The Coming of Elias ...

No-one believes in “now”.  Everyone seems comfortable in “someday”.  But to believe that someday is here, seems to much for any of us to accept.  When the time comes, it is time to stand.  But there is the catch, when does “when” truly arrive.  As Christians we await the second coming, we await the end of all things. 2000+ years ago, an oppressed people awaited the first coming, the coming of the Messiah.  The World was around 2000 years old when Noah and his family were saved.  It had been another 2000 years past that when the Messiah would finally arrive.  Abraham was dust by then.  David was dust.  The prophets mostly in their tombs.  Yet alas, not all the prophets were gone.  In fact, prophets were constantly with Israel through the entire passage of time.  They acted as a communication line between Jesus and us.  They were inspired to say, to preach, to warn, to encourage – whatever the Lord our God told them to say.  And while they were not all accepted in their own times; after they died their manuscripts were venerated and became what we now call the Old Testament part of our Bibles.

If you were a Jew, living in the age of Roman supremacy, you longed for the Messiah as well.  But who would believe it was here?  Ask yourself, how soon do you really think the second coming of the Lord will be?  You can perhaps accept it is coming.  But to think it will be next week, tomorrow, today – most of us just say no, we do not believe in “now”, we believe only in “someday”, perhaps someday soon.  So is it any wonder, that the people who lived right up the birth of Jesus Christ, likely looked at time the same way we do?  They longed for it, but “when”; that is an entirely different matter.  The Messiah was believed to solve a number of problems, escape from oppression being number one.  That was then.  The second coming is believed to solve a number of different problems.  Escape from the oppression of sin and our addiction to sin being number one.  We look exactly the same, then and now.  They doubted the timeline, we do too.  We use the excuse they invented – that our grandparents, and parents, all thought it was soon, and they were all dust in the ground with no event to show for it.

There comes the time, when “now”, means now.  No more waiting.  Just now.  Does that idea spark fear or joy in your heart?  Luke gives us an account of a human response to the idea of now.  And there are many parallels for us to discover.  He picks up with the backstory in his gospel letter in verse 5 saying … “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. [verse 6] And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.”  Is righteous and blameless the same thing as perfect?  Can you achieve these things by the power of will, or must it take the power of His love completely ruling you, in order for it to occur?  Those ordinances that Zacharias the priest and his wife Elisabeth observed included the rights of sacrifice, repentance, and forgiveness.  Observing those forgiveness rituals would have made them blameless before the Lord, even if they were not perfected yet. 

The question becomes, how often did they need forgiveness?  The measure of love you hold in your heart for others (and the lack of it for yourself) will give you a pretty good indication of how often you need repentance and forgiveness.  But just because 2 servants of God, did what God asked, does not mean they had a perfect life.  They were not blessed in all things, even though they were blessed in many things.  This was not punishment, it was preparation.  Might it be so with you as well.  What you see as punishment, might only be preparation for something far greater.  Can we open our eyes through trust, and find ourselves part of something much larger than the tiny timelines of our own lives?  It was to be so for Zachariah, and Elisabeth, even though their entire youth would pass by barren and without the blessing of children.

Luke continues in verse 7 saying … “And they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.”  First you will note, that Zachariah did not abandon his wife, because she was unable to conceive.  Nor did he pull an “Abraham” and simply add another wife to the equation.  Part of perfection, or rather blamelessness, is to love whether things go our way or not.  He remained a dedicated husband despite her inability to conceive.  Frankly, had Luke not specifically named Elisabeth as the cause it just as easily could have been him.  Inspiration clears that up for us.  But having no heir, was considered a curse in Israel at the time.  That curse then was a reflection of how you were living your life.  It was thought that God withheld His blessings of family from those who carried secret evil in their hearts.  So as usual, the church, and the local people and neighborhood gossips, held a field day at Elisabeths’s expense.  She later refers to this as “her reproach”.

Luke continues in verse 8 saying … “And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, [verse 9] According to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. [verse 10] And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense.”  The burning of incense was not just done on the day of atonement, but it was a solemn duty none the less.  And the Temple was a Holy Place none the less.  While Zachariah went about this ritual, the people gathered outside the front door of the Temple and prayed and sang hymns to themselves of the love and mercy of God.  You can bet many of those prayers were for the Messiah.  Need drives prayer.  The Romans certainly created plenty of need.  I wonder, do we see our sins in the same light?  Do we see a full and final escape from our sins, from who we are, as a great need that drives us to pray for relief, not just forgiveness?

