Afraid of Jesus and His Works

When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.  (Luke 8:35)

I get used to certain things.  Some things are familiar in Nature, like the rising sun, the waning moon, or the wind in the trees.  Some things are familiar with my family, like dinners together, people sitting in the living room to read or tap on laptops, or our little dogs laying down in someone’s lap.  Some things are typical around me, like people driving in a hurry on the road, voiced contempt of various people, or sickness always threatening people.

What happens when one of these things is obstructed, delayed, or removed?  It may be a great cataclysm, but often it is just unsettling.  Some of these changes “just happen.”  They are part of the way “life” works.  Sometimes my family doesn’t get to have dinner together.  Sometimes the air is unnaturally still around our house.  Sometimes instead of contempt, I find mercy in someone’s voice.  Some things just don’t change, though.

These people of the Gerasenes did not expect to see this demon-possessed man recover.  At least, not instantly.  It was like the sun had neglected to rise that morning.  It was not one of those things that “just happen.”  People sickened in this way do not recover like that!  It was so unsettling that they saw it as a threat instead of a blessing.

The closeness of God was a frightening thing.  Something made them deeply fearful.  A God who drives demons out of a crazy person wandering in the tombs might do anything.  So the phrase, “Nothing is impossible with God” becomes more than a promise that God can do anything.  It becomes a somewhat frightening idea that God might do anything.  If he cures that crazy guy, if he saves that sinner, if he changes the things I’ve come to expect and rely on, bad or good, he might do anything!

Also, I find that more frightening than crazy people, desperate people, or cruel people might be people in their right minds.  If Jesus is any indication of such a “right mind,” I see that he is remarkable unsettling, offensive, and fear-inducing on a number of occasions.  Sickness and wickedness are strangely comforting (especially in other people) compared to real health and righteousness.  Because of my pride and desire to control, what is unknown can be more fearful than what is evil.

I do not think that it is mere coincidence that the man in his right mind is sitting at Jesus’ feet.  Like Mary when Martha criticized her, this man finds in Jesus – in his presence and teaching – what he needs.  So it is not only that his neighbors found him in his right mind, but that they found him at Jesus’ feet.  “ If all things are possible with this God, then we might all find ourselves at Jesus’ feet.”

Lord, calm my fears when I see your hand healing and delivering.  Let me not run from forgiveness or your help because I fear the unknown.  Please bring me into my right mind, sitting at your feet.  Amen.

More alarming than seeing such changes in people is the yearning of God to be with me.  He brings me to a right mind and brings me to sit at Jesus feet because I will not be near him any other way.  I want to embrace Jesus’ compassion and God’s yearning and remaining near him.  I want to learn to recognize this fear that drives me from Jesus rather than to him.

God's Will to Forgive and Heal

Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.  “I am willing,” he said.  “Be clean!”  (Mark 1:41)

Somehow I have come to believe that it is God’s will that I remain in sickness.  Somehow I have come to see Jesus saying to me, “I am not willing.  Remain unclean.”  My prayers have been heavily affected by this belief.  They are filled with the phrase “Your will be done” which does not really seek God’s will, but instead embraces resignation that God really is unwilling.

It is not God that is unwilling.  The One who came with the good news, with the announcement of the year of the Lord’s favor, did not ever withhold healing and forgiveness.  He reached out his hand and touched and healed and forgave without measure and without hesitation.  No, it is not God who is unwilling.

I find that I am unwilling.  Somehow I hold onto my sicknesses of mind, body, and soul.  I refuse to give them up.  I do not see God with the trust that Jesus had, but instead I am full of hesitation and doubt.  His promises are laid out in the Bible: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, . . . who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.”  (Psalm 103:1,2)  His life is displayed in Jesus, the compassionate healer, the flagrant forgiver.  It is plain.  God is willing, but somehow I am not.

Faith provides the key and the answer.  Simply, I do not trust God.  I would rather wrestle with my sins and sickness than give them up into his hands.  My faith is weak.  I cannot picture what health and wholeness is like in my body, mind, and soul.  I cannot picture such love and brotherhood in my church.  I cannot picture peace and unity in the world.  Help my unbelief!

That is what Jesus does.  Not only does he live.  Not only does he heal.  Not only does he forgive.  He sends his Spirit into my heart so that I may also accept these gifts and live in them, live with them.  Faith becomes living with God and his will rather than living apart from him in doubt.  My Jesus is where my faith lives and grows.

