What is Companionship ...

In a search for the meaning of existence one must examine what might have been a reason behind, or the motivation to cause our genesis.  Why would an omnipotent God bring us into existence?  The reason of course cannot be found within us, but rather within He who we worship.  The first response, and it would seem to be consistent with scripture, is to say “love” was the reason.  But why must “love” find its object in us?  The angels predated our existence, some believe other created-sentient-life predated our existence noting that when cast out of heaven, Lucifer went to all other worlds before coming to this one (Job 1:6).  And since at Calvary where evil finally demonstrated just how far it would go (in killing the Creator) as opposed to just how far “love” would go (in dying for those who still called themselves His enemy); the remainder of the universe would have nothing more to do with Lucifer’s lies.   John refers to Satan in his book of Revelations 12:12 as being cast down and knowing “his time is short”.  Peter refers to Satan as a “roaring lion”, revealing his desperation in no longer having any valid argument against the love of God.  (1 Peter 5:8).   So given that other creations such as Angels existed before humanity, why did God create us as well?

Perhaps what Lucifer has taught us best about the notion of love is that self-love, or love of self, is not truly love at all.  It degenerates.  It may begin with innocent sounding questions but it ends in murder and death even to the point of killing the Creator at Calvary.  To bottle up love and attempt to only reflect it inward on one’s self is to pervert the very concept of love and morph it into horrific other concepts like arrogance, pride, and greed on an insatiable level.  Channeling all of one’s energy on pursuits thought to bring self-fulfillment has the opposite result, creating only the very briefest moments of satisfaction followed by endless years of longing for more.  It is a never ending cycle that does not hesitate to kill to achieve its goals, but no matter what actions are taken, happiness cannot be found in the pursuit of self, only deeper levels of depravity and pain.  Death becomes a welcome relief to an existence so steeped in misery that joy is simply no longer possible.  This is where the seemingly innocuous evil Lucifer entertained has led him.  And along the way he was not content to experience these things alone.  For reasons that perhaps define evil and iniquity as a mystery, Lucifer, now Satan, sought to spread his notions, and his pain, as far as he was able.  Misery loves company, is not just an idol platitude or maxim, it is a truism reflected in our lives every day.

Yet where evil seeks out another to inflict its pain upon, love too seeks out another to bring happiness and joy to.  The contrast of a life spent in selfish pursuits and emptiness can be seen in the life spent in serving others and seeking only to bring others joy.  This is the example the Savior set for us.  Even steeped in the slavery of evil, with minds warped by generations of perversions and backed up by personal choices to deepen them still; the life of the Savior stands out as a clear example of what it truly means to “love”.  And for reasons, that perhaps too define love as a mystery, our God left his home, came and served us His enemies, and died to take our punishment upon Him that we might be saved through His sacrifice.  Christ too, was not satisfied to remain alone, or keep His enormous love bottled up within Him, instead He too sought to spread His love as far as He was able to anyone He could reach.  Misery may not be a welcome guest, but love certainly is.  The love of Christ became something tangible in the lives He touched, whether it came in the words of peace, redemption and hope; or whether it came in actions, or miracles.  Love emanated from the Savior in ways that simply could not be contained.  Love seeks an object to share with.

Perhaps this is why man came into existence.  Perhaps when God looks at the love He has for His Son, they sought to multiply that experience by creating humanity.  Perhaps we were the next extension of His family, His grandchildren so to speak, or perhaps His babies.  Regardless it seems clear we were not created to live in isolation from our God.  In Eden He walked in the evenings with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8).  Indeed the entire plan of redemption is centered around the idea of bringing us “home” to heaven, to “be with Him forever and ever” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).  God obviously desires to be with us, to be near us, to be our God and we to be His people.  The entire Bible is full of stories of the interactions between God and man, stories designed to teach us about who it is who brought us into existence, and what it means to love.  Part of love, is to find an object with which love can be shared or experienced.  Love cannot be found in isolation, it is not content there any more than is misery its counterpart.

When a parent is asked why they chose to have another child, it is rarely because they were unsatisfied with the first one they had.  Most of the time, parents choose to have more children because the love they experience with the first one brings such joy to their own lives they wish to experience it again and in greater measure.  As our children grow, and because we live in a world steeped in evil’s embrace, children sometimes make choices that hurt themselves and others.  As parents we long to prevent them from making these choices.  When they are young we are able to exert a measure of precaution, but the older our children become, the more able they are to make decisions that could deeply hurt themselves or others.  When they do, we long to ease their pain, and help them to avoid a similar fate from similar decisions that might otherwise be repeated.  As a species, we have been far from the perfection we were intended to be.  Born or created by a perfect parent God, we have been disobedient children who seem bent on clinging to the knives we cut ourselves with.  Our parent Father God tries so hard to remove the knife we cling to, heal our wounds, and show us how to live in a way that avoids the pain we inflict on ourselves and on others.  But we too often refuse Him.  Yet despite our refusals, He does not leave us in isolation.  He reveals Himself to us in prayer, in His word, in the life of His Son, and in unseen miracles that go by unnoticed by human eyes.  In short, despite our barrier of sin that cannot exist in His presence, He still looks to be with us.

When the burden of our disease is fully and finally lifted from us, when our surrender to His will is so complete that sin can touch us no more, we will be in complete harmony with love and we will be able to enter His presence without seeking our own destruction.  This is the day so many believers have spent their lives looking forward to.  It will be a great day to see His work in us completed, but it is no less a great day to see it begin here and now.  As we surrender our ideas of self-determination, self-control, and personal strength to achieve salvation – we find our victories over evil in both act and desire given to us as His gift of salvation has long promised to do.  As the evil cloud begins to break up, and the fog of our sins is removed from our eyes, we begin to see Him and His love more clearly.  We are better able to discern His presence in places we never noticed before.  For God can be seen in our world today.  One need only look at acts of selflessness on behalf of others to see a reflection of the God of our Universe.  The doctrine matters little, but the actions of selfless love are hallmarks of our God.  It matters little to the hungry whether they are fed by Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, or Adventists, only that they are finally able to eat.  The hungry do not care which day we worship on, how we pay our tithe, whether we sing in church with drums and electric guitars or not; they care about whether we brought enough food for all those in need to eat a full meal.  A God of love stands behind the actions of those who take the time to prepare the food, take it to a shelter, and perform the act of mercy in sharing what they have with those who have less.  A God of love is seen by those whose stomachs do not know the regularity of meals when they are fed by loving hands used in action.  Love is not found in isolation, it is found in companionship.

