the love of God is certain.  Before then it seems a fantasy, this mercy of God, this dependence upon Christ for everything.  We have life worked out, we are pretty good, our job may not be perfect but it pays the bills, our loves aren’t always agreeable but they keep us warm and responsible.  Yet this is a sham; fool’s gold.  We are dead in our sins and hopeless without Christ.  It is not damaged goods but utter wreckage we have and that great need we faced when we were lost in our sin has not diminished a whit since we came to Christ and were born again.  We need Him just as much now as that spot of time we faced ourselves fully and saw the hatred and filth and hopelessness and cried out to God for a Savior.  God has not called us to succeed.  He has brought us into complete immersion in the life of Christ that we might fully live in Him.  Are we to pray by the day or the week?  It is moment by moment that we need our Lord and it is in those moments that we succeed at the point of His call.  Why do we become satisfied with the ebb and flow of Holy Spirit living when we can be living on the mighty Mississippi of filling?  Certainly we can act as if it doesn’t matter whether or not we are in union with Christ at any given moment of the day but it is sheer arrogance to think we have enough of God to function well.  What does it take to make us see our need?  A fierce burst of anger, a jealous rage, a wicked spell of depression, a broken heart, the flaring fear of loss, a dirty little mind that feeds off lust, a swelling loneliness that public places exacerbate; what makes us pause long enough seek out our Savior?  There is a gate that is wide as Kansas and it takes us into the far away country where everything is plastic and full of selfies.  But there also is a narrow way where we are never alone and we can live with the Glorious Christ who loves and nourishes our souls and who massages our troubled minds with tender hands.  Can you pause just long enough to gaze into the mind of your Savior?  Do you need to take time with Jesus?

To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  Revelation 21:6 NIV

Thinking Twice

We are mistaken if we think repentance is feeling badly about what we have done.  The man or woman who wakes up demoralized by the resultant wreckage brought on by a drunken catastrophic act the night before is not repentant.  The teen, who angrily slams a fist into the dashboard after getting a speeding ticket, is not repentant.  The child who cries when punished by a parent for stealing is not repentant.  The New Testament take on repentance is resolute.  If there is repentance, holiness must be its outcome.  Otherwise, it is just wounded pride, disturbed ambition, natural pain response or petulance.  Judas was sorrowful over his betrayal of Jesus but never as far as we can tell repentant.  Korah and his family members may have screamed in panic when the ground began to swallow them but that did not make them repentant.  Repentance by definition requires a shift from an old way of being to operating from a converted will.  It was repentance that determined Zacchaeus’s course of action and Paul’s too.  The former paid his victims back four times what he stole and the later became the chief evangelist of the message he tried to destroy.  There may be a gloominess to the conviction of wrong but that is the shadow of repentance; transformation is the substance.  Biblical repentance requires a Savior and for repentance to take place, the Cross of Christ must work its way into the core of Sin.  Sin is the determination that I do as I see fit; the crucifying work of God kills that resolve and replaces it with the life of resurrected Christ working in and through my new personality.  It must never be the goal to stop doing wrong; rather we are to stop being wrong.  That can only happen as Christ lives in and through us.  When I see the Sin, then I am ready to be transformed by the power of the crucified Christ into a new personality who lives in the God who saves and sanctifies.  Repentance is the full turn into Christ for salvation and then in Him a resulting holiness.  If there is no holiness, there has been no repentance.

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you — even Jesus.   Acts 3:19-20 NIV

