Christmas Is Illogical!

My Christmas blog.

God isn't asking us to explain the Christmas story, that is to make logical and absolute sense of it. It is not possible that we could, for it is, after all, the most illogical account of love that has ever been told and recorded. It is the account of the totally irrational, nonsensical and preposterous, and some would say absurd love a creator has for his creation; passion that a designer has for his design; the love of the lover for the beloved. But though God isn't asking us to explain it He is asking that we be witness of it, and yes, you can be a witness of what you have seen but can't explain. When a child sees a shooting star does she deny what she saw because she doesn't yet understand what she saw? I dare you to find a single participant in the biblical narrative of the Christmas story, who could, or even tried to explain what they saw, and I double dog dare you to find one who would or could deny what they saw. Three scholars from the east traveled, some say for years, not to explain the star they followed, but only to worship the one to whom the star lead them. Shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem didn't come to the stall where Joseph, Mary and Jesus were, in order to explain the angelic appearance and announcement, but they did come because of it. I see now that the purity of God's love can never be contaminated by the filth of the lives it embraces; that the strength of God's love can't be dimished by the weaknesses of those it is held out to; that the depths of the oceans of God's love can never be measured by the puddles we are standing in now, nor can the reason for His love be discouraged by our inability to "get it". At times it seems to me that God hung the stars in space and set galaxies spinning just for the sheer joy of it, to keep us guessing and searching, (whether humanity knows it or not we need to be kept guessing and to keep searching). By unanwerable questions and undiscoverable details God has ensured that we will keep looking up even when continuing to seems a most irrational, preposterous and absurd waste of one's life. But, this is, I  think, the way it is for witnesses, for those who can't help but look up, to talk about what they've seen, heard and experienced regardless if what they do, what they "waste" their time on seems a most absurd thing to those who have yet to see what they have seen and to hear what they have heard. The delay of details does not mean the absence of them. One day for those who have continued to look up, the irrational, illogical and absurd love of God will come into perfect focus. On that day details that out number the stars in the Milky Way by a million to one, will be revealed with clarity that will make every starry-eyed witness dance a jig while shouting; "I knew it. I just knew it.", and sing a song that confirms what many have suspected all along. Hadels' Messiah....that was just choir practice.

   Merry Christmas, fellow witnesses, Merry Christmas. Keep looking up.

Silence

How odd that one of my greatest enemy as come to be one of my dearest friends. Silence - how I once hated you, and at times still dislike you, but now I can not live without you, and so often can't wait to retreat into you again.

"You will not come to Me." "Come unto Me..."

  "You will not come to me that you might have life." John 5:40
  "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matt 11:23

   I know you are busy so I will get right to the point. I had no idea that the English words "come" as used to represent the original Greek words in these two verses, were so unbelievably far apart in meaning and intent. In John 5:40 where the author records the words Jesus spoken to some Jews who had come to kill him, the English word "come" is translated from the Greek word "erchomai", which means to come from one place to another. In Matthew 11:23 the English word "come" is the Greek word "deute" which seems to be best understood as a strong plea or invitation, "Please, come here!, Come now!"
   The word "come" in John 5:40 can be understood to be a statement of reality and rebuke, while in Matthew 11:23 it is an invitation to be accepted, a passionate offer to be accepted and embraced. To the Jews who were out to destroy him, Jesus said. "You refuse to leave where you are so you can come to me and live. If you stay there, all hundled up in your pride and positions, and in your rules and regulations, you will die." But, to the physically and spirtually weary people who were in the crowds that followed Jesus, who hung on his words and stood amazed in his presence; to those who the religious leaders and officials continued to burdened down with rites and rules, the LORD of Glory opens his arms and with a word compels them to walk right into the heart of the Father. "Deute! Deute! Quickly, quickly, come to me now! Leave that burdensome, baggage behind. As a matter of fact, throw it on that pile over there with the others. Now, come unto me and I will give you the repose and rest you need, for the rest I give... it is one that goes beyond the physical or emotional levels. My rest is a deep rest, one that penetrates down into your soul. Come, lay beside still waters for awhile. Deute! lay down in green pasture. Let me restore and refresh your soul, strengthening you to go on. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

    I know you are busy, so I will stop here. I hope you will too. Stop here, right here where the arms of Jesus are held open wide, extended in your direction. Could you get around his reach? Sure, if you really want to, but he would prefer you didn't. He wants you to stop right here, here, and walk right in. That's what the invitation is for! But you're hesitating! Yes, you are! You are too! Oh I wish you wouldn't, but you are. Why? Stay tuned and I will tell you why. Ok, I will give you a hint. Just because you have had baggage ever since you can remember does not mean you were meant to.        

The Speed of Prayer

My good friend Cliff Boardman send this to me this. I thought it is so wonderful that it desires a big audience. With his permission I am posting it.

"Have you ever wondered how soon could God answer your prayer? We know from experience that sometimes we must wait, as hours turn into days and days turn into weeks. But I’m talking about a prayer that reduces us to tears and instills in us a sense of panic. Sometimes we find ourselves in a desperate situation and we believe that we need an answer from God or a miracle now. I am very thankful for the prayers of others, which include prayers for healing, strength and endurance to go through another medical valley. The speed of computers sends us a prayer request quite often. Someone is in an emergency room and is requesting that you pray. Do you simply say “God help them.” or, do you bow down on bended knee, with a fully surrendered heart and ask God for immediate help? Does your relationship to the injured person make a difference? How fast can God answer? I believe the answer is found in Isaiah 65; 24 “It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.” I ask you, how fast is that?

Some might say this scripture refers to a new world, as the prophet Isaiah writes, that is in the future. Verse 24 is in quotes, which means God is saying this in His voice. This is a promise of God. This says something about the power of God. If God can do this in the future, He can certainly do this now, because scripture tells us God changes not. God will not suddenly have more power in the future than He does now. Take comfort in knowing that God hears your prayer and will answer in His time."