Lord, I struggle hard to believe.  I want to let that go.  I try hard to be healed and forgiven.  I want to let that go, too.  Instead I want to embrace a faith in Jesus, which also contains the faith of Jesus.  Renew my mind, so that I my see and live in faith instead of doubt.  For your sake and for your glory.  Amen.

One practice of seeing in faith is letting go of my doubts.  With the Lord dwelling in me, for instance, pride does not dwell.  I have old thought-habits of pride, but with forgiveness, they are merely thoughts.  I want to learn to put them aside gently and say, “I know you are willing.  I know you live in me.  Where you live pride does not dwell.  These are just old habits that need to be cleaned up.

Paradox Helps Us to See

 Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:43-45)

These paradoxes of Jesus come from the disparity between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of heaven.  “Greatness” as the world sees it is not really greatness at all.  Such greatness has these characteristics: “lording it over “ other people, exercising authority over  others, and being first.  Greatness in the kingdom of God comes with service and giving up one’s life.

Instead of being served by many, Jesus showed that greatness is shown by serving many.  Capacity to serve demonstrates greatness with God.  Greatness with God is not just a matter of some future reward, but to have the kind of influence that God has.  Jesus served not merely out of duty, but because it is the most effective way to love and change human hearts, human society, and creation as a whole.

As I remember how I was raised as a child, I believe the things that have remained with me the longest and seated themselves in my heart the deepest have been the ways in which my parents served.  My father’s work at home and his careful planning of our vacations as well as my mother’s deliberate affection and sharing her love of music and art were ways in which they taught me without being highly conscious of teaching me.  What they did had more effect than what they taught.  The depth of greatness is plumbed by how many hearts I affect rather than how many lives I direct.

So the moments of service become the times I choose not to hold over other people what authority I have.  I serve when I move away from exercising my authority as expert, supervisor, or father, but instead come alongside the people in my life as a resource to be used or ignored, a steward of what has been given to me, and a helper and encourager.  I serve when I choose to be last out of love.  Serving is, most notably, death to my self-life.

The paradox comes from the utter difference between God’s ways and the world’s ways.  Jesus’ contradiction and exaggeration come from his contrast between what I accept as “the way things are” and the truth of how things really are.  The heart of his teaching is “You have heard it was said” followed by “But I tell you.”

Lord, as much as I agree with you that service makes greatness, I inwardly rebel at the thought of service so often.  I feel imposed upon and inconvenienced in so many ways and my heart is often unresponsive to the needs of other people, my mind indifferent to what they ask for.  Please let your truth not remain paradox but come to be truth that I believe.  Amen.

I see how paradox can open my eyes if I open my ears to it.  Jesus is not merely saying, “Serve.”  He shows the try nature and purpose to service and how the very struggle to faith in him is the struggle to serve instead of lording it over others, exercising my authority, and determining to be first.  Without faith service does not make sense.  Without truly hearing the paradox, I think I hear his words when I do not really.  “He who has ears let him hear.”

“But as we took longer [to look at the Byzantine paintings,] we are struck by the sudden realization that the angles and postures are all perfectly natural and correct – or, at least, they would be if we were all dwelling in the world of the icon.  We are outsiders, looking in on the kingdom of heaven: it is our viewpoint that is distorted. . . .  [The Bible] is a thin place through which the presence of God breaks into this world and bursts with unpredictable consequences into our lives.”  (Chris Webb, The Fire of the Word, 31)

Jesus Mediates Biblical Truth

“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)

When I train students in my laboratory, I often have them read about things before they try them out.  I have them read through a procedure and tell them that they may not understand all of it, but just to read it to get an idea of what we will be doing together.  After they see and practice the procedure, reading it makes much more sense.  The “fulfillment” of a procedure is in its execution.

So it is with the Bible.  Many things were heard from God and some of it was understood.  But fulfillment did not occur before Jesus.  Perhaps there was an inkling of what “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” meant through Moses, the Law, Wisdom, and the Prophets.  When Jesus came, though, then the true execution of that phrase was made plain.  Not only did he illuminate the entire Bible, he refashioned history according to its true fulfillment and showed the future in his being and in his teaching.

