One For The Road ...

There comes that time, when something appears bound to end, that we begin to crave just one more of it, before it is completely gone.  For some, this happens in a bar at closing time.  For others, this happens near the end of a relationship that for some unexplainable reason is about to end.  For a lucky few, it happens in my daughter’s Bible school class, where the participants wish we just had ten more minutes to keep talking and learning any fine Sabbath morning.  But whatever context you are most familiar with, the sentiment, the feeling is the same.  We look back at something, and begin to relish it, cherish it, perhaps more at the end of it, than when it was just “there” and we took it for granted.  At that moment of realization, we desperately reach out to cling to it, even if just for one moment more.  If your most familiar context for this happens in a bar, there is a place that can offer so much more happiness, and that can last so much longer.  And if you find the context that serves you best is in the form of romantic relationships, there is a way to base them in the cement of faith, rather that the shifting sands of human interests.  And for those unlucky few, who search for this in church, but rather than wanting to stay longer, are burning up the aisles to get out faster – there is a way to “do church” that is so much better than perhaps you do it today.

The short answer to all of this, is Jesus.  The gospel of Matthew concludes by making this point very well in chapter 28 in the last few verses, picking up in verse 16 saying … “Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. [verse 17] And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted.”  Talk about a one-for-the-road situation.  Matthew makes the point that Judas is gone, by subtling stating the number of the remaining disciples.  But what Matthew omits, is the number of women disciples who were likely there at this same mountain as well.  Jesus had summoned all of them there to say His temporary goodbyes.  This was about 40 days after His resurrection.  And if you believe the risen saints who were the first fruits of His Kingdom walked the earth for 40 days and not 3 days, they would have been gathered there as well.  The point is that this was not just an isolated event for only the eleven main disciples to share, but for all those who deeply loved and believed in our Savior to share.  Keep in mind it was the women who FIRST received this very invitational message.

But then, as often happens in matters of religion, particularly before the entrance of the Holy Spirit, the devil tempts us to doubt.  This is another one of those situations, it is hard for those of us, who have never even seen the beautiful face, hands, and feet of Jesus to understand.  Despite all the evidence, the personal and up-close evidence, doubt reared its head in not just one disciple, but in “some”.  How does this happen in those who knew Him best, and knew Him longest?  How are we able to sit at the feet of Jesus (in our day at church, or perhaps at a parent’s knee) and still come to doubt, what we have always known was the truth of our beliefs?  They had Jesus in person.  We have Him enumerated throughout an entire collection of works we call the Bible.  And yet both of us are subject to the weakness of doubt.  We look at them in no small amount of contempt, and ask, how is that possible, given where you were, and what you witnessed first-hand?  These disciples saw the miracles we wish we could see.  They experienced first-hand what it was like to move through time and space across the Sea of Galilee after Jesus calmed the storm.  Those were first-hand accounts.  As were the healings, and casting out of demons, they had first-hand exposure to doing themselves.  They even saw the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

But now, in the final moments they would ever spend in the physical presence of Jesus who was leaving for heaven.  Knowing He was crucified.  And seeing Him risen.  Some doubted.  Is it any different with us?  Do we spend precious moments we have on earth, taking a “for granted” stance about them?  Instead of appreciating the brevity of our lives, and therefore taking the most care to enjoy our moments in the love of Jesus – we doubt where Jesus has brought us.  We let doubt seep in, and start raising the banner of circumstances for our victories, or worse claiming self-made victories in our past.  Our journey with Jesus is not about what “we” have done or not done.  It is about allowing Him to guide us, remake us, and lead us to where we are.  That journey happens outside of the written Word, and inside of the reformation of our particular hearts.  It is a real-life thing for each of us.  And that real-life experience then amplifies what we read of the stories of others who have encountered Jesus in the written Word.  One does not contradict the other, but both amplify the impact of Jesus in our lives.  If the Bible is still just a story book for you, and Jesus is still someone you have never met; there is still time to correct those positions.  Meet the One, then see the other go from story book, to His Word in printed form.