 Luke continues in verse 11 saying … “And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. [verse 12] And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.”  Here is our humanity shining through.  Forgiven is not enough to keep us from fear.  Only a full lack of sin can do that.  While there is still sin in us, there is still fear in us.  When there is only love in us, fear will leave the building.  Zacharias adheres to all the ordinances and traditions.  Yet when confronted with an angel of the Lord, his humanity shines through, and he becomes afraid.  All the sudden, the texts of Old become alive.  All of the sudden, the supernatural becomes very real, very present.  And if it is present, then the presence of the Lord in that Temple becomes even more real as well.  Our minds instantly gravitate back to the last sin we committed.  Did we repent of it?  Do we really wish to be rid of it?  Or do we just want forgiveness number 547 until the next time we commit it again requiring forgiveness number 548.  And when does God run out of patience with us, perhaps on number 549?  And so enters fear as we examine ourselves.

Luke continues in verse 13 saying … “But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. [verse 14] And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. [verse 15] For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. [verse 16] And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. [verse 17] And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”  Wow!  That was a mouthful.  So first things first, the fact that this couple was barren, was not something they just ignored.  They did what all of us should do.  They took their sorrow to the Lord and prayed for His intervention, for Him to do, what science cannot do.  This angel’s first declaration is fear not, for their prayer has been answered.

Now every parent is always happy to know that junior is coming.  But long before ultra-sounds, and chemical testing, the angel tells Zachariah the sex of the child (what dad does not want a boy, at least once).  And the angel names him John.  More good news.  But it gets much better quickly.  Anyone can have a boy, but what if that boy turns out to be Saddam Hussein, or Adolph Hitler?  Not an appealing prospect.  But the angel is saying don’t worry, many people are going to be happy this boy was born.  This child is going to be great in the sight of the Lord.  Talk about an accomplishment there.  So the angel gives the new parents a precaution, we want this kids brain as good as it can be, so ditch anything with alcohol in it.  Nothing, nada, ever.  And the even better upside is that the Holy Spirit is going to be in this kid, even while he is still in momma’s womb.  Maybe not all babies are destined to be babies, but this one certainly was.  Hard to argue with this.

And the last bit of good news was perhaps the best.  This child was going to turn the hearts of the people towards God, in the spirit and power of Elias (just like the prophet of old in other words).  To turn the disobedient back to the wisdom of the just, this is just awesome stuff.  And it would be driven by the Holy Spirit from birth forwards.  The angel has effectively said – time is up, or rather the time is “now”.  Zachariah is being confronted with a message of the “now”.  The reality is that Zachariah is old, and has never seen anything like this.  How old are you?  Better said, are you so old, that you refuse to be confronted with the “now” even though the angels of God would love to give you just that message?  Could you accept it?  Could you believe it, because it comes from the mouth of an angel?

As blameless as Zachariah is, as used to following all the right rituals as he is, this guy is a priest by occupation after all – all of that is not a recipe for lack of doubt.  Luke continues in verse 18 saying … “And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”  This is the danger of religion based on so many rituals.  We begin to think that the performance of rituals somehow depends on us, instead of being designed for our benefit.  Zachariah is used to being active in his religion.  So when the angel tells him he is going to have this miracle baby boy, Zachariah immediately assumes he is supposed to get it done.  And he knows Elisabeth can’t, or he can’t.  Zachariah knows that his humanity is now old and tired.  There was no Viagra back then.  And Elisabeth is long past menopause.  If this is meant for humanity to solve, it will not happen.  So Zachariah wants a sign to insure he can believe what he is hearing – all the while forgetting where he is, and who he is talking to.

Luke continues in verse 19 saying … “And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. [verse 20] And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.”  Yikes.  Gabriel that stands in the presence of God, that is not just an inconsequential position.  It is the replacement for the fallen Lucifer.  This is the chief angel coming personally to tell Zachariah these things, and yet Zachariah relies upon his own ideas about how to get them done, knows he cannot, and so doubts.  Zachariah wants another sign, and he will get one.  Not a good one, but a sign none the less.  Zachariah will no longer be able to speak until this is all accomplished.  Time to run to Walmart and pick up a chalk board and a ton of chalk and good eraser.  No wait, they did not have Walmart back then.  Oops.

This conversation has taken way longer than burning incense is supposed to take.  The people are getting a little nervous.  Luke concludes this segment in verse 21 saying … “And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple. [verse 22] And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless. [verse 23] And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.”  Despite being unable to speak, Zachariah still had duties at the Temple that had to be fulfilled.  When all of them were done, he went home, still speechless. 

