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01.07.08

 

Words of Life:

 

The French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal once said, “God made man in His own image, and man returned the compliment.”  Man has been making and molding his own image of God since Time immemorial.  Some of our more modern caricatures center around images like the All-Powerful Puritan, the Cosmic Killjoy {which, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, is more accurate of Satan than of God}, the Terrible Taskmaster laboring over our lives, the Intense Inspector of our moral inventories {which always have a way of coming up short, don’t they?}, God the Grandfather {nice, but just as easily ignored}, and last but not least— the one I have encountered more than any other in the lives of believers, lurking in the shadowy depths of the sub-conscious soul— the Angry Accountant adding up our sins and preparing to swing the Hammer of Holiness as He lays down the Law yet again.  Is it such a fearful thing to embrace the utterly beautiful and inescapably true Truth that God is a tender-hearted Father who longs only for what is best in the lives of His children?  This is the image unfolded for us again and again in the Sacred Word, the image modeled in living flesh and vibrant colour in the life, love, and ministry of the Messiah.  This is the only image which fulfills the Mission of the Messiah laid out in Isaiah 61:1.  It brings “Good News,” grand news of redemption for all, glorious news of restoration for “the afflicted,” to those tortured by their own sins and tormented by their own pasts.  This true God, not the false god of fantasy and legalistic license, but the One True God, the Living Lord of Light and Love, binds “up the brokenhearted;” He proclaims “liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”  The image of Abba, the perfect Father, full of caring kindness, healing love, and protecting power, is the great healer of the hearts of men and women.  When we choose to embrace Him as He has embraced us, to internalize our identity as a son or daughter of the King, to make Him our home forevermore, we may just find ourselves free from the fear of death …and the fear of life.  And wouldn’t that be something well worth pursuing?

 

Prayer Passage:

 

“For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship.  And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’  The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children,” Romans 8:15-16 {NIV}.

 

The Living Bible: “And so we should not be like cringing, fearful slaves, but we should behave like God’s very own children, adopted into the bosom of His Family, and calling to him, ‘Father, Father.’  For His Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children,” Romans 8:15-16.

 

“This Resurrection Life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike ‘What’s next, Papa?’  God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are.  We know who He is, and we know who we are: Father and children,” Romans 8:15-16 {The Message}.

 

 

01.14.08

 

Words of Life:

 

It needs to be both said and accepted by the children of God that: There are no formulas with the Father.  And therefore, no all the time-every time formulas for the one who follows Him.  The ‘procedural policy’ is a Life of Love… a passionate pursuit of God and a willingness to serve and to sacrifice for those we claim to love, and for men, those we claim to lead.  When we talk about the love of Christ and what it means in relationships, understand that exaggeration and overstatement are not the dangers here.  You see, love is the axis of the Christian Revolution; love is {according to the words of our Lord in John 13:35} the only sign by which a disciple is recognized by those outside the Family, beyond the Body.  The danger lies in our subtle attempts to minimize, to rationalize, and to justify our moderation in the love and compassion of Christ.  As Thomas Merton once put it, “Without love and compassion for others, our own apparent love for Christ is a fiction.”  Life in the Spirit of Christ isn’t a theory to expounded; it’s an Adventure to be lived.  And living it calls for a radical conversion of the heart and a re-evaluation of everything we consider to be imperative in life.  Living the Adventure of Faith means renouncing a rigid moral code as my guide to God, i.e., living by Law and not by Love.  It means embracing a lifestyle of sacrificial service in the Cause of the King; it means choosing to live in the arms of Abba, to draw both our destiny and identity from this sacred place, from this powerfully passionate God who loves us beyond all boundary or breaking point.  This is what the Greeks called not paranoia but metanoia- ‘a change of mind’ {thoroughly and completely}, a ‘repentance’ and redirection of one’s heart and life.  If this is not the time for change— for a reevaluation of our priorities and a redirection of our lives— then when is?

 

 Prayer Passage:

 

“Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves.  Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer,” Romans 12:9-12 {NIV}.

 

“Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.  Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.  Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.  Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame.  Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant.  Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder”— The Message.