Everyone in Jesus’ hometown hoped that he was talking about how Israel would come out on top and all the pagan nations would be punished and destroyed.  They hoped for a ruler to make a merely earthly kingdom.  While Jesus pointed to himself, he dashed their hopes of Messiah, even speaking blasphemy to their ears.  He explained that although he fulfilled the scriptures, the people of his hometown would be the first to reject this fulfillment: a kingdom beyond Israel embracing the pagan nations.

So when I come to the Bible and when I speak about it, the true understanding and execution of the scriptures can only be found in Jesus.  He is more than an example.  He is more than a sacrifice.  He is more than a victor.  Fulfillment comes “today.”  He is my ever-living, ever-present guide and friend.  It is Jesus opening my mind to the scriptures and their meaning through an encounter with him.

Lord, you have brought such joy and simplicity to obeying you!  Jesus is the mediator of all truth.  The Bible is now his book to teach me with so that I too might fulfill the scriptures even as I hear from him.  Let my ears hear the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.  Amen.

Like the people long ago, I am tempted to see Jesus’ fulfillment of the scriptures as the fulfillment of my personal earthly happiness.  I do not want him to fulfill all the scriptures, but just the ones that might make my life easier and more pleasurable.  I need to take seriously the parts of the Bible that I might not want to see fulfilled.  In these places I may discover places in my life that need healing and redeeming as Jesus shows leads me into all truth through his Spirit.

The Word: Consumed and Not Burned Up

Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.”  (Exodus 3:3)

“Do not come any closer, “God said.  “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5)

Moses’ experience of God tells me two things: how God’s word will affect me and how I should approach God in order to hear him.  The bush that does not burn up stands as a picture of what God intended for Moses and what he intends for me.  The voice of God with warning and instruction shows me how Moses could come to God and not be burned up.

One of the things that captured my imagination when I was growing up was a scene in the movie Krull.  The hero,  Colwyn,  has been fighting the monstrous villain with a special weapon called the Glaive.  The Glaive gets stuck in the enemy’s side during the battle and Colwyn is left defenseless.  However, he and the princess he came to rescue realize that their love gives them a greater weapon, a magic flame.  Colwyn then lights his hand in the fire and does not burn, but rather burns up “The Beast” he has been fighting.

Maybe, it’s not a great movie, but the impression of a fire that does not burn and is wielded as a weapon stuck with me.  Fire shows power.  Fire brings light.  Fire dances and swirls in the air.  I still have a fascination with fire.  I build one at our house most mornings in the winter.  I never tire of watching its light show as I enjoy its warmth.

The bush that does not burn seems to me to be more than just a miracle to get Moses attention.  It is a picture of God’s purpose for him and for all people.  What is the Holy Spirit, but the true fire that consumes each person while not destroying them?  He is the baptism of fire spoken of by John the Baptist and Jesus.  He is the fire of Pentecost, settling on and in each believer.

The ignition for this fire is God’s word, his voice on the heart of each person.  God word is described as a fire (Jeremiah 23:29) as well as his very being (Hebrews 12:29).  When God’s word comes to me, I find I am like the disciples walking to Emmaus, who said after they recognized Jesus, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?"  (Luke 24:32)  The Lord speaks and within me, his Spirit burns.

Yet the fire of God can destroy those who do not approach him rightly.  When I enter the house of a family that asks me to remove my shoes before I enter, I feel some resistance.  I have a sense of vulnerability when I leave my shoes behind.  My ability to come and go as I please has been hampered.

Also, I have a sense of humiliation.  I have been judged to be a bringer of filth into this clean and pure place.  (I have only experienced this taking off of shoes for the sake of keeping a house clean of dirt.)  Again, there is resistance to being seen as dirty.  Isn’t it okay just to wipe my feet?

These two things accompany the worship system of that Moses received.  In order to approach God, each person had to deal with their “dirtiness” (uncleanliness) and shed what was common (everyday) for something special (holy).  The system was designed to bring about a heart that was clean, that is, contrite and humble, as well as a heart that was holy, that is, focused on what is eternal and spiritual as opposed to what is temporary and external.

For my own approach to God, I am to take off my old self and put on Christ.  Like Moses sandals, my old self is dirty with pride and lust.  Also like those sandals, my old self is preoccupied with self-life and self-love and cannot be vulnerable and receptive to God and his word and his Spirit.  Of course, I cannot, by my own determination take off that old self.  However, God will not remove those clothes  until I come and spread my arms in humility and let him unclothe me.  There is a nakedness, a vulnerability I must have to receive God’s fiery word and not be destroyed by it.

