The Preamble ...

Most of our New Testament is made up of letters to fellow believers, and in general to encourage them to hang on to what they have been taught.  Even the Gospel of Luke itself begins in letter form to a believer called Theophilus.  It reminds me of some of our reality TV programs, where contestants may be separated from their families in order to participate.  Often the TV show allows letters from home to be handed out, as a form of reward, and generally only on rare occasions.  But each recipient that gets that letter from home, treasures it.  I can imagine that in these early days of the Christian church it is much the same.  The postal service was not as developed back then.  To transport a letter was dicey thing.  They could have been intercepted and destroyed by enemies of the faith, if they had been able.  Satan was no fan of the church or of believers, so you can bet his full attention was on doing just that.  To see that any of these letters survived his onslaught, and remain part of our gospel in the Bible, is already a testament to the miraculous power of our God.  For our God wants us to know His love, and every written volume that remains for us, is intended to reveal just that.  These letters then, are for us to treasure, for they were bought at great price and great consequence.

Luke himself, was known as a physician, a doctor.  Those healing skills in the early church would have been a tremendous help, but the power of healing was not confined to the limits of science, then or now.  Even though he was a doctor, Luke was not limited to being just that.  Luke emplored the Holy Spirit to do a healing work that was well beyond the limits of any science, except a re-creative one.  So Luke does not just examine Jesus from a scientific point of view, He examines Jesus from the power of the Holy Spirit point of view as well.  It seems sad, that so many of the excellent doctors we have in our world today, who also claim to be Christians, have allowed their scientific training to put limits on the power of God in their own lives.  Miracles (if they will even allow for the possibility of such a thing), are brought about by the power of prayer of others, who when confronted with the impossible, choose to look to Jesus rather than accept their scientifically proscribed fate.  Doing our best to heal, was never a prerequisite to seeing a miracle take place.  Instead trusting fully to God was, and remains the way to open that door.  This is not a contest between how to medically treat, it is an expansion of how to do it.  If you wish to employ the best of our knowledge to date, have at it.  And so you should.  But do not think the end of that road, is the end of all roads, it is not – as Luke can provide first-hand testimony to.

Luke was an educated Gentile.  Writing this letter, this gospel, was not denied to him by right of his birth.  It was opened to him by his choice to embrace the faith, and the power behind it.  Luke was converted and wanted to serve, and so his chance to serve was put in front of him.  Further proof, that God did not want an exclusively “Jewish” church, but a church of any who would choose to believe in it.  Luke’s upbringing was not in synagogue per se (such as would have been a Pharisee).  The Sanhedrin would not have accepted Luke in their upper ranks because of Luke’s gentile birth.  The Old church had become a social-status factory where the service of Luke would have been politely denied.  Have our churches become just like this as well?  Would we deny the service of one we believe to be caught up in too much sin (as we define it)?  Or because the doctrinal understanding is just not deep enough yet (when is it ever)?  Those facts did not deter Jesus.  Jesus accepted Luke and the Holy Spirit inspired him to write, and then preserved his writings for now nearly 2000 years.  There is a lesson here for us.

Luke opens his gospel in chapter one, in verse 1 saying … “Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, [verse 2] Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;”  You will note the motivation of Luke as he sets down to write out this good news letter.  This is a declaration of the things which are surely believed among us.  This is an affirmation letter.  This is a letter of encouragement.  It is not meant to dispute other versions of the gospel but to add a different perspective and result in achieving the goal of encouraging the faith.  Luke also here testifies that this account will be aided by first-hand eye-witnesses, as well as ministers of the word.  He likely is pointing out the original 11 disciples (without calling any by name).  He may also be referring to folks like Nicodemus, or the woman of Samaria at the well, who also encountered Jesus.  Is it any wonder this will be a letter to treasure?

Luke continues in verse 3 saying … “It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, [verse 4] That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.”  And there it is, the first reference to the effects of what salvation is able to do to you.  To be saved from oneself by the power of Jesus Christ (that is through submission to Him in full, our desires, our thoughts, our motives, etc.) – has the power to “perfect” our understanding of our beliefs.  We let Jesus lead, we find a whole new trail of love through the letters written and preserved for our benefit.  Scripture is no longer a means to condemn sin, it is a means to find redemption from our all-so-evident condemnation of self.  We already know we are lost.  We do not need the Bible to make that any clearer.  Just look at the pain we cause ourselves and others as evidence.  Look at the death we bring to ourselves.  It is in our real world; we are living it.  We desperately need the Bible to throw us a life-line.  We need scripture to point us to the way away from our pain and death.  To the source of love meant to redeem even the worst of us.  A perfect understanding is not a tolerance for sin and pain, but instead a direct path away from both.  Luke wishes for his friend Theophilus to see this, to not let go of it, and to cling to it forever. 