It sometimes seems that every societal trend works against the will of heaven and that of love itself.  Whether it be the praise of a capitalist system that prizes self-determination based on the power of one’s own will; or the advancement of technology that allows us to sit in isolation in our homes only interacting with others through electronic mechanisms that keep others at a “safe” distance from us; every popular trend in our world seems determined to take us farther from our ability to personally share with someone else.  To meet income requirements in our homes, no longer can only one spouse work, it requires both – leaving children to be raised in daycare, school systems, and by “the community” at large.  To meet the demands of long working hours on little income, adults often decide to sleep in on days of worship, choosing to “attend” church online if at all, opting for the convenience of home access rather than the effort of going to the local sanctuary.  Charitable individuals are far more likely to make a donation in funds, rather than a commitment in personal time to achieve any goal for the benefit of others.  And in so doing, we deny ourselves the beauty and the blessing of companionship.

It is our deep and personal loss, when we lose precious time that cannot be replaced, in self-chosen isolation rather than in companionship with others.  Whether it be time with our spouse, our kids, our church, or with those in need – every moment we are able to spend in companionship is better than a moment spent alone.  Yet societal trends would keep us from this knowledge or belief.  Christ was always serving those with whom He came into contact.  His humanity, I’m sure, made Him feel tired and worn down just like we get.  But He renewed His strength every day at the divine fountain of His Father, as we too are able to do.  God does not ask us to solve the problems of world in our own strength, or because He is unable or unwilling to do so Himself.  Instead He invites us to participate in the work of serving others and in so doing learn what a sense of fulfillment can be found only in love that is reflected in action.  It is our blessing to join God in this work, not His.  It was for our benefit He extended this invitation, not His.  As we join with Him in serving, we find love, we find joy in companionship, we begin to understand the reason behind creation and the genesis of our species.  But this revelation cannot be found at home, alone, untouched by others.  It can only be found as we serve.  Whether it be our spouse, our kids, our church, or our community at large it is the interaction of service for someone else that is the beginning of our revelation into the love of God Himself.

In prison, one of the greatest punishments that can be inflicted is time in isolation.  Think of it, better to enjoy the company of other criminals, some of which may wish to do you harm, than to be alone “in the box”.  Long periods of isolation have resulted in insanity and in extreme cases suicide.  As is the image of our God, we were not created to be completely alone.  We may not all be social butterflies, but even the most devout introvert still craves the love of another, and must in order to achieve this, show love to another.  While our society may benefit from the advancement of technology, we must not let it lure us into less and less actual human contact for the sake of expediency or ease.  Rather we must exploit our tools and use them to free up our time in order that time spent together is more and more rewarding not less and less.  While a good work ethic is to be praised, let us not allow our government’s ideas of free enterprise cloud our vision that we are all interdependent and within the church we are all indispensable.  It is not our strength that brings us our spiritual victories, but our recognition that He alone is able to do this for us.  It is in our submission to Christ that we find real change, not in the politicians that run for office, or in the new policies we find at work.  Genuine transformation of character is found alone at the foot of the cross by the one who is willing to humble himself before His God and accept that which was intended to be given not earned.

In proximity with our God, is found peace.  The closer we get to God, the more peace that seems to flood our souls, our minds, and our beings.  We lose the agitation, and aggravations that plague us the closer we get to God.  In our companionship with God our own weaknesses seem to no longer apply.  Our strength is renewed by simply entering His presence.  Our worries and cares seem to melt away as we approach the Throne of Grace, on which He sits.  What is impossible for us, is child’s play for Him.  What is insurmountable for us, is done with ease on our behalf by He who is our Father God.  Surely the benefits to us found in companionship with God are too many to list.  But perhaps this is also the secret to the reason for our Genesis.  Perhaps it is God too, who finds fulfillment in spending His time with us.  Perhaps He too, so much more than we, looks forward to the time when our separation is ended, and our proximity can be as close as He wishes.  Perhaps the idea of a loving child curling up in the lap of a loving parent is not beyond the hopes of an omnipotent God, as He looks longingly at us.  The child finds comfort in the lap of his parent as he peacefully drifts off to sleep.  But the parent too finds joy in the expression of such trusting love.  Perhaps this is the joy of companionship we bring to our God on a scale defined by the numbers of each of us.  Perhaps only God could truly understand what this is like as He is our creator.  Regardless, it seems clear, we were and we remain destined to be together with Him.  What remains now is only our choice to that effect …

What is Perfection ...

Could one define perfection as the complete acquisition of everything one desires?  Or rather is the pursuit of what is desired considered perfection?  Even under these possible definitions, perfection is elusive at best, impossible at worst, and its attainment seems always just out of reach.  Given the state of the world around us, we hardly consider the attainment of perfection as plausible and consequently each of us learns to settle for a degree of mediocrity we are comfortable with.  We do not expect perfection in our relationships as we know we bring none to the table.  We do not measure ourselves against the standards of spiritual perfection, as for so long we have made abysmal failures of that quest.  So perhaps it is difficult for a finite mind to imagine a perfection it has never seen.  It must be a matter of imagination as none of us seems to be able to personally attest to having witnessed perfection in any area of our lives.  But despite our lack of personal experience perfection is held out to us as a reality.  The marketing machine on 5^th avenue attempts to color our ideas of perfection with imagery designed to sell products.  And scripture details a time before time when perfection was the norm of the day.  So if perfection does exist, what is it?  How do we measure it?  How will we know when we have achieved it?

Scripture says when God looked at the newly created world … “He saw that it was good” (Gen 1:31).  By contrast when scripture describes God it says … “as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt 5:48).  When the perfect God of creation looked upon the work of His hands, He saw that it was very good.  But Moses did not describe the wondrous beauty of Eden as being perfect, only that it was very good.  Perhaps perfection would have required the absence of potential for evil.  Perhaps since Adam and Eve had not made a final choice either for obedience or not, perfection was elusive in our first garden home.  But then on closer examination, despite all the glorious language describing the beauty of heaven, the city of our God, it too does not often if ever get described as perfect.  The term perfect does appear many times in scripture but seems to always be applied as a characteristic for us as people – either striving for perfection in how we live, or being made perfect by our Lord Jesus Christ.  It does not seem to be used to describe inanimate objects.  Perhaps this is because perfection cannot be found in or around our settings, our possessions, or our environments.  It may be that perfection itself is something that cannot be achieved in our surroundings as no matter how wonderful they may be, they could always be improved in some manner.