Cliff Boardman 12/17/11

God's Word - God's Witness

"I have stuck unto thy testimonies; O Lord, put me not to shame. I will run the way of thy commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart." Ps 119:31-32

   In every day street language here is how I read what the Psalmist is saying. "Lord, I have done my best to cling, to adhere to what You have said about Yourself and about what You require. Please don't deny. Don't let me be disappointed. I will take off like a runner on a mission if You will increase the amount of You my heart can hold."

   It is somewhat of a  revelation to think that God's Word is actually His own first-hand witness of Himself. To believe what God's witness (His Word) is saying about God is to believe what God has said about Himself. His words are His own witness. This becomes even more meaningful when I understand and believe that Jesus is actually the Word of God incarnated into human form. Everything Jesus said and did He did as God's witness, as the testimony of God.

   If you have been around Christendom long enough you are probably already saying "I know all this!", but do you really? To know in the head is not the same as to know in the heart. Personally, I have not held a high or holy enough view of God's witness, His life-giving, living and active, Self-revealing, Word.

   Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief. Lord, I see men as trees walking. I want to see clearly. Lord, please open the eyes of my understanding. Please, enlarge my heart by Your Word, then pull the trigger on the starting pistol.   

  

Thy Cross

Thy Cross



Thy cross, Thy cross, Thy cross, O Lord,
How it stands throughout the centuries,
And decades, unto every generation.
Towering over the carnage of human history,
Casting its shadow over the butchery and brutality
That spews out from every heart that rejects its bloody remedy.

This cross, Thy cross, must become my cross.
Its ignominy and infamy I must accept,
And run to where its shadow may fall on me.
For in my heart are found the deep, dark paths of sin.
The corridors that demons negotiate
To breach the limits of a bodiless subsistence,
And with cunning learned throughout the ages of man,
Find those through whom, whether they claim ignorance or
Ignorantly boast of full cooperation,
Lucifer removes all doubts as to his existence.

Over against the jagged edges of chaos,
Up out of the shambles of the chronicles
Of little kings and petty princes,
Stands the only and final hope for humanity,
The cross of Jesus Christ.
Upon which the Almighty utter words
Nearly too loving to embrace,
Too magnificent to believe,
Too august to come from the lips of a naked,
Condemned and unrecognizable man.
And would be,
If the man where not a lamb,
If the lamb were not a lion,
And the lion were not The King.
“Father, forgive them,
For they know not what they do.”

Living, Dying & Believing

   There is just no way around it....our faith defines us. Regardless of our faith position; what we think we believe, or say we believe; whether we have faith to believe God is there, or faith to hope He is not... our faith defines us. What we truly believe shapes our lives, and this fact is beyond our manipulation and control. Therefore, how we live exposes what we really believe. This, I think, is why the scriptures are right when they reveals that a tree is known by it's fruits.

  But, there may be one other situation that will uncover our true beliefs more how we live does... that is how we die. How we face the finale' of ours lives in this world will probably speak more about what we believe than our words ever could.

My Ways, God's Ways

    I am taking myself through a little study on Psalm 119. Verses by verse, and in some cases almost word by word, I am slowly making my way through this extraordinary Psalm. This morning I spent my time in verses 25 and 26, and has been the case with all the verses up to now, I find myself amazed at the raw realities of life that the Bible actually gets down to, and the solutions to life's problem we find in its pages. 

    First the verses, then my humble interpretation of the verses as I prayed through them and looked to apply the truths to mine own life. Psalm 119:25-26 "My life is down in the dust, give me life through Your word. I told You about my life and You listened to me; teach me Your statues."

    LORD, through the events of life the very essence of who I am, my appetites, my emotions, my physical body, even my very breath, has been brought down to the dust. What You formed me of and where I have been brought down to are the same. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust; I am now laying in what You made me of. But, in all this, even though life has not gone as I planned, in all this I still have this one hope, that You would speak, and by Your words breath life back into my racked body and deflated dreams. That You, my God, would lift me again out of the dust. 

   LORD, I told You about my ways, the road I am on, the course my life has taken, my journey, and You responded. Yes LORD, I told You my ways, now teach my Your's, the things You have prescribed, the specific actions I need to take, so that according to Your word and ways, and even by them, I can be revived. I thank You that Your words are living and active, and get down to the real meat of life, and that by them and through them I can actually, really, and truly live.

   The words of an old familiar hymn come to mind. "Speak them over again to me, wonderful words of life. May I more of their beauty see, wonderful words of life." 

       

   

"Wouldst thou be made whole?"

John 5:1-6

   "After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?"

  Is it just me or does that also seem to you like an odd question for an all-knowing GOD to ask? Why would the LORD ask a man who had been crippled for thirty eight years, who was at the pool where healing takes place, who was obviously waiting for the stirring of its' waters, if he wanted to be healed? It seems pretty obvious doesn't it? Or does it? What if one of the keys to healing, whether physical, spiritual or emotional is much more tied up in our willingness to obey God's WORD, then we think? What if you have been emotionally crippled most of your life by unforgiveness, bitterness and resentment, and then one day you discover that your LORD said; "Forgive and you will be forgiven."? Do you think you would instantly see the connection between obeying the words of scripture and healing? And, what if, when you did see the connection, the lights came on and you understood that you did indeed need to unconditionally forgive everyone you have been holding hostage, AND that the key to your healing was tied to your willingness to forgive, would you do it? Would you do it regardless of how unfair it felt to let go, if you felt you were letting people get off scott-free who had genuinely hurt you? It is at this point that the question Jesus asks suddenly becomes as clear as Waterford Crystal, doesn't it? I can't help at this point but think of a scripture in Romans 10. "But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach:" Romans 10:8 ASV   How often we plead with the LORD to heal us of this thing or that. We have a sense of being unwell, crippled, even paralyzed when it comes to certain things. We want to love as God commands us, but we feel incapable. We want to let go of something from the past, but hands clenched with anger or greed make letting go impossible. Can we hear the probing question of our LORD, the One Who knows all, all about us, asking "So, do you really, really want to be healed?"