Those with a perfect understanding of how to condemn do the work of another player in the battle for our salvation, namely that of Satan.  Satan is forever condemning the world, and the believers who reside in it.  Satan condemns both those who sin and do not care, as much as he condemns those who sin and know better.  His entire role is one of prosecutor.  He condemns without ceasing.  No, a perfect understanding of our beliefs, points one to Jesus Christ, to find relief.  Not just relief from accusation, but relief by a change in our motives, in our behavior, in how we love each other.  That is true relief.  We do not need an excuse to keep sinning and causing ourselves and each other more pain.  We need a way of escape from who we are, and from our desires to sin in the first place.  That kind of relief brings a perfect understanding of what we have been taught.  Perfection is not a pipe-dream.  It is a miraculous gift we can begin to experience in the here and now.  Let us give doctor Luke’s gospel letter a second look and begin to see how this perfection can begin to be established in each of us, and in our real lives now …

 

Radical Transformation ...

If you knew the end from the beginning, you wouldn’t choose it any other way.  This assertion will be verified in heaven (look me up, if it turns out I was wrong 😊).  But because we don’t know: it feels much more like a rollercoaster doing 90mph and its just certain there is some track missing up ahead.  Roller coasters at high speed are dangerous enough when guided by the flimsy track we all realize was built by a team earning minimum wage dying to get home for the weekend.  But if track is actually missing, if the ride itself is frankly incomplete: then the ride is not only dangerous, it is certain death.  And nobody here is looking for that outcome.  After all we signed up for this, we bought tickets, we chose to be here, wait in line, do whatever it takes to ride.  If you told me however, that the “surprise” of this ride, was missing track, I would tell you – thanks, but no thanks.  That kind of “radical” is just way out of my league.  And yet here I sit waiting in line, really close to my turn to ride.

The basic problem with transformation of any kind, is that the future me, is just not going to look anything like the current me.  No, I am not talking about physical body alteration of any kind.  I am talking generally about what it means to have character or personality “one” today – and through a series of events I cannot predict, anticipate, or sometimes even understand – finding myself down the road with personality “two” instead of who I am today.  The promise of God, is that what He will remake me into, will be something I would love to be.  But what is that?  He offers no road map.  He does not set any time limits on all this.  It could take minutes, or it could take decades.  Perhaps the timing is something I directly influence.  He does not even tell me what “I” will look like in that future model.  I have no idea what features, strengths, or weaknesses I will have.  It may even be possible weaknesses will have left my vocabulary.  God tells me He will put His love inside of me.  Just like He does for literally everyone else.  So while some of the outcomes are known, the parts that make me unique from everybody else are not known.  Will I still be able to play the violin (goes the old joke)?

And more to the point, will the parts of me I lose in this process, be parts of me I will miss in the future?  That is kind of the most burning question that crosses my mind when I ponder transformation of any kind, let alone radical transformation.  I am kind of fond of some of who I am today.  Even if those parts are perhaps not the best things for me, or anybody else really.  Then comes the scariest part of all.  When you read scriptures about radical transformation, it tends to use language like “having to die” to achieve it.  I foresee the missing track right there on this roller coaster.  “Death” words are never very comforting for any mortal.  Even if they only refer to my personality or character, they are still very frightening.  And for a marketing campaign, this is probably the worst one I have ever heard.  Who cares if it is truth in advertising, it is not a truth most of us want to hear.  You start telling me that the end of the rainbow lies behind the death-door number one, and I start wondering if there is a door number two, or three to choose from.  That’s just human nature.  And it is human nature God intends to redefine in me, even if some sort of death is required to do it.

So my first response is … you first.  Ego crazed, selfish creature that I am, choosing to be blind to the infinite glory God is offering – and in this state, I demand He does it first – to prove that it works.  You would think a Santa Clause version of God who doles out rewards and punishments (emphasis on punishments) would just strike me down in my arrogance.  But our God is NOT any version of Santa Clause.  He is a saving God.  And instead of debating with me, He leads me to scriptures to show me where He ALREADY has gone first.  Talk about missing tracks on the Roller Coaster.  Matthew chronicles how real radical transformation begins, not just ours, but our God’s.  He writes of experiences the author of Life should have never known.  But to save us our God did way more than He would ever ask of any of us, in order to see what future me could see.