 

 

01.20.08

 

Words of Life:

 

“The Spiritual Life cannot be made suburban,” said Howard Macey.  “It is always frontier.  And we who live in it must accept and even rejoice that it remains untamed.” The most important aspects of our world: our relationship with Abba and with the people in our lives, our calling and its glory, the battles we fight and the enemies we face, every one of them is fraught with mystery.  Contrary to what clearly seems the most popular Christian opinion, that is not a bad thing; it is a rich part of reality and essential to our soul’s thirst for adventure.  God is a Person, not a principle; He is Deity, not doctrine.  And thus He operates in the glory of grace, not like a theological system {no matter how accurate we deem it}, but with all the originality of a perfect Person truly free and utterly alive.  It shouldn’t surprise us that the imposter within, what the apostle Paul calls “the old man, the old self” {Col. 3:9}, hates mystery.  Which is somewhat of a problem, because mystery is essential to adventure.  In dealing with the Almighty Father of Heaven and Earth, we’re entering the realm of mystery, dealing with One whom we cannot control, One whom we cannot approach on our terms.  And we need to comprehend this concept, because we live in a world that fawns over the new, always looks for the easy, and worships at the altar of the practical.  We want our God to be ‘relevant’ to our lifestyle… regardless of how irrelevant our lifestyle happens to be!  Let’s be brutally honest: We want a God we can ‘get a handle on,’ a God we can control.  The only problem in this perspective is that neither Jesus, nor His Father, nor the Spirit is that God!  The only righteous response to a God like this, the Glorious God of the Trinity, is worship and reverence, the passionate love of heart and life.

 

Prayer Passage:

 

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass,” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 {NAU}.  

 

“May God Himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together— spirit, soul, and body— and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ.  The One who called you is completely dependable.  If He said it, He’ll do it!”— The Message.

 

 

01.27.08

 

Words of Life:

 

Trinity

 

 

The way the Trinity works in perfect harmony, laboring in love alongside one another, the way they belong to each other and the way we belong to them, keeps us from living in impersonal and irrelational ways.  It prevents us from relegating our Faith to the realm of mere information which, as we know, is a recipe for futility.  The term Trinity reveals the immense horizon of God, an entire Universe alive with His presence, a Universe in which He is creating and recreating, birthing and rebirthing, redeeming, restoring, healing and blessing in the name and realities of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And there are immediate implications for the way we live, the way we love, the way we labor from this.  As Eugene Peterson puts it, “Knowing God through impersonal abstractions is ruled out, knowing God through programmatic projects is abandoned, knowing God in solitary isolation is forbidden.  Trinity insists that God is not an idea or force or a private experience but personal and known only in personal response and engagement.”  If we are to know God, to truly know Him in everyday experience, then we must participate in the relationship that is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  By relationship is meant a Life of worship and prayer, obedience and love— a life open and responsive to what Christ is doing rather than one in which we plot strategies to get Jesus involved in what we are doing.  

 

The Trinity keeps pulling us into a far larger world and a much Larger Story than we could ever imagine on our own.  Trinity keeps us responsive to the freedom we derive from active participation in the Life of the Spirit.  Every expression of spirituality, when left to itself, tends to become more about me and less about God.  The concept of Trinity provides us with a theological language and a relational reality that enables us to live fully in our identity as children of the Father, bearing the “image” of the Son {Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10;}, under the sway of the Spirit.  That is true Life in the Trinity. 

 

Prayer Passage:

 

The Return of the Prodigal.

 

“When he came to his senses [the recognition of reality], he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!  I will set out and go back to my father [decision] and say to him: Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’  So he got up and went to his father [action].  But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; He ran to His Son, threw his arms around him and kissed him [kataphileo: ‘kissed him tenderly over and over and over again’],” Luke 15:17-20 {NIV} 

 

02.03.08

 

Words of Life:

 

Not a Story About Me

 

The most damaging and dangerous lie you will ever contend with is: Life is a Story about you.  It’s not; but we like to live like it is.  For all practical purposes our lifestyles demonstrate our much deeper belief that if, in fact, it’s not about me, I’m still going to live that way …regardless.  In Blue Like Jazz author Donald Miller makes a brilliant statement: “No drug is so powerful as the drug of self.  No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play.  There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.”  {Italics Mine.}  No addiction indeed so powerful as self.  How utterly and absolutely true.  