When God looked at His creation of this world, He spent time (6 days) in the infinite details of plant life, rocks, trees, seas, lakes, and all the living beings that would live in the nature He created including us.  But having created them, and having had Adam give names to all the animals, the remainder of His attention in our Genesis turns to the things God values most – namely us.  Perhaps this is because even God looks at the universe He has made, and can imagine new ways to see it improved.  Perhaps His own ideas of perfection include constant innovation and Genesis-style creation.  But regardless of His opinions of the environments He is able to create, where God centers His attention, His time, and His value is in the origination of man He intended to spend eternity with.  We were intended to be the perfect creation, His crowning achievement, patterned after His image and set just a little below the angels, it was to be us who would offer the universe an even clearer picture of what love is – and perhaps in so doing, offer a better picture of what perfection is.  This model however would stand in stark contrast to the idealization of “things” and would find fulfillment only in the actualization of “love”.

Our constant failures, inherent short comings, and repeated losses have trained us to become comfortable with mediocrity.  Compromise is the rule of our day, whether we curb our desires to what we believe to be attainable, or sacrifice our values to attain something we desire just a bit more than we value our ethics, compromise is our mantra.  For generations after the fall of mankind this was so, no less in our own day.  Therefore when something identified to be perfect comes along; it causes us to see our own imperfections in its reflection.  The law of God was such a thing.  The Ten Commandments given at Mount Sinai carved by the finger of God Himself in the stones of the cliffs and handed to Moses to take to His people were perfect.  “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” proclaimed David as He pondered God’s revelation of love in his Psalms (19:7).  God’s law was a beginning revelation of the nature of His love.  Well beyond merely a list of do’s and don’ts His precepts were summarized by Christ as loving God first, with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40).  Christ did not focus on the particular points of the law; instead He focused on the motives behind it, something His contemporaries seemed to have lost sight of.

Perfect love revealed by God in His law, and by Christ in His life, reveals to us our own failures by contrast.  We see in the deeds that contradict the prescriptions outlined in His commandments that love of others does not always govern our motives and behaviors.  The law points out to us when self-love is responsible for what we do, more than self-less-love that the law proscribes.  When we examine the deeds, words, and motives of Christ, we see perfect compliance to not only what the law proscribes but to the motives that were its underpinning.  To attempt to discard the law, to state that grace has somehow overcome the law and made it of no effect, is to attempt to remove love as having meaning from the character of God.  Since God is love, this is simply impossible.  The freedom our God gives us is actually defined in His laws.  Consider for a moment what the law forbids; murder, lying, adultery, lust, dishonor to our parents, the pursuit of other gods, devaluing our God in vanity, discrediting His acts of creation, etc..  All of the things God’s law proscribes against limit our own self-interests that would come at the expense of another.  God’s law protects the rights of another person from us damaging them by our actions.  In essence, God’s law limits evil.  It does not however as Christ pointed out in His very words, put a cap on how much one can express love to God, or limit the expression love to someone else.  We are “free” to love others as much as we want, free without limits, free without proscriptions.  Christ Himself demonstrates just how far love will go as He offers His own life in exchange for ours.  Christ shows to love another is the nature of perfection.  His law shows to love self, is the nature of evil.

Our “human” limitations and history of failure to achieve perfect compliance to the law of God have caused us to believe it is an impossible standard.  We aspire to act as Christ acted, but find our implementation far from what He achieved.  So even within our churches and our Christian ideologies we begin to seek for excuses as to why we do what we do.  We offer reasoning that since we are unable to “keep” the laws of God, He must not have intended for us to do so.  Our ideas of spiritual perfection have been tainted with the reality of our expression.  Too often our failures and manifestations of self-love over self-less-love color our very ideas of what perfection should be.  As we lose sight of even the possibility of perfection, we lose the desire to be perfect.  We begin to think that God will “wink” at our imperfections.  We think His forgiveness will cover our actions, no matter how intentional, or repeated they are.  This is the thinking that springs from tainted minds, looking through tainted realities, at a future we can no longer imagine.  But it is not the reality God offers.  His ideas of perfection for us, can no longer originate within us.  Adam and Eve lost us this birthright at our origin, and in choosing to embrace evil began a legacy of inability on our part to achieve the high standard of love our God would outline in stone, and live in the flesh of His Son.  Instead we would require a Savior to save us from ourselves and our self-love.  We would require outside intervention, from a God of creation, who could re-create us from the inside out.  We would need not only a rebirth, but a continual reengineering of our daily lives until He returned and would be able to finish the work He started within us.

It would take more than 6 days to recreate a damaged human heart and psyche.  Not because God has limitations in His own abilities to create, but because the clay of our hearts and minds He is forced to work with now is so steeped in evil and selfishness it rebels against His work of recreation every time it has a chance.  Our greatest hope now lies in our pursuit of total submission, not total conquest.  Everything we have been taught in a society of self-reliance, and self-help, stands in stark contrast to the gift of salvation from self our God offers.  We are not to seek perfection in the strength of our characters and actions, but rather on our knees in submission to the only savior who is able and eager to remove from us what we cannot remove from ourselves.  It is in perfect surrender that we will finally find perfection achieved.  It is because we can only be made perfect, through the act of recreation, the discarding of all that is evil, and remaking of all that is love.  In this alone to we find hope.  In this alone is the grace of His forgiveness coupled with a change we so desperately need in our day to day expression of His ideals.  It is through our salvation from self-love that we find natural and perfect obedience to a law that is steeped in love itself.  And through the salvation from slavery to self, we finally see the freedom He truly offers us.  A life lived beyond the basics proscribed by His law, a life that is free to explore the infinite expressions of what love to another is all about.

Our interactions when fully surrendered to the process of His recreation of love within us, are no longer focused on what we cannot do to another person – but on what we might do to bring someone else joy, peace, life, and fulfillment.  Merely not killing, not coveting, not lying, and not defiling are way too small concerns for a life that is remade in the image God intended.  Instead, the quest becomes one of how to make the life of another wonderful, fantastic, and so much better, despite the circumstances we find ourselves in.  The life of Christ was set in difficult times where hard physical work was required to survive, when political turmoil threatened your very existence, where taxation was unjust and crippling, where the poor had great need and little help, where the spiritual leaders of the day had perverted a religion of love to one of aggrandizement at the expense of illiterate.  But Christ did not use the hardships of His day and circumstances as an excuse to love less, to do less, to show us less what He only “intended” to do.  Instead His actions were not bound by His environment.  Indeed no-one and nothing could prevent Him from showing us the love He came to show.  He was always tender, merciful, and redemptive to everyone He met.  He sought out the poor and downtrodden, He went to them not requiring them to find Him.  Where He met with the religious leaders of His day, He tried to teach them how far they had strayed from the God of love behind their laws and more importantly their traditions (which had no actual divine origins). 