Matthew picks up in chapter 27 in verse 45 saying … “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. [verse 46] And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  There will be pain in our transformation.  Pain brought on by sin, and its consequences, and the choices others continue to make while bound to sin like the strongest cocaine addiction the world has ever known.  How do I know radical transformation is not a recipe for a pain-free-life – look what sin did to God.  Jesus sits atop a Roman cross, and for three hours He writhes in agony, nearly deprived of all His blood.  The Creator is to experience death first.  The Author of life is to experience its ultimate opposite, in order to save us.  And for those three hours, nature refuses to look upon what is happening.  An eery darkness covers the land.  This is no normal thunderstorm, no normal cloudy day.  This is a thick blackness like the plague that once covered Egypt.

The Romans assigned to this detatchment must light torches to see; when usually the sun is high in the sky.  No stars can be seen.  No moon.  No Sun.  No reflections of light anywhere but from the torches the soldiers must light in order to see.  And humanity is now terrified.  Radical Transformation is anything but predictable.  How could anyone have prepared for this?  But what Jesus says reveals a pain infinitely greater than the pain His body suffers from.  He has never known a millisecond without absolute unity with His Father.  It is the light of the Father, that has sustained Jesus throughout this ministerial tour through torture-ville.  It is that harmony, that unity, that keeps Him submitting to God, deferring His own will, in order to show us what we need to do.  Jesus is to be our living example.  But now, near the moments of His death, He can feel no Father God.  He is now truly alone.  He is now experiencing what separation from the Father feels like.  And folks – that is the very definition of HELL.  Hell is NOT about the flames.  Hell is not even about the eternal consequences.  Hell is the infinite torture of being separated from the source of all life and love even if only for a moment.  To endure that separation, is to endure HELL, and Jesus has been dealing with it for a while now.

I am sure in His darkness, Jesus must be asking Himself, what good can come from this?  Is it possible that having carried the weight of the sins of this world upon Him, He will forever be stained with it?  If so, might He ever have to endure separation from His Father?  Jesus is walking through the doors of Hell, with zero exit strategy.  Even after He is resurrected, He might still be stained, and forever driven from the presence of His Father.  Our sin could easily be that great.  Mine alone perhaps that great.  Talk about death wording.  Jesus is going to die.  But perhaps Jesus will endure a fate worse than death.  And from this side of the cross, He cannot see past it.  The risk is real.  The risk is overwhelming.  And so He cries out in agony, to mark this extreme pain.

Matthew continues in verse 47 saying … “Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. [verse 48] And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. [verse 49] The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.”  The priests have fled the darkness back to Jerusalem.  Only the soldiers, the curious, and the faithful remain here.  Those listening misunderstand Him, how typical.  They prepare a pain dulling sponge for Him, to see if Elijah will come to save Him.  Another sign that could not happen, perhaps no matter how bad Elijah wanted it to.  For Elijah, Moses, Enoch, and any other human translated into heaven, must now sit in silence witnessing the price of God’s love for us.  There was no adequate road map for any of this.  When Father and Son, plan all of this out in heaven 4000+ years ago, it is different knowing it will come, than being now in the middle of it, unable to see past the fog of our sins, to know if redemption is even still possible.

We complain about what might be required of us during a radical transformation.  But we have endured nothing next to our God, who did go first.  We may even lose the life we have in this world of sin, but like the theif on the cross, we will surely see our loving God in the next one when it comes.  What Jesus did was risk both lives.  The human one on the cross.  The divine one from being stained with our great sins.  It might have been planned.  But it was here, and unexpected.  All radical transformations are unexpected.  If we knew about them.  We would defer them.  They happen to us, in spite of us.  And Jesus will die with those in attendance still not understanding what He was doing for them.  Those onlookers meant no sympathy with the vinegar to dull the pain.  They meant to extend His life by dulling the pain long enough to see if Elijah would descend out of the darkness all around them.  Radical Transformation often happens to us alone.  When comfort does not come from those around us.  It is just between us and our God.  Here Jesus must endure it, even without the comfort of His Father God.

