What We Never Watch ...

I hate it when networks cancel a perfectly good TV show.  No, I am not talking about Modern Family, which turns out to be one of my favs.  But some group of writers come up with a really good idea.  They pitch it with success.  They hire an ensemble cast of actors to give the script life.  And great TV is born.  However, just because a show is great, does not mean everyone watches it.  People are busy.  Sometimes there is an even better alternative on another network.  Sometimes the DVR just never seems to get watched.  And for reasons completely mysterious to a fan like me, the great TV, becomes extinct TV.  And I am left buying whatever seasons they make and adding them into my Vudu account.  I’m also left wishing some other network would buy the show, and restart it, picking up right where the story last ended.  But most often, those idealized episodes never come to be, and they remain something I will never watch.

Something else I never seem to watch, is a fig tree.  I would bet most of us are not fig tree farmers, and even the ones who like fig newtons get them at the supermarket.  So why would any of us take the time to watch a fig tree?  Matthew provides a metaphorical answer in his gospel in chapter 24 picking up with the words of Jesus about what we watch, what we pay attention to, and why it matters.  Jesus begins to transition His conversation with His disciples from the signs they will witness before His coming – to the conditions they will see.  It begins in verse 32 saying … “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: [verse 33] So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.”  Turns out fig trees have a “tell”.  That is when leaves start coming out, summer is near.  A metaphor for us, in that when we see the signs Jesus previously outlines in this chapter, we would know the Temple destruction is near, as well as looking across time, His second coming would be near as well.  Right at the door.

Despite the text, I still have never paid attention to a fig tree.  But it does make me wonder, do I pay any more attention to the signs that have already come to pass, or the ones currently taking place.  Or am I just as blind to them, as I am to TV shows that never seem to materialize?  But Jesus is steadfast as He continues in verse 34 saying … “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. [verse 35] Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. [verse 36] But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”  The certainty of what Jesus prophecies is sure.  The Temple was destroyed exactly as He described within the lifespan of the generation He was talking to.  No Christian died in that tragedy because they all read the signs and fled as Christ had instructed.  History bears that out.  But as certain as the signs are of the second coming, no one will know what day that will occur on except the Father in Heaven.  Angels don’t know it.  Only the Father.  Despite how many Christian sects, or movements, have thought they knew better.  They don’t.

There is another kind of TV show that I have enjoyed over the years.  Family style dramas.  Shows like “This is Us”, “Desperate Housewives”, “The OC”, etc.  They depict Hollywood versions of what real life looks like.  We get engrossed in the characters and start wondering what they will do next, or how they will react to the next thing life throws at them.  But Hollywood understands well, these characters need to include some pretty folks for us to look at.  The shows seem to do better if there is some passion and intimacy thrown in.  But fidelity?  It would appear by dissecting a litany of network TV family drama’s that fidelity is not as good for ratings as variety in the bedroom.  Recent TV is starting to buck this trend, but it is not gone altogether.  Of course, the latest trend today is to “normalize” what used to be “unusual” behavior at least in the Christian community.  Divorce has long since been transformed from the shame of broken relationships to a simple alterative choice if things get bad, or the wind blows.  Gay relationships look just like traditional ones (fidelity, divorce, adoption, all the same).  When transgender issues come to the forefront, you can bet they will introduce characters in “lifestyle” TV that deal with these issues until fluid sexuality is accepted as commonplace.  It’s not about judging these things it is just about how quickly we normalize them into our societal view as we watch them over and over on TV.

It is the ability of great TV to normalize for us, what we do not even realize is being normalized.  Constant exposure to ideas, embedded in characters, shows us a portrait of the struggles people have until we identify with them.  But when how we live is something we think so normal, we just stop paying attention to it.  It becomes something we just do not watch.  But this condition we find ourselves in was exactly what Jesus predicted we would face before His coming.  He continues in verse 37 saying … “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. [verse 38] For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, [verse 39] And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”  In a word unexpected.  Because what we think of as normal life, will be the conditions that prevail all the way up until when Jesus does return.  It is what we never watch.  Or perhaps more accurately, what we never see coming.

And what do you think Jesus will find when He does return, if our version of normal life is what He predicted?  I would imagine there will be thousands of Christian churches, because there are nearly that many denominations (or variants of denominations) that exist today.  That would be normal.  I would imagine there a great many people who claim the name of Christ, but look just like their worldly counterparts.  They live the same, sin the same, love the same.  That would be normal.  It is what exists today.  But even in normality, there are a few odd balls.  Noah and his family were odd balls back in their day.  Noah actually listened to God who spoke to him.  In our world today, there are a few Christians who are not as interested in that moniker as they are in watching Jesus transform who they are into something else.  There are a few odd ball Christians who have discovered love is what it is all about.  Not some mamby-pamby love people use as an excuse to do anything they want – but real transformative love that seems to burn the sin right out of you while you were not paying attention to it.  Mysterious love that makes the life of another person worth more to you, than your own.