Lord, I light my soul with your word.  Let my heart burn with your Spirit.  Teach me how to approach your holy ground without pride, without lust, naked and vulnerable before you.  Let me be consumed but not burnt up.  Amen.

The warning “Do not come any closer” reminds me that approaching God is at his request and at his discretion.  I may long for his word, so that I can argue better or so I can experience the joy, peace, or power that accompanies such words.  I may long to come “Just As I Am,” not in humility, but with pride and a sense of entitlement.  Chris Web reminds me, “Here is the work of today – which is the work the whole life.  I’m called daily to open my heart afresh to the living Word of God. . . .  So it’s with caution that, in my prayers, I approach the reading of Scripture itself.”  (The Fire of the Word, p. 14)  Preparation ends up being the first and one of the most important parts of receiving God’s word.  I would like to practice such preparation better.

Hiding Things from Myself

There is a fine line between "Let your light shine before men" and "They do everything to be seen by men."  One is glory, the other hypocrisy.

The spiritual discipline of secrecy is not so much about hiding good deeds from other people, but hiding them from myself.  "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."

Three-Dimensional Prayer

How do we seek "full" prayer?  Pray in 3 dimensions.

1.  The first dimension is the Holy Spirit.  Without the Spirit, we are dead in the water, like a sailboat without a breeze.  It doesn't matter how we move the sails or the rudder, we need wind to go.  He is the life of all we do spiritually. (Romans 8:1,6)  Without him, all aspects of our spirituality end up "dead," going nowhere. (Romans 8:7-8)

2.  The second dimension is spiritual exercises.  Without planned actions, the wind of the Spirit blows right past us.  We are like a sailboat without a sail.  We may feel it or even enjoy it, but we are not caught up in it.  The actions do not cause our movement or growth, but enable us to be moved and be grown.  These are often called spiritual disciplines.  In Henri Nouwen's The Way of the Heart, he emphasizes the use of two disciplines and their effect on prayer.  Examples:

a.  Solitude enables freedom from the pressure to control other people, so we can truly seek God and help them.

b.  Silence teaches the true use of words and deepens our trust in God and not ourselves.

3.  The third dimension is life-practice.  Without bringing the Spirit and our spiritual exercises into our daily life, we lack direction.  We are like a sailboat without a rudder.  God can only direct us in the life we live on a daily basis.  We discover his calling and our destiny day by day, as each wind catches us and as we respond to that wind.  In this way, the analogy breaks down, because God is not just a force to move us, but places his hand with ours on the rudder to guide us.  The point is that we cannot find our way in life without the ongoing influence of the Spirit and the planned action of spiritual discipline being applied to our daily existence.  We end up wondering and wandering instead of trusting and living.  Example:

Nouwen talks about this in his section on Prayer of the Heart.  It is all-inclusive.  It embraces all of life.  He also has some practical ways in which such prayer can be brought into daily life.

Prayer without these 3 dimensions ends up flat and going nowhere.  The 3 dimensions make prayer full and also real to us instead of just a picture.

Freedom Through Death

Romans 8 begins with the freedom from the law of sin and death into the law of the Spirit of life.  The death that  sin brings is condemnation.  I do what I hate, so in this life, I stand condemned and unable to save myself.  Such a life is full of confusion, since my will, mind, and body are not working together.  Such a life brings despair, since sin controls each part of me in its own way, subverting even my intentions toward goodness into evil desire.

Paul describes the freedom that comes through the Spirit of life in this way: "What the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of flesh for sin.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh."  First to unpack this, I was drawn to the the basic statement, what the law was powerless to do, God did.  Romans 7 shows what the law could not do.  Although the law is good and a source of delight to the mind, it produces death because sin resides in my body and enslaves my will.  The law cannot renew the mind, set the will free, and inhabit the body.  This is what God did through Jesus.

How does this happen?  God deals with the flesh.  The natural human abilities become the haunting place of sin when left to themselves.  In order to bring the flesh into its proper place, God inhabited the flesh through Jesus and defeated sin in the body.  Sin is condemned - or put to death - in the flesh by means of the Son coming as a man to destroy sin and its workings in the life of people.  This is evident in the crucifixion and resurrection.  Jesus put sin to death in his own body and sacrifice, but then rose victorious over it.