   What is GOD saying that you are refusing to hear? What have the scriptures said that you are unwilling to comply with? It is impossible to think that you and I, for years, could have been laying by the pool, waiting for the miraculous to happen, when all the time God's words of healing are as near us as our confession of what He has said, and our compliance with it? Again, we hear the voice of the One Who loves us, even in our crippled conditions asking: "Wouldst thou be made whole?" How often we want to blame our painful, chronic dis-eases, and decades of continued brokenness, on the Devil or something or person we know, when the truth might very well be that it is our unwillingness to say "No!" to sin and self, but "Yes" to God and the scriptures, that is keeping us from the inner healing that comes from simple obedience. So, "Wouldst thou be made whole?" It is very possible that, "The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach."

    

  



That I May Not Sin Against Thee.

There is a tendency to only think of sin as some predetermined evil, murder, robbery, lying, and the like. A cultural wrong was been committed and discovered, and the wrong is called sin. From a biblical perspective to sin means to fall short. An archer takes aim at a target, releases the arrow, but it falls short of what he was shooting at. He missed the target, his arrow fell short of what he was shorting for. The archer sinned. Every society has to establish moral and ethic targets to shoot for, and though no society can ever hit them perfectly that should not stop them from establishing targets, shooting at them, and holding people accountable who deliberately ignore the targets. But there may be something that is profoundly worse than those within a society that choose to ignore its moral and ethical targets, and that is those who set up targets and then for their own satisfaction, manipulate the unsuspecting person, of any age, who looks to them for help. At least those who choose to ignore the targets are easy to identify. But what does a society do when it wakes up one morning to the frightening awareness that someone stole the targets its' culture was founded on and has been replaceing them with targets, that even if hit dead-center are insufficient to sustain it going forward. This may be exactly where America is today. We have been replacing targets for so long that we know no longer know what a right target looks like, let alone the right height and distance to set them at. The targets we aim at today seem to be those that are much lower to ground and no more than 3 feet away. Like the basketball backboard in my backyard attached to a mechanism which allows it be to drop it from the official height to one  that pratically anyone one can dunk in, the moral and ethical targets in the America of today have been lowered dramatically from those in prior generations. The targets we take aim at today are shocking lower than what our father's fathers knew. Someday we will have to come to terms with this reality that sin is intrinscially evil because whether by commission or omission it always is against people, and we sin because we have fallen short of the hit targets God has set, and one of them is to love our neighbor as ourselves.       

Blessed Is The One Who Falls Through (Part 2)

   The more and more threadbare the moral fabric of the nation, the less that fabric is able to cover up. Is it just me or does it seem that there is an awful lot of indecent exposure in the nation these days? There appears to be less and less care about national modesty and humility. Instead it seems we have opted to strip down in full view of our gawking neighbors to expose those parts that a modest nation would prefer not to reveal. In a nation where it has become voguish to toss out a spouse in order to pickup a partner, it is not that far a stretch to find that foreign relations, designed to deal with matters of state, have been supplanted by torrid, overseas affairs, driven by lust for personal power. That said, there could be something more behind all that is being exposed, than just the exposure itself. What if the shame, the exposure, the national humbling and embarassment we are experiencing, could actually be for our own good?  

   Perhaps there is a Soverign Providence behind what has now become an unending parade of indecent motives, corrupt associations and immoral behaviors, things that for years have been hidden. Could it be that what we have been thinking was a national moral fabric is instead a blanket thrown over the beds we have been sleeping on so as to cloak what is really happening between the covers? It is entirely impossible to imagine that a holy, sovereign God, who has set a date to return to the world He allowed us to be stewards of, would prefer to let own national nakedness be exposed now, hoping that public shame would turn us around, rather than to find us shamelessly flaunting ourselves before a watching world. But, have we passed the point of being shameable as a nation? Have our hemlines been creeping up and our neckline down for so long that the skimpy strip that now barely covers the nation's backside is actually fashionable? Pride and shame are much nearer cousins than this generation may think, and a healthy amount of each is indispensable for any people who gather together under the banners and flag whose words and colors actually stand for something. Something once gained, once cherished, but now treated more like the nation's trash than its national treasure.             

Blessed Is The One Who Falls Through

Over the last two days, as I have listened to the stories and allegations surrounding Republican presidential candidate Cain, and now one of the football coaches at Penn State, I have but one thought. The more and more threadbare the moral fabric of our nation becomes the less and less it will be able to hold. There seems to be a increasing amount of people and situations that are ripping through and falling out the bottom. That's my thought. Now, here is my question. When you do fall through what are you going to land on? More to come...