What happens when the angel of the Lord tells us – it is time.  What happens when someday is converted to “now”?  What happens when what you read becomes real to you in a way you never imagined.  This issue is not just one in the pending pile, it is in the coming pile.  We may not be blessed with the birth of another John the Baptist (who otherwise would have been called John Ben Zachariah as was the custom – his work earned him the more famous title).  But we will face the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  We will be given our own message to carry.  For me, it was – it is time to wake up.  I have known that message since I was in college, and it has never changed.  For me the now, is still now, even though what I long for, is not now yet.  But if there is a lesson in the 5 foolish virgins and the 5 wise, I interpret the now, as the time to prepare and secure oil in our lamps.  Because one day, perhaps more soon than any of us can imagine, that final midnight cry will go out.  And whatever we have secured of His oil, and His love in our hearts, will be all there will ever be.  Perhaps for you, your someday is becoming now right in front of your eyes.  Are you listening for the word of an angel, or discerning it in the scriptures right there in that Bible on the shelf?

Elias has already come.  It was as sure as the word of the angel of the Lord who stands in the presence of God.  But this was not the only back story Luke needed to share with us …

 

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 …

 

An Atheist's Anthem ...

 “If I only saw a sign, I would believe.”  This is a familiar chorus I have heard from nearly every non-believer I have encountered.  Sadly, it is also a familiar refrain I have heard from many Christians.  We look for the impossible to validate a faith that does not make any sense.  We ask to see the impossible for ourselves, unwilling to take the words or testimony of others on this account.  It needs to be personal.  It needs to be tangible.  Or else, how could I believe?  And in this we destroy our journey-of-faith and wish for certainty in its place.  But be honest, how could you ever be certain, of the impossible?  Even if you witness a single incident of it, will one witness be enough to believe in all the others, and for the rest of your life?  So if you must witness more than one incident, how many will be enough?  All of them?  Would it really take time travel to finally make us believe that what is recorded in scripture was real?  If you are looking here, you are cheating yourself.  There is another venue, and something a lot more personal for each of us.

To begin, certainty is not the goal.  If I asked you to trust me, how would you go about it?  You might evaluate our interactions, our history together.  You might conclude that if my behavior was always in line with your expectations, that you could extend trust to me, and then see what happens.  But therein lies the catch.  No matter how I have behaved with you in the past, no matter how consistent our history may be, each time you extend trust to me, you take a risk.  If past is prologue, then you may believe the risk to be low.  But that “belief” is still a “belief” you hold about my trustworthiness, based on a myriad of factors, but none the less a “belief” that I will not let you down.  This is how trust works. 

You may trust your mom for example, because your mom has demonstrated that she loves you.  Even if she screws up, she still loves you, though her mistake proves her human.  You may even elect to extend trust to her again after a huge mistake, because there has been only one (or few you know about), and generally she does not make them.  But even with mom (mistakes or no), every time you extend trust, you hold a “belief” that it is worth it, to trust her.  Certainty is impossible.  Because you cannot absolutely predict what anyone else (including God) may do, or why they do it.  In the end, you have ideas about it, guesses about it, even educated guesses about it.  But behavior is a tricky thing to absolutely predict, and so people surprise us sometimes (for better or for worse).  To trust anyone, is to embrace “belief”, at the exclusion of absolute certainty.

But where God is concerned, it is more blame that goes around, than trust.  That has directly to do with our picture of “who or what” God is.  The media, our parents, our church, our friends, our professors, may have all played a role in forming an image in your mind about who God is.  Suffice it to say, it boils down to one of 2 main images.  Most folks think God is a version of Santa Clause.  We go to Him to ask for stuff.  We are happy when we get it.  Mad when we don’t.  But are generally quick to ruthlessly blame God for anything bad that happens, under the logic that Santa should have been watching and been able to prevent the bad stuff before it ever happened.  After all, He has done it for others, why not me?  Way too many Christians have this exact image of God, despite all the scriptures.  Most Atheists just don’t believe in any kind of Santa Clause, or any god, but if there were a God, He would be to blame for everything.

In the Santa Clause picture of God, no trust is required.  Neither is certainty.  If you get the stuff you asked for, hallelujah.  If not, it must not be in God’s time yet.  So Santa has a slot machine sort of response to what you ask for, the odds are low, but you never know.  How could faith ever grow in you, if this is the image of God you believe in, or have the most experience with?  And believe me, Satan is WAY too happy to keep this image of God in your mind.  Perhaps enough to grant you some of those wishes himself, in order for you to never shed this image of the God you pray to.  But our real God, needs us to trust Him.  That trust is a critical component of His ability to save us – from us.  Denying yourself to let some random God you don’t really know remake who you are, is just not likely.  Better to keep the Santa image, and just hope for the best.