Matthew continues in verse 50 saying … “Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. [verse 51] And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;”  The agony is too great.  The separation too intense.  Jesus cries out in a blood-chilling cry of a heart physically rending in His own chest.  And He dies.  No escape.  No alternative pathway for our salvation.  He does what must be done.  His death not only before our own, but in place of our own.  Our transformation will now be possible because Jesus did what He must do to save us.  Even if He does not know it yet.  His sleep begins.  He knows nothing for now. 

But radical transformation is not just meant for people.  It can and just did happen to a belief system.  The most holy place was where the mercy seat sat atop the Ark of the Covenant.  This most holy chamber was hidden in the Temple at Jerusalem behind a 20ft curtain insolated with three different kinds of heavy materials & colors sown together, and embroidered with gold angels throughout.  The curtain weighed several hundred pounds and took many men to hang it.  It was not intended to be moved offering only a slight possible opening at the center base where a man could pass from one chamber to the other once a year.  To look upon the most holy artifacts, was to see the presence of God, and be struck dead from the intensity of our sin, and purity of His love by contrast.  No Jew ever dared to do it.  They knew the consequences.  They tied bells on the hem of the High Priest, and a rope around his ankles, when he entered this sanctum only once per year, in case the bells went silent and he died, they pulled him out by that rope, never daring to look in. 

And now on the day of atonement, with hundreds of worshippers packing the Temple site, and the high priest making ready to go in – the curtain is torn by an unseen angelic hand from top to bottom.  It falls away revealing not only a small passageway, but the entire Most Holy place sanctum, Ark of the Covenant and all.  The mercy seat is empty; the One who normally occupies it just gave up His Ghost over on Calvary at that moment.  The entire crowd stares in to the most Holy place in terror and amazement.  They are all still alive.  And their faith has just undergone a radical transformation.  No longer will Jerusalem be its center.  No longer will any Temple building be where God is found.  He will be found with each of us who seek Him, where we happen to be.  And the cornerstone of the faith, Jesus Christ, who was cast aside by the priests charged with building the base of believers, will become the very foundation of the new faith that emerges from the Old faith that has met its fulfillment at the cross, on the Day of Atonement.  It is also the year of Jubiliee, all the slaves are to be set free.  A symbolic representation of what Jesus will do for us if redemption worked.  The timing of everything is perfect.

But this is not just a silent event.  At the death of her Maker, the earth trembles as you would expect it to, when the Creator God is put to death.  The earthquake is felt here and hundreds of miles away.  It tears rocks into pebbles.  It rips great holes in the earth, though preserving Jerusalem, and the cross site where He has laid down His life.  But there is purpose in this quake.  It tears deep into the earth, to reveal graves that have been covered over by ages of shifting sands and sediments.  Matthew continues in verse 52 saying … “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, [verse 53] And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”  The graves of many sleeping saints were exposed by the quake.  When Jesus would come forth, they would arise as well, a first fruits offering for what was to come.  In addition to the sightings of Jesus after His own resurrection, would be sightings and encounters of saints long asleep in the earth, who would come forth and testify in full body form about their risen Lord.

Radical Transformation, that follows death.  Radical Transformation none can deny, and none would oppose.  Those sleeping saints were not disembodied spirits wandering the halls of a heaven forced to see their loved ones continue on in their absence in a world of sin.  They were instead asleep as scriptures describe, knowing nothing, not the passage of time, not the decay of their bodies, nor the conditions that occurred after their sleep began.  Until now.  They arose in full body form, not as spirits.  They emerged from death, as we all will also emerge from death.  Radically transformed into new creations, even if that process began before our sleep did.  Future them, is radically better than past versions of them.  Their characters are not burdened with the addiction to sin, but are completely free of it.  They are made pure by our Savior, and are now able to ascend with Him when He ascends into heaven.  But whether their influence was witnessed for three days, or for forty days, it was undeniable, profound, and radically different than what ANYBODY expected, including them.

The reaction to all of this by those who least believed, and were most responsible for the cruelty of all of this was the admission believers seem so reluctant to admit.  Matthew continues in verse 54 saying … “Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.”  You will note these pagan men made no reference to pagan deities.  They proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God, the Jewish version of who the Messiah would be.  This statement affirms the Jewish version of who God is, and does nothing to support any kind of previous pagan belief.  And it comes from the most cruel, military men, who are bound by orders to witness all of it.  But then, Radical Transformation was meant to occur in the Roman soul, as easily as it occurs in the Hebrew one.  It does not matter who you are now, who you can be is so infinitely better.  You do not need to worry.  Even if death comes, so what.  Death comes to us all.  But real change to so few.  Real change, from real love, makes real life so much better.  Future you will never dispute this.  But to encounter future you, you must be willing to let current you, go.  It might sound radical, but some missing track is just what this ride was supposed to have.

