Insanity is Contagious ...

If you saw somebody do something crazy, and it worked, would you do it too?  The first time you try something new, some experience you have never had before; you are generally a little skeptical that what others may have shared with you, will also be what you personally think about it.  Take for instance the first time you try a new food.  Others may love it, but you cannot be sure you will, until you taste it.  Now the crazier the “idea” of the food, the more skeptical you may be.  Trying some exotic fruit for example, perhaps like a persimmon, or a pomegranate might not be so unusual.  But sampling some kind of cooked bug, just sounds nuts.  Depending on how adventurous, or perhaps how much you trust the person who recommends the new food, you may decide to taste it, or not.  But food is much easier a risk to take, than something more substantial.  Risking your reputation for example, is not something you can recover from if things go wrong, unlike food whose negative effects are at worst temporary.  Risking your health on some new form of treatment might likewise take even more courage to attempt.  But how about risking your reputation, your health, and your salvation … all at once … against the council of the professionals.

Imagine yourself with a lifelong disability, or perhaps an acute illness that has very limited treatment options.  Because of your condition, “normal” people are going to think less of you to begin with.  After all, the “healthy” cannot sympathize with something they do not suffer from.  And in times past, the first thought as to the cause of your condition, is that “you” must have done something to cause it.  Oh sure, it is easy to connect the dots between skateboarding and a broken arm, or smoking and lung cancer.  But it is much harder to connect the dots between breast cancer and its victim.  A great many conditions that impact our health can well be beyond our control.  Attempting to assign blame for something like breast cancer spans the gamut from genetics, to environment, to diet.  But the farther back in history we go, the higher the inclination to assign responsibility for the illness to its victim.  In the time of Christ, this practice had reached an all-time high.  When confronted with a sick person, the first thought or question in the mind, was usually … “who sinned” and what did they commit, that would lead to this condition.  So in His day, the sick already had one strike against their reputation to start with.

Then comes the importance of community, of belonging.  In addition to the normal societal need to be accepted in the groups in which we live, the Jewish community had interwoven its faith into the core of its societal structure.  Samaritans for example, were not admired, because they did not conform to the traditional thinking that valued only the temple in Jerusalem as the pinnacle of the place of worship.  Gentiles were even lower on the reputation scale than that.  Pagans even more despised.  And Romans scraped the bottom of the barrel.  For a Jew in the time of Christ to achieve the best social standing, they would have to maintain good relations with the temple system based in Jerusalem.  This included general acknowledgement and adherence to the rules laid out by the priests, rabbis, and of course the Sanhedrin.  To stray away from their collective direction, was to risk being ostracized by the faith itself.  Salvation itself would be denied because of this choice to disobey the voice of God as taught by his authorized servants.  So beyond being sick and having one strike against you, to seek healing from Jesus Christ, was sure to be enough to get you tossed out of polite society, and lumped in with the lost.

Now, when you are truly sick, and there is no other option you have ever heard of to get well, you might go ahead and take the risk of seeking Jesus.  How interesting that nothing seems to have changed in our day.  But even if you make this risky choice, you are likely to pursue doing it the traditional way that everyone is talking about how it works.  For example, Jesus is said to have made some mud, and recreated a missing eye.  When He interacts with the possessed He commands the demons to leave them, and they do.  He takes the lame by the hand and they are able to rise.  The short story, is that a personal encounter with Jesus appears to be enough to heal whatever problem you have (and nothing has changed today).  But then comes the crazy.

You will remember from our earlier study (titled “Bleeding and Dying no more [part two]”) there was once a woman who decided on her own, that she only needed to touch the hem of His garment to be made whole.  This level of insanity was a product of her own imagination.  It had never been done before.  And there was no proof it would even work.  But it did.  The story of her decision to live beyond the limitations we impose upon ourselves, had remained in open discussion across the region.  Everyone was talking about how this crazy lady tried the impossible with Christ, and it worked.  What is more, Jesus even called her “His daughter” during His discovery and revelation of her faith.  No matter what the doctors said, no matter what the priests, and rabbis were saying … for those that saw how deep their own need was, there was really only one choice, to seek Jesus.  And this insanity was highly contagious.