(TODAY)

   Today is a day of God's absolute grace, a time when a perfectly matched pair of facing parentheses offers a door into the kingdom of heaven, which His love holds open wide. By a single, comprehensive, incomparable and incomprehensible decision of divine compassion, the door once slammed shut by the demands of peerless justice, stands open still, and the space between the parentheses is taken up by  the beautiful word "today". "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." God gives us today because sin tempts us to trifle with His grace, daring us to test the limits of divine love that even now holds back the fierceness of His justice. Like a mighty seawall that limits the destructive powers of an epic storm, the grace of God holds back His justice, restraining it from breaching the divine space determined and set in the eons of eternity past, when the sacred secret of salvation was whispered by the Father into the ear of the pre- incarnated Son.
   For now sin continues in its rebellion, rebellion as of the sin of witchcraft, that convinces its informed and uninformed practitioners that the powers they summon-up are strong enough to stand against the fury of God's pent up justice, justice that impatiently waits like ten thousand steeds, bred, anxious and fully dressed for battle. But sin deceives itself and its hosts because it has no power against the wrath of Almighty God. In fact it borrows its time and steals its freedom in this world within the invisible parentheses of grace, from the sacred space itself, where the love of God holds out His grace and holds back His justice until the last soul that can enter through the door of salvation, has.
   The day is fast approaching when the door into the kingdom heaven will be shut and taken up into the heavenlies. At a moment unknown to all but God, the anxious, pounding and restrained storm of His wrath against sin will burst through the gates of heaven and spill down upon an unrepentant world. A world that rejected a thousand today's, and placed all its hopes on tomorrow. For them there can be no more today's, and the tomorrow's they bet on, they will be an endless stream of regret and eternal from God.
   “Today” is a day of salvation, for "today" is that beautiful word whose letters take-up the space between the divine parentheses provided by the love of God, wherein no space is wasted. Do not think that it is sin with its power that holds back the love of God. It is the love of God that holds sin in check and His own justice back. "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion” Today is a day of grace. Today God's justice is still restrained by His love for you. Leave your sin, all of it, and enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Love, Faith and Hope...

   Love must hang all its hopes on GOD, by laying a hold on His promises, otherwise love will stop loving. Only the promises of God offer us the sure hope that every act of love will be eternally rewarded. We dare to love and to keep loving because He who is love and can not lie, has promised to reward us. Some of our best attempts to love will either fall short of what we had hoped to give or what someone else had hoped to receive, that is the nature of things in this world where fallen & flawed people interact with each other. If you set your hopes on my reponse to your acts of love, you will be disappointed. If I pin my hopes in this life on the fact that you will receive with tears of joy and gratitude my every attempt to love you, and that none of my motives will ever be misunderstood or questioned, I will be quickly and terribly discouraged. In short, if our motivations and decisions to love and keep loving are based on the reactions and responses of the objects of our love, that love will be as short lived as our disappointment will be prolonged. I will fail you, and you will fail me, but God will eventually and eternally fulfill every promise He has ever spoken.

   If we are to love as God calls us to, if the church is to be that light that illuminates the greatness, glory and faithfulness of God, then we simply have to set our hopes on something that has never fallen and is unflawed, perfect in all its ways; and that something is the very Person of God. 

   But, how do we do that? How, in every day ways, do we go about setting our hope and placing our faith in God, Whom we have never seen? It is done by taking ahold of His promises in scripture and acting on them. Our faith in Him as a perfect Father, enables us to have faith in every word He has ever spoken. Simply put, we believe God's every word because we believe in the perfect, flawless character of God. So, if we are ever to love, and keep loving the way God commands, and as Jesus demonstrated and taught with his loving, sacrificial life and death, we will have to do it on the basis of being confident (faith is really confidence) that one day He will eternally reward us for our steadfast obedience and continued faith in Him. 

   In this world, loving acts will forever be misunderstand, questioned and rejected. We do not need to look any further than the life and death of Christ to realize this. But loving acts done by faith on the solid foundation of God's promises will never fail to eventually provide the reward that God's Word hold out to us. This is why the Bible speaks of God's promises as being "exceedingly great and precious...". Go ahead and love, and keep loving. Will you be hurt? Yes! Misunderstand? Constantly! Rejected? Occasionally! But look beyond them, and look unto God instead, for He Himself is your exceeding, great reward.      

Love Must Be Tested

   True love without authentic faith is impossible, and without biblical faith, biblical love is impossible to sustain. Absent the power of faith, love is left to depend on its' own strength, and self-sustaining love will collapse every time when the world, the flesh and the devil lay a siege upon it. This, I think, it was happen to Peter in those pre-dawn hours, when he was standing among strangers in the temple courtyards, the night Jesus was arrested.
   Up to that point Peter's love for Jesus was a moral and religious one that had always worked for him in the past. But Jesus knew that the kind of love Peter would need was radically different than what he had. If we are going to be used by God we are going to have to surrender that love that has always worked for us, for that love that works for God. And love that works for God, that is approved by God, is love that must be established on absolute confidence in God. During the dark and confusing early morning hours when Jesus was arrested, Peter would be shown the truth about his own love claims, something each of us must go through if we truly want to know and follow Christ. Peter's love failed because his faith failed, and who of us hasn't been there?
   In those moments when I deny my associate with Jesus it is usually because I am not confident that if I am seen standing on biblical claims, God will support me. And it is in those moments that we discover about us what God already knows...that our love is much more about us than it is about God. Sooner or later all claims to love will be tested, because they must be tested. Everything that claims a strength has to be tested before it can be put to use. No reputable contractor is going to work with steel to erect a multi-story building unless he is confident that the steel has the strength to support the structural requirements of the design. God does not test our love so he can discover what it is made from, he does so in order that we can know. God wants us to know about ourselves what he already does and always has.
   If our love is faulty and we manage to get into a place of service that requires more strength of love than we currently have, what will happen? The failure of love has the potential to bring down more than just our own faith. The faith that some have in God can be terribly damaged or even destroyed by the collapse of the faith of a single person's that they have been looking up to. The LORD knew about Peter what Peter didn't know about himself...he wasn't ready yet to step into that place God had prepared for him, and often neither are we.
   I remember when one of my daughter's was learning to drive. After several weeks of practice she starting talking about scheduling her road test, and since I had been through this with four other kids, I knew where this was headed. Every parent knows there is a fine line between encouragement and discouragement, and in many situations, the truth is not what our children are ready to hear. I knew about my daughter's driving skills what she did not. She honestly thought she would ace the test, I knew, at least I hoped, she wouldn't. She was not ready, but was not willing to hear that from me, it would take a qualified "professional" to "explain" it. As I had secretly hoped and feared, the qualified professional did indeed "explain" it to her differently than I had. I thought he would because I knew she wasn't ready, and I feared he would because I knew she would cried all the way home. I had tried to save her from the embarrassment and disappointment of the moment, from having to return texts to friends excitedly asking if she passed, but she was not ready - she had to be tested, she had to fail. She simply wasn't ready for the open road, an often and predictably dangerous and hostile environment.
   Sooner or later all claims to love will be tested because they have to be. Everything that claims a strength has to be tested before it can be put to use. To put love into a place that puts more weight on it than it can bear, does not demonstrate love on the part of the One in charge of the project, especially when the project involves the hearts and eternal souls of people. It is much better to fail a test, knowing that it can be rescheduled, than to be killed or to kill another or to seriously injure ourselves or others in a collision that experience could have trained us avoid.
   The LORD loved Peter, so he allowed him to fail, but after Peter's failure Jesus gently and wonderfully restored and strengthened him just as He had promised He would. In the end Peter grew to love Christ more and his love was founded in a confidence that his LORD knew from the beginning what was best for him. After the dark and dismal misery of a complete failure of love, came the dawn of the truth that lite up the rest of Peter's life. He who has called us is faithful.                     