 

The greatest idol any man or woman ever erects is the one inside their own souls where they build an altar to self and bow down to worship every chance they get.  The Greeks had a name for this; they called it huperephanos: one who sees him or herself as over and above everybody else.  In James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 it’s translated “the proud”— “GOD OPPOSES THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”  What it really means is ‘the arrogant,’ those for whom others are merely a tool to be used in the building of self, a means or method to get what they want in the Game of Life.  “You are my friend, lover, spouse, shepherd, neighbor, as long as you do what I want.  As long as you serve me, soothe me, bolster me and build me up, you may remain in your present state.  The moment you don’t, we’re done here.”  Wow.  Does that sound like Jesus Christ to you?  Does that reflect even remotely the uncompromising conviction and unconditional compassion of the Son of God?  Not in the least.  That’s because it’s a very, very, very small Story.  The principal protagonist is standing in the tiny circle of self, and there is nothing heroic in that.  Their Story has no redemptive value to it, no grand themes of service or sacrifice, no adventure worthy of the risk and daring in a hero’s heart.  And that means it cannot be a Story God has written from a pen inked with the blood of His Son, and therefore it can never be part of the Larger Story, the Glorious Adventure of God Himself.  

 

You have a choice.  You can walk deeply with God, you can live from a place of intimacy with Abba, and let Him sign the pages of your Story with the signature of Jesus.  Or you can write your own story, build your own little empire, and watch it all come crashing down one day.  The choice is always yours.

 

Prayer Passage:  

 

“Now remember what you were, my brothers, when God called you.  From the human point of view few of you were wise or powerful or of high social standing.  God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise, and He chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful.  He chose what the world looks down on and despises and thinks is nothing, in order to destroy what the world thinks is important.  This means that no one can boast in God’s presence.  But God has brought you into union with Christ Jesus, and God has made Christ to be our wisdom.  By Him we are put right with God; we become God’s holy people and are set free.  So then, as the Scripture says, ‘Whoever wants to boast must boast of what the Lord has done,’” 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 {TEV}.  

 

“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things— and the things that are not— to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.  It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God— that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord,’” 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 {NIV}.

 

 

02.10.08

 

Words of Life 

 

Our Stories Include Suffering.  

 

Suffering, pain, sorrow and heartache are all part of the tension which exists in every great narrative, the conflict at the center of every great story.  I wonder how willing we are to truly admit this: that suffering is a fact of life in a fallen world?  And that living a really good Story, a Story with God as the Hero who shares with us His glory, is incredibly difficult.   

 

One of the things we’ve learned in the past is that our Savior often uses our suffering {regardless of what brought it about} to unearth old wounds, or to reveal agreements we’ve made with the past, the very lies we’re living out of in the present.  Things like, “I’ll never trust anyone again.  I’ll never give that much of my heart away.  I’ll never let someone treat me like that.  I’ll never be in a position where someone can hurt me.”  Then you’re going to have to leave this life and walk away from the Grand and Glorious Adventure of God, cause that place doesn’t exist this side of Heaven.  Understand… that which was laid down in pain can often only be accessed in pain.  The wound was dealt in the past, but it is exposed by pain in the present.  And if embraced rather than run from, it can be disarmed.  The Spirit of Tenderness and Truth opens those unhealed wounds.  He opens for us avenues of honesty so that we might renounce those old vows which still have a hold on us, turn from the path of self-protection, and invite the healing work of Christ into those places.  {For those who need three steps, or more, to accomplish each spiritual objective, there you go: Renunciation, Consecration, Invitation.}  

 

The two things we’ll need for the healing path ahead are ruthless honesty and utter vulnerability; the third is incredible courage, the courage of Christ Himself.  Because you’re going to have to welcome Jesus Christ and the healing power He offers into the most hurtful, hateful, poisonous places of your heart.  And you’re going to have to give Him the freedom to work, which means unhindered access to every locked cell within your soul.  The “door” upon which Jesus knocks in Revelation 3:20 is the last locked door to your heart and life, a door we must open and invite Him into.  These are the places in our hearts that we’ve kept off limits from any one or any thing: places you and I have been unwilling to deal with, unwilling to look at, unwilling to have healed.   