That kind of transformation over time makes you different.  It gives you a different set of priorities.  It may not change your career, or the fact that you still function in the same society everyone else does.  But it makes you a different person on the inside, which begins to infect what you do, how you love, and how you make the world around you a better place.  Not to earn points, not to earn anything, but because it is just who you become.  To a casual observer you look just like everyone else.  But to those you encounter, you look totally different.  Because what emanates from within you is totally different.  It is the love of Jesus flowing through you like Niagara Falls.  And to the world, you would be considered an odd ball, because that kind of love is just not normal.  Judgment, condemnation, and hate speech, the world is used to.  But that kind of redemptive love is a new thing, a rare thing, and remains bottled up in a bunch of odd balls across all walks of life you would never expect.  That is, you would never see coming.

Jesus continues describing what He finds upon His return in verse 40 saying … “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. [verse 41] Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. [verse 42] Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.”  Not everyone who carries the banner Christian, has discovered Jesus yet.  This is the sad fact the Lord describes upon His return.  One is ready.  One is not.  Whether you live and work in a rural area, or in the city.  One is ready.  One is not.  This is not about the manner of the Lord’s return.  Jesus has just described the manner of His return only a few verses ago as being something “everyone” will see (at once).  It will be as lightning that shines from east unto west.  That is the “how”.  This is the conditions Jesus will find upon His return, when our version of “normal” Christian pervades across the Christian church.  And only a few odd balls remain across all walks of life.  Odd balls running over with the love of Jesus.

We are told right here specifically to “watch”.  But for most of us “normal” Christians it is as if Jesus asked us to watch a network that is just not on TV.  We are more like the disciples who were asked to watch and pray with Him in Gethsemane, and instead we find ourselves asleep comfortably in the normality of our lives, and the normality of our Christian experience.  But “normal” is not ever what was called for.  And what we watch, even great TV, was not the thing we were supposed to keep our eyes on.  What we do watch is changing us.  But sadly, even great TV is probably not changing us for the better.  And it is totally devoid of transforming who we are for the better.  It is more adept at normalizing.  That it excels at.  Meanwhile Jesus is asking us to wake up and keep our eyes planted on Him.  And as we watch Jesus, read scripture through the lens of Jesus, submit our very thinking over to Jesus – we do change.  And that change is for the better.  It makes odd balls out of us all.  Odd balls that just can’t seem to stop loving others.  In that alone are we odd.  Everything may look the same, but how we love makes us different people.

We were told to watch.  Are you watching Jesus yet?  Or as it turns out, is Jesus the channel you just never get around to watching at all …

 

The End is Near [part 3]; a complete desolation of hearts ...

What do you fear the most?  Would the sudden and permanent rejection of your love top the list?  There is a reason for the expression “broken hearts”.  There is even a physiological condition that can pair with that expression so extremely it can actually kill you.  It is said that Jesus died of a broken heart while on the cross.  The separation from His Father was so intense while He bore the sin of the world, it killed Him.  And this fear of rejected love is something our God understands very well.  For it is God who suffers a rejection of His love from His creations, despite how passionately He feels about us.  When we tell Him no.  When we keep pushing Him away, until finally our time expires and the sleep of death cements the longevity of our rejection.  This is a fate for His children that our Father never wants to see, and our enemy simply revels in.  Satan is able to wound the heart of God by seducing His children away from His love to pursue happiness another way, a self-centered way.  These wounds may always be in the heart of our God who is incapable of forgetting the child He loved so much, but was unable to bring back to His side forever.  And the central tenant that underlies an eternity of life, or death, is love.

For those who embrace submission of the heart to Jesus Christ, maintaining that submission is all that matters.  As Jesus re-creates who you are, how you love becomes job one.  Shifting your love away from self to others, and then deepening it beyond all reason, and you will begin to see what harmony with God looks like.  Anything that might interfere with that life altering love, that transformation that only Jesus can bring, must be considered the enemy of souls, more specifically of your soul.  So when Jesus looks at world events, from the time of His disciples, until the end of all things – He is not worried about “when” the end will be.  He is worried that we might turn our hearts away from Him as time ticks by.  He is worried about the loss of even one child who decides there is a substitute for Jesus, another way to get to Nirvana, a different path to God – that all may sound good, but as they lead away from Jesus, they cut us off from the only transformation we are ever offered that works.  Jesus works.  His transformation will re-create you from who you are today, into who Jesus can envision you can become.  The “other” paths are distraction that lead nowhere, but to pain, and eventually death.