So God’s problem is getting you to stop thinking of Him in terms of doling out rewards and punishments, and start thinking of Him for the Being He truly is.  The other image of God (a saving God).  God wants to save you, from you.  He loves you (being the primary and singular motive of His).  God sees sin as the punishment and the addictive disease.  And He has only one way to rid you of it.  But for that to work, you have to trust Him enough to let Him do it, in spite of how it looks.  Trust, in spite of common sense.  Trust, in spite of what everyone else tells you.  Trust, that He is able to do the impossible in you, where history demonstrates, you are clearly unable to do it.  So if that is His mission, and trust is what He needs from you.  Offering you certainty does nothing to accomplish it.  If you witness a 1,000 different acts of the impossible, all you will have learned is that it is possible for God to do the impossible.  You might have already imagined that.  But you will still have no reason to let Him reconstruct who you are.  A thousand elements of certainty do not build trust, they build resentment.  Back to the Santa Clause image – now that I have seen 1,000 impossible things – I intend to open complaints about why I did not benefit from any of them.  A thousand acts of love and impossibility for others, does me not one bit of good.  So now I am mad at Santa, because there was only coal in my stocking, while my neighbor got Barbie’s playhouse.

The first problem with asking for signs, is that it does not bring trust.  The second, is that it will only make you mad they were not for you, or selfish if they were (who does not want more miracles in their own lives).  And lastly they are usually requested as a condition of belief (instead of a result of it) doing nothing to foster trust, so there will never be enough of them, to really make a believer out of you.  You will either find a way to let your skepticism reduce the impossible, to a scientifically explainable trick (or perhaps a random set of circumstances that worked out just right despite the incredible odds, like say the hypothesis of evolution) - or you will find you have an insatiable appetite for more signs, at the cost of what you profess is a belief.  In any case, the mission God has to save you, from you, by remaking you fails because He grants your wishes for signs as a condition of belief.  A change in thinking, on the other hand, will pull back the veil that has blinded your eyes to the impossible.  What you witness after a change in how you perceive life, is going to be mind blowing.  Sounds crazy right now, but that’s the point.  It is crazy.  But it is also real.  And it will be a lot more personal to you than you could possibly imagine now.

Take as a case in point the story of two types of people in the gospel of Matthew the 27^th chapter.  Picking up in verse 38 it reads … “Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.”  You could argue these men might have been believers in the Jewish faith (though obviously not perfect observers of the Law).  It is not known exactly what they believed at least from Matthew’s account.  However we know from other versions of the good news, that one repented before he died, the other did not.  Dieing in the company of known criminals tends to make one look like a criminal even if this is not true.  This death will do nothing to uplift the reputation of Christ.  But Jesus does not care about His reputation.  In His trial all manner of lies were told about Him, and His response was perfect silence.  No condemnation, no calling people out on their sins, only silence.  But Jesus was eager to speak to anyone who seeks salvation.  When the dying theif seeks Jesus, Jesus responds, no matter what kind of physical pain He was in.  When that same theif was hurling insults at Him, Jesus remained silent.

Matthew continues in verse 39 saying … “And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, [verse 40] And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.”  Dying in the company of thieves, and up on a Roman cross, was decidedly NOT the sign the Jewish people were looking for where it comes to proving Jesus was God.  These were believers.  These were those who studied scriptures.  And yet their ideas about what God was supposed to do – that is, to throw off Roman oppression and setup a Kingdom that would last forever – overpowered all the other texts and prophecies that predicted exactly this part of the mission of God to save us.  “Believers” who desired something else of God, and refused to accept what God was actually doing to truly answer their prayers.  When Santa does not behave how we want Him to, what good is Santa right?  And so in this case, the very fact Jesus was actually fulfilling prophecy, was the very fact that disqualified Him as being the Messiah in their minds.  Sound familiar?