The only way to cleanse and purify those poisonous wounds is to allow them to be drawn into the Light of Jesus’ healing love.  Nothing so moves the heart of man as suffering love and consummate compassion.  And nothing else will heal the wounds of your life, the scars within your soul, nothing and no one but the passionate, pursuing love of the Lord Jesus Christ.  

 

Prayer Passage:  

 

I want you to understand on the front end that this is not a v. for unbelievers, though it’s been misused that way more times than we can count.  It is a promise to each and every one of us as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ the King concerning what must happen, consciously and deliberately, at the deepest levels of our lives if we are to find the inner healing and wholeness promised us in the Scripture.  “Look and listen!  Here I am standing at the door of your soul and knocking over and over and over again.  If anyone hears My voice calling out to him [or ‘to her,’ it’s not exclusive to a single gender] and opens the door to their heart, I will come in and we will fellowship together around the Banquet Table of My Father's Grace,” Revelation 3:20 {RR Exp.}.  The word for “dine” or “eat” in most versions of the Bible is deipnon, the main meal of the day among the ancient Greeks, a feast for the Family.  And that’s precisely what is promised here: a Feast of Grace for the Family of Faith, a place where fellowship with the Father, communion with Christ, and intimacy with the Spirit are deepening day by day.

 

 

02.17.08 

 

Words of Life:

 

Instruction, Initiation, and Intimacy.

 

We tend to operate out of two basic paradigms when it comes to suffering in doctrinal circles: this is either divine discipline, cause I’ve blown it big time; or God is testing me.  And He’s going to keep on testing me, hammering the living Hades out of me, until I pass this test.  Discipline or testing, one or the other.  If we were to get brutally honest about it, the truth is the testing might as well as be discipline, because it all feels about the same as far as the receiving end is concerned: about as caring and kind as a two-by-four to the back of the head.  In a very real way, our response to suffering and heartache reveals a fundamental lack of faith in the heart of God.  At the deepest level of our beliefs, the deepest core of our convictions, we don’t really trust that the Father’s heart toward us is one of infinite goodness and unbearable grace.  In our minds, a God who could allow this, or for Heaven’s sakes cause it, simply could not be as good, perfect, and righteous as He say’s He is in the Scriptures.

 

I would submit to you, humbly, that many of us have been misdiagnosing the hand of God in our lives and thus misinterpreting the work of God in our hearts for far too long.  There is so much more to be revealed in suffering than the surface symptoms we’ve diagnosed as discipline or testing.  Those are two valid options, but two out of a multitude.  What God is primarily up to in the lives of His children, especially the masses of uninitiated men and women who live and breathe the ‘spirit of this age,’ is initiation.  A Calling up and in to a much higher plane than the one we presently inhabit with its small stories and daily dramas.  The Spirit is calling us up constantly into the pages of a much Larger Story, into the heat of a glorious Battle, the path of an Epic Adventure.  And for that He must have fellow-travelers who can walk with Him, who can fight beside Him, who can love as He loves and forgive as He forgives.  I.e., intimate allies of the Almighty: Warrior-Kings, valiant and courageous, Queens of light, love, and mercy.  

 

Thus, the Path He sets us on often looks like this: instruction, initiation, and intimacy.  The instruction is always easy, the easiest part of the equation; and if the instruction aspect is too difficult for you, you’re going to have some real problems in this life, a tough time in the realm of reality.  The initiation is always hard; it demands a level of trust in the heart of God we might never have imagined ourselves capable of.  And the end result of both is always intimacy with Him.  In the beauty of a long-established intimacy is where we ultimately find the purpose behind the pain we so often run from.  

 

Prayer Passage:  

 

Considering the overwhelming idea laid out in v. 8, that “your enemy prowls around like a vicious, bloodthirsty animal seeking to drink down the blood of believers,” the underlying assumption, Peter’s premise in this passage, is that every believer’s existence is under attack in some way, shape, or form.  Notice he say’s when suffering comes from the enemy’s hand, we don’t just take it lying down, we “resist” it; we take a stand in the strength of the Spirit against the attacks of our common enemy.  

 

“Resist him [‘your enemy the devil:’ v. 8], standing firm in the Faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world [the Brotherhood of Believers] are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.  And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  To Him be the power for ever and ever.  Amen,” 1 Peter 5:9-11 {NIV}.  