 

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.

Complete Renovation

What is the end game?  We know the healing process is about removing the pain we inflict on ourselves, others and God when we embrace evil.  But what does it look like when there is nothing left to heal?  No more infection.  No more addiction.  No more pain from what we choose and then what we do.  Make no mistake; the end game has always been about complete and total perfection.  The scariest text in the Bible uttered by the disciple prophet John during his revelation of the end of our world … “let he who is holy, be holy still” becomes words of hope, rather than a curse of doom.  You might call it “Destination Enoch”.  You might also call it the most nerve racking phenomenon a Christian will ever expect to experience.

We have already discussed how difficult it is to measure progress in our journey to perfection.  But to have arrived at it presents the greatest fundamental danger – believing you are perfect when you are not.  The most dangerous condition any Christian can find themselves in is to believe they are not doing wrong, when scripture points out otherwise.  Almost every Christian can name you a few examples of friends they have that meet this condition.  And almost never does their own name make the list.  It is one thing to struggle to submit to Christ in order that He give us the victory over something we once struggled against.  It is another not to ask for victory because we feel there is no need to.  Our entire journey to perfection is one of Christ fixing one flaw after another.  Sometimes along the way we have discovered that the sin we longed so much to get rid of, was merely the tip of the iceberg in our lives.  What we formerly thought as mountainous requires a new definition when we truly see what must be altered in our characters.

So how do we bridge the gap of asking God to change what must be changed, when often we may not be sure what that is – to finally arriving at His work being done in us?  It is much easier for those who die in Christ.  They will arise from the grave absent all defects.  In the twinkling of an eye their entire characters will finally see perfection.  But for those who are alive and remain – we stand before the throne of God – without a mediator.  There was always a veil of Christ between us and the Most High until He journeys to earth to bring us home.  It is then that the fateful prophet’s words echo so loudly.  It is then that the work of Christ to save us is ended once and for all.  No more are prayers of forgiveness to be offered, as forgiveness has been granted.  No more the desire to embrace evil as now all those remnant of the Lord long only to do and love as He would.  It is a great day.  And it precedes His second coming.

Enoch saw this fulfilled in his own life.  Some modern Christians belittle Enoch’s accomplishments because he was able to live 360+ years before translation.  They argue he had more time to perfect himself than we do living only a third or less as long.  They argue that pre-flood the people did not face nearly the temptations of our modern world.  After all we don’t believe they had radio, TV, films, the internet, cheap access to crime of all types, and the affluence and time to abuse these things.  But these assumptions are based on the premise that man is evolving to a higher state and simply because knowledge will increase before His coming, it must by comparison be greater than in times of old.  But Christ Himself counters this argument by comparing the end of the world to the days before the flood.

One must remember Christ lived in the times of the Roman Empire when Jewish life was hardly worth the effort of a roman cross.  Forests of crosses decorated Judea as the people continued to rebel against the oppression of Rome.  It was a common form of a torturous death.  Life had little meaning in the time of Christ, and yet He points to the age of Noah as being worse.  How much more evil would Hitler have been, if he had access to the other 90 percent of his brain?  How much more evil would scientists be if they had similar abilities?  Would men who could easily gather gold from the ground, and had easy access to any raw materials find themselves affluent in a short period of time?  Would they indulge in all manner of perversions, perhaps even seeking to blend life forms mixing and splicing DNA until they “created” dinosaurs, centaurs, cavemen, and other such mixtures that God had nothing to do with?  Yes it is only speculation, but speculation based on logic and the demonstrated attempts of modern man since beginning to understand DNA.  In short, Enoch lived in a world far worse than our own.

Environment is not an excuse.  Christ lived a perfect life despite the conditions of His birth, oppression of a foreign government, persecution of the established religion, and ignorance of His chief disciples.  Enoch walked with God so closely, He found himself translated to heaven – as did Elijah some years later.  It is possible, as scripture tells us, it was done.  In order for Enoch or Elijah to reach heaven and pick up where Lucifer left off, something in them had to reach perfection itself.  Their characters had to have been made into total harmony with the government, principles, and values of our God.  They could not see this city and still harbor evil in any form.  Even the slightest evil would have precluded them from reaching this goal we all seek.