Jesus does not immediately address the doubt of His own disciples.  But He does communicate what He must.  Matthew picks back up in verse 18 saying … “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”  There has been a change of ownership of our world.  Adam was its caretaker, until he surrendered it to Satan, when he broke trust with God.  Satan made the argument that it was impossible for man to keep God’s Laws.  But Jesus came, lived, died, and was ressurected in perfect harmony with God’s Law of love.  As such, because Jesus surrendered His own will to the will of His Father – His Father “gave” Jesus “All” power in both heaven and in earth.  There will still be opposition to the will of God in our world.  But that opposition will come from an angry tenant, not from the landlord.  The landlord of our world is now Jesus, whether we like that or not.  This new fact, of which Satan is well aware, makes that angry tenent even more angry.  Satan looks now to shred this planet, and shred as many of us as he can, before the landlord (Jesus) throws him out, and remakes the place all over again.  Satan knows his time is short, he knows he is on a clock.  And each second that ticks by is one more second closer to his demise.  So each passing second only serves to increase his desperation at shredding us all.  Ironic, that Satan sees time more acutely, than we do, when our life expectancy is far more brief.

Jesus continues in verse 19 saying … “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: [verse 20] Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”  These are the last two verses in the book of Matthew to his contemporaries, to his Jewish counterparts.  That was the focus of the ministry of Matthew, and of the audience of this book.  Jews would understand perfectly the concept of baptism.  Matthew takes this concept and enumerates through the words of Jesus an alteration to its historical context.  Instead of baptizing for repentance only, they would add, doing it as a public sign of accepting not only Jesus, but God the Father, and the Holy Spirit as well.  Our God, better described as three-in-one – three entities in perfect harmony, with unique roles, unique personalities, but perfectly aligned in goal and practice to redeem we who were lost.  That was something new to the Jews who would read this.  Using baptism as a public statement of accepting the role of Jesus in this trio of God was something new.  Even the introduction or better stated re-introduction of the Holy Spirit as part of the baptism statement was something new.

But Jews who understood the need for baptism understood why this might make sense.  And while Matthew was targeting his Jewish contemporaries, he was not ONLY targeting them.  For us Gentiles, the right of baptism would be equally valid and equally meaningful as our next author of study Luke, would begin to chronicle.  Matthew also knew his Jewish contemporaries would easily understand the next words of Jesus as well.  “Teaching them to observe”, was a concept deeply rooted in Jewish tradition.  The Jewish mind at that time and place would easily grasp this idea because it was one they were intimately familiar with.  The “art” of study of all things religious made sense to the Jewish mind.  Switching from naked tradition as taught by the Pharisees, to Jesus who rooted His teachings in the same scriptures, but from a motivation of love for others – was a radical change, but still a familiar idea to the people of God at this time and place.  Most Christians seem to forget that Christianity itself started as a Jewish religion, founded by Jews, whose leader was and is still a Jew, and whose first practioners were ALL Jewish.  It was only later that this new Jewish faith, became inundated with Gentiles from around the then known world.

“Things whatsoever that I have commanded you”.  This phrase in other gospels might find its closest expression in “Love one another, as I have loved you”.  We will be known as followers of Jesus, as Christians, by how we love one another.  When asked which commandment of the Law was greatest, Jesus summarized saying Love God first with all your heart, then love each other as you would love yourself.  That is to say, love the life of others so much you would lay down your own life for them.  That kind of love, that kind of self-sacrificing love.  It starts with loving God.  We know from practical experience that by allowing God to remake us, He puts His love inside of us for others.  Only then are we able to love them, to the extent that Christ would have us love them.  But in all these references whether by example of Jesus Himself, or by His teachings, we find that love itself is at the center of everything.  Love to God.  Love to others.  In that is the fulfillment of ALL of the Law, and of the prophets.  These were the teachings of Jesus we are commanded to observe. 

What we were NOT commanded to observe, are the unique interpretations of scripture that each denomination currently holds.  Those interpretations are meant to bring you closer to God.  But they are decidedly NOT on the Jesus-said-so list.  Love is.  Love is the only thing that is.  This is why it is so unfortunate when entire groups of Christians, decide that other groups of Christians are both wrong and evil, because they hold different interpretations of the same scriptures we all read.  Who is wrong, and who is not, is not important – if you believe we all seek the same Jesus, who alone is responsible for saving us, and leading us, into His truth, in His way, in His time, and in a manner that each one of us can comprehend and over time assimilate.  If you trust Jesus with your own salvation, then you must trust Jesus with mine.  We do not need to educate each other.  We need to love each other, and let our combined education flow from Jesus and the Holy Spirit as they see fit.  We are to be led by God, not to try to do the leading.  It is the interjection of unique doctrines, and interpretations into these verses than begin to make them of none effect.  If we boiled our teachings down to the same Love that Jesus asked of us, our differences would become meaningless.  For our journeys lead to the same place.