How often do we ask God for a thing, and threaten Him that if He does not do it, we will believe no longer?  Save me.  Save my child.  Save my spouse.  From the disease and death that stalk them.  If the results are not what we expect – we become angry and decide there cannot be a God – or else why did He not answer my prayer.  But perhaps He did, just not in the way you expected.  Perhaps from Gods point of view, saving you, your child, your spouse, for eternity is most important to all of you.  Should earthly life end today, and infinite life begin tomorrow, reunited, with infinite love in all of your hearts – is this not the preferred outcome all of you would want, even if it comes at the price of shortening how long you live in this world today?  Let’s say instead of focusing on the eternal, that God allowed you the answer to your prayers, and saved that life in the here and now.  As time passes, you, or your child, or your spouse, begin to change (not for the better).  Perhaps over time, one of you decides there is no God at all, and if there is, He is not worth following.  Sin is more “fun”, instead of the disease it truly is.  If that is how you meet your end in this world, and the eternal world is sacrificed in the process.  Did God really do what was in your best interest all those years ago when He saved you only to meet this new end?  And God knows what you will choose long before it happens.  Santa might let this play out.  But God would rather it didn’t.  God would prefer to cherish you while your free will choice reciprocates that love, rather than let you exist long enough to discard it under the weight of sin’s embrace.

So because God does not do what we want or expect, does not make Him any less trustworthy.  Keep in mind Jesus was doing what ALL of us need for salvation.  Not trying to prove Himself to nay-sayers at the time and place of His death.  Matthew continues in verse 41 saying … “Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, [verse 42] He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.”  And there we have it, the Athiest’s Anthem coming right out of the mouths of the very top leadership of the church at that time.  What image of God do you suppose they had, the one of a saving God who would die in our place, and fulfill prophecy – or the one of Santa who doles out punishment and reward emphasis on punishment.  And had Jesus descended off that cross in front of their eyes, gliding right down in front of them fully healed, what do you suppose their response would have been?  They would have hated Him all the more, because now Roman oppression still abounded, and Jesus would be impossible to kill after all.  Think about it, they already had ALL the previous miracles Jesus did to consider in weighing whether or not He was the Messiah, and NONE of them changed their course of action or belief.  They chose to dismiss every previous sign and still pursue killing Him.

And should Jesus have chosen to assuage His own ego, by proving to these priests He truly did have this power, what kind of God does that truly make Him?  A God of ego?  Who would gladly sacrifice our eternal considerations for those of the moment?  How could we be saved then?  It is often our expectations of what God should do, that could never be met anyway.  Because we come from a place of ego and selfishness, where God comes from a totally opposite perspective.  Jesus believes it is better to die to save all of us, than to do anything shortsighted, and gain nothing.  Jesus never used any of His power to benefit Himself.  Instead He used it unceasingly on us, the objects of His love, restoring us, removing the pain of sin and death from us.  Our restoration tops the mind of a saving God.  Not just getting rid our physical diseases, but getting rid of the way more deadly sinful disease of bad motives driving bad choices we continue to embrace.  Curing us of our desire to sin, is way more important.  Saving us from an eternal perspective way more important than saving us in the moment.

The ridicule continues as Matthew writes picking up in verse 43 saying … “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. [verse 44] The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.”  Matthew hears the mockery of the thieves, but misses the repentance of the one.  Here we have an example of Jesus suffering the same fate as we do from time to time.  Jesus trusted in His Father.  And yet, He was dying, very painfully in this world.  The Father had NO interest in seeing His Son be tortured and die.  But the Father had a GREAT interest in seeing all of humanity be saved and reconciled unto Himself.  The death of His Son was that price.  In order that the need for Justice be satisfied.  So Jesus dies, in extreme pain we inflicted.  And the Father must sit there in silence and watch.  The eternal salvation outweighing the salvation of the moment.  This is how great our God desires to save us in the eternal realm, not just the here and now.  It is a different way of thinking.

So the repentant thief represents one kind of person, the mocking priests another.  For those mocking priests, no sign would ever be enough.  And frankly the next section of texts are going to have some doozies.  For the repentant thief however, for those of us who seek salvation from Jesus, what will happen in us is a change.  You will note that repentant theif was NOT saved from the cross.  He died in this world, but with certainty about his own place in the next one.  And change began to occur even in the worst dying circumstances any of us can imagine.  We too will become different than we are today.  Not because we work for it.  But because we begin to choose to trust Him, and allow Him to remake us however He sees fit.  Then change is surely on its way in us.  We read scripture differently.  We begin to see love as the primary motivation, instead of some wild afterthought.  We begin to reason differently.  And over time, the blinders of bad choices, the blinders of doubt, fall away – and what is revealed is a regular diatribe of the impossible happening all the time.  For example, the changing of hearts.  Not just of others, but of my own.  Learning how to love differently, and more deeply, than you had ever imagined.  No seminar could ever get this done.  But allowing Jesus full access sure does.  Without Jesus, things tend to degenerate.  But with Jesus, things tend to improve, especially in areas where it matters the most.