An eye that can see all of time in an instant, sees only the loss of His precious children, and seeks to take that loss down to zero.  The disciples asked for signs in the gospel of Matthew chapter 24.  But Jesus seeks to keep hearts in a path that will lead to His Father.  Anything that would distract from that, are the conditions, the prophetic warnings, He must relay to us – in hopes that by telling us what is happening, and what will happen, we will be warned against the distractions and keep our eyes ever on Jesus alone.  He picks up relaying a series of events that span our world’s history but share a common theme.  It begins in verse 15 saying … “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) [verse 16] Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:”  Matthew when he writes this gospel already sees signs in the exploding Christian Church of problems that were not apparent when Jesus spoke these words.

The “abomination of desolation” has meaning even in the days of Matthew.  For it will precede the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem.  But it is not, as his contemporaries will reason, the desecration of the Temple by Roman actions.  Nor is it, as we might reason, the condemnation of Jesus by the Temple priests and leadership.  It is a more insidious thing, a more cancerous virus, that spares not men, nor women, nor children.  It is an abomination of hearts.  It is the seeking of power over love, of hierarchy instead of one-on-one leadership by Jesus to every believer.  It is the attempt at making salvation personal, by taking personal control over it, wresting it away from the hands of Jesus, and placing it in our own.  Making statements that “we” must do “our part” before God will do His.  It is the ceding of a pure gospel of 100% dependence upon Jesus, with the insertion of self into every facet of the gospel.  We put self on the throne and bump Jesus into the “co-pilot” chair.  It is stone hearts that understand a lust for wealth, and are mystified at those who would give every penny they have for another in need. 

The abomination of desolation puts man ahead of God, and it comes in a variety of forms.  From the audacious who believes he is the “vicar” of Christ; to the Islamist who venerates Jesus as “great” but not God.  It happens in modern protestant churches as we proclaim our responsibility for ending sin, instead of looking for that from Jesus alone who is able to see it done.  That phrase, that fear of God, had meaning to Matthew, but it had meaning during the dark ages, and it still has meaning today.  It remains a desolation of hearts that should strike fear into us all.  For we are its target, and may well already be under its spell, looking away from Jesus for the things that only Jesus could ever see accomplished. 

Jesus begins with an answer to the original question the disciples asked, the destruction of the temple as He continues in verse 17 saying … “him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: [verse 18] Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. [verse 19] And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! [verse 20] But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:”  These words reflect a sudden desolation.  The destruction of the Temple foretold by Christ would come with devastating effect.   The Romans would march angry over continued Jewish attempts at rebellion, looking to forever crush the residents of the Holy Land.  They would kill everything they touched.  They were not there for mercy, they were there in an angry state of revenge.  No amount of blood would be enough.  So it is in that context that Jesus warns His believers not to prize belongings over their very existence.  Take what you have on you.  Trust me.  And flee for your lives.  He offers sympathy to those nursing mothers, and asks us to pray that it does not come in winter, or on Sabbath.

The destruction of the Temple would happen many years after His death.  And yet Jesus is still asking us to pray that the flight from it would not happen on Sabbath.  Clearly, Jesus still cared about His Holy day.  It was not nailed to a cross as some have conveniently tried to argue.  And all of the activities one would have to do while fleeing for their lives would prevent them from enjoying the Sabbath as it was intended with their God.  So if flight happened another day, it would be better.  Not happening in winter allows for the fact that the person in the field was to simply drop everything and run.  No time to get extra coats or clothing.  True believers in Jesus Christ have always faced persecution, and have generally always run from it.  The running has the side effect of spreading the gospel to new places and so in that sense not a horrible thing.  But Jesus tells us that persecution because we love is something we are going to face, it is the way of things.

Jesus then seems to look across time from that time to this and sees a common tragedy as He continues in verse 21 saying … “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. [verse 22] And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.”  There was great persecution in the days of Rome, enough to turn the color representing the church from white to red in John’s prophecies.  It would continue and get worse during the dark ages.  And if the world had not opened up by the discovery of the Americas it might have extinguished those who look only to Jesus all together.  So do these days of persecution still lie ahead of us, maybe.  But there is certainly enough of it behind us to hope it is now in our past until He comes.  One thing is certain though, the devil will not go quietly, so as time moves closer to the end, you can expect his fury to grow to match the fire of people truly beginning to rediscover what it means to encounter Jesus personally.