Peter recalls the impact of this one crazy lady to John Mark in his gospel in chapter six and picks up the story in verse 53 saying … “And when they had passed over, they came into the land of Gennesaret, and drew to the shore. [verse 54] And when they were come out of the ship, straightway they knew him,”  The fame of Jesus had spread far and wide in this region on the far side of the Sea of Galilee.  A demoniac had been freed from nearly 2000 demons in a single command, and while he had wished to follow Jesus right then and become the next disciple, Jesus had bid him to stay in this region and witness to these people about what Christ had freed him from.  And the man had been a faithful witness, for the entire region now knew who Jesus was, though none of us even know the name of the man who spread this witness.  In addition, the story of the crazy lady who sought only the touch of His garment to be made well, was still a topic fresh in the minds of the people.  It did not take long to connect the dots.

John Mark continues in verse 55 saying … “And ran through that whole region round about, and began to carry about in beds those that were sick, where they heard he was. [verse 56] And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.”  Entire populations of sick, disabled, crippled, and needy were brought to wherever Jesus was.  They were laid in the street, and Jesus was asked if He would just pass over His garment to make them well.  So great was the contagion of insanity in this area, that now everyone was convinced they only needed His clothing to make them well.  They did not want to trouble the Lord for a personal interaction, they had enough belief to “know” they would be cured if he just got close enough to them in passing, to drag his garment over them.  Forget what the professionals had to say, forget what ridicule other normal people may still harbor; those in need, need a savior.  Those in need will do what seems crazy in the eyes of others.  Those in need find their needs met ONLY in Jesus Christ.

And nothing has changed.  It is crazy to think, that a life of bad decisions, and addictive self-love can be changed by a power outside of our control.  It is crazy to think that the way to see a change in what we want, and what we love, can be performed in us, but not by us.  To be saved by Jesus, in spite of who we know we are today, is just a crazy premise … but it works.  It is not the Shroud of Turin we need to pass over us to make us whole now, it is only our choice to surrender to the “insanity” of being saved from ourselves by Jesus Christ.  The same professionals in our day echo the ridicule of the past, but what do they know?  The salvation of the crazy lady that pioneered this idea was not put at risk in doing so, it was instead cemented with her Lord.  The salvation of the wounded laid on city streets and country roads, was not put at risk in seeking Christ, it was affirmed by Him.  Our Creator is also capable of re-Creation as He proved over and over again.

This story could easily have been omitted in the gospel.  It is only a few verses at the end of an otherwise climactic chapter of miracles and greatness.  Compared with the other events in this chapter alone, the results of one crazy lady and the impact she had on an entire region seem inconsequential.  What difference does it make “how” people were healed by Jesus right?  The important point is that they were.  But I believe this story remains in the gospel, because it does matter “how” we can seek Jesus beyond the norms and conventions of what we have otherwise been taught.  A relationship with Christ is not confined to how others do it, what the professionals say, or how others have one; it is uniquely personal to you.  The faith of this woman who imagined her own healing in an unconventional way of seeking Jesus was rewarded.  In these verses her impact of doing so is recorded to have impacted an entire region.  Many found healing the same way she did, because they found the same faith she did. 

How you interact with Christ may be beyond the normal conventions that others do, and that is OK.  The lesson of this story is that there is no limitations God imposes on how He can interact with you, the only “limitations” that exist are the ones in your own mind that you have placed upon yourself and God.  To think differently is to find and believe that there are no limits on God, and therefore no limits to how He can truly impact your life.  The beauty of the gospel, is that once connected to Jesus, there is no limit to how much God can impact the lives of others, through you.  This is His favorite method of loving others, to love them through you.  It has the added blessing of bringing you joy and bliss in the process.  For to love others has always been the ultimate expression of who our God is.

True insanity, is not to seek Jesus.  True insanity, is to listen to those professionals that will never understand what it is like for you, to be made whole by Jesus Christ, even if that is only ever on a spiritual level.  The kind of “insanity” that seeks Christ beyond the limits of convention, of history, of tradition is the kind of insanity we need to embrace.  It may seem crazy to seek Jesus, but that is only ever the perspective of those who have not personally experienced what Jesus can do in a life.  Once you have tasted of the freedom Jesus can bring, the tables turn on the definition of what insanity is.  Once you know it works, the concept of who is truly the professional where it comes to salvation and how it works, begins to be understood entirely differently.  I would wish to be fully infected with the contagion of Jesus Christ, and if that looks crazy to you right now, just wait …

 

Beauty of Obedience - Communion (part five) ...