And what we seem most to forget about these words of Jesus written down by Matthew is the last phrases.  “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  We are NOT alone.  We never have been.  We are not just accompanied by our guardian angels who keep us safe from the unseen war that rages around us.  But we are accompanied by Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit who is everywhere at once, and with each of us, as we have permitted Him to be.  The eye of God Himself is on each of us.  He does not watch with pen in one hand, and tablet in the other, recording each and every wrong doing we embrace, by choice or by accident.  That list only has meaning if we reject His love.  It would serve as evidence to other humans who will one day ask “why is so-and-so not with us here in heaven”.  Then the list will be produced that shows an entire life of rejected love, the rejection of God’s love.  But for those who embrace God, that list has ALREADY been wiped clean by the blood of Christ and tossed into the deepest recesses of black holes the universe has to offer.  So when God Himself looks at us, he does not see the plethora of what is wrong with His child – He sees the infinite potential He could do and will do for that same child.

That kind of parental love is something we should understand.  When my parents looked at me at 2 years old sitting in the kitchen with gold paint everywhere.  They were surely not happy about my artistic skills.  But they did not love me any the less.  They cleaned me up (that was pretty rough).  They cleaned up what I had done (again no easy feat).  And they loved me each and every day after that.  Neither wanted a repeat of my golden paint fiasco, so paint cans were sealed tight, and moved beyond my reach.  They gave me a set of finger paints that were safer for me to use, and caused much less permanent damage.  This is the love of a parent.  Encourage the art, remove the danger, love the effort.  Would God look at us, at you, any different?  Would He not act as much as He could to take you out of the danger of your life.  Remove the desire to injest that which you should not injest.  Remove the desire to engage in what you should not engage.  He cannot prevent you from running away from Him or His wisdom.  But He can and does clean up your mess, clean you up, and love you everyday.  His efforts with you are the efforts of a parent who deeply loves their 2yr old.  And He looks to make the life of that toddler better every day.

This is what Jesus being with us, is like.  A Friend to talk to.  A Savior who cleans the mess.  A Creator who re-creates who we are, so that the future messes seem to just disappear.  And through all of it, love is at the center of it all.  We don’t need to know everything.  But if we are to have just one more for the road, let that one thing, be more of His love …

 

Marriage for Dummies 101 ...

There is no reason to seek Christian council or advice while our marriages represent all the same evil found in the world around us. If we are not drawing strength and comfort from our marriages, then we have nothing to offer others in the way of advice. It is time for a fundamental change in the most core relationship we are ever going to have on planet earth. It is time we abandon the language of Marriage and take back the meaning of Marriage so that our lives are visibly altered by what we do. In short, it is time our marriages make a difference, or we should not consider ourselves as married at all.

It begins and ends with intimacy. The entire structure of a marriage relationship was created by God to give man a living illustration of the kind of intimacy and joy our God wishes to experience with each of us. We have lost complete sight of this and have focused our attention on marriages on ourselves (sound familiar?). In so doing we write God out of the picture entirely, or put Him on such a back burner we only consult Him in times of great distress. This is the first part of our thinking that must change in order for marriage to regain its true meaning. Intimacy was the lesson. Intimacy with God was the original goal and can be again. As our God is represented as one God in three manifestations, so our marriages were designed to unite 3 entities in singular purpose. Marriage in effect, is a symbol of the Godhead, and COULD function in a similar way if we allow it to.

There is a meat company that used to advertise their hot dog products by saying … “We’re Hebrew National, we answer to a higher authority.” The intent was to convey that the typical rules of the USDA certifications for their beef hot dogs were not nearly enough for the quality standards of this company, as God was its supposed authority figure. The analogy applies well to our thinking on marriage. We have allowed social convention to define our marriages. We have allowed the laws enacted in family courts to define our marriages. We have allowed television to give us images of Ozzie and Harriett, Desperate Housewives, and Modern Family – to begin to define our marriages. And so we have settled for the constraints they have to offer, instead of going back to the source of all marriages, and to seek the meaning of marriage in the first place. Our marriage was supposed to tell us something of our God.