The law is powerless because it is weakened by the flesh.  The law is weakened by the flesh because I seek to use the flesh to keep the law.  Jesus shows that the only way to deal with the flesh is to crucify it, not use it.  My natural human ability apart from God must become pure garbage and seen as a liability.  I cannot hope to use it or it will use me with the power of sin behind it.  Jesus' death points to my inability to save myself, my need to be set free by God's ability, and the way in which such freedom takes place - through death and resurrection.

Now Paul introduces a new way to living.  Instead of living in dependence on my flesh - my natural human status and ability apart from God - I can now live in dependence on the Spirit - God's status and ability through him who lives in and with me.  The entry point of the Spirit into my life is my mind.  As my mind dwells on Christ and his life, death, and resurrection, my will becomes increasingly controlled by the Spirit - the person of God's will living in me.  In the same way, if my mind dwells on the flesh, then I am controlled by that outlook and I end up hostile to God, unable to follow his laws and ways, and unable to please him.

The work of Christ in me is this: my body is dead.  As sin has resided in the members of my body, my body dies in the work of Christ, since I give up on the flesh as a means to navigate life.  I am dead to that way of living.  My bodily habits of sin no longer rule and enslave my will and spirit.  Instead, I am alive because of the goodness that Christ has brought to me.  The righteousness comes from this continual focus on Christ.  By laying myself at his feet, I am now able to reverse the law of sin and death.  No longer do I hate what I do, but I find I am able to do good, "yet not I, but Christ who lives in me."  (Ephesians 2)  I am alive because I can finally do what I want to do in Christ: righteousness.

The image of being spiritually dead is being enslaved, condemned, and full of fear.  The image of being spiritually alive is being free, righteous, and loved.  The body given to sin dies.  The spirit given to the Spirit will be raised in a new body.  For now the body continues to die, but the Spirit sustains my spirit with hope. Whatever suffering the body goes through does not compare with the hope of renewal and resurrection, not only for our own bodies, but also for all of creation.  Hope is not wishing, but a calm confidence in a future outcome of a present reality.

Just as I am weakened by sin so that I hate what I do, I am weakened so that I do not know what I need.  The Spirit asks for I cannot conceive or even want now in my present weakness.  As he asks, God works in my life.  The Spirit works from within my heart submitting and combining my desires with God's in perfect unity.

And so nothing happens that can ultimately thwart God's desires.  This is not enslaving, but freeing because of God's love.  All trust and hope are based on this love.  Pain does not move me to suffering when I live in God's love.  Rather, I am willing to go through pain for his sake and conquer.

Paul explains that I am controlled by what I trust.  My hope is based on what I trust.  The basis for my trust in God is his love.

Lord, I want to live by the Spirit.  The deeds of the body must be killed when they stand on their own because through them sin lives and rules in my life.  I have too much experience with this way of life. Sin has had its way with me and I have freely given myself to it.  Now I see how I can be free of this master through your work in Christ and his work in me through the Spirit: I will die so that you might live.  I will give up sin and the death that follows so I might be united with you in the Spirit and have life.  Such life comes through a new outlook - a real belief in Christ and his way - which permeates each part of my being.  I have new thoughts, I can choose what is good, and find virtue working into my body.  This is Christ who lives in me, my hope and salvation.  May your grace always be sufficient to me.  I need nothing else.  Amen.

How I Cannot Help Myself

Romans 7, The Law of Sin and Death

In trying to sum up Romans 7, I think Paul points to this law: I do what I hate.  This inconsistency and lack of integrity in my heart is "business as usual" when I live "in the flesh," that is, by my own status and abilities, only.  Paul calls this the law of sin and death.  The death he describes is one of guilt and condemnation, although I do not think this excludes physical decay, as I note Paul's discussion later in chapter 8.

I unpack this law by identifying the parts of me that contribute to this way of life.  If I do what I do not want to do, then it is not I, but sin living in me that is at work.  I can see why this idea of Paul's might be used as an excuse for continued sin in my life.  It almost sounds like it is inevitable.  It is, "in the flesh."  This is the "natural" state of a person apart from the Spirit.  Paul is not promoting self-resignation here, but pointing out the enslavement of the will.  This is one of the indicators of this law of sin and death, this life in the flesh: enslavement to sin.