Thoughts on Love

As it turns out living and loving are much harder than I was ever warned they would be, and of the two, loving is definitely the more difficult. Then again, maybe someone did warn me, but I didn't love Him enough to listen.

Love is the most powerful force in the cosmos because ultimately it is love that moves the heart and hand of God.

What did God see when He saw His Son dying on the cross? Love. Love that a Son has for His Father, and love for what His Father loves most of all - you and me.

How could Jesus love His Father that much? Was it that He knew His Father like no other being ever had before? To know God, is to love God. To know God more, is to love God more, and Jesus knew His Father perfectly. "For now we see there a glass dimly, been then face to face."

Strong Enough to Strengthen Us

"Now to Him who has the power to strengthen you according to my  gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the sacred secret kept silent for long ages, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic Scriptures, according to the command of the eternal God, to advance the obedience of faith among all nations-to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ_ to whom be the glory forever. Amen." Romans 16:25-26 (Holman CSB)

   "Now to Him who has the power to strengthen you...." God is strong enough to strengthen us. The older I get the greater comfort I have knowing that I am not the source of the strength I need? It is especially great when I come again to those reoccuring times and places in life when I am overtaken with such profound and palpable weakness, whether it is physical, spiritual, or emotional, that just the thought of taking another step in overwhelming to me. Praise God that He always has what I lack, and that He is more willing to provide for my weaknesses than I generally am to receive what He offers.
   However, the word "strengthen" in this text does not refer to physical, spiritual or mental power and capacity. The word comes from the Greek verb "sterizo" which means to establish, and since it is in verb form we can understand that this work of establishing us is an on-going work. Another way of saying it might be that it is God who is at work , working within. When we first came to faith in Christ God established us in the kingdom of His dear Son, but then goes on to strengthen us for the work He wants us to join Him in. Care has to be taken when looking at the word "strengthen", because at first glance, if we apply our default definition, and that definition is wrong, it will take us in a wrong direction, one that is more man-centered, focused on man's strength, than Christ-centered, focusing on His life within. Two Bible verses come to mind that might help to drive this home. "It is God who is at work within us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Phil 2:13), and "To whom God  would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col 1:27).
   The strength referred to here is not the kind that causes bullets to bounce off our chests or that enables us to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Neither is it the kind of strength my grandchildren think I have when I hoist them up on my shoulders, up so high that there is barely enough oxygen to breath, and then run around with what seems like inexhaustible superhuman stamina. Little do they know that those 5 minutes, that seems like forever to them, seems like forever to me too, but in a completely different way. When they finally get down and speed off to other adventures in another room, so do I. But they are off to more fun, while I duck into an empty room, gasping for air and grabbing my chest, hoping to keep my heart from leaping out. At 56 my mind says "Yes!" but my heart says "Now that was stupid! Next time, maybe, we can act our age?"
   The strength Paul is referring to at the end of his letter to the believers in Rome, is the kind that results from being firmly attached to something outside yourself, something that has the power to hold you up when the storms of life prove to be too frequent and too strong to endure again. The images that come to mind to illustrate this are those of monstrous waves hitting some the world's oldest and most famous lighthouses, like the "Le phare du Four" in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of France. It isn't just the structure of the lighthouse itself that allows it to withstand such extraordinary battering waves, but what the lighthouse built on. This is exactly the kind of strength Jesus spoke of when he said to the crowds "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a sensible man who built his house on a rock." (Matt 7:24).
   In order to be strengthen or firmly attached to what is eternally immovable we have to hear AND act on the words of Christ. Why Christ's word? Because his resurrection from the dead proved that what he said was true, because as one of his disciples said to Him, "...you alone have the words of eternal life." It is by the obedience of faith (hearing and acting on  the words of the gospel),  that we are strengthen/established on those things God has revealed to be eternal and immovable. And if there was a time when the world could convince us that it is stable thing, it certainly isn't now. But then again, this is something the scriptures have been shedding light on as long as there has been light. I can't help but think of a verse from an old hymn I sang as a child growing up in the Baptist church,  "On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand."   
   Here then is the sacred secret that was been kept silent until the coming of Christ _ that every person, in every nation, can be established on The Immovable; The  Eternal; The Immortal, and everyone is established upon them in the same way...the obedience of comes from faith in Christ Jesus. It is through hearing and acting on Jesus' words, and the words of the prophetic scriptures, that God sets our feet upon the Rock of Ages, the Rock of our eternal salvation. God fixes that believer's feet upon this Rock with an epoxy that no solvent or power has the ability to dissolve, loosen or break, and all the praise and glory belongs to God alone because none of us has what it takes to bond ourselves to what God has established and revealed as immortal and immovable. We do not have the desire, the strength, the power, the wisdom, the love or the authority to do for ourselves, what God in His wisdom, mercy and love has done for us, and that God has already done all this for us, is part of what the sacred secret reveals. This might be why the Apostle wrote in another letter, "Now to Him Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus through all ages, world without end. Amen" (Eph 3:20).
   The obedience of faith is a most critical thing. It was what God was looking for in His own people after He brought them out of 400 years of bondage in Egypt, but regardless of what He did and said, it seems there was a precious few who heard and acted on what God was saying and doing. Sadly the same can be true today. Though God has revealed the sacred secret that was hidden for many ages, the mystery that held the attention of prophets and kings, that beckoned to three wise scholars from the East, as they followed a star that eventually lead them to a stable in Bethlehem, precious few still really hear and act upon what God has now revealed for all to see and hear. Could this be why many today, who call themselves Christian, feel so  weak and insecure in their faith? Wasn't it the Apostle James who wrote "...faith without works is dead"? In other words, just hearing is not enough, we must add actions to our lives, that are based on what we claim we believe. This was the point the LORD was making when he said, "Why do you call me 'LORD, LORD' and do not do what I say?"
   Friend, God has all the strength we need, and is standing by to establish us firmly and eternally upon that which can not be moved or shaken - ever. In these last days God has spoken to us by His Son, and has revealed in the gospel that we can be established, once and for all, to what which is eternally immortal and immovable. For our part what is required is that we hear and act upon the words of the gospel where the sacred secret is revealed. When we do God promises in His Word and by His Spirit to supply life now for eternity above, and hope now to support us while we are still here below. "On Christ, the Solid Rock, I Stand."