What do you do when you love?  What actions follow the feeling, the commitment, the decision?  When actions follow motivation, the motivation is revealed.  Christ loved his disciples and us.  His actions were a revelation of that love.  What He did for them and for us was telling of how He felt about us, how He valued us, how He was willing to make any personal sacrifice for our well-being, in order to benefit us.  The only thing Christ had to gain from what He did, was us.  We would be His reward.  He would risk all, give all, and do all, in order to redeem back to Himself the creation who had broken trust with Him, turned away from Him, and embraced a path of pain and death from which there would be no other hope found.  Here in the quiet of communion, with his faithful few followers, in the last few hours He would have with them.  Christ discusses the universal truth of how actions follow motive.  His own actions would reveal His love for us.  He now prompted His disciples to examine what it is they do, and why.

Picking up in chapter 14, verse 15 of John’s gospel account, Jesus tells them … “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  What you do reveals how you feel, what you want, and how you think.  Only moments before Christ had issues to his disciples a “new” commandment, that they love each other as He loved them.  In effect Christ was saying to His followers, that to love Him, is to love each other.  To love others was the life example of Christ, and what He wished His followers to emulate and become.  Again, Christ stood to gain nothing for Himself in what He did, but we stood to gain everything.  He would pay any price to free us from the slavery we had chosen, not even His own life was as important to Him as was our well-being and redemption from the slavery of self.  Doctrine would not equal love.  Doctrine without love could not equal truth.  The Pharisees had the scriptures, they had spent years in study and debate over their meaning.  They had carefully crafted doctrines based on a wealth of accumulated knowledge, but they did not see love when it was staring them in the face.  Truth without love, could not be truth at all.  Truth could only be found in Christ, and Christ was love itself.  Therefore Jesus reminds His followers, that when they love others, they love Christ.

Jesus continues in verse 16 … “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;”.  Christ came in the flesh.  But God is not bound by the limitations of the flesh.  The Holy Spirit would be sent to be with the disciples, and with each of us.  The Holy Spirit would not be bound by the limitations of our human containers, and would be the part of the God-Head that can be in all places at one time.  This would continue our personal relationship building with God on a one-to-one basis.  Jesus continues in verse 17 … “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.  [verse 18] I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”  As Christ is “the truth”, so the Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Truth.  The world does not discern it, because the world does not accept the divinity of Christ, or the truth of Christ.  But the Spirit would dwell with us, and within us.  He would bring us our comfort when Christ could no longer be physically present with us.  The Spirit would bridge the gap between the time of His ascension, and the time of His returning.

Jesus continued in verse 19 … “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.”  Soon the world would think that Christ had died.  But His followers would see Him again before His triumphant return.  And in addition because Christ was alive after death, His followers would receive the Holy Spirit and the self-less miracle working power of Christ would bring them to life as well.  This would be the definitive truth of Jesus Christ, for the disciples were merely men, flawed, human, and not extraordinary.  But through the transforming power of the love of Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, real change, and real miracles would occur.  Jesus continues in verse 20 … “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”  The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives would be yet another proof, a certainty, a knowledge that Jesus was alive, and united with the Father, and united through His Spirit with us.  This linkage would help give the disciples the certainty that Jesus was indeed the Son of God.  The same evidence would be true for us as well.

Jesus further states in verse 21 … “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”.  The Ten Commandments, and the recent summary of them in the “new” commandment, were ALL commandments of Christ.  They were designed to show us, the basics of what it means to love each other.  When we love, we do not steal from those we love.  When we love, we do not think to lie to those we love.  When we love, it never even crosses our minds to kill the things we love, rather to watch over them, and bring happiness to their lives.  When we love, we prioritize, we put the objects of our love ahead of ourselves.  This was the example Christ was setting with them in those very hours.  He was about to be tortured and killed, yet still He is offering words of comfort to US.  Even with everything He is about to face, His thoughts and words are directed to bring us comfort, bring us hope, bring us relief.  That is the power of love to forget self, and focus on the object of love.  It did not matter to Christ that His followers were still imperfect.  It did not diminish the love of Christ for those men, even though they still did not fully understand the true mission of the Messiah, and therefore were missing the entire point of the Jewish faith.  He loved them despite their imperfections, and their willful ignorance.  He sought to bring perfection to them, not require it of them.