Urgent Care

Can we bear a bit of honesty?  The Church has as a whole forgotten to pray.  We organize meals, put together events, talk extensively about the Bible, argue over by-laws and form endless numbers of committees but give prayer the once over and then we’re off to something else.  We pray and then try to get something accomplished as if the accomplishing is not occurring in the praying.  The Disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray.  We know how to pray.  We don’t know how to start praying with determination and abandonment to the work of prayer.  Would Peter have been led out of prison by the angel if the band of believers quartered in the home of John Mark’s mother had not been praying?  We cannot say for sure one way or another but they certainly were juxtaposed with each other in the Scripture.  Would Lot have escaped Sodom if his uncle were not praying?  Would Job’s friends have escaped judgment if Job had not prayed?  Would Jericho have ever been taken if for seven days straight the Israelites had not prayed?  Given the stakes, why do we do so little praying?  The Lord insists that He will do the heavy lifting if we would just put the shovel down for a while and pray.  The seeds need rain and sun and good soil to bring about the harvest.  All of these required necessities come from God.  Only the seed distribution is our responsibility.  If three-fourths of the work is God’s and we must go to Him in prayer to gain His help in them, why do we give most of our time to seed casting?  It is the praying that is the most critical part of the harvest because to be brutally honest, we can chuck our seeds anywhere and God can make them sprout right where they land. We have so little confidence God actually exists and carries those who go to Him in prayer that we make prayer perfunctory and everything else a necessity.  Our Lord is not scanning the horizon for better workers to bless; He is searching for more faith-full workers who have come to rely upon prayer above all else to make it through their days.  Would the world collapse in a heap if you gave an entire day to praying and reading the Scriptures?   Would your family be crushed by the weight of your devotion to praying?  Or might it just be that more can be done in ten hours of prayer than a lifetime of plowing?

                                                                            

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.   2 Chronicles 7: 13-15 NIV  

Real Time Christianity

Have you ever been confounded by some lack of a particular spiritual experience…felt impoverished some way in your life with God?    No one is quite so dumbfounded by “missing parts” as the believer hoping to move rapidly through the stages of Christian faith.  It feels unfair that some have this great encounter with God and others that divine revelation that super-charges them.  We seem to be the only ones stuck in the humdrum, jammed into a cubicle spiritually.  Consider the elation Christ felt as a young boy of twelve in His Father’s house.  The scriptures were there before Him, every letter of the Law available to His twitchy finger tips.  He was free to probe the greatest of the rabbis and test their mettle with His questions.  Day and night He was able to breathe in the Father’s words without the commonplace distractions of mundane Nazareth; did not have be interrupted by the roar of his brothers and sisters constant badgering and harassment.  No dishes to wash, no cabinets to repair, no fussy parents to please.  There in the Temple He was free to suck in the full majesty of the Jewish religious experience…but if He had stayed there even a moment past His mother’s press to return home, it all would have spilled out upon the ground like a cracked nightmare.  Jesus went home and in the poverty of an academically barren village, He lived the life given Him and He lived it well.  He gained what visions and ecstatic experiences could not provide Him; a grown up view of Kingdom life.  There is no record of Jesus miracles during the next eighteen years of His life, no burning bushes, no chariots of fire.  It was just weekly trips to the synagogue, daily having to trudge to the well to get water jars filled, nightly sleeping on the same worn out blankets.  Oh, he had the glow of the stars to brighten His evenings and the stir of the crickets to awaken His slumber but everything was always very much the same…the sunrise and the sunset, the musty sun-scorched breeze that never really cooled.  Did Jesus speak in tongues then…did He get slain in the Spirit…did He “prophesy”?  We have no record of any of that.  We simply have Jesus learning obedience in what He suffered so that when His time of glory came, He was ready to follow it through to the end.    Nothing will sanctify you any more than simply doing what God gives you to do and being thankful for the extreme mercy of the Father in showering your heart with the love of Christ.

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

Luke 2:51-52 NIV 

Religious Tinkering

What constitutes spirituality?  Is it an interest in religious matters?  Is it  the capacity to tease out the main idea in a Biblical text?  Is it a way of speaking or a propensity for charitable deeds?  For Jesus, spirituality was grounded in a determination to do whatever He saw the Father doing.  His mind's eye was fixed and never moved from that one focal point.  At every place where He went, He was given over to the will of the Father and in following Him step by step.  Spirituality is nothing more than puffed up personalized morality if it is not squared with the mind of Christ.  We have the gift of the Holy Spirit  not that we might do great deeds of godliness but that we might be at one with Jesus Christ every step.  The blood of Christ is in the washing of personality a mightier work than we grasp.  It is holiness personified...not considered, not examined.  With the cleansing Christ provides we can live a holy life because Christ is holy.    We should not take this lightly.  Holiness is the personal end game for us.  The Lord will never put up with a single bit of sinful waywardness.  He will shred us and consume us with His blazing fire until every bit of rebellion is gone.  This happens now and we should thank God He does not leave all this work until we come face to face with Him.  The trials we face today and the hardships we encounter now are all a gracious work of God to strip us clean and the more we give ourselves freely to Him, the more joyfully we will walk tomorrow.  If the "well done good and faithful servant" were left to us alone, we would simply be disgraced in the end.  But the "well done good servant" is being shaped by God in our momentary troubles and light trials.  As we turn to Christ in faith, we find the old pernicious acrimony toward the Father and what we see Him doing drained from us and replaced with the sweet, happy stream of Christ Himself welling up within.  The great days of our lives are when we are surprised to find Christ seeping out of us as we go about the normal business we have.  At those grand moments, we will grin and laugh happily that we really have been made new!