 

“Keep your guard up.  You’re not the only ones plunged into these hard times.  It’s the same with Christians all over the world.  So keep a firm grip on the Faith.  The suffering won’t last forever.  It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ— eternal and glorious plans they are!— will have you put together and on your feet for good.  He gets the last word; yes, He does”— The Message.

 

 

02.24.08

 

Words of Life:

 

Subversive Spirituality Vs. Ostentatious Overcomers.

 

Living the discipline of the ‘subversively spiritual’ {walking among the world without them initially realizing you’re a child of the King: not hiding your faith, infecting their lack of with the disease called Jesus}, is not an easy thing.  But it is a beautiful thing and an authentic thing, a spirituality centred on Jesus Christ.  The weight of your life, the strength of who you are, and the faithfulness of your service to your Sovereign King cannot, ultimately, be denied.  And that’s what makes it so powerful.  What is truly subversive spirituality— a deep and trusting relationship with the Holy Spirit— opposed to?  One thing I would suggest is the ostentatious ‘overcomers,’ those who feel compelled to announce their faith in the workplace, gym, the parking garage, convenience stores with comments like, “I don’t need coffee breaks, I’m a Christian.  I don’t sweat like other people, God keeps my armpits cool.  I shouldn’t have to pay for a parking space, the Universe belongs to my God.  I should get free refills on Cherry Slurpees, cause in the words of the Monkees, ‘I’m a believer.’”

 

I made the points above purposely ridiculous to paint a picture of how ridiculous it looks and sounds to a skeptical, post-modern public when we announce our discipleship with silly slogans that are all lips and no life.  And that’s my point: all lips and no life, no corresponding reality to the slogans we use to shame the unbelieving.  After several hundred years of Puritanical proselytizing and shame-filled sloganeering, it’s clearly not achieving whatever objective was intended.  Unless our objective was to sound like hypocrites and ignoramuses.  But if our true intention was to win the world for Christ our King, to see them one day worship at His feet, then we have failed.  For that we need a Life of genuine Love {the very Life of God Himself: 1 Jn. 4:8 and 16}, one capable of accepting people precisely where they are, yet bold and unapologetic in proclaiming all that Jesus came to offer: salvation and spirituality, redemption and restoration, healing, wholeness and holiness.  These are divine realities for those who choose to walk in the footsteps of the Master, and to live in the Light of the Father’s everlasting Love.  This is bound, my friends, to give offense to our enemies.  I’m speaking primarily of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  “If the world hates you,” said Jesus in John 15:18, “you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you.”  Our faith today is largely inoffensive because for most of us it’s a part-time, convenience-driven, consumer-centred affair.  When we want to, we want to {pray, worship, be gracious, forgive, live according to Truth, speak according to love… you fill in the blank}… when we feel like it, we feel like it… when we’ve got time, we’ll give it to God… after our wills are done.  And this kind of cheap ‘Sunday only’ Churchianity will never transform anything.

 

Because you may be one of the ones who refuse to keep faith solely on the intellectual level {like those who refuse to dirty their manicured hands with the messy realities of Church and country, passion and pain, reality and relationships}, you will be greatly misunderstood and viciously attacked: verbally, and maybe even physically.  Oftentimes, among the very Brotherhood, which has to be one of the sickest sins of all.  If the Trinity— I’m speaking metaphorically here— ever turn their heads away in disgust, it is surely over this.  A Brother or Sister building up their ego by tearing another believer down.  What a pathetically frail façade for a shrunken and shriveled soul.  “To put it bluntly,” said author Brennan Manning, “people have had their bellyful of our sermonizing,” moralizing, and endless legalizing.  They want to see “a source of strength for their lives.”  It’s one we can recommend in the Person of the Holy Spirit only by making Him actively present in our own, only by choosing to have a relationship with the Spirit of the Living God.