The Pharisees and Sadducees of His day could not even agree on all points of religious doctrine, arguing over the resurrection.  They had taken the laws of Moses given beyond the Ten Commandments, which were given in a time in Israel just out of slavery, and extended their limitations even farther.  Instead of recognizing the progress that living a self-less kind of love will do to a person, they focused only the “justice” aspects of punishment that unrepentant evil would deserve.  They ignored all the proscriptions for mercy found within these same laws for anyone willing to seek forgiveness, and instead only focused on the penalties that would come to those who did not value forgiveness.  The religious leaders in the days of Christ made the laws of Moses seem the same as the laws of the Ten Commandments, even though the entire sanctuary services would find their fulfillment in the coming of the Messiah.  They equated all laws as being everlasting, all punishments as mandatory regardless of the pursuit of forgiveness, and thus all responsibility for achieving perfection would be left to the strength of the penitent.  This is what Christ would strive to correct, from the three days He spent in the temple when we was lost to Mary and Joseph on His twelfth birthday, to His endorsement of the ministry of John the Baptist, to His counsels on His travels throughout the countryside.  Christ outlined to Nicodemus, one of these leaders, the true nature of salvation – a rebirth to spiritual perfection that ONLY the Messiah could bring.  Perfection would not be found in the leadership of His religion, but in submission to the God of His religion.  Christ did reach a few of the religious leaders of His day, but too many were more comfortable with ideas of self-reliance that had led to such vast personal gain.

Is it any different for us today?  Our society values self-reliance, a good personal work ethic, and has little sympathy for the downtrodden and unfortunate we come across.  These values invade our Christian ideologies until we begin to believe that our salvation is our own responsibility, and that those who suffer in life do so for transgressing the will of God.  Like the Pharisees of old, we see those who are poor as being “responsible” for their own conditions either through being lazy and unmotivated, or from committing various acts of evil.  It even goes so far as to see diseases like Aids and STDs as punishments from God, instead of the natural consequences of sexual promiscuity.  Earthquakes and natural disasters get tagged as “acts of God” instead of merely natural phenomenon influenced by how we treat our planet.  In short even those of Christian ideology of today choose to focus on the punishment of unrepentant evil, rather than on the true transformation, and rebirth Christ would offer to all who will seek Him.  Salvation is not only for the rich, or for the poor, but for any who would wish to have a better life here and now.  Salvation from self-love was not supposed to be something that waited to only find fulfillment in heaven, but rather as a process that begins here and now, and reaches its maturity in the heaven we seek.  Christ said … “the Kingdom of God is come”.  Obviously He was not referring to streets of Gold, and pearly gates of His city.  He was referring to the establishment of His kingdom in the hearts and minds of mankind.  He was referring to wonderful gift of recreation He would offer us.  A beginning to the achievement of perfection was to be His gift.  We could not earn it.  We would not deserve it.  But we could finally attain it, by merely accepting it.

The religious leaders of His day rejected Christ because they did not want to remove the quest for perfection from their own hands and place it humbly in the hands of our God.  They wanted rather to believe they were good, and worthy to be saved, from the great deeds they did; not be forced to admit their hearts had not been truly changed.  They were still slaves to self-love.  They were still addicts to self-serving, even if it came at the expense of another.  Today, we cling to a similar ideology that states we find our salvation in the strength of our characters, or we negate its need clinging to the idea that forgiveness is offered even before we need it for the deeds we are about to commit.  It robs us of the power of our religion, and makes Christianity a joke to those who witness us committing the same acts, at the same frequency, as those who do not claim Christ as their savior.  If Christianity can only offer forgiveness for wrong doing it is indeed a poor religion.  Muslims share this ability, as do our Jewish brothers.  All three religions share the ideology of the great forgiveness of our God.  Christianity distinguishes itself in that Christ, being the son of God, offers us more than mere forgiveness, He offers us reform.  A true change in not only what we do, but in how we think; this is the gift of Christ to us.  He re-creates us anew, and re-establishes perfection within us as we surrender to Him.  It is NOT our own perfection that is created in us, but His perfection that reflected through us.  We become vessels of perfection, not fountains of it.  And when we finally reach our heavenly home, it is this work of creating perfection within us that is finally and fully completed – not started, and then ended.  It starts today.

In this sense, we need not run from the standards of Gods law as being unachievable.  Instead we can recognize our inability, and rest knowing that He will remake us until we find harmony with His laws our natural state of being.  We need not seek to delay our freedom from slavery to self, in order to continue committing acts of evil that hurt us and everyone around us.  Instead we can seek His salvation from evil and the pain it causes immediately, and begin a life of reformation today, powered by Him, and founded in our submission to Him.  As we surrender, our ideas of perfection are restored to what He intended.  The taints of our evil, and our genetics, are undone by the power of a regenerative God, who is able to create in us a clean heart, and a clean mind.  As the influences of evil are removed, our ideas of perfection become greater and more noble.  We begin to see what is truly possible, unbound by mediocrity we have come to accept.  We realize that we wish no more a compromise with evil, but its complete and utter destruction within us.  Perfection is so much more than we had hoped.  Perfection is so much better than anything we could have experienced.  And it is indeed plausible, possible, and part of our reality as we embrace our surrender to our Messiah of Love.  Christ offers what no other deity has ever purported to do, to reach within us (His enemies) while we are yet His enemies, and change the very nature of who we are, freeing us from evil, as His gift to us, if we but accept it.  It is the acceptance that we could not achieve this ourselves that is required of us.  It is the recognition of our dependence that is the beginning of the road to perfection.  And it is the embrace of His gift that can then transform our lives from the mediocrity of evil, to the infinite that perfection has to offer.

To begin to see perfection, to understand it, we must move past our “human” limitations.  To delve into what is by nature infinite; we must allow our creator, to remove what binds us and taints us.  We must let Him change the very nature of “how” we think.  Unbound by our past and our perspectives, we can begin to see perfection for what it truly is.  We can begin to appreciate it.  And through our submission to Christ, we can begin to see its potential within us.  Perfection then becomes more than an aspiration we can barely hope to achieve, but a daily reality that can be reflected in how we love another.  Our relationships will dramatically improve as we have something of His to bring to the table.  Our perspectives and priorities of what is truly important will alter as we forsake the pursuit of Madison Avenue suggestions of acquisition, and begin the pursuit of character transformation Christ alone can bring.  We can finally and fully embrace the Kingdom of God in the here and now, restoring the power of Christianity which is based in the power of love to others.  We can show to the world a reason to see this ideology as being superior to others.  Not because we are superior, but because we reflect a superior love through us.  In our weakness, in our surrender, we come to find that which is infinite, that which is perfect, the God of love within us.

A Home Without Judgment ...

