The Only Thing Evil Knows - Communion (part eight) ...

When once you turn away from the light, the only alternative left to you is darkness.  When once you turn away from love, hate is the destiny you embrace.  Lucifer was created in the perfection of service and love to others.  His position was once third highest in all of creation, he stood at the left hand of the Father.  He was unaware of a distinction between himself and Christ, because the love of God towards others so was full there had never been a reason to measure it before.  But within this perfection, Lucifer reasoned that perhaps existence did not require this method to maintain perfection.  Perhaps an alternative was possible that would simply result in a “different” perfection than the one God setup.  He broke trust with God, and put his trust in the power of his own intellect and will.  He continued on his path, until the point where he could not be saved, because he would not be saved.  And there was war in heaven.  When once he knew only love and harmony, he would now be willing to introduce war and death into heaven itself.  Love had turned to hate, as trust was irrevocably broken.  Evil was born into the universe, and the opposite of love was defined for all sentient life to witness in horror; hate had come.

Lucifer became Satan.  The archangel became the devil.  A universe of perfect love to others, had been corrupted into a self-absorbed, self-focused, acquire-at-all-costs emptiness that could never be filled.  To look back at the perfect peace unfallen beings maintained, and witness the perfect love of service the unfallen beings lived, elicits only one response in the fallen – hate.  It is torture to live in self-inflicted pain while witnessing the unbridled joy of another.  Their peace only fuels the passionate hatred of the one who will not let his own misery go.  That impossible focus on self, only deepens the hatred for everything, when seen against the perfection of love and service and joy that is unavoidable from living as God ordained.  So when evil encounters love, its response must be one of two – submit to love and embrace it, or resist love and respond in hate.  As love is more powerful than hate, it requires more determination to hate, more anger to maintain, more energy to resist.  It requires an unrelenting choice to keep up the hate.  But for one who will not trust to anyone other than self, it is the only choice to be made despite its difficulty.

This was the reaction of the religious leadership of the day, to the Messiah they had waited for so long to see.  This was the response of the wicked and fallen angels to the arrival of Christ, who lived His life in perfect service and love.  The only thing evil knows to do when confronted with love, is to hate.  If one lets go of hate even momentarily one may be drawn to a love that would not let you go, one that would free you from hate, so as never to return to the power of its embrace.  That kind of redemptive love is what Christ introduced into our reality.  And the Pharisees hated Him for it.  The very redemptive love He offered to all, even to them, was refused because it required submission, it required an acceptance that indeed they did not know it all.  They were not the final arbiters of truth, they were witness to truth incarnate in the humble life of this servant of all.  This they could not, and would not accept.  So they responded to love with hate.  The learned elders of the one true religion, became the biggest proponents of hate in the very name of that religion.  The Pharisees would seek to kill the author of love, rather than be remade by that love.  Are we any different?  Do we prefer ourselves the way we are, than to be remade by Him and perhaps lose parts of ourselves we hold dear?  Do we carry placards that espouse love that transforms or hate that condemns?

John records the words of Christ now in chapter 15, as they near or perhaps enter the garden of Gethsemane.  Judas is not with them as he is already leading those who intend to kill love to their target.  Time is very short.  So Christ tries to explain the mystery of iniquity and hate to His followers so that they will not be surprised by what they encounter.  In verse 18 He explains … “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. [verse 19] If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”  Evil hates love.  When we reflect the love of Christ to others, we should not expect to see love returned as it would be in perfection.  Rather we should expect to see hatred, for evil struggles to the death to hold on and resist the love of God.  When we find ourselves in disfavor with society, when we are punished for the acts of love we do on behalf of another, when our reputations are mud for the sake of our relentless love in action – it is because evil resists the power of God who loves. 

However, when the world seems to have no problem with us; when we present no threat to it; when we are every bit as angry, and hostile, and judgmental as our accuser is; we can and will be loved by the world.  Satan has no problem with our hateful speech, couched in the name of God – that is a technique he pioneered for us.  Our Pharisee forefathers killed God in an effort to keep religion pure.  So when we hold our signs and placards that condemn the world for its sins, we join with Satan in persecuting those in the deepest need of His love; so pushing them farther from it, while carrying and maligning the name of Christ, and of Christians.  This activity brings little condemnation from the world, because the world is steeped in evil and loves the hypocrisy of accusing others while being every bit as guilty in our own hearts and desires.  But, by contrast, when we love unconditionally and without reservation, to those who no-one else would dare to love – we present a real and present threat to the kingdom of evil and hate.  It is then that we are out of harmony with the kingdom of evil and hate, and must be “dealt with”.  For if left unchecked, a love without reservation or limitation, that is only consumed with the benefit of another, has the power to change lives, hearts, minds, and wills and could make converts to the kingdom of Christ.  When these converts discover the freeing power of love, the salvation Christ does to liberate and change them from their former selves into servants equipped with the power of transformative love – the kingdom of evil loses a soul forever to the power of God’s love.  Thus when we love like Christ loved, we become hated quickly by the world.