Jesus then goes back to His earlier warnings, that even while He looked over a wide span of time were still ever present.  He continues in verse 23 saying … “Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. [verse 24] For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. [verse 25] Behold, I have told you before. [verse 26] Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. [verse 27] For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. [verse 28] For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.”

One of the biggest remaining fears for Jesus across all time, is our tendency to put man in the place of God.  From false folks who claim directly to be Christ, to false prophets powered by the dark side of the supernatural world.  Their signs and wonders are great, but their message similar, a distraction from Jesus.  For those who value a “show me” mentality looking for supernatural proof of God, these false leaders will have great appeal.  But it is not the great acts that change the thinking, or create passionate love where there was none before.  Those are responses to a still small voice that changes the heart of each of us as we submit ourselves to Jesus alone.  Humans are only distraction to that, especially humans we begin to follow in place of Jesus (or in partnership with Jesus).  At some point the vultures will gather over the corpses created by looking away from Jesus.  A fate Jesus wants every one of us to avoid.

It is the desolation of our hearts that comes from putting man between us and God.  Our pastors should be admired and supported in the work they do – but not as a supplement or replacement of Jesus Christ.  We should not look to our pastors for an example.  We should look to Jesus for transformation of “our” hearts.  It is our heart that is important.  Not a collective reference to the hearts of men, but our particular heart that is important to our God.  Yes He feels this passionate for each of us.  But that does not diminish how He feels about me, or you, or the loved ones around us.  Each one extremely important to Him.  Each one, a child He wants back.  A child He desperately does not want to lose.  Because He loves us just that much.  As we look through the lens of Jesus across time we see Him desperately fighting for His children.  To keep each of us locked on Him, and safe because of it.  Looking anywhere else is a surefire recipe for disaster.

But His counsel was not over yet …

 

The End is Near [part 2]; the irony of persecution ...

To earn hate, you must love.  Ever tried putting a square peg in a round hole?  There is an old children’s toy with multiple shaped holes, that fit matching pegs.  The goal is simple; match the physical piece in the hole on the board designed to fit only that piece.  Toddlers begin playing with this toy and as their brains grasp the concept, they begin trying different pieces in a hole, until they find a match.  Really smart toddlers can visualize which piece might fit in which hole.  And aggressive toddlers look for a hammer designed to solve every quandary by pounding it in.  The world at its core is not too much different than the simple board.  When you are a part of the world, in harmony with the world, the world understands you, and you understand it.  Everyone is just looking out for number one all the time.  But when you encounter Jesus.  Not the stories about Him, or even the scriptures about Him, but Jesus Himself, up close and personal in “your” life – “you” begin to change.  Over time, your shape (who you are, how you think, and how you love) is radically different than anything the world has to offer.  And so the world hates you for it.  While you were one of them, you were just fine with them, and they with you.  But become something else, something they do not understand, and you will earn their hate.

And as it happens the world is full of aggressive toddlers all dragging around sledge hammers they fully intend to use on you to pound you back into the world-shaped-holes that is the point of the game.  But there is another class of player you may not see coming.  As it happens, many churches, and many more church members claim to be Jesus shaped.  They know that, cause they did it themselves.  Honed off a rough edge here and there and now see themselves as the authentic Jesus shaped pieces.  But even a simple view of what the church looks like, and what the world looks like, is often so close you just cannot tell them apart.  And predictably the world has no problem with churches that are shaped just like they are.  And no old-timers (like me), I am not talking about electric instruments in worship music, and using drama on the pulpit.  This is not about style.  This is about substance.  Our hearts look alike.  A worldly husband loves his wife (for a while at least).  So does the church goer.  But they both call it quits at just about the same rate.  The worldly person takes a drink on rare social occasions (to fit in).  So do most church goers.  The “sins” of both are pretty much equal, and equally frequent.  The church-goer claims the promise of forgiveness (the only difference) – but it does not keep them from repeating the same mistakes over and over again.  Aggressive toddlers pass right by this church crowd, because they have no idea they are a church crowd.  They both live the same.

An encounter with Jesus changes all that.  The mind begins to change.  How you think begins to change.  And it is Jesus that re-creates you, not “you” doing anything to accomplish the change.  All you do is submit to Jesus.  The church crowd does not it do it that way, and so they look a lot like the world.  The church crowd does it for themselves.  And so they fail over and over again.  Giving up to Jesus does not makes sense to them.  Anyone who would do that must be evil in some way.  And that aggressive toddler who drags around the sledge hammer, turns out to be the member of your church sitting right beside you in the pew.  When you love, more than you judge, you start not fitting in at church either.  The transformation Jesus effects in you, saving you, from you – is just too much to take for most church goers entirely.  And for those of you who think I am exaggerating, or just church bashing, hang on to your hats, this is going to be a bumpy ride.  When the end is near, all of this was foretold, by Jesus.