Home.  Just the word invokes a feeling.  When away from it for any length of time we begin to miss it.  We long to return to a place where love abounds, where we are accepted, appreciated, needed, and loved.  Home is where our family lives.  These are the people who know us best, and love us most.  We are not loved in our homes because we are perfect.  But we are loved despite our imperfections.  We may hurt those who love us, or argue with them, but in the end there is always forgiveness, always healing, and eventually peace.  We may go out for activities, or work, or entertainment – but in the end we always look to going home.

Our churches need to stop being churches and start becoming homes.  We do not need to move our belongings into them and sleep there at night to accomplish this.  But we need to realize that a home is a place we treasure, a place we long to be – not for its amenities, but for its complete acceptance of who we are.  It is love that defines our homes the most, and so it must be love that comes to define our churches the most.  Our church must become a home without judgment, a home of love, and a place of healing.  When church becomes this ideal, our members will hardly be able to stay away.  Seating will be in short supply, workers too plentiful, and outreach a natural phenomenon.  Guests will be treated as they would be honored in a private home.  They will be treasured, served, and leave wishing only to return once again.  It is then that we will once again begin to see Christ in His church.  It will be His image that is burned into the minds of member, speaker, and guest.  And it will be His work that will explode again in countries that have long been immune to theological dissertations and warnings of doom.

Some have argued that the church must be a place of standards, doctrine, and truth.  They believe the mission of the church is to spread the unpopular truth revealed in the law that we are wicked and in need of a savior.  Thus church should be only a place for perfection; perfect clothing, perfect cleanliness, and perfect behavior.  But these ideals are seldom lived, and rarely seen in the same believers homes.  It is because they rely too much on imperfect humans to accomplish goal that are beyond their capacity.  Our need of a savior to remove our wickedness and pain is true, but the reason we are drawn to Him is because He cares about us and loves us.  Christ drew people to Himself because He loved them.  Only then was He able to begin to remove their pain.  Condemnation drives people away.  A revelation of our evil condition is not nearly as compelling as the offer of a life without pain, and a future that begins here and now and continues into eternity.  Christ offers us an escape for our pain here.  He offers it to us because He loves us, and for no other reason.

Some argue that if we adopt such a complete standard of love and acceptance that sinners will use this as an excuse to hang on to their cherished sins.  But this is not true.  Have you ever noticed the behavior of a smoker when they visit the home of a friend who does not smoke?  The smoker does not simply quit forever because he is visiting a friend.  But he is conscious about the fact that his friend does not smoke, so he tries to refrain.  Or if he must smoke, he goes outside, or tries to be as respectful to his non-smoking friend as he is able.  If he just lit up a cigarette in his non-smoking friend’s living room, the friend might remind him politely not to light up there and offer him an alternative.  But friendships continue despite the differences between the two. 

Smokers inherently know that their habit is not one everyone appreciates.  They know that the habit may well be damaging their health.  They know that it is a costly habit and they would do better financially if they stopped.  They know it turns their teeth yellow and their lungs black.  They know their smoke can damage other’s health, particularly the vulnerable like children, or pregnant women.  Yet all this collective knowledge does little to inspire people to quit.  Why?  Because it “looks cool”, or “everyone else is doing it”?  These two sentiments are not nearly as true in our society as they may once have been.  It is because the chemicals in cigarettes are addictive.  They are designed this way, to provide the body with a feeling of relaxation that it will crave over and over again.  Chemical addiction is not easily broken, often it requires outside intervention.  But it is ultimately NOT isolation that inspires a smoker to quit.  It is the desire to be included with many who do not smoke that makes him want the change.

Our homes are not places where we excuse horrific behavior.  We seldom welcome unrepentant child molesters, practicing serial killers, and active psychotics over for dinner.  Anyone of those folks would inherently already know that their behavior limits their ability to socialize with others.  But where does a former child molester or former murderer go when they wish to reform who they are?  How can a person change from the evil they embrace to the perfection Christ offers if not to associate in a home where He is present?  We might remove a belligerent smoker from our homes if they seem only interested in hurting us.  But we would not consider removing the friend who smokes, but is very respectful in our homes and really wants to quit.  It is the same condition, but an entirely different interaction between us.  Sinners, of which we are all appropriately labeled, fall into these same categories.  Each of us inherently know what acts we commit that we should not be doing.  And the cure for all of them is Christ.  The only question is whether we intend to seek the cure or not.  It is love that draws us to seek the cure.  It is because we love our families that we wish to become better people so as not to hurt them or ourselves.  It is love alone that can motivate us to do so.  It is indifference that would allow us to hurt others around us; indifference we are shown, and indifference we reflect as well.

If our churches are places of only indifference, apathy, and self-enrichment – we can expect to see no great change in our own lives or the lives of others around us.  No one seeks change for those they could care less about.  But if our churches are homes steeped in love, where genuine care and concern for every single family member or honored guest is the norm, the expected, the routine – then a world of change is inspired both within us and around us.  People crave the company of such groups and such places.  It is a lack of love our world suffers from, not an overabundance of it.  Our world is full of indifference and those who care nothing for us.  Our church MUST NOT BE the same as the world in this regard.  The singular characteristic that will keep our churches from becoming like the world around us is not found in our doctrine, or worship style, but in our application of genuine love for each other.  Doctrinal distinctions were supposed to only enrich our ability to love, not squelch it.  As our ability to love increases, our desire to change increases.  As we forsake indifference for concern, we inspire those objects of our affection to wish to experience the same love we seem to reflect.  It is in this way that world changes into His image.

People will tolerate a number of things they do not enjoy, if what they ultimately care about the most is present.  I may not enjoy a visit with extended family members who I find illiterate, obnoxious, or offensive.  But when those same family members, despite their shortcomings, pull together towards a common goal; when they appear to drop their own concerns and reflect deep interest in those of mine or each other; when they remember first we are truly family and that blood counts – all of the sudden, I remember how much I love those people.  Our petty differences are dropped as we realize how important we are to each other.  We begin to prioritize life better.  The place of our meeting and the conditions of the building become so much less important.  The background music, or what is on TV hardly matters.  What matters is that we love each other.  We care when one of us is sick, or faces a life threatening condition.  We ache when one of us has been hurt.  We want to help when one of us needs it.  We offer whatever skills we have as we are able.  This is family.  This is home.  This is a place we want to be.  This is what our church must become.

A great orator, an excellent speaker, a fantastic musician, and elegant surroundings do not make a church.  They make an entertainment vehicle.  If I am looking to be inspired for a moment, I might seek them out.  But when I have had my fill, I look to go home again.  The effects are temporary, not life altering.  And if given a choice to be permanently in the company of great orators, excellent musicians, and elegant surroundings – or be at home with a family who loves me – I would prefer to be at home.  Love beats performance.  Love has more of an effect than what I choose to observe for 2 hours, once a week.  But what if, those people who I truly love, can be found in church only one time per week?  What if that might be MY only opportunity to be with those people who I love?  Our schedules may not permit more interaction than that.  Or there may be simply too many of us to practically get together more often outside of a building that is big enough to house us all.  Well then, church is the one place I must be at, as those who I love will only be there once where I can see them all, talk to them all, catch up with them all.  I long to experience a true family get together, where the source of our love, family unity brought about by Christ, is the underpinning to all that we do.  It is more important that sermons, or choirs, or lesson studies. 