Jesus continues in verse 20 … “Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”  When we serve God we encounter those who have refused Him, and thus will refuse us as well.  Be they church leaders at the highest levels, or desperate sinners at the lowest rungs of society, those who refuse God and His love, will not accept our own any better.  But those who hear the voice of the Lord, will make themselves humble enough to hear His voice through His servants in whatever form that comes.  It is not only through a preacher that the word of God is offered.  It is offered through the mouth of the child, who can barely grasp the depth of the words they speak.  It is offered through the mouth of the downs-syndrome-afflicted who understands love so well, but intellect so little.  It is offered through the mouth of the sick and the dying as they face what we all fear, and now understand what is truly important.  If we are humble enough to hear it, we can ignore the faults and imperfections of the vessel, and instead hear only the pure word of God spoken in love regardless of its source.  It is not the denomination, or age, or gender, or sexual orientation, or known history of sin that either qualifies or disqualifies a person from speaking the truth of our God – it is instead only the content of what they say, and the love in which they say it, that either offers us the word of God, or the folly of men.  It is instead our arrogance that predetermines “who” is qualified to speak for God, and our standards lead us to miss His words, in favor of those that please our own ears.

Jesus continued in verse 21 … “But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.”  In the days of Christ as well as in ours, there will be those who refuse to accept Jesus as Lord.  To identify Christ as the Son of God, is to invite persecution – either from within the church as we transfer the attention away from traditions and self-reliance and on to Christ – or outside of the church as we identify the real meaning of love and not  the perversion of self-service the devils offers as its poor substitute.  Those who do not know God, do not know love, and evil has only one response to love.  Jesus further states in verse 22 … “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.”  In the days of the Pharisees Christ had spoken in their presence, they bore witness to His love, and therefore had no excuse to cloke their sin.  In our day, the love of the Lord is no less present.  We do not casually live our lives in blissful ignorance of the love of God, instead the love of God to redeem us is constantly offered, and we must by conscious choice ignore and disregard it.  So what was true for our Pharisee forefathers will be no less true for ourselves.

Jesus states in verse 23 … “He that hateth me hateth my Father also.”  There is no subdividing God.  There are not many pathways to God.  There are not many deities that can legitimately claim to be God.  There is only one God.  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – three who are united in purpose and one.  To hate one of them, is to hate all of them.  You cannot hate one third of God, but love another third.  To love God, is to accept God as He is.  We do not get the choice of picking and choosing which parts of God we think are real and worth loving or not.  For if Christ always did the will of His Father, who is it we truly hate – the God who performed the miracles, or the God who ordained them to be performed?  Those who offer Buddha, or Krishna, or Mohammed, or any other purported deity to augment the place of God, offer only false ideologies that cannot find truth in the reality of who God is.  The Father cannot be separated from the Son.  To deny the divinity of the Son, is to deny the divinity of the Father, for it was the Father’s own voice who proclaimed Christ as His own Son, and who empowered Christ to bend the rules of physics to heal and create, and restore all the countless broken ones he encountered during His life here on earth.  It is both Father AND Son who are united in the plans for our redemption and salvation.

Jesus offers evidence again in verse 24 … “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.”  The miracles of Christ should have been enough to prove His divinity.  He created food where there was none.  He healed diseases and birth defects and the demon possessed.   He woke Lazarus from the grave after 4 days of decomposition.  Every act of love for another should have been more than ample evidence of His divinity.  To require more “proof” is empty words, proof and truth were already there for those who did not refuse to see.  Jesus continues in verse 25 … “But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.”  The rejection of Christ had been foretold.  It was even sadder still though, that this prophecy found fulfillment in the leadership of His own religion and faith, instead of merely in the government of Rome and the world.  I wonder if our modern Christian churches are any different.  Do we too reject Christ as the author and finisher of our salvation, choosing like Lucifer to put our trust in our own wisdom, logic, interpretation, and will power to save us from our sins?

Jesus then tells His followers, that for them even more evidence will be received in verse 26 He continues … “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: [verse 27] And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.”  The Holy Spirit will come to His followers and continue to declare in the Truth of the Father, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and source of our salvation.  The Holy Spirit does not disagree with the accounts of scripture, rather He verifies them.  The miracles the disciples would perform were not of their own strength, but done in the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of God.  If the life of Christ were a lie, if He were not our God, His name would have no effect.  We could not break the rules of physics and modern medicine by the power of our own names, or the random name of some mere historical figure, even if that figure was a “good man” or known to be a “prophet”.  But the name of Christ, and the power of love of God that He embodies, has seen the impossible become possible.  To be made free from the addiction of sin and self is in itself a miracle we will never fully understand, for it is His work in us, and none of our own, that sees it accomplished.

Jesus continues and wraps up this part of His communion on the responses the disciples should expect in chapter 16 starting in verse one … “These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. [verse 2] They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”  The worst irony, the saddest expectation, would be that the center of persecution would not be in the world, but within the church.  It would be those who favor religious zealotry, over actual love for others, who would be most willing and eager to kill in the name of God.  The Romans would hardly care less which God you worship as long as you paid your taxes and did not attempt rebellion.  In this, Christians were wholly compliant.  But the Jews believed the introduction of the doctrine of the Messiah having been fulfilled was the destruction of their faith, traditions, and powerbase, thus to kill to end this “heresy” would become a top priority within the faith.  Christ explains all of this to his disciples in advance.  He explains why they will do this in verse 3 … “And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.”