But how do creatures who are raised in different backgrounds, by different parents, with different genetic leanings and inclinations, become perfectly united in purpose in a relationship located in our real world? This almost seems like too high a goal to shoot for these days. We have been taught that it is unattainable. So we drift into the myths of 50/50 relationships, give AND take, compromise. But is this how the Godhead works? Does God the Father become the authoritarian figure and mandate what will occur over the whining objections of His child, and nagging protests of the Holy Spirit – NO! They are perfectly united in purpose. But then, They are not burdened with the curse and disease of self interest. They are in fact the antidote for self interest. And as such can agree on how to best serve, as the discussions are not ever about what can be gained, but on what can be given. Our marriages as symbols of this Holy Trinity could learn much by refocusing the same ways.

In practical terms it is impossible for humans of such vast differences to come together perfectly, until they are willing to submit to the Lord. There are then no successful marriages of 2 beings, only successful marriages of 3. God Himself becomes the uniting focal point of any marriage. God Himself not only seals the bonds of marriage during the ceremonial process on our wedding day, He actively is invited to participate in the daily decisions and actions of our union for as long as it exists. He cannot be placed on a back burner only to be thought about in crisis, He must be placed on the forefront, at the lead of every crucial crossroads. His council constantly thought of, His guidance sought by both when natural differences arise, His forgiving Spirit invoked when the pain of self-interest cuts its scars in the bonds that unite us. Our God must become an active part of our thinking when we consider what marriage truly is. Once we bend our will to His, it is possible for that which is different, to become that which is united in perfection. Our perfection is found only in our God, without Him, we struggle for mediocrity at best.

It begins and ends with Intimacy. Intimacy implies trust, love, commitment, unity, and permanence. How can I truly experience intimacy if I hold you at bay emotionally because I am afraid of being hurt? The commitment of marriage itself should allay this fear. How can I trust you to be faithful to me with so many who will seek you out for selfish purposes of the flesh? Submission of your will to Christ, will allow our God, our third party to the marriage, to keep you from the harm evil would seek to inflict. I do not have to trust your human weakness, I can put my faith in His divine leadership and intervention. How do I know you will love me in the many years to come? I know it as surety, because the author of ALL love is the center of our lives, thoughts, hopes, and aspirations. We are never far from an overflowing fountain of love, as we build our lives in concert with Him. In short, no human can promise the kinds of things that make a marriage last. But God has already a proven track record of delivery of all of these to us individually, and will continue His perfection in our marriages if we but return to basing them entirely upon His will and not our own.

Our marriages were intended for so much more than any TV portrayal has yet to proffer. The state making laws about marriage makes as about as much sense as a screen door on a submarine. The state makes laws about property rights, not marriages. The state makes laws about violence, not about marriages. The state makes laws about equality, not marriages. We comply with state laws as it is our duty to do, but the state has no idea what it is like to experience the perfection of unity, or the beauty of intimacy. There are no laws, no poems, no songs, no speeches that can begin to define the peace that can be drawn from love that has no end. When we submit our wills, we open doors to a marriage that words can scarcely describe. When we replace God in our unions of 3 to His rightful position, our marriages become bonded with the glue of heaven, and rely no more on human weakness or wisdom. This is the beginning of truth. It begins and it ends with intimacy.

Truth Begins ...

A gift is something you cannot earn, you may not deserve, and you are free to return. So it is that the saving of man from his own evil was devised as a gift of God to His erring creations, namely us. It was not because we deserve it. We openly and freely rejected God, we broke trust with Him. Our lives and our actions remain in this state from Adam to me. But love was larger than justice, love was greater than evil. And so Love found a way to redeem us from our first decision and the slavery that would follow. And Love knew it must do all the work of our redemption, for it relied upon us, we would remain doomed. You cannot trust an addict to voluntarily give up his drugs, so are we with our nature to please ourselves.

Evil would not be content to just let God bring us all back to Himself. Far from it, Evil had to find a way to mask the plan of Salvation, to alter it just enough as to keep it from being effective. And given our nature, it was not hard to accomplish this. A simple insidious plan to introduce self into the core of the Christian religion has been slowly introduced over the years. Instead of accepting the gift of our freedom from evil, sin, and ourselves – Satan altered the design by insinuating that the work of removing evil from us, was up to us. Catch phrases like “Sanctification is the work of a lifetime” and mis-applying scriptures like “Faith without works is dead”, have led Christians to believe they too have an important work in the saving of man. Over a period of time, we adopted the idea that we must be responsible for ending our own bad behavior. If we are failing at it, it is because we are praying too little, reading too little, or trusting too little. We were told to try harder. No matter the reason, we would be held accountable for our failures in a coming judgment.