Sometimes our compromises blind us.  We follow the commandment not to bear false witness, by trying hard never to tell a lie under direct examination.  However, we shade the truth through omission, or carefully selected language chosen so as not to offend.  Little white lies as they commonly known are often embraced even by Christians in the “greater” effort of not hurting the feelings of another soul.  Enoch had no such moral dilemma.  God requires no such dishonesty on our parts, nor does He offer us any.  The truth is the only language God speaks.  He does not hide the truth from us.  But He does not use the truth to kill us either.  God speaks His truth in love and only love.  His motivation is never to inflict pain, but actually to remove it from us.  His truth may at first seem harsh to us, but as we come to embrace it, we are liberated and made free by it.  This is the beauty of His truth.

No, both Enoch and Elijah were perfect before they walked through the pearly gates.  As we will be, and those who die in Christ will be.  Our journey then has a destination.  We are not on an endless road that never arrives anywhere due to the exceptional size of our evil.  No matter how much work Christ has to do in us, it is a work He is able to complete.  Herein comes another test of trust.  Do we trust Christ enough to believe He will complete His work in us in the allotted time?  We may not doubt His ability, rather doubt our steadfast willingness to submit and see it done.  Regardless of our fears, can we still trust Him to save us?  This was the same dilemma Adam faced.  He loved God.  He loved Eve.  He could not imagine how love could be greater than justice.  Adam failed to trust God to find a way and sin was born into the world.

It is now, here in our world, that we are faced with the same issue that plagued Adam so long ago.  Can we trust God enough to find a way to make perfect in us, what we have never been able to affect?  Can we trust the love will find a way, even when we cannot imagine what that way could be?  I love my wife and my family – can I trust God to save them?  Can I risk losing them eternally to remain faithful to God no matter what choice my spouse, my parents, my children, or any that I love make?  This is where Adam failed, and I must succeed.  Christ Himself risked eternal separation from God while hanging on that cross.  The weight of sins he carried that he had never committed was so great, he thought the stain may be enough to eternally separate Him from His father.  He could not see past the grave.  He did not know what would happen.  It was nothing close to a done deal.  And He submitted to the will of His Father anyway.  He died NOT knowing.  He risked it all, on a level we will never understand.  And the magnitude of love was so defined.

Yet as our world grows more wicked and our memories more acute, we will remember keenly the past and our sins in it.  Satan will not simply give up on us, write us off as being too late to plague.  He will attack those who submit even more fiercely than those under His sway.  We will be public enemy number one in his doomed kingdom.  And of course even though he lies, he has the truth of our past on his side.  He will torment us with sins we have committed, suggesting that we are not really sorry.  That we are only afraid of the consequences of our actions, not beyond the desire to do them again if we could get away with it.  He will suggest that lack of opportunity to sin is not the same thing as lack of desire to sin.  He will suggest that the pain we have caused others in our past is TOO great to be truly forgiven by them, nor should it be let go by us.  He wants us to have eternal guilt.  He wants us to focus only on our sin, not on its cure.  Our minds will search for sins we thought we might have buried even from our conscience mind.  It will be an agony of looking under every rock in our soul to ferret out anything that still needs Christ to fix.  It will be the time of Jacob’s trouble for us.

Environment will matter for nothing.  The fact that this mental anguish comes at a time when the plagues are falling, Satan is loosed and running amuck in the world, men are out to persecute and kill those who will not yield their morality to the edicts of the majority – these things that would normally paralyze a man with fear mean nothing to those marked as saved.  It remains the mental agony of knowing we come from a life of sin, and being unable to detect any further sin in our lives.  This agony is a product of our history.  It can be reduced if we can remember it is our Christ who is faithful in His work in us.  It is He who saves us and not ourselves.  We can put our faith, our trust, and our anguish in Him and His mercy to us.  Our actions will reflect His motives.  And the world will be blessed by what we do, even as they attempt to kill us for doing it.