   

Battles Over Love



My grandson Cole.
Now, how can you not
love a face like that?



 Wouldn't it be something, after all has been studied and said on the topic of conflict, to discover that all the battles we face in life are really the result of humanity's refusal or inability to give and receive love perfectly? We don't give love perfectly, and so the receiver is wounded. We don't receive love perfectly, so the giver is offended. Because we struggle to give and to receive love in right and  healthy ways we frequently end up demanding of others, either verbally or by our silence, what we ourselves are incapable of giving and receiving...authentic love that is flawless. Think about it.  Is our refusal or inability to love authentically and consistently not at the root of all of life's greatest and seemingly most difficult problems? As a present day example we can look at the complex financial problems in the world. There is a uproar all over the world, including here in our own nation, because of these problems themselves, as well as the systemic causes at the root of them. The questions many are asking are: "What is the cause of these problem?", "How did we get to this point?", and "What are the solutions?" The answers are as varied as the classes of people effected by the mess. Some say corporate greed is the problem, and in saying so they would be partly right. There can be no doubt that that exists, however, it always has. Others say that the wealthy have access to special loop holes in the tax code that allow them to legally pay less than their fair share of federal and state taxes. Doubtless there is some truth to this too, but again, loop holes have been around as long as tax laws and tax lawyers have been. We have to go deeper. The truth and the solution is much simpler, (not necessarily easier) and more foundational than the current Q&A gets to. What is really at the foundation level of this problem, for all people, Christian and non-Christian alike, is the refusal or inability to genuinely give and receive authentic, Biblical love. The Biblical doctrine of Divine love is as impossible to comprehend as it is difficult to accept. That GOD could possess perfect love is something simply beyond our ability to understand. We just do not have the capacity for it. Doubtless there are people with some pretty big heads and mighty large hearts, but they are not nearly large enough.  Add to our limited capacities the fact that God could and would give His perfect love in a perfect manner to a race that is wholly incapable of receiving it perfectly, and we find ourselves lost in a truth that we can't understand and struggle to embrace. Then because we can't, our natural and most common reflex is to deny that such a thing could ever exist. When we find ourselves faced with something we can not image the next step is to doubt that it exists. But then we find ourselves in a conflict with reality, because if it doesn't exist where does our own desire to give and  receive love better than we do now, come from? When we are struggling with relationships or issues that are very important, and come to what seems like an dead end because resentment and unforgiveness have made it impossible to go any further, who among us does yearn to give or receive the kind of love that offers perfect restoration and forgiveness, regardless of the personal costs? But who also does not know that longing and possession, that having a gift and giving it away, are often worlds apart. If a higher standard of love does not exist why is humanity forever trying to reach for a better, purer and greater love than the race has ever, ever been able to produce on its own? The truth is, regardless of how much we may try to deny a longing for love that is greater, most people desperately want to find that one does. Why? Why if none exists do we continue to long for it? The truth is, one does exist, even if none of us has ever seen it demonstrated first hand. So, where do we begin to look? No where is there a more stunning and baffling demonstration of what perfect love is, of what it looks like in the every day battles and conflict, both with others and within ourselves, than what has been historically documented by life of Jesus Christ. His words, deeds, his sufferings, death and resurrection are all the evidences we need to begin to believe that a greater love exists than mankind has ever be able to generate on its own. If we are genuinely interested in looking at the best historic example of perfect love the world has ever witnessed and documented we not need look further than the person of Jesus Christ, and his brief earthly life. Whether you accept him to be the Son of God or not, there can be no denying that he holds the exclusive position as being the only person who ever love perfectly. If this is true then it makes sense to ask ourselves how Jesus came by this ability to love in the manner he did. What was it about him that made him the exclusive possessor of love that is greater than any other one before or after him, has ever shown us?

Creation's Flaw

If there is a flaw in creation,
If while making man
God made a "mistake",
It is not one by error made,
But what perfect love allows,
That in that flaw love complete
May show itself - flawless.

Copyright, Gary Little,
Sept 26th, 2011

"Bring Out Your Dead"

“But, I’m Not Dead Yet!”