When we love others we reveal the love of Christ within us.  When we love others, we find ourselves in harmony with Christ and His Father.  When we love others, we become living examples and beacons to point to our Lord who is the author of all love.  Christ is “manifested” in us, when we love others.  Not just those who already claim to love us, but like our Lord, we are to love those who are bent on our destruction.  We are to love those who would do us real harm.  For love is the only way to reach those with hearts of stone, the only power that can turn them from stone to flesh again.  Love is the only motive and reason to want to be something else, and something better.  It was love that redeemed us, from the slavery of serving only ourselves at the expense of others.  It will be love that will see an end to evil throughout the universe.  It is as we allow the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that our human limitations, our human frailty is obliterated, and instead of us, the strength and depth of the love of God is manifested through us.  We are not the source of the love of God, we are vessels through which it is dimly reflected.  But His light burns brightly.  It can overcome our tired frailty.  It can overcome our decisions of apathy, our indifference, and our reluctance.  It can create in us a burning fire to see love manifested in the world around us.  We cannot change the world, but we can love it through the power of the Holy Spirit and in so doing point it to Christ, who can change anything.

Judas (not the betrayer but a different disciple, likely his brother Jude) ponders this idea of Christ manifesting Himself to them, but not to the world.  He likely ponders if Christ would be invisible to everyone else, or just how that would happen, so he asks Christ about it in verse 22 … “Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”  Jude is still thinking literally and has not understood the concepts of reflecting Christ through the manifestation of love to others.  But Jesus stays on topic and repeats again to Jude his answer in verse 23 … “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. [verse 24] He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.”  Loving others remains the hallmark of being a follower of Christ, and of His Father, and a testament that the Holy Spirit is abiding in us.  By contrast, when we do not choose to love, or choose to accept the Holy Spirit’s influence over us, we are not just rejecting Christ, but rejecting God entirely.  For the words Christ was speaking were still not His own, but the will of His Father in heaven. 

This is where so many Christian faiths have gone sideways on the topic of obedience.  True obedience cannot be achieved in human effort or strength.  It can only come AFTER the Holy Spirit is allowed control over our lives by our decision to submit the whole of who we are to Christ.  Only then, can the errors we embrace, the selfishness we are slave to, be corrected within us.  Creating lists of rules, or tenets of doctrine we must profess, does nothing to capture what it means to love others.  Love is a living thing, it cannot possible be contained in a piece of paper.  There are no laws of God that limit how much we can love another.  There are only laws that restrict us from hurting another, thus revealing our lack of love in the actions we would desire to take.  The beauty of obedience is revealed in the freedom from our slavery to self that it brings.  Obedience too, is another gift of Christ to us.  It is the end-result of the transformation His Holy Spirit works within us to bring us in harmony with The Father.  The “laws” of God become a part of who we are.  They define us, but then become so small, so quickly, when it comes to the measure of how much we can love another.  Christ kept His own laws while living life on planet earth; but He did SO MUCH more than just keeping those tenets.  His life showed us a love that is way larger than what we do not do to hurt people; His love was defined by how much He did to help people and lift them up.  He held nothing back when it came to how much He would give for another; even His own life was not as precious to Him as we are.  There is no commandment that could define the depths of His love.  But when we are brought in harmony with Him, our obedience becomes natural, not an effort. 

Our actions follow our motives.  So to love would be revealed in what we do.  Then came one of the most powerful promises Christ ever made to His followers, both the disciples in that room, and to us down through the ages.  He states in verse 25 … “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. [verse 26] But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”  Wow!!  He will teach you “all things”.  Understand the sequence of events here.  The Holy Spirit must come to you FIRST … before your understanding of scripture and doctrine can even be called complete.  To bring “all things” to our remembrance is NOT something we achieve by the power of our failing memories and human skills.  It is another gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  We remember the scriptures, and understand the love revealed in them, only AFTER the Holy Spirit is given control.  What is more, the Holy Spirit is sent, not as a general rule, but in the Name of Christ.  When the supernatural is manifested in our world, we can challenge its source in the name of Christ, and it must reveal itself in truth.  Satan is not allowed to lie about who he is, if he is challenged in the name of Christ.  And the Spirit of God is not offended to answer a similar challenge in that precious name.

It is important to God the Father, that we understand our salvation was enabled alone through the actions of His son.  We do not randomly find God, or randomly find perfection.  We find it ONLY through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and our willingness to submit to this truth.  Being a “good person” is not the goal of our God.  “Good”, simply is not good enough.  Our God wants more for us.  He wants us to live in perfect freedom, where “great” would hardly be adequate to describe it.  There are those other religions and ideologies that teach self-abasement and doing for others as a way to achieve inner peace.  It is true that in doing for others we begin to share in the contentment that God offers.  But doing for others does not change “who” we are, absent our submission to Christ.  We may have the willpower to resist doing actions that would harm ourselves or others.  Perhaps because we fear the consequences of our actions, or the discovery of our evil intent, but the struggle against these inherent desires is the very thing that Christ longs to free us from.  It is not the actions alone He wishes to alter in us, but the motives and desires behind them.  Religions powered by self, are doomed to miss this mark entirely.  History demonstrates this.  But our God, Jesus Christ, offers to perform the work of transformation to perfection within us by His power, not our own.  He changes us from inside out, and in this is the true power of the gospel.  It is why the Holy Spirit is only associated with the name of Jesus Christ, and not with any other random ideas of deity.