Matthew continues his overview of the signs the disciples had asked for in chapter 24 of his gospel to his Hebrew contemporaries.  Picking up in verse 9 it continues saying … “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.”  This imagery is quite a bit more savage than an aggressive toddler dragging around a sledge hammer.  It is more like living in one of Saddam’s torture prisons, or finding your way into a horrific train to Auschwitz under Hitler.  We are to be hated.  But not just generic hate.  Hated because of Jesus’ name sake.  Tortured and killed over it.  If you don’t live under a threat of torture or death, you may think that is due to God’s blessing.  Perhaps it is.  But if no one seems to hate you, you have to ask yourself, are you really any different than anyone around you.  And if you are all the same, it might be why no one has the time to even think about you, let alone hate you.  After all, how much difference are you really making, the way you live today?  This is not about being different for different’s sake either.  It is about being different because the core of who you are has been remolded and remade by Jesus.  To the point where you live differently, and you think differently, and you love differently.  To earn hate, you have to love like Jesus does.  That is what would make you different enough not to be understood, or accepted, just like He faced.

Jesus continues in verse 10 saying … “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.”  And so it begins.  The transition from the world to the church, and yet the same hate finds it way of expression even within church walls, and church hearts.  The world does not need to betray or hate its own, it is already living in a way to please self, at the expense of others if needs be.  But the church is supposed to be loving.  When supposed to be, is not reality, offended begins the road to betrayal ending in full blown hatred.  This is us folks.  Don’t look at your neighbor to find the culprit here, look in the mirror.  We judge, often extensively, before we even begin to speak or socialize.  The least little defect or sin discovered in our neighbor is cause to hold ourselves in higher esteem, and shun them for the sinners they are.  This thinking understands judgment, and the hypocrisy of righteous living, but not the transformative love that would make supposed-to-be line up with reality.  Love is stronger than judgment.  For it is love alone that can conquer evil in the first place, and the last place, in us.

Jesus gets even more direct with the church in verse 11 saying … “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.”  The world is not endangered by false prophets per se, they are only looking to make a buck off of them.  But the church depends on prophets to light the way forward.  When a false prophet arises, the message behind them is inherently selfish, and therefore pleasing to many – thus adopted by many.  A message of loving others unconditionally and passionately looks “hard” to the untransformed heart.  In fact, it looks impossible.  And it is.  At least for a human to do it.  But for Jesus, that is just a no-brainer He does every second of every day for each and all of us.  The “ease” false prophets preach is appealing to hearts lined up with the world.  We all look for ease and comfort.  It is natural.  But for the transformed heart, there is no time for, or interest in ease, there is interest in seeing you next to me in kingdom of heaven.  If that causes me a little discomfort it is worth it.  In fact, if that takes everything I have, it is still worth it.  And so, only post transformation, does the new way of loving begin to impact a new way of thinking, that finds the message of the false prophet dangerous to souls.

Then Jesus boils down to the heart of the matter continuing in verse 12 saying … “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”  Ouch!!!  When sin abounds, love waxes cold.  When I try to fix myself, by deciding to be a good person, and then doing my best at it.  Iniquity continues to abound in me, and my love, my real love for others, waxes cold.  This result of failed self-salvation leaves me looking just like my worldly counterparts.  For all my religious “trying” I am no better than them.  This is because we love the same, think the same, and want the same things (most of it bad for us and others).  It is only my submission to Jesus that sparks a fire in me.  And the converse rule is also true.  When passionate love for others burns hotly through you from Jesus, sin is chased away.  Not just from your feet and hands, but from your hearts and desires and motives.  Change the core of who you are through submission to Jesus, and find love abounding and sin on the retreat because of it.  But that is not most of us.  At least not most of us today.  Too many (perhaps me included too often) are content to keep control of our own salvations, and thus watch our love wax cold in real time in our mirrors.  Just as foretold by the Savior we so desperately need.

But not all hope is lost as Jesus continues in verse 13 saying … “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”  Jesus did not fail, no matter how often you do.  And Jesus will not fail you, no matter how many times you might keep messing His victory up with your stupid.  Jesus truly is and forever will be the author and finisher of your salvation, your faith, and your re-creation.  For those who can humble themselves, relinquish the illusion of control, and turn over their own salvation to Jesus who does not fail, He will not fail.  The Kingdom of Heaven can begin immediately in the here and now for you, and grow every day until the end of all things.  That is way nearer than you might of thought.  This is not about the afterlife, this is about the now.  To be saved, is more than to be saved from fire, or death.  It is about being saved from the type of person you are now – barely distinguishable from the world.  It is about taking that personage of you dipped in sin, and re-creating it, infusing the passionate love of Jesus in your heart for others.  So much so, that you think differently, love differently, and start to have different priorities.  That is the gospel message.  Not the stories and parables – the real-life witness of Jesus in your heart every day.  Changing you from who you were, to who you will become.  “That” is the gospel.  To find living differently here and now and forever.