Have you ever seen the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”? There is a segment popularly referred to on YouTube as “Bring Out Your Dead”, where a cart is being wheeled through town to pick up dead corpses. The cart is being maneuvered through the streets to the rhythmic chanting of a guy clanging a large iron triangle with an iron rod while yelling, “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!” At one point another man appears with the body of an old man slung over his shoulder. As he starts to heave the guy’s body onto the cart the old man starts yelling; “But, I’m not dead!” to which the guy collecting the dead says “He’s not dead. I can’t take him like that.” The man carrying him argues with him telling him he is dead, and even if he isn’t he will be soon. The poor old guy says “I’m getting better!” to which the guy retorts, “No you are not. You’ll be stone dead in a minute”. Just before the man with the triangle clobbers him on the hard and throws him on the heap of bodies, the old, still very alive, man says, “I feel happy. I feel happy. I think I’ll go for a walk” It is a strangely hilarious encounter to listen in on as the three guys banter back and forth about the actual condition of the old man. Clearly one of them has a lot more to lose then the other two. It must be one of those movies that mostly only guys think is funny. I watched it one night with a friend, while our wives were in the room. He and I were laughing like idiots, while the occasional glances from our spouses seemed somehow to remove all question as to whether or not we were. Imagine that? Being told you are dead when indeed you are not. 

I couldn’t help but think of that movie while trying to get my thoughts around a quote of something Jonathan Edwards had written. Edwards’s words struck a familiar chord when I read them this time, in all probability because of what I have been trying to work through since the 16^th of this month. So I offer the following thoughts in response to Edwards’s, but first the quote.

            “The ruin that the fall brought upon the soul of man consists very much in his losing the nobler and the more benevolent principals of his nature, and falling wholly under the power and government of self-love…Sin, like some powerful astringent contracts his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was forsaken and fellow creatures forsaken and man retreated within himself. Self-love became the absolute master of his soul, and the nobler and spiritual principals of his being took flight and flew away.”   (Future Grace, John Piper, pg 389)

            What Jonathan Edwards is addressing seems to me to be similar to the thoughts that have been taking shape in my mind lately, with one small twist. Where he observes that, “… and the nobler and spiritual principals of his being took flight and flew away.” I would make a case to say that the nobler and spiritual principals did not fly away, but rather were deadened by the power of the law of sin and death.  Of “...the nobler and spiritual principals...” we might say, “But I’m not dead yet!”

            The power of the law of sin and death is not only a mystical, spiritual reality which potentially  can leave the eternal soul cut off forever in hell from God, it is also like gravity in that it is a fixed law that has objective and definite consequences now affecting every one the moment they are born.

            The power of the law of sin and death deadens us in all our faculties to the things of God, and frankly to the entire world around us, rendering us less alive than God intended us to be. The objective proof of this is that it is not uncommon to hear people who have been recently born-again say things like, “I don’t know what happened, but the whole world seems different, more alive to me.” “Since I was saved the grass seems more green and the sky more blue.” As odd as it is going to sound I can tell you that I had a strange experience with rocks one day that illustrates perfectly what I mean.

            I remember one specific, beautiful summer day, when I was driving back from Lancaster, P.A., traveling northbound on Route 81. I drove on a section of the road that had been craved through some very large rock formations. Because of construction the traffic had slowed to a crawl and I found myself glancing at the colors, shades, shapes and textures of the rocks. Suddenly I found myself amazed at the glory of God. Something within me unexpectedly responded as never before to the rocks, and I recall thinking to myself, “God, You are amazing. Look at what You have done!” It was as odd, as it was both brief and real.

            There is something about the power of the law of sin and death that numbs me to the things of God and to all life around me. It renders me inept when it comes to loving others as I was designed to, and as I desire to. It dulls my God-given, nobler sensibilities when it comes to extending mercy and grace that people desire and deserve, and quite frankly, it hinders my own ability to receive the mercy and grace that others offer to me. Because of the fall, and the power of the law of sin and death, I can not be what God designed me to be, however, there still remains within me an unexplainable yearning, a deep inner longing to be, which to me is proof that the nobler and more benevolent principals have not flown away, at all.  

            Romans 8:2 reveals two laws that have power over our lives. First is the law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ, the other is the law of sin and death. Just as the law of gravity has power to hold down everything in this world, so too the law of sin and death has power over everything and the affect of its power is to deaden, to make everything numb or dull to the things of God, and to God Himself. It deadens, to use Jonathan Edwards’s words, “…the nobler and spiritual principals…”  

Maybe like me you can’t express the numbers of times you have wondered why you feel incapable of loving better, why there is this constant struggle to extend unobstructed, patience, mercy, grace, or compassion to fellow human-beings. This inability to offer without inner resistance, the nobler, Christ-like principals which everyone longs for and deserves, can, I believe, be attributed to the remaining effects of the power of the law of sin and death still at work within us, while the frustration I must deal with is in some way a part of that larger frustration all creation feels, causing it to groan while, “...waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.”

            So here I found myself struggling a little with Jonathan Edwards when he wrote, “…the nobler and spiritual principals of his being took flight and flew away.” To my way of thinking they have not flown away at all, but rather the power of the law of sin and death has done to them what sin and death does….it paralyzes the God-given, natural, noble and spiritual principals within us, which are still there because God made us in His image.

Here I can’t help but think of the account of the paralytic man whose friends lowered him to Christ through an opening they made in someone else’s roof, (how terribly inconsiderate). Seeing the faith and love of the man’s friends the LORD forgives his sin, and the scriptures say, “… immediately he got up, picked up the stretcher, and went out in front of everyone.” (The Gospel of Mark, chapter 2). This makes it so clear. The law that has the dominant position in our lives affects more than just the outcome of where we will spend eternity. In this man’s case Christ’s forgiveness of his sin brought new life to his physical body. The power of the law of sin and death was dismantled and the effects that the law had on his body were miraculously and immediately reversed.  