Our churches need to be more than mere places of education.  They need to be transformed into places where we have the time we need to reflect love and genuine concern we have for each other.  A common goal, a church wide activity that requires all members to participate to succeed should be more the curricula.  Sitting still, with minimal participation, or only as we collectively worship God does little to show person-to-person warmth for each other.  We turn our love to God upwards, from grateful hearts, but refuse to show it sideways to each other where it is needed most.  The person on my left needs to feel that love.  God already knows how I feel.  He knew it before I prayed, or gave my offering, or sang my song.  He is happy I love Him, now He wants me to take that love and apply it to the guy next to me in the pew.  Our services need to be altered so that I have that chance.  Individual praise to God, that is performed in a group, is not the same thing as love to each other.  It is a format that allows us to keep indifference between us.  It keeps us in our comfort zones of not having to interact with someone who may be in great need.  It is not a recipe for the spreading of love, it is a recipe for the maintenance of isolationism.  And it must end.

Our church is in need of the greatest reform.  It is not the forsaking of our evil habits and past that must be addressed, but rather the reason we would seek any kind of change within us.  We must seek first Christ, and His love to be instilled in us.  We must seek first every opportunity to express love, to our families, our honored guests, and the world around us.  It is a reform of love we need in our church.  Each of us needs so much more love than we have, not merely to be loved, but to love others ourselves.  We need to break the bonds of indifference through our submission to Christ.  To begin to see the world as He sees it, with longing in our hearts, love in our hands and feet.  This will be the most substantial reform the church has ever encountered.  It has historical precedent when founding fathers performed great acts of love and courage to take small ideas and turn them into large movements.  It was not their courage, or ideology that saw them succeed.  It was their commitment to love.  It was their actions to try to show and spread that love for those in darkness that led them to succeed.  From Peter and Paul, to Martin Luther, to the early pioneers of every church; it is love that marked success.  It is love than must now mark the greatest reform we can seek as a people or as a denomination.

Helping God ...

There is a huge distinction between serving God and helping Him.  Serving God is the highest honor any intelligent being can aspire to.  Helping God is something humans believe - is a good thing and may be required as circumstances dictate.  We sometimes attempt to “help” God when His timeline does not seem to match our “needs”.  We “help” God when we see His promises just out of our grasp and believe with only mild effort on our part, we can acquire them.  We “help” God in His work to save lost souls, by pointing out to them the error of their ways.  In short, we like to think of ourselves as God’s little helpers; partners, coworkers, and dare we think it, perhaps peers?  After all “helping” God seems to have plenty of examples in scripture, perhaps God even expects it?

God makes promises in scripture.  Take His promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation, this promise was unconditional.  In point of fact, when we examine the promises of God, they are all fairly unilateral – God does the work, provides the blessing, etc. – and we simply accept it.  God’s promise to Abraham was not contingent on how many wives Abraham had, or would have.  It was not contingent on how old Abraham was at the time, or how old he would be when this promise was actually fulfilled.  His promise did not rely on how often Abraham slept with Sarah his wife.  Abraham believed and perhaps hoped that the fulfillment of God’s promise would come soon.  So he attempted to “help” God by entering into a new sexual relationship with Hagar, Sarah’s slave.  She did conceive.  Abraham thought, this was it, the fulfillment of God’s promise.  But not so.  And now the tension between the first wife and new wife became so great, He would lose his young son, as Hagar and Ishmael fled into the wilderness.  The blessing of God remained on Ishmael despite his unconventional origination, but God was not looking for Hagar’s help in this matter.

When it would take a miracle to conceive, Abraham and Sarah did have their promised son.  God wanted for Abraham to know, it was not luck, it was not mere coincidence, it was not the natural result of a man being with his wife.  He wanted Abraham to know this son would be from Him - a gift from God.  He did not need Abraham’s help in this matter.  In point of fact, Abraham’s blessing extended to Ishmael and he too became a great nation.  But peace between the descendants of Ishmael and those of Isaac would appear to be forever elusive.  In his efforts to help God fulfill His promise, Abraham inadvertently created generations of war between brothers who have very different views of how to honor the God of Abraham.

God promised Jacob that he would lead in his household despite being the younger twin.  Had Jacob simply waited on the Lord perhaps the story of enmity between he and his brother may never have existed.  But instead, Jacob and his mother, took matters into their own hands, deceived his father, stole the blessing, and brought extraordinary strife between brothers once again.  Jacob would have to flee his father’s tent to escape the wrath of his brother.  Leadership would elude Jacob for decades, his life would be hard working for his uncle Laban.  As he deceived his father, so he too would be deceived by his uncle.  All of this pain, from Jacob’s desperate efforts to claim the promise of God, himself, through the means he had available.

Neither Jacob nor Abraham was “serving” God when they attempted to help Him see His promises fulfilled.  Serving God would imply that God had asked them to take a specific action and they were only complying with the request of the Lord.  God did not ask either of them to do what they did.  They initiated the action.  They did it themselves.  In addition, note the complete absence of seeking the counsel of the Lord before they pursued their attempts at helping.  They did not ask God if it was His will for what they would do.  They did not ask even if it was OK.  They kept God out of what they did.  Human effort to make up for Divine inaction in the timeframes humans believe are critical.  These were two patriarchs of our faith, but it was precisely a lack of faith that led to these impatient actions.  Both would learn from them.  Both men’s faith would increase over time from the pain of consequences that would come from what they did.  Scripture does not record their actions as an example of what we should do in these cases.  In fact it is just the opposite of this.  God does not need our “help”, and yet His promises are always fulfilled.

Perhaps the hardest lesson taught in scripture is “be still and know that I am God”.  “Still” is not something most of us are comfortable with for any length of time.  We long to see our “needs” fulfilled in short order.  We wish to maintain a measure of control of the process.  The land God promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob would not remain unoccupied while their descendants sought refuge in Egypt.  Over 400 years the tribes of Jacob, now Israel, would descend from honored guests, to despised slaves.  The Pharaoh’s would utilize the wealth Joseph and his God were responsible for bringing to their nation on themselves.  They would take the credit for it, and claim divinity in their bloodlines.  They would go so far as to execute the first born children in Israel to “keep the numbers down” lest there be a rebellion in the near future.  Moses alone would escape that slaughter.  The promise of a deliverer would be fulfilled, but only when it would take a miracle, only when God alone could break the power of the Pharaoh.  Moses was more inclined to run from the responsibility that to initiate his own actions to begin it; and so Moses served God, following God’s leadership not running ahead of it.  Moses relayed the will of God.  He did not try to define it.  Moses waited for God to use His power.  And the power of the Lord freed His people.