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

John 7:38-39 NIV

Loyalty and Its Cost

Is it wrong to want others to like us, to value us and respect us?  Should it not be a noble goal to have people speak highly of us at our funeral, for them to have fond memories of our life and testify of what a good and generous person we were?  So do we leave the path of rightness if it matters to us what sort of reputation we have developed and we care about the popularity we acquire?  Jesus insisted that if we follow Him there will be those who hate us and reject us because of Him.  Does that possibility frighten us?  Are we disturbed by how the Gospel in us is received?  When Christ works His way through our personality, it is not a trifling matter.  It is revolutionary; as upsetting as the day the colonies declared independence from England; as chaotic as when the realization strikes us that our children really are adults and no longer ours to keep in place.  The supernatural effect of the Cross is that the Lord Jesus Christ becomes Lord over one dealing after another and it will crack the care-free web of interacting we have built.  God’s peace does not please everyone.  Hope does not make everyone happy.  Holiness is frightful to many…so is kindness, generosity and mercy.  The world is not ready for a Christian man or woman who fully intends to let God live through the complete personality.  It will jar plenty; stun and mystify enough of the crowd to send some shivers down our spine.  You will not be prepared for being hated because Christ lives through you.  It will seem to you that God should have worked that out in advance; that if you are reworked by the Holy Spirit, He will make the path clear of boulders and thorn bushes for you.  But He won’t.  Just as the seedling needs the pushback of the soil to make it prosper and grow strong, you need the opposition of friends and family to develop spiritual backbone.  You are to be strong and mighty in God and it must be steady she goes for you as you gain some of the circle of isolation Christ faced.  Let Christ be the center of all you are becoming and soon enough you will be able to love those who hate you and let your critics have their say without being perturbed.  In the darkness of strained and ruined relationships, the light of Christ will shine brightly enough to guide your way through to the other side of the dismay you feel.  Just don’t let your attempts at realizing yourself be the instigator for your conflicts.  You are not, and forever will not be your own.  It is you and the love of Christ in all you do now.  Let Him have His way in your visceral response to broken humanity…in particular the part of that humanity living next door to you…or in your house.

Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.   Jude 21 NIV

Comfort Re-examined

What makes you so certain you have all the facts?  Do you know everything you need to know when you make your decisions?  Are you clear on all the factors involved as you move forward?  We find in 2 Thessalonians 2: 7ff that there is a great set of unseen forces at work all around us and we are like mindless bobs bouncing at the whim of a seething  ocean storm if we do not seek the Lord in all we do and say.  The deception is at every level and in each turn; everything that is of God is opposed by the power of lawlessness and we pretend to our great harm that it is not present in our spot of the world.  The vast majority of our personality is hidden from our view and therein is the rub.  What we don't see we pretend doesn't exist but we cannot continue to hide from it.  Forces are at work within us and without and it is the fool who does not bring Christ into each part of his day because those forces are most certainly there already.  If insanity is the mental deviation from the norm, then it is insanity to take into consideration forces operating within each of your moments influencing your emotional reactions and marring your mental acuity.  Yet insanity is sanity when reality goes unnoticed and denied by the acknowledged "norm".  Jesus Christ died to free you from slavery to the rebellion in the universe and to let yourself be subservient to that rebellion without a care is the remaking of General Custer's march into the Little Big Horn.  The Lord broke your bondage to Satan and the will of his cohorts; why put back on those chains by ignoring the working of Holy Spirit in your heart; guiding you, inspiring you, elevating your view.  The man of lawlessness is no comic book character...he is at the heart of our world's misery even in your corner of the world.  Take action.  Pursue with determined fortitude the power and might of Holy Spirit at the very spot where you are in your day through all those spots of your day.  You are at the front line of the battlefield and you must have the eyes of God Himself seeing through you if you are to be of any good in this fight.