We do not really know when this work will be completed in us.  We only know it will be complete before the Lord returns.  However this does not preclude it happening significantly earlier than that.  It begs the question, will we know it when we see it, and are we the thing preventing it from reaching completion now?  I pray it is not my stubborn desire to hold on to sin, that keeps the Lord from completing His work in me today.  I pray it is not my lack of steadfastness in surrendering to Him each day and each evening that delays His work in me.  I pray that He ends the evil in the world, and the evil in me completely.  There is nothing here worth holding on to.

The trust we build in Christ to save us here in our world of sin is the trust that keeps us from stumbling into sin for the rest of eternity.  Lucifer became Satan over a dispute regarding ideas.  He had no prior knowledge of sin, and had only the wisdom of God’s counsel to trust that his new ideas would lead where they did.  Lucifer did not trust God more than his own wisdom, and sin was born into the universe.  We who must learn to rely on Christ to save us in this world, can safely rely on Him to keep us from evil for the rest of eternity.  We who have discovered that His only motives are to show us what love means on a one-to-one basis, can be trusted to continue His love for us forever.  The work He does in us here will echo for all eternity.  It will bear ceaseless fruit for the ages.  It is not just a never ending process – it is one that will reach maturity and our lives will never be same because of it.

Failure and Relapse ...

Every ball player on planet earth will tell you that taking your eye off the ball is rarely a good idea.  Imagine swinging blindly at a fast ball pitch coming near you at 90+ miles per hour.  Or imagine trying to catch a pass from the quarterback while running at full speed and gazing into the bleachers.  The alley-oop pass in basketball becomes a thing of the past.  Indeed the only way to win the game is to focus on the immediate needs in front of you.  It is not enough to look at the ball only once as it leaves the pitcher’s hand then to close your eyes and swing.  You must maintain visual contact with the ball along its trajectory until contact with the bat is made.  Doing it once is wonderful, but a single hit does not a career make; rather a consistency at the plate makes for a great player.

So it is with us in our spiritual life, learning to submit our will to Christ is not simply a singular event.  By nature it could not be.  For if the weight of all existence rested on only one decision that we were permanently bound to, we would be in fact slaves to our own decisions.  To truly have freedom of thought, one must be able to create, and to change their minds as they wish.  This freedom is required to truly understand what love is.  It is also a dangerous freedom in that it allowed Satan to break trust with God and pursue self-interest resulting in the evil we know today after eons of life in perfection.  It is also dangerous in that it would allow you to relinquish God and pursue your own self-interests, forsaking the victory that was once His gift to you.

Even God is able to change His own mind.  Take for example our wickedness nearing the time of the great Flood; it made God “repent” that he had made mankind.  Our evil was so great it made God “sorry” that He made us at all.  And scripture foretells it would be similar in our day as it was in Noah’s.  Also we can look at Hezekiah, who pleaded with God not to die, and God granted the wishes of Hezekiah over His own plans.  God told Moses not to plead with Him any longer on entering the Promised Land, not because He did not love Moses, but because He loved Moses so much He did not want Moses to persuade Him to change His own mind.  Even Christ in His moment of agony, was completely free to forsake the weight of our sins that were upon Him.  He could have not risked His own permanent separation from His Father, and left us to the fate we deserved.  He was free to do this, as we did nothing to earn His sacrifice.  But He followed through despite His ability to change His own mind.  That by definition is love – a freewill choice to love - despite the ability choose not to.

So it is in our Salvation, we are not permanently bound to the evil we once pursued, but nor are we the slaves of a loving God.  We remain free to choose throughout our existence here and in the Heaven that is to come.  Daily decisions are required.  Daily choices must be made.  Not the choice of whether to sin or not, in this world that is no choice at all; rather the choice to submit and trust or not.  Our sports analogy echoes the words of Christ when He says … “by beholding we become changed”.  What we focus on affects us.  When we focus on Christ and the submission of our will to Him, we become changed into His image.  Our urge to sin abates, disappears, and is gone forever.  But as we look away from Christ, becoming too busy, or too distracted to remember to submit our will to Him; we become susceptible to failure and relapse.

There is little worse feelings than to blow a winning record.  Imagine the disappointment of a team who is going undefeated in a season, only to lose a game due completely to simple careless errors.  It is not that the opposing side was better, stronger, or more determined.  It is simply that our team got complacent, relaxed, and unfocused.  We begin to rely on the history of our records, than on the mechanism that achieved the results.  And once a game is lost in an undefeated season, the record remains tarnished for the duration of that year.  However, the next year begins the records once again, and another season can be started with the hopes and dreams of seeing it completed undefeated once again.  So it is with us in our spiritual warfare.  We do not fight our enemy, we allow God to fight for us.  But failure does not mean hopelessness.  No need to make excuses for our loss, the reasons are clear, and the blame always falls to us.  Our champion never fails, but sometimes we fail to put Him in the game.