Here the message of Christ is powerful both then and now.  Those who would hate or kill in the name of God DO NOT KNOW GOD at all.  They neither know God the Father, or God the Son.  Those who respond to love with evil and hate, know only evil and hate.  God does not kill those who disagree with Him.  If that were true Satan would simply have never existed.  Instead God creates all with freedom to choose to trust and love or not.  God does not change who He is, instead He attempts to lure us back to Him with the power of His so great love.  He does not kill us all because we sin, or have sinned.  Instead He looks to free us from our sin, and offer us love and joy in its place.  He takes pain and death away from us, and offers us life and love instead.  Those who offer death for disobedience follow the doctrines of Satan alone, not of our God.  It is Satan who kills those who disagree with him, or disobey him, or fall away from his cause.  God attempts to redeem the lost.  Satan would kill any who stray from his cause of evil.  The religious zealots of the time of Christ who kill in the name of God, were doing so at the express desire of Satan himself.  The religious zealots of today who espouse hate to those still caught in sin, follow the same path of Satan, and do nothing to advance the cause of God or the redemption those sin-sick souls are in such desperate need of.  Only love will ever reach them, hate and death will accomplish nothing.

Jesus concludes his predictions by stating one last time in verse 4 … “But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you.”  Everything He was telling them was prophetic, and true, and would help prepare them for the future they faced.  The message is every bit as relevant for us today as it was then.  When we are transformed by the love of Christ, we will become different people than what we were.  We will value different things, love differently, want different things.  When we begin to reflect the love of Christ through us more perfectly, we will draw the ire of the world around us.  Satan will not leave us free to love as Christ loved without making every attempt to draw us away from Christ.  He will tell us that “we” have accomplished our spiritual awakening by our own great power and intellect.  He will do everything he can to convince us that even our religious life is about us, our salvation attributable to our works and will power and understanding of scripture.  He will do anything he can to keep us from focusing on Christ.  We cannot expect a life of ease as a servant of love.  Instead we can expect a life of hardship, and of perfect peace, contentment, fulfillment, and joy.  For it is not our conditions that define our responses, it is the power of His love within us.  We will find perfection from the work He does.  We will find peace in KNOWING that it is He who saves us from the people we once were.  Our salvation is His gift to us, and the way we love is also the result of His gifts.  Nothing can take that away, whether from within our churches, or outside of them.

And communion was not over yet …

 

Eternal Purpose ...

Perhaps the most vile myth perpetuated against Christianity is the idea that heaven consists of nothing but disembodied souls dressed in white robes playing harps on fluffy clouds throughout eternity.  Add to that, hell is generally considered unpleasant, but it is where the “party” will be.  Satan presents God’s ideas of eternal destiny as being tied to eternal boredom.  He presents his own, as perhaps painful, but at least it is where all the fun will occur throughout the eons of time.  These myths work their way backwards into our thinking such that we begin to accept the ideas that “sin” in this life represents all the “fun” we might ever be able to have.  Those “goodie-two-shoe’s” folks never get to have any fun because they just go around doing what is “right” all the time.  Too many non-believers have bought into this idea seeing heaven as nothing more than a cloudy, ghost filled, harp players convention without end.  Ironic that the folks stuck in hell, seem to have their bodies (if only to assist in the suffering), and despite their circumstances are still able to eek out an eternity of “pleasure”.  When Christians begin to see the devil as a man with 2 horns, a tail, and pitchfork; and they see God as a vengeful, justice obsessed egomaniac who seeks only to punish the deeds of the wicked – Satan wins.  To debunk these myths we might start by asking a simple question – what purpose was I destined to fulfill for all eternity?

Our discussion in this BLOG thus far has been centered on returning to the destiny we were created for, and doing that in the here and now.  When we allow Christ to remove the inhibitor of evil from us, the chains of addiction to self, we become free to experience things we never thought possible before.  Thus mediocrity meets its death, and boundless potential becomes our daily mantra grounded in Christ.  But our spirituality includes more than what we do, and why we do it, it also includes “who” we were intended to be.  While we allow Christ through our daily surrender to change us at the core of who we are, the process of re-creation is not merely to “remove”, it is also to “replace” and “renew”.  Who we were in our sinful state will ultimately be fully replaced, but the person we are to become, or are becoming, also has a purpose that is unique, and will fill a vital role throughout eternity.  Playing the harp may be yet another gift or ability we receive in the holy city, but it is not meant to be our sole occupation, or our unique purpose.  Thinking that God only ever wanted to create a huge heavenly orchestra consisting of nothing but harps denies just about everything we know, and can read about God throughout scripture.  And while I enjoy the thought of mastering what is for me a new instrument such as the harp, by the instant gift of God, I also wonder if the promise of “harp” playing was meant to be literal (i.e. everyone gets a golden harp), or more figurative (everyone will have skill where it comes to playing an instrument in heaven’s orchestra of perhaps even unknown origin).  After all the variety of “stringed” instruments that exist in our world of sin far exceeds a simple harp, why would I assume instrument selection to be so limited in heaven?  Perhaps my assumption is based more in myth, than it is in God’s actual intent.