The very definition of Salvation went from saving man from evil and himself, to strictly “going to heaven”. This removes the timing of getting rid of sin until a far future date. It sets expectations of perfection to a far off distant future, and given our abject failure at getting rid of our own sins, it seems more than reasonable. People start getting obsessed with when Jesus will return, because they pin all their hopes on a better life with less pain on “going to heaven”. We have consequently placed self at the core of our religion, and have thus robbed it of both its good news, and its power; time for truth to re-emerge.

Christ said “come unto Me all ye who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” It was Christ who defeated evil, paid the penalty we deserved, and in so doing won back our chance for freedom. We were condemned to the evil we chose, our guilt was never in question, but remarkably our defense attorney (Christ), upon hearing our sentence decided to take it upon Himself in our place. He would offer us as a gift, what we could never earn. He would do the work it takes to remove the sin from our lives, if we would just let Him do it. We would have to choose to allow Him to save us, but in so choosing, HE WOULD SAVE US. The plan of salvation was not enacted to make us free TO sin, but rather to make us free FROM sin. We do not need another excuse to continue in the pain we choose to inflict on ourselves, we need a method of escaping it. We need a reform of our thinking. We need a recreation of our very nature, of our desires, of our souls. And this is what Christ offers us each one.

His work in our souls is highly personal, as each of us is highly unique. We learn differently, we respond differently, we have different motives and thinking on almost everything. How He removes our sin and changes our thinking is a mystery, but the fact that He does only rests on our willingness to let Him do it. Think of it folks, REAL relief from real pain that has infected your existence since birth. It is available to you right NOW, right here, no matter your condition, no matter how deeply you dug yourself into the hole of pain you wallow in; there is hope and immediacy in the relief in Christ. Stop trying harder to kick a habit you cannot kick. Stop trying to put your own strength in a place God never intended it to be. Instead rely on the only God capable of beating evil, and of recreating the heart of man. You need only take His gift and submit your own will to His.

The key to changing our lives, and ending our pain lays not in how strong we are, but is made perfect in our weakness as He does what must be done in each life. Christ removes our pain. Christ changes what we want, and how we think, so that the nature and causes of our addictive behavior are ended permanently. We begin to wonder as time passes, how we ever wanted the things of the past, and why we did not allow Christ to end them sooner than we did. This level of freedom brings rest. We can give up the fighting, and turn over the battle to the only one who can win it. We need not judge each other any longer, nor condemn each other pointing out obvious flaws in each other, for Christ can fix all of this. Our witness transforms from condemnation and guilt, to redemption reclamation and joy. Our vision is opened up. We begin to see truth on an entirely deeper level. The mis-application of scripture begins to fade as we no longer look for a club to beat people with, we look for love to save people with.

When someone throws the phrase “Sanctification is the work of a lifetime” at me; I respond yes it is, it is the work of submitting our will and our desires over to Christ so that He can change them forever. Even in this, I depend on His strength to cover my weakness, as God is both the Author (creator of) and Finisher of my faith. When someone says “Faith without works is dead” to me; I respond yes it is, and it is like life without breathing in the air. When you have the one, you cannot help but have the other. The works follow the faith, for it is the nature of faith, to redefine our actions, our motives, and our behaviors. This text is merely a statement of the obvious, not a condemnation of those who do not try hard enough.

I can accept anyone in any condition, not because I endorse their particular sin or pain, but because I know Christ can fix it in them, as He does in me. I am free to love without condition or prerequisite. I am not constrained to love only those who think like I do, but to love those who disagree with me, or even those who hate me. I have no need to preach to people, for I have nothing of value to say. But I can answer questions about how my life has improved and why I am so happy being connected to the source of all love and happiness, and how you can achieve it too. The good news of the gospel has returned, for saving us from evil is truly a gift once more. The power of the gospel has returned in that real change can happen right here and right now, by the miraculous redeeming power of Christ’s love. This is exciting. This is the birth of truth.