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.  They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.  2 Thessalonians 2: 9-10

Are You Aware of the Big Picture?

There is with each of us a great mountain of unexplored territory.  Our personality is beyond our grasp, even the smallest parts of it.  That is why egotism is such a dastardly sin against ourselves because what we think we are is so far from the actuality.  Just consider your dreams and how profoundly they explore your depths.  You dream of someone you cannot recall ever seeing, create a narrative that is far more complex with plots and subplots than anything you could ever put down in writing, express fears and colossal desires you did not know existed.    In your dreams, lusts and cravings spring up from the pit of you that astound and perplex you.  That is just the brief snippets of the dreams you recall after the first minute of waking.  The boundaries of you that are versus what you think those boundaries of you are far surpass the difference between all of Asia and the little mosquito dancing near a swamp in Viet Nam.  You are not merely the sum of your parts…you go beyond all your parts and all the parts of everyone you know of those you have met over the course of your life.  The shepherds were amazed by the angels…first one and then thousands because they never imagined something so wonderful and spectacular.  Come to Jesus and you will find that what you know of Him and what you think you know of Him is even less than what you know of yourself.  Consider the wonder and awe of those first moments when the shepherds looked up into the night sky and watched the heavenly dance played out above them.  They could not have realized that what the angels announced was so much greater than what they presented of themselves.  Why are we so dreary and lackadaisical when it comes to knowing Jesus Christ?  We seem to be like the poor man who smashed his TV to get at the little people who lived in his box and talked to him from inside it..  Can we not see that Jesus Christ is mercy and love and joy beyond our wildest imaginings and that the glory of His being is the most magnificent of discoveries and one that brightens exponentially with each new exploration into Him?  Have we the persistence of the shepherds who scrambled to see the Christ Christmas morning?  Have we an idea of what consists of the “big picture“?  Do we realize how big Jesus is?

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.      Luke 2:16 NIV

In or Out

The moment we begin to dwell upon ourselves, our mental state, our condition, our circumstances, our finances, the things we have or want to have, we have lost our way.  Dwell means to live in a place and as soon as we live at what and who we are, we are stalling the progression God has set before us.  The mirror is a metaphor of our spiritual predicament.  Do we stare into it or look away to Jesus?  Is our eye fixed upon our depression, our loneliness, our discouragement, our frantic search, our health or is it looking away to the Cross of Christ where all the life of God comes bolting forth?  Jesus' statement about clothing and food and not worrying about them in the Sermon on the Mount is mostly misunderstood.  Like the disciples in the boat, we think He was talking about stuff...bread stuff...clothing stuff...car stuff...house stuff...body stuff...relationship stuff.  If that was the point of His rebuke, then Jesus aimed pretty low.  The Cross of Christ was not a triumph for the protection and distribution of stuff.  It was the devastating death blow to all sin and life is the working out in us of the life of Christ within the humdrum of all we do and think.  The moment we fix our eyes on our internal condition, focus upon what is wrong with us or right with us or necessary for our pleasure or happiness, we are like the child who stares into the sun and then can't see a thing.  Only with our eye fixed on Jesus, either through the scripture, by prayer or in doing what God tells us at the moment He tells us to do a thing can we see clearly.  We see the love God has for us.  We see the power the Lord holds in His hand.  We sense His love and mercy and care for us.  We trust God and believe Him.  We live.  Gaze at myself and I shrivel like C.S. Lewis's bus riders in The Great Divorce.  Look to Jesus and keep my mind on Him and the world shrinks and God grows large and I become more and more fit for the Glory I am meant to possess as a Child of the Great King.  As soon as the prodigal son determined to make his way back to the presence of His Father, he lost the identity of me and found Himself to be Us.  The world is too small for us when God makes us His home.

Jesus said to her, "Mary."  She turned toward him…      John 20:16 NIV