That sign, that impossibility, is very personal, very tangible, and you will live with its benefit every day of your life.  Does it cure your cancer?  No.  It could.  But it does not have to.  It fixes something more important.  The quality of your days expands exponentially, whether you are beset by physical pain and disease, or whether you are healed from them.  Keep in mind, disease does not exist in heaven.  So whether here or there, you are destined to see disease, pain and death no more.  And what happens to the desire to see a sign now?  You lose the selfishness part of that.  Instead of asking for goodies for yourself, you have no thought of yourself.  But you are swamped with thoughts of others.  You want to BE a sign for someone else, help them, meet their need if you can, no matter how you are feeling at the time.  And where you are powerless to meet their need, you do ask God for the impossible.  Not as a condition of belief, but because you are SURE He can, and will do what is right for that person’s eternal interest.  Where it comes to the removal of sin, 100% guarantee He wants that.  Where it comes to all the other worldly stuff, His gifts must fall in line with our salvation.  Knowing He longs to give them, and knowing He must hold them back, if they would add to our downfall.

Life, instead of existence, is a very tangible, and personal thing.  No one else can define it for you.  No one else can deny the impossible you are witness to in your heart and life.  For you know what is true for you.  You see what God does in your life.  What you suffer from in the eyes of others matters not.  Whether you are burdened with wealth, sickness, persecution – those do not represent the favor or curse of God.  They represent the danger of evil in this world, and are used by Satan to try to get people to believe in a Santa Clause image of God doling out rewards and punishments.  But for the one who truly believes, and chooses to truly trust, the curtain is pulled back – and the impossible is revealed every day no matter what our circumstances or positions may be.  Certainty has never been the goal.  Trust in spite of not knowing has always been it.  That kind of trust prevents the next Satan in the world to come.  And creates a new creature of you in the world we live in today.

 

The Price of Devotion ...

The one thing all of us hold on to with everything we have is our life.  We do not look forward to death and try to postpone that eventuality as long as possible.  It is human nature.  It is the nature of life itself.  Life was meant to be lived.  It was meant to be eternal.  But the embrace of sin introduced pain, and eventually death.  Things God did not intend for us; knowledge we were never supposed to know.  Pain and death were supposed to be mysterious concepts we might discuss in perfection, having no idea what they meant, but trying to guess at them.  Instead, humanity has a first-hand knowledge of both pain and death.  And mortality itself drives us to postpone our eventualities as long as possible.  The irony in all of this, is that when pain or death overtake us, we have the nerve to call these tragedies “the will of God” (that would be the definition of fake news).  It is as if we stole those words of blaming God from the mouth of Satan himself.  It is not God to blame for any of this.  We shoulder that blame.  Nor is it His will that any should suffer or die, it is sin that introduces those eventualities; the diseases that come, the wars that are fought, the acts of violence and accident that take lives and limbs.  None of it, the will of God.  All of it, God must stomach like the rest of us, for sin cannot be driven away through edict, or free-will would be swept away with it.

But when we discuss life and death, we should examine the word “life” as much as we discuss death.  Is it “life” when pain still exists?  Or is that really just existence?  Think of the life of someone who has been abused so horrifically they have lost their mental faculties, and now repeat things without reason, act in ways that are self-destructive, and find themselves lost, homeless, and unable to understand what you are saying to them or trying to do for them.  Add the self poisoning of drugs and chemical destruction to the mix.  Can we still call living in this kind of depraved condition, a real life, or is this just some form of existence?  God does not will this.  God has something else in mind, so great, this poor and afflicted person could not comprehend it even for a moment.  We can hardly imagine it.  How could a mind so degraded begin to understand it?  We would look with extreme pity on such a soul.  We would ask ourselves how we could help, and come away only sharing simple human kindness, and praying for intervention against the sin and Satan of this world.

The poor and depraved, and mentally degraded person I describe, is not some random homeless on the street; it is you, and it is me.  We are homeless as this world the way it is, is NOT our home.  We wander through a wasteland cursed by our own sin.  We have no idea what our real home is going to look like, and why the greatest mansion on earth today is a poo-poo hill, next to what the smallest shack in heaven will look like.  But we don’t know that world, so we begin to value the poo we have, while angels hold their noses and wonder how this is possible.  And we have been abused by the nature of our sinful choices.  We develop habits, repeating things over and over that do not make any sense, and work to our own self harm.  Yet we seem powerless to stop this self-destructive behavior.  We go around muttering things like “we have to look out for number one”, and other slogans of self-empowerment, when the pursuit of happiness only leads us further into misery.  We are diseased.  We are afflicted with genetic degradation that makes us incapable of understanding what perfection and eternity really look like.  It is the core of who we are, our characters, that are so engrained in these diseases, that there is only one cure for them – to die – and to be reborn, or re-created by Jesus Christ.