But on their way back to the land of promise the children of Israel wanted to “help” God take back their land.  God offered to send in wasps, to drive the current inhabitants out of the way of His people.  This offer was rejected by the Israelites.  Imagine how much death could have been avoided if they had simply listened to God.  Cities, homes, fields, crops, would have been left undestroyed, without the stain of blood.  The peoples driven from this land would be alive afterwards to wonder why this God would take such an interest in His people to perform this great work for them.  The fame of the God of Israel would have grown yet again, by those whose personal testimony was one of wasps driving them out of the way of His people.  Instead they would be driven into the ground by the bloodlust of those who claimed to follow God.  In the process, many of the house of Israel would also fall.  They would not succeed in driving out all the inhabitants.  Those that remained, remained enemies, always looking for an opportunity to make the lives of the invaders worse.  False gods and promiscuous sexual worship of those idols would enter the house of Israel.  The resulting births would create new temple prostitutes if they were girls, and human sacrifice or slaves if they were boys.  This evil would bring a cycle of invasion, repentance, and temporary reform.  But because the servants of other gods remained in the area, the cycle would repeat again and again; all of this because the children of Israel wanted to “help”.  They wanted to feel like they “earned it”.

And are we any different today?  Our salvation from evil is a free gift from Christ, yet we cling to the illusion that He must need a partner in this effort.  We hold on to the idea that our works, our actions, our faith, our motives must somehow play a role in our own redemption.  We too want desperately to feel like in some small way, we have earned it, we deserve it.  We twist texts on forgiveness to imply that we deserve forgiveness because we forgave another.  Instead of accepting the personal freedom and liberation from bad feelings that comes with truly releasing another in forgiveness for a wrong they have done to us; we instead make forgiveness a conditional act. 

We apply texts that advocate actions, to the actions we wish to take.  But like Jacob or Abraham, we do not actually take the time to seek the counsel of the Lord as to His will in the matter.  We quote scriptures to ourselves, and then leave Him out of it.  We initiate our own actions but in His name.  Carry placards in front of abortion clinics, or simply sneer at homosexuals we see out in public, or politely tolerate those of a different race until we are able to escape their company.  None of these actions reflect the love our Lord feels for His children.  But many are too common in Christian circles.  Actions we initiate on our own, in an effort to help God in His work of saving souls.  But God does need our “help”.  He needs our service.  Our service defined in actions of love to those same souls we look down upon.

More to the point, God does not need my “help” in saving me.  He needs me to let Him save me, and instead only focus on serving Him.  Service implies a relationship where I do nothing to lead.  I am not the co-leader, the co-pilot, the co-anything.  I am the servant.  Servants are told what to do, they do not choose for themselves.  Servants are directed by their Lord where to go, what to say, and what to do.  A servant is humble.  A servant is pliable.  A servant can be taught.  And in our case, we are the willing servants of Christ, so we are able to fully trust that our Lord would not ever steer us wrong.  Service steeped in love becomes my aspiration.  Allowing God to control what I think, what I want, and therefore what I do – is the basis of accepting His gift to me that I will never deserve.  It is the “I” that must be crucified if Christ is ever to be reflected in me.  It is “self” that is the enemy of our God.  He never looks inward at Himself to make Himself feel better.  Instead He is always focused on us, the object of His love.  He is always doing for us, longing for us, whispering to us, and faithfully fulfilling His promises to us.  Our God has no concept of “self”.  That is something we know, because we have embraced evil.

Let us learn that service requires we let God lead.  Let us take our plans, and our intentions to God, and ask for His counsel BEFORE we proceed.  Let us wait on His response and not try to rush His promises or see them fulfilled with our “help”.  Let us change the world by reflecting His love to all we encounter, and leave the process of the cleansing of sin up to the only God who can do it in me, or in others.  This is the hallmark of a servant of Christ.

The Unknown ...

Despite our prayers, despite our scriptures, despite the countless commentaries and books written by authors seeking to help us; there are some questions that simply remain unanswered.  Not just mysteries of the universe or existence, but sometimes personal questions or situations that do not seem to make sense, and require an answer, though none are evident.  How does a person of faith contend with the great unknown?  It is easier to follow doctrines and ideologies about spiritual matters that form our faith, but harder to contend with an unanswered question that directly impacts our day to day lives.  Surely the Christ whose ministry was one of active love, involvement, and concern for the smallest among us, would not leave us without an answer for any great length of time.  But sometimes that is exactly what happens.  What should a Christian do about it?

When there is no doubt that God exists, when there is surety about His character being one completely composed of love; unanswered questions, the unknown, the future, the next step can still remain a black as night.  Prophecy tells us what lies ahead in general terms, but seldom is aimed directly at me.  Biblical principles can greatly help me in making a decision, provide guidance, and keep my decisions in accordance with the love of Heaven; but they say little about my choice of career, immediate health concerns, or my choice of a mate.  They provide guidance, oversight, values, but rarely specifics.  Most specific guidance is found in what not to do, rather than what to do.  When confronted with a question that affects our lives, we seek the Lords response in His word, in His still small voice, and on our knees.  But when His word provides no specific answer, or perhaps multiple answers, and His voice seems silent, we are left with only patience to face the unknown.  It does not diminish our belief in God’s existence, or His love, but it does provide us with a cause for concern.

The unknown often brings with it a sense that we lack faith, or perhaps that our sins and evil thinking cloud our judgment and make us unable to see what the Lord would have for us.  We doubt ourselves, if not our God.  And the unknown remains.  The patriarch Job faced a series of calamities in days of old and questioned what he had done to warrant his fate.  He wondered aloud why God would punish him, as from his point of view, he had done nothing to deserve what had befallen him.  He never doubted God’s existence, nor did he doubt the integrity of his own actions, but he could not resolve why his life had turned out the way it had.  He lost wealth, he lost children, he lost health, but he did not lose faith.  Nor did he find the answer he sought, he suffered in silence.  His friends could offer him no comfort.  His wife encouraged him to curse his God and die, to end the suffering.  He did not.  He maintained his faith, and eventually he was able to converse with God about what happened to him.  But even in that conversation God’s “answer” was not to Job’s liking.  God simply reminded Job, that He was God, Job was not.  Job’s life was restored to him in greater measure than what he had lost, but even in this there was no real answer from God.