Next up, we should examine that heaven and eternity will not be a place of monotony and repetition.  Our story begins with God’s creative work.  Our very existence is a product of creation, of genesis, of going from non-existence into the latest, newest creation of our God.  Do we presume He has never done this before us?  If so, where did the angels come from, let alone the remainder of our universe?  And so, do we presume that God will go on permanent vacation after we all get back home, never to create again?  It looks to me like God enjoys creating new things.  He seems to have no limits to His imagination.  When I look around me at the elements containing just some form of life the variety is astonishing.  I love my two Akita dogs, they are brother and sister.  Each has a unique personality despite coming from the same parents.  Each looks different, each has similar characteristics, but I could hardly confuse the two of them, as they are decidedly two unique dogs in the history of the dogs I have encountered in my life.  And they are merely the two closest examples of living creations I can site.  I also have a cat, and a bunny.  These other 2 living beings add an entirely new dimension to witnessing love expressed, and don’t even come close to covering the wide spectrum of living things that surround my day-to-day world.  Add to that, plant life; yet another form of living creation that surrounds my world with infinite variety and joy.  I love walking barefoot on a full grass lawn, or mossy creek bottom.  I loved climbing trees in my youth, and enjoy their shade in my elder years.  The majesty of a redwood is still a sight to wonder at in the forests of northern California, no less beautiful than the Joshua tree in the high deserts.  The level of unique creation just within a species in our world, should give us the clue that our God appreciates variety, uniqueness, and has no limit to His imagination where it comes to creating new things from nothing.

When I cannot find two identical trees, two identical dogs, or two identical snowflakes in a world populated with those creations; why would I think the purpose I was created for on an eternal basis is only to perform the same function as everyone else?  God has something in mind for me, that is unique to me.  He intends a purpose, a role, an agenda that will last through the ages.  What is more, it will be something that I will love to do.  I can have every confidence in this, because every time I have let God have His way with my life, I have LOVED the results.  My greatest problems originate when I attempt to exert my own ideas and control over me.  Surrender, leading to re-creation, has a consistent record of bringing joy to me and removing pain.  It is because of what He has done, and is doing for me, that I am so overwhelmed with gratitude that I want to praise His name.  The concept that we were “created” for nothing more than to praise God is only another lie of His enemy.  God did not create us to boost His ego (I do not believe God even has an ego).  That myth is perpetuated by His opposite.  Satan is obsessed with us worshipping him.  God is not.  True heart-felt worship in gratitude cannot be manufactured or demanded.  It comes naturally.  It comes because it cannot be denied or contained.  When we see the love of God for us doing such marvelous things in our lives, we cannot help but praise and thank Him for it.  We can recognize God as the supreme being, as Satan must, without wanting to worship Him.  But when we allow our God to re-create our lives, love infects us, and love causes us to see our gratitude and wish to share our joy.  The harp, or instrument, I will play in heaven to honor my God will itself be a unique expression of what He has done for me.  That experience will be unique to me, though common in that He saved me like He saved you, like He saved everyone.  Even in my praise, God will see a distinction that is unique to He and I; a unique voice in His choir of voices, a unique sound in His orchestra of music.

So if eternity will be a time of infinite creation, infinite genesis, then the number of things to do will also be expanding eternally.  Even if it is my role to do a certain task, it is also likely that the number of tasks I am assigned will ever be increasing as new things are ever part of my experience.  It is not about mastering everything we can put our finger on today (though perhaps that itself would be an admirable goal for eternity), it is about the idea that there will always be something new springing in to existence that God is capable of envisioning.  Even if I could achieve a mastery of all the accumulated knowledge to this date, there would ever be something new to learn.  And as God transcends our ideas of space and time, i.e. He exists infinitely going back in time from our perspective, I could spend eternity looking backwards at “history” just trying to “catch up”.  But I doubt God is looking to make me a historian attempting to trace back information infinitely (though I suspect this might be a historians greatest dream).  I think rather He intends a purpose for me now, and going with Him into the future.  I do not know what it is today, but it inspires me.

Career is something we tend to measure ourselves by in this world.  We are known first by our name, but perhaps second by what it is we do “for a living”.  It is perhaps only a third reference who our family associations are.  For instance, it is common for me to say for example … “Oh that is Howard, he runs the Pharmaceutical areas over at Florida Hospital, I think he is single right now, but probably looking.”  His name, his occupation, and his family status all seem to identify this person from another.  Career itself is how we spend the majority of our time.  It does not completely define us, but it offers an idea of our skills and interests.  In this world, it may not have been our ideal choice, but this world is obsessed with “earning a living”.  When “a living” is no longer the goal of our career, and when God Himself is our new boss, what might our “occupation” look like in that scenario?  We might even be recognized in a similar way in the heaven that is to come.  For instance … “Oh hi, my name is Kristian (substitute whatever God decides to call me here), I help God out by exploring alternate universes in multiple dimensions out on the back quadrant (or substitute whatever task God might ask me to do), this is my wife and children …”.  While I cannot even guess what God may decide to call me right now, or what He might have destined me to do, I do know it will be something I will love and will be unique to me.  Everything about what God has done for me already has taught me that.  The process of re-creation itself has taught me that.  It does not have to be completed in me yet, for me to see beyond the horizon is SO much God intends for us.