We do not choose to love others, in order to secure the love of Christ.  Rather, it is because of the love of Christ reflected through us, that we are able to truly love others.  The beauty of obedience when it is natural, shows a manifestation of Christ alive in our lives, and in the lives of those we can affect with our love in action for them.  Our circumstance become irrelevant when we love like Christ loved.  He was facing torture and death, and yet spending his final hours caring for us, giving us hope, and offering us something more.

And communion was not over yet …

 

First Things First ...

How much junk mail do you get in your mailbox? How about spam in your email? How much of it do you pay attention to? If you’re like me the most attention you pay to junk mail in either location is just to make sure it is sorted properly to be discarded. I don’t want to lose “real” mail amidst all the coupon flyers and pseudo newspapers in my mailbox. Nor do I want to delete any “real” messages that may get put in my junk folder by mistake. But no-one I know has the time, let alone the interest, to actually read or pay any real attention to something they have no interest in, like junk mail.

To begin, we need to have something to say. Not just idle prattle, not just words that have been repeated for hundreds of years but have lost all real meaning or relevance, we need something worthwhile to talk about. In short, we need truth. We need the kind of truth that makes a difference in today’s world, and therefore in our own lives. If our lives have not been changed or improved by truth, then we have nothing further to discuss. Our reality must match our language or the gospel becomes nothing more than well packaged junk mail.

Take for instance the topic of romantic relationships and marriage. The traditional Christian viewpoint has much to say on the topic. An entire list of do’s, don’ts, and how to’s – but reality shows us that the divorce rates are as high within the church as outside of it. Obviously what we think we know about marriage is not changing our lives, or improving our ability to stick together. It is plain we are simply doing it wrong. This does not mean the Bible is mistaken, or that we have no knowledge of truth of any kind. It does mean we are missing something substantial in our teachings that would make our marriages the success they should be. Unbelievers have no compelling reason to seek guidance from the church when our failure rates are as high as theirs. It is simple math. We are missing something. Time to fix it.

What we say must be relevant. Nobody cares about a ninety percent off sale that ended two weeks ago. The message must meet the needs of today. It must make a real difference to those who hear it, when they hear it. So often Biblical truth has been taught like a history 101 class. Facts, figures, and morality lessons based on characters that do not face what we face, and do not live in our world. But this need not be the case. It is possible to look at historical truths and extrapolate the values into the world in which we live. It is possible when we see scripture for something more than simple history. Truth must be applied to be relevant.

What we say must be personal. You cannot share what you do not know, what you have not personally experienced. So often Biblical truths have been presented merely as “other people’s” stories, with no real personal application, no real personal insight. No-one seeks advice from the friend of a counselor, they go directly to the counselor for advice. Knowing the relationship that someone else has with God does not give you one of your own. If you have not lived it, then you have no idea what I am talking about. God gets personal with each of us if we let Him. Personal means personal, unique to a great degree, when God interacts with us He meets our individual needs, in the way in which we need Him the most. If we cannot relay our personal results, we are simply repackaging the junk mail again.

What we say must be important. What if I told you that this BLOG will change your life forever for the better? What if I were willing to guarantee it? You might be skeptical, in fact I would expect nothing less. In a world of half-truths and constant disappointments, it is easy to become hardened against any claims of real change, real meaning. Many charlatans make their living from selling dreams that will never be delivered, to people who can barely hang on to hope. But what if the dream were real, and what if it really did not cost you a cent. What if profit were not the motive here? If I am not looking to get rich from helping you then what is my angle you ask?

It turns out, I am already rich, beyond all measure, in everything that is truly important. And it was all a gift, I never deserved or could have earned. I want to share it, because I find joy in the sharing. It is important because it is real. Life altering real. The kind of real that will change the very core of who you are. It changed me, and I have no complaints (well none that matter anyway ). When you discover truth that has meaning, you simply cannot bury it, you cannot hide it – when it is real, you want to shout it from rooftops and hope the whole world can hear you. This is why I am writing. And the more you interact with me, the richer will be the experience for us both. For like you, I remain in the process of learning, even of the truths in which I believe.