But as our mortality drives us to postpone physical death; our engrained characters are none too happy to die either.  We may understand that what Jesus will re-create in us might be great; but we are comfortable with who we are now, and unsure, or unwilling to let that go.  So what is the true price of devotion to Christ?  Is it willingness to let who we are go, and to be reborn?  Perhaps this is what it means to die to self.  Peter thought he was ready for it.  He wasn’t.  Matthew tells the story of their shame in chapter 26 of his gospel picking up in verse 31 saying … “Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.”  Yikes.  Each and every one of the disciples, the followers of Christ, the devoted ones – were to be “offended” by Jesus Christ that night.  Shocked by His actions (or rather inaction) in the face of death.  Unable to understand that death must come, in order for rebirth to occur.  Or perhaps like us, unwilling to let our understanding go, in favor of accepting an understanding only He can give us.

But Jesus was not done with His prophesying.  Jesus continues in verse 32 saying … “But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.”  Death was coming.  There was no way to avoid it.  Because of sin, death became an eventuality, even for Jesus – especially for Jesus – in order that life might come for us.  A return to the meaning of life as God intended it.  Not just existence, but life.  A removal of the fog of our diseased thinking, and an instillation of the clarity of His thinking in its place.  Prior to transformation this is very hard to understand.  But our God does give each of us a glimpse through the fog, enough that we are free enough, to make this choice without the burden of our sin weighing down the outcome.  We are given the freedom of mind to choose His love, or to reject it.  But make no mistake, without the intervention of our God to bring us up to parity to choose; sin would rob us of our free-will and make deranged slaves of us all.  It is the outcome many choose in spite of a moment’s clarity to choose Jesus.  The price of our devotion to Christ may lead to our death.  But the price of rejecting His love only buries us in an existence of pain, while doing nothing to avoid the death that will one day take us all.

And as for the death of “who” we are.  This is a death we should long for.  It is the trading of deranged existence for the restoration of what a real life means.  Your diseased mind cannot comprehend it while it remains diseased.  You need the power of His transformation of who you are, to free your thinking, so that you can begin to see the difference between existence and life, between fake happiness, and deep personal joy, that none can take away.  It is as Jesus foretold, He would die, but would NOT stay in the grave.  He would “go before” them into Galilee, only a first of many encounters we would all have with a risen Lord.  It is important to understand Jesus as our creator, because as our creator, He is able to recreate a real life in us.  Once we allow Him to make that change, the path to real understanding begins.  It may not be instantaneous, but it is certain.  It begins with letting go.  Letting go of the “life” we think we have built.  And accepting that His offer gives us “life” we could not have even imagined before.  It is trading the fake wealth of this world, for the poo it really was, and finding the real treasure of this world, in the hearts of others.

But Peter saw none of this.  He had yet to be transformed.  He had yet to allow it.  So he answered in verse 33 saying … “Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.”  Peter said in effect, even if all these other bums are offended, I won’t be, cause I am special.  Here is where pride took over reason.  Pride a symptom of original sin and capable of making us blind to what is truly important.  Only moments before in the last supper Jesus told them one of them was going to betray Him, and ALL of them, including Peter, was forced to ask, “is it me”.  Now having seemed to escape that prophecy we run head long into opposing the words of Christ, for nothing more than our ego.  While at the same time, essentially saying, I am greater than these other guys, even if “they” fall, I WILL NOT.  And how many times have you gotten up from your sin, begging the Lord for forgiveness you do not deserve, and then make the empty promise that “YOU” will not sin anymore.  A promise history will demonstrate YOU have broken, every single time.

It is not His forgiveness that is broken, it is your ability to keep any promise you make.  Stop it.  Quit making the presumption of arrogance that you are able to choose to sin no more.  Instead, in humility accept that only Jesus can take the desire of sin from you in the first place.  It is the victory of Jesus in you, that can remove your sin, NOT what you do or don’t do.  It is what Jesus does.  You need only to get out of the way, and let yourself slip away, let Him decide “who” you are to be.  Let your sinful desires die in the hands of Christ, and let your new desires be reborn or re-created.  Peter has decided here, in error, that Peter will decide what Peter will do in the future.  And Peter will not be offended no matter what the Savior of the world has just said.  Imagine the arrogance of such a statement, in defiance of what Jesus has said.  Instead of this proclamation of false victory Peter was sure to experience.  He might of said, “Lord forgive me”, and take this thing from me.  But alas, reason is blinded by the disease of pride.