To say we were all destined for greatness, is to put too small a limiter on what God actually intends for each of us.  The highest ambition of each angel surrounding the throne of God, is to do what He asks.  The highest fulfillment of perfect beings is to be used and utilized by our loving God.  This culture of service is one that can infect us, as we submit ourselves to our Lord, and allow Him to remove the “me” in me.  Re-creation is not merely about removal of self, it is about potential and purpose and something new that takes the place of self-obsession and its limitations.  Our destiny has purpose and meaning.  It will be something that is unique and required or needed.  We did not come into existence casually, or by accident of astronomical odds.  We were designed, with intent, and with purpose.  As we look around us and recognize that each person is unique, so we can believe that each person’s purpose is also unique.  It is because each of us is precious to God, that God was willing to come and sacrifice Himself to save each of us.  Even if it were only you who would have accepted the salvation of God from evil, He would have come, lived, and died just for you.  One person is so precious to God, that He would have seen His sacrifice as worth it, just for one (see the parable of the 99 sheep and 1 lost).  That makes each of us not only unique, but necessary to God.

In our world we seek to be needed, but we should be looking beyond our world, to really measure what needed is.  I like using the example of Beethoven.  I am looking forward to hearing Beethoven’s 100^th piano concerto in heaven (he only has 95 more to write by my best guess).  There may be many other musical composers in heaven, all of which I may thoroughly enjoy, but there is something about the style of Beethoven I really enjoy.  If Beethoven is not there with me in heaven, heaven will be diminished.  It is not that I require Beethoven in heaven for me to want to be there, it is merely that I would find heaven even that much better with him in it.  I would love to hear his 100^th piano concerto, perhaps even learn to play it myself.  That would bring me joy, as it would bring joy to others.  Beethoven is unique, he is needed, he is able to bring joy to many simply by doing what God has seen fit to bless him with doing.  Throughout the eons of time, there will never be another Beethoven.  The same is true of you.  The same is true of me.  Though neither of us may ever compensate for the loss of Beethoven if he is not with us, we may both really enjoy his company if he is; and he us.  From the perspective of Beethoven, he may really enjoy spending eternity with you, enjoying the contribution that you make to the congregation and body of heaven.  It may be your personal testimony that enriches the life of Beethoven in heaven.  It may be your service that brings him comfort and joy, and inspiration, as it does for me, and for untold others as you perform the purpose for which you alone were intended.  You see, you are no less important to God, to me, or to Beethoven than he is to us.  Each of us unique, each of us needed, each of us either adding to the beauty of heaven, or diminishing it by our absence. 

When we begin to see each other in this light, when we begin to appreciate how unique, and how critical it is we bond together for eternity – the divisions between us seem to melt away.  I do not care what skin color you are, what family you come from, what education you have, what career you chose or were forced to accept – I only care that I can show you love and help you see just how important you are to God and to me.  Your presence in heaven defines joy to me, your absence defines misery.  I wish to see the whole of heaven benefit from the purpose only you can fulfill.  Viewed in this way, it is hard for us to imagine “apathy” among the church body.  How could we casually allow the absence among us of any who we would so value in heaven?  How could we treat another so casually as to not care if they join us, or feel loved, or experience joy?  To serve that very person who perhaps we have seen as “hard to love” is perhaps the greatest joy we may encounter both in this world and the one to come.  Our destiny is to find fulfillment in a unique purpose and unique service to God.  Let us embrace this purpose today as we discover it, and recognize in others the unique contribution they will bring, and the absolute necessity of their company in our presence through all of eternity.

Undergoing the Change ...

If you don’t work at a power plant you probably could not describe in detail how the electricity reaches the light bulb to light up your home.  It just does.  There are occasions when a power outage keeps the lights from turning on, and during these events, you could probably not describe what the utility workers do to fix the problem.  They just do.  There is a process.  Electricity does not reach your home by magic; nor do the utility workers simply wave a wand to fix an error.  But it is not the work that YOU do.  It is the work YOU benefit from.  Your part of the agreement is to provide funds to the utility company for this service.  They do the work, you get the electricity.  Very many things function this way in our modern society.  We have learned to depend on them.  We don’t try to do them all ourselves, it would be impractical, perhaps even impossible.  Instead we learn to rely on others to do certain work for us, and we use the results of their efforts for still other things.  Yet when it comes to spirituality, we fail the same basic test that Lucifer failed so many years ago, to trust God.  God (our spiritual physician), promises He will heal our disease of evil.  He will remove it from us as far as east is from west.  He will bury our evil at the bottom of the sea.  But we refuse to believe He will do what He has promised, and so we attempt to do it for Him, or with Him, or ahead of Him.  We try again and again to take control, put things on our time line, with methods that please us.  It is like trying to build the power plant ourselves, mine the coal, build and operate the reactor, install the wiring and circuitry, and even make the individual light bulbs we need.  Instead we could simply take God up on His promises and start enjoying His light.