 

So, instead of embracing the world’s all-encompassing ethos of ‘more is more and more is better’ {that this mindset has crept into the Church cannot be denied: the ABCs of modern ministry are greater Attendance, bigger Buildings, and a lot more Cash} maybe in terms of true spirituality, ‘less is actually much, much more.’  What do I mean by ‘less is more’?  I mean a lot more living and loving in the Spirit of Christ, and a lot less talking and much less criticizing.  And way less condemning.  Shortly before his death, the Marxist murderer Vladimir Lenin said, “Give me ten men like Francis of Assisi and I will rule the world.”  Really …why?  Because Francis was perfect?  No.  Because he was a man of unceasing conviction in the Cause of Christ and uncompromising commitment to the Person of Christ.  And that is one of the truest traits of a man or woman remade and remodeled in the “image of His Son” {Rom. 8:29}.  Unceasing conviction to the Cause and uncompromising commitment to the Person.

 

G.K. Chesterton once said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried” {Italics Mine}.  Let this not be the epitaph left lingering over the pages of our lives when the final chapter is written by the hand of our God.  Instead, let it be, “They fought valiantly to the last breath {2 Tim. 4:7-8}.  They loved like how I loved them; they taught like how I taught them; they poured compassion on others as I poured it on them, like a River.  They spent everything I gave them and used My armor {Eph. 6:10-20} to the End.  You did well, sons and daughters, very well indeed.”

 

Prayer Passage:

 

“Remember those earlier days after you had received the Light, when you stood your ground in a great Contest in the face of suffering.  Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated.  You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.  So do not throw away your confidence [in Christ as your Deliverer]; it will be richly rewarded,” Hebrews 10:32-35 {NIV}.

 

“Remember how it was with you in the past.  In those days, after God’s Light had shone on you, you suffered many things yet were not defeated by the Struggle.  You were at times publicly insulted and mistreated, and at other times you were ready to join those who were being treated in this way.  You shared the sufferings of prisoners, and when all your belongings were seized, you endured your loss gladly, because you knew that you still possessed something much better, [something] which would last forever.  Do not lose your courage [your confidence in Christ], then, because it brings with it a great reward,” Hebrews 10:32-35 {TEV}.

 

 

03.02.08

 

Words of Life:

 

Do you know why those small house-churches in persecuted countries thrive?  Because their lives are, literally, in one another’s hands.  They need each other desperately.  And there’s no hesitation in admitting that, precisely because there are no other options.  Suddenly, all those ‘one another’s’ in Scripture begin to take on a new light.  “Love one another,” John 15:12 {1 Pet. 1:22; 2 Jn. 1:5}; “{be} devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor,” Romans 12:10; “accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God,” Romans 15:7; “bear one another’s burdens…,” Galatians 6:2a; “be kind to one another, …forgiving each other, just as God in Christ …has forgiven you,” Ephesians 4:32.  All those little acts of kindness and mercy and generosity become deeply meaningful because we know we are at War, a Fellowship of Faith in a bloodthirsty battle.  A word of encouragement or compassion can heal a wound; the decision to forgive can destroy a stronghold.  It’s absolutely true.  Maybe you never knew those simple little decisions carried so much weight.

 

This is the ‘lifestyle warfare’ of subversive spirituality, undermining the elements of evil in the lives of those around us.  We wage this warfare by walking in the uncompromising love of Christ {daily}, and by living out His Life in the darkness of the devil’s manipulation zone.  You see, it’s the power of a platoon that changes the world in this Cosmic Conflict, a small Band of Brothers devoted to their King, His Cause, and the hearts of one another.  It’s written into the very fabric of human history: we were not made to wage this War alone!  Those who choose to isolate themselves in arrogance find this out …by getting taken out, very quickly and very efficiently.  And it does not have to be this way; it should not be this way.  In fact, it was never meant to be this way.  There is a divine alternative, and this is it.  

 

Prayer Passage:

 

Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess [the reality of relationship with the Son of the Living God], for He who promised [to redeem and deliver us in Christ] is faithful; and let us consider [katanoeo means ‘bear down with concentration and think through thoroughly’] how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another— and all the more as you see the Day approaching,” the Day of Christ drawing near— vv. 24-25 {NIV}.

 

“Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going.  He always keeps His Word.  Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching”— The Message.