Jesus responds in verse 34 saying … “Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.”  Peter thought his devotion to Christ was beyond question.  It was not.  While Peter clung to the ideas of “who” he was, he allowed sin a foothold in him, that led to this unfortunate series of events.  The real price of absolute devotion to Christ, is to put our lives in His hands, no matter what happens to our lives.  But by far, NOT just our physical lives – rather more importantly, the lives we think we have built – the core of who we are – our characters.  Letting our character die in the hands of Christ, letting all sin go, not just some of it, or part of it, but all of it – even if that means I will not recognize who I am anymore.  That is rather the point.  The point is to not recognize who you are anymore, because the new version of you that Jesus creates will be so enormously better.  And the current you cannot understand that, until it is willing to let go, to die, and to be reborn for real.

But Trump and Peter have more in common than we might have first thought.  Matthew continues with Peter’s response in verse 35 saying … “Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.”  Peter doubled down.  If Trump could only read these passages, how much better might his presidency be.  But alas Peter doubled down, because his pride was now in question, and pride blinds us to reason.  Instead of being humbled by this further pronouncement of Jesus, Peter decides to argue with it again, and this time to raise the stakes.  Peter is now pledging his physical life, long before he has allowed Jesus to remake him fully.  How can you promise to sacrifice your physical life, if you have been unwilling to sacrifice even the life of your character which does not require you to physically die to do it?  You make promises against human nature, despite being aligned with human nature.  Only the transformed heart understands the true nature of “life” and could ever be comfortable with sacrificing it here, to preserve it in the world to come.  The death of “what” we are, is not what our Lord asks, He asks for the death of “who” we are.

And as I imagine what must happen in Trump’s cabinet when he makes a decision, the others follow suit, also proclaiming that they support this very same idea.  The other disciples also pledge upon pain of death, that they too, will not be offended.  None of them broken as yet, but all of them heading towards that end.  For their own pride’s have arisen in them to blind them to humility, and to walk a different road.  What might it have been like if instead of this outrageous mumbling against the Word of the Lord, they might have dropped to the feet of Jesus and begged forgiveness for this thing, begging to have it taken from them as ONLY Jesus could do.  To be wiling to have no pride, to be willing to embrace humility in front of those you love, and those you don’t.  That is the mark of a transformed heart, and the evidence of what true devotion might look like.  But Matthew condemns himself in his own writings, that he too, was unwilling to submit, but rather when it counted the most, stood against our Lord and His counsel.

So many of us modern Christians claim devotion to Christ.  But that devotion is built upon our own ideas of what devotion means.  We are like our disciple forefather before their transformations.  We are devoted when it is convenient.  When we sacrifice for the cause, we see it as sacrifice, not as opportunity to serve.  When asked if we would give our lives for Christ, we say with pride “yes”.  But the life we mean is our physical life, as the life of our character has yet to be put upon His altar.  We have not allowed Jesus to change who we are yet; and despite this, we pledge to give Him what we are.  Some of us have mild experiences with Jesus, perhaps the removal of one sin, or impact in one problem area.  Yet despite the example of how it works, we keep plugging along fighting our sins ourselves, declaring our promises not to do it again.  And finding ourselves on our knees after we fail just one more time.  And then again.  And again.  Until our sins are beyond counting.

It is our promises that need to die.  It is our certainty we should let go.  Instead, we should turn to Jesus and in humility, ask Him to take this thing from us.  And watch what He does, when you get out of the way.  Jesus did not come, so that your personal knowledge of sin, pain, and death, would remain eventualities for you.  He came to change your paradigm.  He came to disrupt who you are.  He came to take from you, the disease that keeps you mired in pathetic existence; and instead offer you life, and life more abundantly.  The price of devotion is no “price” at all, when transformation is what you experience.  You may not see it clearly yet, but you can, you will, you need only go to Jesus in humility and ask, Lord forgive me, take this thing from me, and then sit back, let go, and watch what happens.  Become witness in your own testimony to what Jesus does for you.  Afterwards you will understand, what for now, your mind may not comprehend.  But it can begin here, begin now, and you can finally see what life looks like.