To undergo the change God has promised we must begin by realizing there is no control for us.  This process of healing does not occur with us acting as the surgeon, that job is God’s, and He does not need or want our help.  We do not set the timelines for how long this process will take.  We do not identify the tasks that will need to be performed.  In point of fact, we are blind to just how bad our condition is, and were it fully revealed to us in an instant, it would kill us.  Instead our job is to let our Doctor do the work only He can do to cure us.  We let Him.  And frankly we CANNOT understand how He does what He does.  He just does it.  Our cure is not some combination of known techniques, actions, and prescriptions we could reasonably learn to imitate.  He is not trying to teach us how to save others.  Instead He asks us ONLY to refer them to the author of love.  The work He does within us is one ONLY He can do.  For only God can change a heart.  Without Him, the heart merely gets older, more set in its ways, more inclined to degenerate further and further into the disease of self service.  But under His control, the heart can be re-created, reborn into what He intends for it to be.  He cures us individually, not in a group session.  Each human heart is reborn through a process of God’s design custom tailored for each patient, according the needs and abilities of each patient.  The procedure of rebirth is timed on God’s timelines, not our own.  We do not determine how long it will take for us, or how long is should take for us.  Nor do we set the timeline for anyone else.  What God fixes first, is up to God, NOT up to us.  We may think we know where we are suffering the most, or feeling the most pain from, but only our God knows truly what must be fixed and in what order.

Self is a terrible disease.  It shows symptoms in the most unlikely places.  What is being cured within us is all too often beyond our capacity to see, let alone to understand.  All we need to know is that we need a cure, and that God alone can provide it.  When Lucifer in his perfection began to question what would be the results of pursuing love to self rather than serving others, he had no idea where it would lead.  God tried to warn him, tried to counsel him, tried to show him the value of loving others instead of loving self.  But Lucifer would not trust God.  Instead he trusted his own wisdom.  He simply had no knowledge of evil, so he refused to believe that evil was even possible.  It did not exist prior to that time so how would loving self bring it about now?  We face the same exact question.  The work of healing the sin sick heart is something we simply cannot dissect and understand.  If we are to be healed, we must trust that God can and will heal us.  We must trust despite our complete LACK of wisdom on the topic.  In effect we are trusting our lives to God, our futures to God, our hearts to God.  We are putting everything we have into the hands of God.  But we also have the benefit of scripture, history, and the testimony of those He has healed before – He has never failed.  And His entire desire, His entire wish, His entire yearning is for nothing more than to cure YOU – to fix YOU – to bring YOU home again.

To undergo the change is to let go.  To start to heal is to quit entirely looking at the faults of others.  Our hospital was not meant for one poor patient only, but for the entire world.  All are hurting and in need of the cure.  What the patient in the next bed is doing has nothing to do with you.  What our doctor God does for him/her is between God and them.  The symptoms of the disease of self that you can so easily see in the lives of others are not a license for you to start practicing medicine.  They are a cry for help to our Lord, the only doctor who can heal them.  We all hurt.  We all ache.  We are afflicted with the disease of self.  Each may show different signs of our affliction, and may be relieved of them at different times – but only through the work of our God.  We are free to talk about the wonderful work our God does for us, but we are not free to pretend that we are the doctor.  To criticize another sick person for being sick, is the height of hypocrisy.  Instead we should take tremendous joy in the fact that we are in the process of undergoing the change, and praise God for EVERY single other sin-sick soul who shares the same road – no matter where they happen to be on it at the time.  To obsess of the sins of another, or even the sins of our own, is to take our eyes off the cure and keep them squarely on the disease.  Nothing is gained by this.  Instead we must let go.  We must change the focus of our eyes away from the disease that would drag us down, and place it on Christ who is here to remove it from us.  We must let go and trust.

The work of removing the desire for evil from our hearts is a work of great mystery.  Like the light bulb that turns on when I flip the switch, I cannot begin to fully explain it.  This is because I am NOT the one doing the work.  God is.  Sometimes in an instant, sometimes over a period of time, I find that something I once treasured in indulging myself in no longer has any appeal.  I simply do not want it anymore.  It is impossible for me to explain why I am no longer addicted to the very thing I craved just yesterday, but it is so.  And with such a radical change, comes a radical change in thinking.  All the time spent in obsession, all the effort spent in pursuit, is now gone.  It frees me.  I have tons of time I did not even realize were spent obsessing about my former desire.  Without the chains to bind me to evil, I am free to see something more than evil.  I am free to see how the power of love has changed me.  For it is because He loves me that He changes me.  It is love alone that motivates my God, and perhaps love alone that empowers Him.  It is impossible for me to describe to you, “how” this works, because it is not my work.  It does not come because I work for it.  It does not come because I deserve it.  It does not come because I wish it would.  It comes because I allow it to occur.  It comes because I am willing to let the Doctor change me, no matter what that may mean.  It comes because I ask Jesus to do the work He has promised to do, inside of me, wherever that may lead.  Then He does.  He really does.  Not just words on a page, or chapters in a Bible, but here and now, inside me, inside my heart, inside my mind.  I experience a freedom that I cannot describe adequately in language or printed page.  There is an exuberance that comes when the chains of evil are finally broken by the only One who could.  You will not understand what I am talking about, until you allow it to happen to you.  Then you will not be able to imagine how you could have lived any other way.