The question falls on us, how will we deal with our own defeat.  Judas saw his own mistakes as insurmountable.  After all, he betrayed the very Son of God to His enemies and His death.  The death of Christ was something Judas saw himself as personally responsible for.  But Judas was not alone.  Peter too, by denying his very association with Christ, betrayed His Master who only hours before he had sworn to die for.  Peter too, left the scenes unfolding in the death of Christ, in shame and defeat.  Judas chose to allow the weight of his crimes to overcome him in hopelessness.  His failure defined his destiny, NOT because of the wishes of his forgiving Lord, but because of his own choices to abandon the hope of forgiveness and reform.  Judas sealed his fate by making permanent his choice to abandon hope, we can only wish he found redemption in the seconds before his death, but God alone can judge. 

You see Judas and I have much in common as he does with you as well.  We are both equally responsible for the betrayal, torture, and death of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ had to die for my personal sins, not just those of Judas.  It was then my hands on the hammer and nails, the whip, the crown of thorns.  It was me who did this, whether by action at the time, or by behavior since.  This responsibility is mine personally as every time I fail, I cause the need for this sacrifice in order that I might be forgiven.  To grow callas to this idea, to become indifferent that my failures require this price, is to forget the enormity of what was done in order to redeem me.  To be content with forgiveness alone certain that it must occur again and again simply by neglect is again to ignore the enormity of the cost of my crimes.  I must accept the forgiveness Christ offers as Peter did.  But I must also accept the life changing power of Christ in absolute humility as Peter did, in order to become changed.  Notice the humility in Peter’s response to Christ’s question … “do you love me?”.  Where before Peter would have answered from the certainty of self-pride and arrogance, he now responds in abject humility and defers even the answer to this basic a question to the wisdom of an all knowing God.

Peter had not yet achieved perfection, but his journey towards it had begun based on his humbling himself, and subjecting his decisions, desires, and will to his Savior Jesus Christ.  Judas chose not to allow or begin this process; instead he internalized the enormity of what he had done and chose to seal his fate in death.  Our failures must not be allowed to be the end of our journey.  Our relapse over victories once given need not be a predictor of our ultimate outcome.  Instead we must accept the forgiveness they require and then return to the method that will prevent their reoccurrence.  Our God did not leave us ignorant of the way to keep His laws, bind His precepts in our hearts, and awaken a spiritual discernment in our lives – all of these begin at the foot of the cross, and continue as we like Peter submit ourselves to His designs.

The greatest danger of failure is the willingness to repeat it again and again.  Our preferences become actions, which become behavior, which become habit, until they define us.  This cycle of slavery has the side-effect of warping our minds to enjoy what we do, despite its painful consequences.  Over time if left unchecked and un-submitted, a war begins to wage over whether we even want to return to the victories of our Lord, or remain in the state we find ourselves.  Once the evil of our hearts overtakes the desire to return to God, our minds reject the only hope we have of redemption.  Should we continue in this state, our salvation, our redemption becomes lost.  Not because God removes it from us based on our behaviors.  But because we choose to remove ourselves from His forgiveness and victories He would offer.  In short, we freely reject His gifts, and choose the slavery of self instead.  This is the condition we began life if prior to our encounter with the Savior.  And though regrettable, it is a condition we can return to if we let slip the daily decision to follow our God.

We do not achieve perfection in a moment (until Christ’s return), neither do we choose to leave God forever in a moment.  The decisions trend over the course of our lives in one direction or the other.  God does not compel us to follow Him.  Unlike Adam, God understands that true love must allow the object of its affection the choice to reject it.  God craves our love, and wishes ONLY to love us fully.  But love itself demands we remain free to decide what we do with His great love.  Our victories are certain when grounded in Christ, for they are His gift to us.  The change in our minds and hearts that enable us to become one with His laws and precepts are His great gift of salvation to us.  A failure need not pull us away from God.  But we must not allow a failure to define a change in direction away from our victories.  Let us instead seek forgiveness and ask again for the humility and perseverance to submit ourselves to our Savior, that His work of perfection in us may continue without the painful recurrence of relapse into evil.