The stores in scripture were all written to introduce you to Jesus, who could then make them real, make them come alive in you.  Without the coming alive part in you, the rest is just words.  There is no gospel without your life as a witness of it.  Without “your” testimony of what Jesus has done in you, for you, perhaps in spite of you – the Bible is only a book other people may understand.  The power of the gospel is the power to actually change lives, yours, mine, anyone who hears it.  But better than to hear it, for anyone to see it come alive in you because of how much you truly love others (like only Jesus could).  That is the power of a gospel that must be preached.  Jesus concludes this section in verse 14 saying … “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”

The world does not need your “church” or your denomination or even your doctrines.  It needs your love burning so brightly it forces them to turn their eyes to the same Jesus who turned your life around.  The world is in need of example, not speeches about possibilities of what could happen with Jesus, but realities lived every day because of Jesus.  That hate must face our love.  The hate will see that no physical pain, not even death, can cause a transformed heart to relent – because one taste of Jesus is worth everything else you ever had or will have.  There is a reason we will all cast our crowns at His feet and proclaim Him alone worthy.  It is because we are not worthy, nor will we ever be worthy.  But He loves us anyway.  And He will save us anyway.  Each of us from the person we messed up, to the person that only He can envision for us to become.  Once embarked on that journey; all persecution because of it is only ironic.  Because no amount of persecution would ever change in us what only Jesus could create in the first place.

It is this gospel that must be preached in all the world.  Not the concept of Jesus, but the reality of Jesus.  Not the judgment of the followers of Jesus always judging others and the world, but instead the passionate love of the followers of Jesus so steeped in love they begin to look like Him.  What that kind of love can do in the world is something we have yet to see - it could actually save it.  If those who dare to call themselves by His name would submit, and embrace that love, the world will turn over again.  The square peg round hole thing could hardly begin to describe what a difference that will be and perhaps is already becoming.

And Jesus was not done yet on looking forward …

 

The End is Near [part 1]; where not to look ...

The man on the street corner, who is wearing a sandwich board sign, that says nothing more than – “the end is near”, is looking for something from you.  He wants to wake you up.  He wants you to consider your life and self-examine it.  Are you ready for the end of all things as we know them?  Are you ready to meet your maker?  Or not.  Presumably the man with such a sign on his person, has ideas about how you could become ready, and what you need to “do”.  The overpass sign alongside of the busy freeway or roadway has an advertisement about a “prophecy crusade”.  The graphics on this sign look menacing.  The message seems to imply the end is near.  And the poster’s of this sign want something from you.  They want to wake you up.  They want you to consider your life and weigh what you do, against a clock soon running out of time, and ask yourself if you are ready to meet your maker?  Or not.  But the prophecy crusade would purport to tell you what has not happened yet, what is coming, and at least some notion of when it will be coming.

What is common between the two approaches is also common across a plethora of “hell-fire and brimstone” churches.  The idea that “fear” motivates.  You can catch up with love later, for now we are content to let fear get you where you should be, to hear a message (chalked full of fear), that is designed to keep you in church, and “get you straight”.  Being “ready” for Christ to come has devolved from submission to a transforming love that would have Jesus re-create who you are in the here and now – into a series of actions you must take, and activities you must continue to do, in order to keep yourself ready at all times for an end that has been “near” for more than 2,000+ years.  And fear does work, for about a minute.  It may poke the guilty into taking the next step.  But fear also wears off.  It does not work forever.  We become immune to fear of a punishment that has not arrived any faster than the final reward has.  And so those who saw only the fear in our approach, backslide away from that fear, choosing rather to live guilt-free, than guilt-filled, by a system that offers nothing more than a perpetual game of fail and forgive – while change eludes us all.

So what does it mean to truly be ready?  What does it mean to truly live prepared?  To answer that question, start by throwing out the future tense of your expectations.  Ready is not the goal, harmony is.  Ready implies you are looking forward to an event.  To be ready implies that at some future point, how you live will be judged as worthy or not by what occurs at that event.  Harmony with God, and His love, implies you are already living like you intend to, whether in a future state of heavenly bliss, or while still on this earth no matter what conditions surround and impact you.  The future event does not come as a judgment but as an extension of how you live.  To live in harmony with God, requires us to look back to Jesus, in order to see Him create that state-of-being within us, and keep it there.  It is a continual submission to Jesus, because we know we cannot get there at all through our own miserable strength.  Only Jesus can re-make us, changing what we want, how we love, and therefore how we live.