The transformation Christ offers and performs is life altering.  We’re not just talking about a mild reduction in the propensity to sin.  We are talking about the complete revocation of some deep-seated core-level personality encompassing addiction you though you could never be rid of.  It can change the core of who you are.  It can change the core of how you think, what you want, what you need.  It alters your perception, your vision, and how you see truth.  Scripture opens and has entirely new found truths present that in times past you never understood.  You begin to see the love of God in every truth, and realize there is no truth absent love, as there is no truth absent Christ.  For Christ is truth, life, and love.  There is no other.  The reason God declares Himself the only true God, is because He is the only true God.  It is no myth, no superstition, no contrived story by power hungry men of ancient days.  Instead it is a living abiding truth that carries the power to change your life in the here and now.  No need to wait for heaven as the Kingdom of God is come.  It is here.  It was here in the flesh of Christ and has remained here by the power of His Spirit since His ascension.  Our God is still among us, if only in Spirit instead of in flesh.  He is still able to inhabit the willing heart and remake it into His image.  He is still able to restore our brokenness and remove our disease, and longs to do it right now.  The effect of the cure changes everything.  Nothing you will ever read, see, or experience will be same again.  The effect of witnessing Christ save you from yourself, from the evil you have been slave to, is the fundamental basis of the entirety of the gospel.  Nothing else ever written can compare to the work done inside of you.  For to you, this is heaven, this is salvation, this is the reconciliation of you to your God.  What else could possibly compare with it?

A single change opens the eyes to what else is possible, and what else is needed.  As we are too often blinded to our disease, we fail to recognize how severe our current condition is.  We think if we can just let Christ give us the victory over some cherished sin, that we will be “pure” once it is gone.  Wishful thinking.  The removal of any sin is life altering, but with the removal of evil in one form or another, often comes a better ability to see deeper problems we were not even aware existed there.  The man who is given the victory over an adulterous affair and praises God for it now finds the deeper problem he faces was objectifying women and spending a lifetime of only pursuing them like so many other possessions to toy with.  Upon being released from what he thought would be his most pressing sin, he finds the entire way he has viewed women must now be re-created and rethought.  As he begins to be given the gift of seeing a woman not as a thing but as a precious soul who our God loves, he begins to realize the lust that drove him to pursue his former “objects” was merely another form of self-gratification that must now find its end upon the surgical table of our Doctor God.  As the lust that enslaved him and drove him into the affairs which wrecked his relationships is now removed, he begins to see what it truly means to love another ahead of himself.  Pleasing others begins to become more important to him than he ever imagined it would.  Learning how to truly love someone else begins to show fruit in his relationships.  His parents, his children, his siblings, his spouse all begin to benefit from the changes God is working in his life.  His marriage becomes something he never dreamed it could, nor could his spouse.  What is NOT possible for man, is child’s play for our God.  We have only to allow Him to do it in us.  When once a change is made, an entire chain of events begins.  It does not matter what kind of symptoms we were showing, all evil is traced back to some form of self-service, self-indulgence, self-gratification.  When evil begins to vacate our lives by the power of God, we see where it had deeper roots and what must be done next by God to see it fully gone from us.

Too many Christians have looked forward with longing to the twinkling of an eye at the last trump of God to see the sin within them removed finally and fully forever.  Those who now sleep in the Lord will awake to such a full transformation.  But those who are alive today, need not live in pain until that great day.  Instead we are free to seek a cure in the here and now.  For how can we truly be saved, if we are unwilling to allow ourselves to be saved?  The beauty of heaven, and absence of disease, and end to death, is NOT our ultimate reward – they are trinkets.  The real gift our God is offering us is an existence without evil, a life not bound in chains to serving self.  That is salvation.  That is our true reward and His greatest gift to us.  And that is not something we have to wait to receive.  We can begin today.  It is not the threats of eternal death, or burning in hell that causes the soul to change.  Threats bare no fruit but to scare.  Love however changes the soul, and gives one the relief of a life spent in the “hell” of a selfish existence.  Those bound in a terminally degenerative condition will ultimately seek the release of death on their own.  No one wants to live in a state of torture forever.  And this is all an existence of evil has to offer, ever increasing levels of pain, until death alone is thought of as a better choice.  That is the punishment, the cause and effect, that Christ is offering to free us from now.  Why would we ever even consider delaying that cure, putting off that effort?  It makes no sense to choose to live in bondage to pain for just a while longer before we finally and grudgingly accept happiness and joy in its place.  The idea of waiting for heaven to seek a cure is one the devil avidly markets to Christians today.  It is only another warped, misguided way of thinking, that blinds one to pain they inflict on themselves so as not to seek a cure that could be implemented immediately.