 

 

03.16.08

 

Words of Life:

 

Annie Dillard writes, “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions.  Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke?  Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?  The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.  It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.  Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”  I absolutely love this paragraph, from the moment I first read it.  I shared it a couple of weeks ago with the Wed. Night Warriors and they immediately latched on to it.  Our friend Gary Paul Childers came to me last Sun. morning and said, “Wow, that quote really put things in perspective: the puniness of our problems in light of God’s power.”  His deduction was the main reason we don’t see more jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring answers to our prayers as the People of God is the weak-willed way we approach Him.  When it comes to the LORD “stretching out His hand to heal” and working wonders for His sons and daughters, we either don’t believe He will or we don’t believe He can.  Neither of those positions shows the faintest amount of faith.  “Lord, deliver us from faithless prayers and fruitless lives.  In Jesus’ mighty name.  Amen.”

 

Prayer Passage:

 

“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly [fearless and courageously].  All the believers were one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the Apostles continued to testify to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all,” Acts 4:31-33 {NIV}.

 

“While they were praying, the place where they were meeting trembled and shook.  They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak God’s Word with fearless confidence.  The whole congregation of believers was united as one— one heart, one mind!  They didn’t even claim ownership of their own possessions.  No one said, ‘That's mine; you can’t have it.’  They shared everything.  The apostles gave powerful witness to the Resurrection of the Master Jesus, and grace was on all of them”— The Message.

 

 

03.23.08

 

Words of Life: 

 

Mark 16 tells us: “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.  Very early on the first day of the week [Son-Day], just after Son-rise [how exactly accurate!], they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?’  But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.  As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed [‘they were thrown into amazement, astonished’].  ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said.  ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.  He has risen!  He is not here.  See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee [it’s to Galilee we must go, and not the grave, if we want to find the Living Christ].  There you will see Him, just as He told you.’  [V. 8 is my expanded translation:] They went forth from the tomb and fled, for bodies trembling with fear and minds of astonished amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid,” Mark 16:1-8 {NIV-RR Exp.}.

 

“Once in Israel,” wrote Annie Dillard, “love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.”  And we were all afraid …of what?  Of the real and Risen Christ, the God who comes flooding into the darkness of our lives like lightning from the skies above.  In such a way that nothing, nothing will ever be the same.  Afterwards— be it moments or years— you may turn from Him, run from Him, or hide your face in fear, but you cannot ignore Him any longer.  He is at the centre of your Life and He is the Immutable Reality around which our Universe revolves.

 

Author Mark Galli has said, “There comes a time in the life of faith when Jesus must die.”  And that’s the time in each of our stories when the Jesus of imagination must die so the Christ of reality can live.  For most of us, this means the Christ of popular culture: the soulful social critic, the rabble-rousing revolutionary, or the perpetual pre-school teacher who treats all of humanity like a disoriented five-year-old, with a pat on the back and a tousle of the hair.  The Jesus who only gives and never demands anything in return, the Lord of Love in purely emotional terms but not the God of fierce and fiery passion, the Holy One of Israel who seems more than ‘okay’ with the unholiness running rampant in our lives.  This is the god who has to go so that the real God, the mighty Jesus who spoke Creation into being with a single word, who calmed the storm and stilled the sea with another, who healed the deaf, the lame, the blind and the broken, with but a touch of His healing hand, can live— fully within the hearts of His Family and freely within the lives they live.  This is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, seated “at the right hand of the Majesty on high” {Heb. 1:3d}.  Not dead and tucked away neatly in a grave, as the founders of all the world’s religions are, but alive and in glory, present in power, perfect in provision, and fierce in protection of all His Own.  It’s time we turn loose of the Jesus we created solely for comfort’s sake, it’s time we let go of the god we can control, and get back to the God in the Gospels who was, who is, and who always will be!  

 

Prayer Passage:

 

“You have been raised to Life with Christ, so set your hearts on the things that are in Heaven, where Christ sits on His Throne at the right hand of God.  Keep your minds fixed on things there, not on things here on Earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  Your real life is Christ and when He appears [at the Rapture and Resurrection of His Own], then you too will appear with Him and share His glory!,” Colossians 3:1-4 {TEV}.

 

“So if you’re serious about living this new Resurrection Life with Christ, act like it.  Pursue the things over which Christ presides.  Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you; look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ— that’s where the action is.  See things from His perspective.  Your old life is dead.  Your new life, which is your real Life— even though invisible to spectators— is with Christ in God.  He is your Life.  When Christ {your real life, remember} shows up again on this Earth, you’ll show up, too— the real you, the glorious you.  Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ”— The Message.