For believers who seek the end of all things as the only relief from sin they will ever have – they miss the point of the gospel entirely.  Jesus did not come to our world to live and die and live again, only to leave you in the pain of your sin until you die.  He came to show us, it is possible to live differently here.  Not through your own strength, but through continually submitting your will to your Father in Heaven, just as He lived.  The gospel is not about good news, or scary news for that matter, at the end of all things.  The gospel is good news for us, in the here and now.  It is not about being pronounced forgiven and free to screw up again.  It is about being truly forgiven, and a method for never tasting the pain of screwing up again, because you want different things, and love with a passion of Jesus buried deep in your newly re-created heart.  Once transformation is a real part of who you are; what happens in our world that points to His coming is seen in a different light.

To take the gospel on now and find the rewards of living free from the self-inflicted pain of sin in the here and now; the signs of His coming, and the nearness of the end represent a different challenge.  It is not about what happens to me then; it is about what I can still do, to try to help others live in a different way, as quickly as possible.  To see them submit and end their pain ASAP; not to see them only embrace forgiveness, and then keep on causing themselves pain that Jesus is so willing to take from them in their thoughts, motives, and then actions right away.  Living differently is the reward of the gospel.  Not just living differently in the future, living differently in the here and now.  Being judged is a not a future event for believers, it is in the past.  Once the believer embraces Jesus and begins to submit their lives to Him, embracing that transformation that only His love can bring – judgment of that believer is completely in their rear-view mirror.  The future is not about judgment then, but only about a welcome home to a heavenly Dad all too anxious to reunite with His formerly lost children forever.  Forgiveness fixes judgment.  Transformation fixes sin.

So when we change our perspective on the signs of His coming, it is not fear we examine those signs from, it is about time management and the accomplishment of the mission of redemption.  Not our own, Jesus has already done that.  But to those we love, and those we can still reach with a message of pure passionate love grounded in the view of Jesus Christ.  We look then for signs, only as reminders, of the mission our very personal testimony of transformation will tell to the world, especially the world right around us.  In this light, fear will leave the building.  Only love will remain.  Only love was truly ever there in the first place.  Instead of trying to find exact future dates when the end will finally arrive; we can live free from fear, and steeped in love right here and now, ever letting go of the pain of sin, as we submit our will to Jesus and He continues to re-create who we are.  Jesus saving us from us, all along the road, not just at the end of it.

It is then with excitement and wonder that we look at what happens around us, prodding us to stay committed to the mission of the redemption of others.  The disciples were beginning to understand this.  They understood that Jesus would be coming back, returning in triumph once and for all, even before they understood He would have to die before that could occur.  There was no fear in them to ask how soon Jesus would be coming back.  There was eager anticipation.  Bring it on.  They already knew Jesus, they were spending every day with Him, every minute.  They had relationships with Jesus where they knew Jesus as friend and savior and Master of all scripture or religion.  Jesus was not some foreign guy no one has ever seen or met.  He was personal to them.  Someone they wanted to spend time with.  So knowing when He would return, was not about predicting dates and times, it was about signposts to remind them of the happiness of His ultimate return.

With that in mind, Matthew records in his gospel in the 24^th chapter, picking up in verse one, the beginning of the explanations of how to read the road-signs that were to present themselves starting all the way back then, in the days of the disciples, that would continue even in our days, the last days if we are lucky enough to see them so.  Verse 1 says … “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. [verse 2] And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”  Looking forward begins with keeping your eyes in the right place.

The disciples gave Jesus a tour of the Temple, to be more precise of the glory of the Temple.  Israelites were significantly proud of “their” Temple.  They had built it centuries ago.  The original building Solomon built with the supplies David (his father) had gathered, had been torn down with most of the gold finding its way to the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar who treasured it and respected it.  After 70 years in captivity, the Israelites finally were permitted to return to Jerusalem, and rebuild the Temple to the best of their abilities then.  It was far less than Solomon had been able to do.  But it was still a magnificent site, and caused much pride in the Jewish heart.  But buildings of precious woods, finely carved stone & marble, and gold plating were NOT where the eye of the believer was to stay focused.  It is NOT our church buildings which are to represent the body of Christ, it is our hearts with His love in them, that will do that.  We are not to keep our eyes downward on what we can see, but upward to Jesus to find love which is unseen, yet very visible to those around us.