But while the healing can begin immediately the process takes longer than an instant.  Not all evil is removed from us in one felled swoop until Christ does return.  Instead, as we begin to trust Him and allow Him to remake us, He carefully and gently begins the work of removing one sin, and one desire for evil at a time.  This process is by design.  When it begins we do not fully know how much work He has yet to do.  It takes time to remove every instance of self-focus from our lives.  It also takes trust that builds with Him more and more as we begin to allow Him to do this work within us more and more.  If it were over in an instant, we would not appreciate what it means to learn to trust Him.  To learn by experience what it means to let go, and let Him save us from ourselves – this is the process of redemption and it is not one that can be rushed to fit our own ideas of need.  As it progresses we find ourselves yearning more and more for an end to the evil we see in ourselves.  Where once we thought to prolong our days to “enjoy” our evil, we now begin to pray in earnest to remove the evil from within us right here and right now.  Daily we begin to follow the example of our Lord who sought first to seek His Father’s will and not His own.  If our perfect Savior submitted Himself daily to the will of His Father, how much more do we need to do the same?  Our lives are built one day at a time, so must be the process of our healing.  We must daily entreat the Lord to do His work within us, and then release any thoughts of control over to Him to allow Him to do what must be done.  As this work begins to show fruit, He gives us victories over sins and desires we could never hope to have undone.  This gives us hope and knowledge that even more can be done.  And so the seeds He sows within us to trust Him take root and the work He does grows and over time takes over our entire being.

The change itself is a paradox.  While becoming ever more evident in how we think and what we want, our actions just seem to fall in line with our new found ideology and motives.  We cannot explain why.  While we cannot measure our success we cannot seem to avoid it either.  Obedience to the commands of God is not possible without the transformation of rebirth in Christ.  What does it mean to truly “keep” the Sabbath, or to truly “honor” our parents?  No list would ever be complete enough.  No amount of don’ts could ever fully encompass it.  But when a heart is recreated in the love only Christ can make, honoring and loving our fellow man becomes a natural part of how we think, and of what we want to do.  We long to have time to spend with our God, in worship and gratitude, but also in actions of love intended for those He longs to reach.  “Keeping” the Sabbath becomes way more than a mere ritual or set of traditional actions set to predefined schedules – it becomes a living embodiment of worship that loves the un-loveable more than words could possibly express.  Our parents become a treasure to us whose value we finally begin to realize.  Our children become more prized to us than we thought possible before.  And those we used to condemn for carrying the signs of sin just a bit different from our own, are now valued, loved, and needed at our sides in order that we dare not lose them to the pain of an existence away from the source of love.  Love alone rules the thoughts, the motives, the intents and therefore the deeds.  Love, not of human origin that is frail, fickle, and easy removed – but love that comes from God reflected through us where the source is Him.  A love that never tires, fades, or loses interest, but instead grows and breeds more passion that will never let us go.  We believe ourselves filled beyond what we thought possible, only to find it grows again tomorrow.  We wish to measure our progress only to find we are farther along, but still have far to go.  We find ourselves full of love, but see we still need more love for others.  The change itself is a paradox, yet it is.

It is impossible to find truth without recreation.  To read scripture to prove a doctrine is the wrong use of our Bible’s.  It comes with presupposed ideas and beliefs and attempts only to validate what we already think or have been taught rather than to find the truth He would lead us to.  To espouse doctrine without understanding the love that by definition must have inspired it, is to espouse mere ideology of a Biblical theme.  Doctrine is meaningless absent love, and cannot be taught properly until the love of the God who stands behind it is clearly seen.  Truth is found in Christ, not in the teachings of men.  Life is found in Christ, not the pursuits of happiness we so vainly attempt to supplement Him with.  Love is born of God and reflected through us, not created from a source inside us.  Revelations of this kind are revealed to the surrendered heart, and the surrendered will.  They are not new ideas.  They have been taught from the writings of Moses, to John, to the sermons in local pulpits of the day.  But absent the reformation of Christ in the heart, they are merely more words.  Nice ideas are not the goal of the gospel.  Great ideals are not the goal of scripture.  Actual life altering change is the core of the message of the gospel; change that IS possible, not through work or words that we read, but through a surrender to Christ.  The values of Christ are not just aspirations preached to us on the weekends, they can be an intrinsic part of who we are.  All we need is the cure.  All we need is a daily surrender to Christ, and truth will open to us in His time, using His methods.  It is an individual thing, but it is meant for every single individual who has ever walked this earth or will walk it until the day of His return.  No one is beyond the redemption He offers.  No one is so far gone that our Lord cannot remake them over again.  No act is so heinous as to cause the Lord to forsake His work in us, save that we constantly refuse His offer.  A life spent saying no to God is a wasted and sad painful life.  A life spent trying to heal oneself from the disease of sin, is a wasted sad and painful life.  But a life given over to God in a humble submission to His will and not our own, is a life that will change the world.  It will begin with you, as you daily allow the Lord to cure you of the disease of self.  So let it begin right now.

What is Companionship ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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