You and I know why this happened, because we have the benefit of reading the story of Job in scriptures, with the author’s vantage point of an argument in heaven between God and Satan over the faithfulness of His servant Job.  Job’s life was a focal point in a much larger question before the universe – why does one trust and serve God?  Satan proposed the God’s love and blessings were the motivation for service, Job proved otherwise.  And he proved it in darkness.  Job proved it in the unknown, in the unanswered, in the NOT knowing.  Job could not be told of his part in the larger question without influencing his outcome.  Job could not be assured that his life would one day be restored, nor that he continued to enjoy the tender favor and love of God.  Job had to suffer alone.  Job had to face calamity, and the unknown, and decide for himself what he was going to believe, or who he was going to trust and serve.  It was not fun.  It was not pretty.  It was darkness, isolation, pain, with no end in sight.  In this condition, Job made and reaffirmed his choice.

Sometimes Satan brings much calamity into our lives, even when we did nothing we know of to bring it to our door.  We do what we think are the right things.  We believe what we think is truth, and follow our God, hoping for His blessings.  Yet Satan enters our lives and presents us with darkness and the unknown.  With luck, our condition is not ever as bad as Job’s was, but for some of us the pain feels as great.  But as we suffer, we continue to hold to our belief that God is with us, even though we cannot see Him, or perhaps hear Him.  We can know from the story of Job that God is always with us, even when we do not understand.  But this assurance does not always lift the blindness, or illuminate the path we need to take to move forward.

It does make one wonder why a God who is so careful to protect His word to us, and so involved in our lives as we daily submit to Him, would still leave us with unanswered questions, and unknown issues.  When we face these situations we always believe that God will answer us, even if it is not yet.  But how long is too long?  How long did Job have to wait?  Job’s conditions changed, but his answer never came.  Moses waited 40 years tending sheep, and then another 40 years wandering the desert, and still did NOT enter the Promised Land.  Abraham waited till he was nearly 100 years old before being given his promised heir.  Noah waited 120 years toiling on a boat on dry land for a phenomenon called rain that had never occurred before.  Enoch was over 300 before leaving our world for Heaven without seeing death.  Clearly our ideas of immediacy do not match Gods.  Imagine how Abraham continued to age, and wished he could have his son, in order to play with him, teach him, and love him, while he still had time; but year after year passed with no heir.  The children of Israel had already spent 360 years in slavery in Egypt before Moses rose up and slew the Egyptian.  Instead of freeing them, he fled for his life.  They waited for his return for another 40 years.  Young men became old men, still kept in hard bondage as Moses tended sheep in Midian.  Every day spent under the lash, was no less painful, no less immediate.  I am sure some older folks who wished to see freedom died before Moses could return.  Yet for His own reasons, God delayed the return of Moses for 40 more years.  Our ideas of “when” we need an answer are not always in sync with Gods.

So why does God allow us to face the unknown?  The question is fundamental to faith.  We can trust to facts, science, our eyes, our ears, our senses, our logic – or sometimes in spite of all of those, we can trust in God.  Sin began with a choice to trust in the brilliance of our minds, versus the counsel of God.  Lucifer did not trust that what God told him about the pursuit of serving self would lead to where it did.  He trusted himself, his own wisdom, his own logic, the brilliance of his mind, and he was wrong.  God was right, not because the facts were evident, they were not.  God was right because He is God.  He is always right.  What makes sense to us is not always the correct answer.  What seems logical is not always what is right.  In order for us to never experience evil again, we will have to learn to let go of our own superiority and trust God instead.  We need to allow God to be God.  And that means like Job, we must decide to follow God’s wisdom despite a lack of answers, despite what is contrary to common sense, despite what outcomes we experience.  We must trust in God’s love even when pain is all we see.  Because God is love, and everything we experience has a part in the story that is needed, even if it is not evident.  Our wisdom, our logic, our common sense, our sensory organs are simply not enough.  For evil to remain extinct for eternity, we must learn that God alone can be trusted, NOT us.

It is easy to trust in God when what He asks of us, lines up with what we want, or what makes sense.  God tells us to flee persecution and we are fine with that.  He tells us to seek His protection and we are fine with that.  But when He tells us to love our enemies and turn the cheek to someone who just knocked the heck out of our other one, we somehow are not quite as fine with that.  When He tells us to build a boat to avoid a flood we have never seen, that does not make sense.  When He tells us to literally sacrifice our only son on an altar to Him, a crime for which He normally allows Israel in later year to be invaded for, that does not make sense.  When He tells Peter to step out of the boat and walk on water, or tells His followers it is better to die believing in Him than live denying Him, those things make less sense.  They defy logic.  They defy reason.  And therefore they form a conscious choice to believe in a God that is a God, and define our place in the universe as created beings, subservient, less wisdom, less logic, less truth.  We are inferior to God, whether we like it or not.  This is something Satan refused to accept, trusting himself, instead of God.  And evil was born into the universe.  But to rid the universe of evil, all of creation must accept that only God is God, and only His words can be fully trusted.  No more will one third of the angels ever follow another liar into doom.  No more will another world be set with a tree of temptation to follow a competing ideology than Gods.  No more, because from now on, all will rest comfortably following the counsel of God – even when it does not appear to make sense, or go along with what we want or think.  This is the basis for the end of evil.  This is the basis for the extinction of evil for all time.  And it is the only way to keep affliction from rising a second time.

The unknown should be a welcome friend to us.  It is OK to content with the presence of the uncertain, the unknown, and the seemingly bleak in our existence.  It is not a lack of God we see, but the manifestation of His trust in us, to face the unknown and seek Him anyway; to trust in Him despite what we experience, and our complete lack of knowledge about the outcome.  For God Himself, in the form of Christ set our example in this too.  When Christ hung upon the cross of Calvary, He did not know if having been so stained with the weight of our sins, if the Father could ever accept Him back into His presence again.  Christ faced the unknown.  Not just a temporary what if, but a question that could keep Him forever separated from His own Father.  It was the biggest unknown any being could ever face, and He faced it for us.  He loved us anyway.  He died for us anyway.  He chose to love in spite of the unknown, and we are saved as a result.  How can we expect to participate in the process of salvation without the trying fires of the unknown in our path, to validate our decision to follow God despite what we do not know?  How can we truly say we trust God, if we are never faced with a situation with which we do not have control?  Let us welcome the unknown, and rest in our decision that to follow God in spite what we do not know, is ALWAYS the right decision.  It is the one we will repeat for eternity, and it can begin right here and right now.  Outcomes do not matter, but trust does.  Let us always trust God over ourselves, or our insecurities, for He is faithful to us every time – especially when there is simply no answer.