This was so important.  Jesus first warns His disciples, that their magnificent Temple will be torn down, all the way to the stone floors.  Do not take pride in your structures.  Do not look to your buildings.  But instead look to the refinement of the heart that comes from belief that leads to submission of all pride, and eventually its absence.  When the Romans invaded during the time of the disciples, one of the soldiers (against orders) threw a torch into the Temple, lighting it on fire, and melting the gold coverings and plating’s such that they dripped down all the way in between the stone flooring.  The Romans were under orders to return this gold to Caesar, so they pulled up every stone and scraped the gold from each one all the way to the floorboards.  What Jesus prophesied came true word for word.  But the lesson was not about the accuracy of His foretelling’s.  It was about where we place our vision, and what we invest our hope in to be saved.  The past and its structures were no longer to govern us going forward.  Only Jesus would remain our future hope.

The disciples were floored.  They had never even considered such a horrible prophecy.  So they came to Him to ask in verse 3 saying … “And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?  [verse 4] And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.”  The disciples want to know when the Temple will be destroyed.  For the disciples so proud of their Temple, its destruction was bad enough to signal the end of the world.  But those two things would not be the same.  What warnings will happen before that occurs, and what things will precede the second coming of Jesus.  The response of Jesus is equally important.  Just as Jesus has directed us not to look to our buildings or Temples as the focal point of our vision.  So we should not look to men either.  Billy Graham, the Pope, Joel Osteen, your pastor, your parents, anyone that perhaps you admire.  No man is to be the center of your hope and faith as you look forward.  For men will deceive, even if not by intent.  But Jesus alone is true.  Vest your vision and your focus in Jesus alone.

For every truth, Satan looks to invent and present his counterfeit.  Satan tries to distract the minds of the weak with copies of truth, but void of truth, for they are void of Jesus.  The first very specific warning of Jesus comes in verse 5 saying … “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.”  Yikes.  We immediately associate this foretelling with folks like David Koresh who the media reports compared himself with the son of David in his cult-like following in Waco a few years ago.  But the Dahlia Lama also claims to resurrect and return to his followers in every subsequent generation.  For Christians, finding a “criminal” like Koresh to cast blame on is easy, and perhaps comforting.  But what about when we represent the name of Christ to others, stating we are Christians, yet spewing the speech of judgment, condemnation, and frankly disdain that looks a lot like hate.  Do we also deceive many, that what we teach is of Christ, when it clearly is not.  In that view, the David Koresh types are few and far between.  The average believer steeped in the speech of hate is a dime a dozen.

Then comes the politics of power.  Jesus continues in verse 6 saying … “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. [verse 7] For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. [verse 8] All these are the beginning of sorrows.”  When we hear of wars and rumors of wars Jesus tells us specifically “do not be afraid”.  For wars and rumors of wars will happen and the end is not yet.  It is not the politics of power that will initiate the second coming of Christ.  It is not in the power of man to make God hurry up by starting wars.  Rather as kingdom rises against kingdom, and nation against nation – they are only the beginning of sorrows.  Satan will not go down without causing as much damage to God through his errant children as he is able.  Wars are an effective way of killing millions in a short period of time.  So they remain sorrows, but only the beginning of sorrows.

Once again Jesus directs our focus away from the world, and whatever may be going on in the world, as we look forward.  It is decidedly not the world that will save us, in fact it will only be the source of our sorrows.  So just in the first part of this examination Jesus has asked us not to focus on our church structures, to leave our pride in them behind.  For structures will one day share the same fate.  We do not find Jesus in a building, we find Him in our hearts.  Jesus asks us to avoid looking to men, for men deceive.  Sometimes this is by intent, sometimes by accident.  But men are not to be our role models, men are corrupted by the disease of sin, even the best of men.  Look up to Jesus, for Jesus alone is worthy, perfect, and able to save.  Finally, Jesus asks us to look away from this world, from wars, even from the natural disasters.  As these are NOT signs, but simply sorrows Satan will inflict along the road to the end.  But the end is not yet.  It is not the physical church, the pastors or leaders even, and especially not the world who can save us; only Jesus can do that.

To live in harmony requires we focus our vision in the right place.  It does me no good to pledge my life to a building, or its art.  It does me no good to pledge my life to a pastor or pope or prophet.  It does me no good to pledge my life to natural events, or man made wars, as the guideposts constantly looking down instead of up.  To find Jesus.  To submit myself to Jesus alone.  This will be the basis of my hope, and the method of my transformation.  Focus, even of where not to look is important.  But there was more Jesus had to say on this matter …