When the law of the life of Christ is at work, the manifestations, or proofs, of its invisible presence is, the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear and the dead are raised, and this transformation, this reviving of a person’s life happens at every level of who they are; body, soul and spirit. We may be, for example, emotionally crippled or spiritually blind, but when by the new choices we make the law of the Spirit of life in Christ comes against the embedded, camouflaged, and deceitful power of the law of sin and death, sin loses, death is defeated and suddenly the impossible happens, valleys of bleached, dry bones begin to rattle. Isn’t it wonderful to know that though we are ignorant of, or may have neglected the health of specific areas of our lives, God isn’t and hasn’t?

            Humanity was created as a fully alive entity to respond to God and all creation. To soar, if you will, on wings of eagles, just as airplanes are created to fly. However, when Adam and Eve sinned they opened the door to the paralyzing presence of power of the law of sin and death. Their choices brought objective and definite consequences that immediately affected them and the entire race. So now, when this law has control over a person’s life, or when a believer realigns himself with it again through faithlessness and rebellion, its affect will be to render as dead, the nobler and spiritual principals God placed in us when He made us in His image. I may have been created to fly but I will never get off the ground, to say nothing of soaring as if on eagle’s wings, walking and not getting weary or running and not fainting, while I am in alignment with the law of sin and death.

            But, here is the extraordinary news. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the proclamation that the Kingdom of God has come to earth, and because it has there is a new Sheriff in town. Through the law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ, God goes to work within people, redeeming the whole person who yields himself or herself wholly to God’s Word and work. Regardless of whether I feel dead or dull spiritually, physically or emotionally, God, by the radical and absolute power of the law of life in His Son, can and will revive anything that the lesser power of the law of sin and death has deadened. To restore to their original state everything sin and death have touched, this is God’s plan of redemption. Which I think is why Jesus said, “Behold, I make all things new.”

            Yes, man “has retreated into himself”. Yes, “Sin, like some powerful astringent contracts his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness; and God was forsaken, and fellow creatures forsaken...”, but this is why Jesus came from the Father. He came to destroy the works of the Devil, and He has. This is why the Apostle Paul writing the church in Corinth said, “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old has past away and the new has come.”  The noble and spiritual principals have not taken flight and flown away. Praise God, what He put within us when He made us is still there, and since it is it can be restored and raised up to newness of life, the life that is in Christ Jesus, which God places within all who repent and believe this Gospel. This is the life the Christian has and the life the Church is called to live and move in.

            No wonder John the Apostle wrote: “He who has the Son has life. He has not the Son has not life and has entered already into condemnation.” (1 John 5:12). But to this negative reality about the power of the law of sin and death, the Apostle Paul, referring to the positive reality of the power of the law of life in Christ, writes; “Therefore there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set me free from the (deadening and paralyzing) law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2). The smallness of self that we retreat into because of sin and death can be enlarged again to encompass love, mercy and compassion for others, while and because God is in the process of restoring us to His original design. All we need to do is surrender repeatedly to the redemptive, sanctifying work of Jesus Christ in our lives, and when we do He does the rest.

  

            “but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:21 (Holoman)

Copyright, Gary Little, Binghamton, NY, August 22, 2011

Hope and Change

Hope and Change

                Sometime on Saturday a thought occurred to me that I have been trying to refine since it came. Here is what I have boiled it down to - “Who stole hope?” The current culture, it seems to me, provides no hope, but there is only one thing worse than having no hope at all and it is to have it offered repeatedly then never delivered. History teaches us that disappointment is a strong concoction that can be brewed and distributed to purposefully take advantage of those who have had too much of it. I believe it was Marx who said “Religion is the opiate of the people.” If you accept that he is right (which I do not), then disappointment may be the firewater that has ignited many a revolutionary fire. 

                Those living in our current culture, who have grown up with a “live for now, live for me” outlook, know instinctively that something is fundamentally wrong. They may not know what it is but they are certainly savvy enough to know that something is.

                As far as I can tell the Christianity I grew up with (1955 - ) has done little in the past 20 – 30 years to address an ever widening void of hope. Beyond the second coming of Christ what living hope ( hope now) has 20^th and 21^st Century Christianity offered to a discouraged American culture? In this atmosphere is it any wonder that Barack Obama’s campaign of hope and change gained traction so quickly? As a cunning politician he (and his election staff) wisely identified a colossal cultural vacuum then threw everything they had at it, calculating that if they played the right tune it could awaken a huge number of disenchanted and unengaged voters. However, now he may be in real trouble for not delivering on his promise of hope and change, (same old, same old, political shell game). It makes me wonder if a large section of the country’s voting block that became engaged because of his campaign and its promises, won’t just check out of the next national elections. People who might have been disenchanted with politics in the past, remaining mostly on the sideline, but jumped in at the offer of hope, might just jump back out in disgust since there is one thing worse than having no hope and it is to be offered it repeatedly only to be disappointed repeatedly.

                I can’t help but wonder if the same thing isn’t true for non-believers and some believers today. How many people have checked out because when it comes to the politics of religion (*) they have been through similar experiences? How many believers are setting in churches, but have essentially checked out of a process of being active in a community of believers, and how many non-believers have either quietly slipped into the background or run boldly for the sandboxes of the cultural playgrounds since they are done hoping, moving on because they are unable to see where the Church is doing a significantly better job than the politicians are?

                Until we in the American Church begin to campaign and live in the reality of hope and change, hope that will not disappoint since it is based on change that has already taken place, we too may find ourselves continuing to campaigning to our choirs.

(*) By politics of religion I mean the process and practices of guiding and influencing groups of people, which are necessary roles and functions of a church.