Another contributor to this way of life is the body indwelt by sin.  Sin is located in the members of the body most specifically.  I can see how this has encouraged a poor view of the body even to the extent of body hatred or mistreatment.  After all, Paul cries out in desperation, "Who will save me from this body of death?"  And yet what has happened is that the body has been offered to the wrong master.  In short, my body ends up full of sinful habits.  Things "come naturally" to me because my body has been trained to do certain things without thinking or directly willing them.

The mind is also affected by this law of sin and death.  Although I may be taught by God's laws and have some desire to do them, I find that sin takes these very good things and converts them into evil desires.  A mind without such knowledge is "dead to sin" in that it remains unaware of sin's active presence, but "death reigns" (Romans 5) even with this lack of knowledge.  Unfortunately, even with the knowledge, I may not "dead to sin," but find that sin produces death in me by taking such knowledge and deceiving me.  How does sin deceive?  It takes the knowledge of the law and produces evil desires.  I hear about what is wrong or forbidden and then I long for it.  The mind is darkened.  It becomes a place where even what is good becomes a snare because my desires remain opposed to God.  Whatever I think becomes rationalization for doing what sin in me desires rather than reasons to trust and follow Jesus.

The law of doing what I hate, then, shows that my will in enslaved by sin, my body is inhabited by sin, and my mind is darkened by sin.  The law of sin and death is that when I take on sin, I die.  I cannot overcome sin through choosing not to sin, sin my will is enslaved.  My will is enslaved by my sin-inhabited body, which by habit and training opposed my good choices with evil desires.  My mind remains darkened because the desires of sin rule and pervert my thoughts and feelings into rationalizations.  Sin rules in me through desires that inhabit my body, enslave my will, and darken my mind.

This is not how I am to live.  Romans 6 makes it clear that living enslaved to sin is not what God intends for his children.  Baptism is a picture of the death that I must enter so that I might find resurrection in my life.  I am not only looking forward to being raised form the dead, I am supposed to live a life raised from the death that sin brings in a new life in this age.

Romans 8 describes the freedom from this death, this condemnation that sin brings.  I am set free from the law of sin and death by the law of the Spirit and life.  As sin brings death, the Spirit brings life.

Lord, I see that I cannot cope with sin or fight sin, I must lay myself out to die so that sin my be removed from my being and so that I may live a new life.  Let this immersion into death be done to me, so that I might be raised into your love and light, Father.  Increase my trust in you.  I fear leaving sin behind at times, but have found such hope in your work in my life.  Let me never try to manage sin.  It needs to die.  By your grace.  Amen.

Becoming Dead to Sin and Alive in Christ

Romans 6: Immersion in Christ Leads to Eternal Life


Since "the gift is not like the trespass,"  (5:15) I am tempted to take advantage of that power.  Grace brings life immediately through the presence and influence of God.  Sins cannot take away that life, that relationship.  That is the power of the gospel.  It overcomes sin completely.  The only thing that removes life is removing myself from life.

The way of grace is shown through baptism.  Just as baptism buries me in water, so my old self is buried through taking up my cross and following Jesus.  I am to "count myself dead to sin." (v.11)  This is not pretending or imagining, but learning how to count on a reality.  In my effort to deal with some arthritis that I have, I was lead into regular, rather intense exercise.  One thing I began doing was pull-ups.  One time about a year after I was training, I was in my garage, needing to get up to the rafters to get something.  I bemoaned the fact that in order to get up there, I would need to pull myself up there.  Suddenly, I remembered that I had already been pulling myself up all the time through pull-ups.  My mind had not yet "counted on" or "reckoned" that reality, even though it was already so.  This is how I am dead to sin.  I no longer have to sin any more; it is merely old habits and fears that need to be extinguished.

Baptism also shows new life.  Just as I come up out of the water, I am raised to new life in Christ.  This is a present reality with increasing fulfillment.  I am "alive to God in Christ Jesus."  Just as my sin is reckoned as dead, now God is reckoned as alive and present.  This reckoning, again, is not pretending or imagining, but counting on God as real and as revealed.  This reckoning is the life of faith.

So the power of the gospel is not that it excuses sin, but that it renders it powerless.  The power of the gospel is not that it enables me to be right through my deeds, but through a continuing relationship to God, who makes me good and right.  Baptism gives this picture, dead and buried to sin, but immersed in the life of God as a living, present, and eternal reality.

This departs from the law, which seeks to make up for sins through righteous acts.  Such a departure does not eliminate the need for obedience to God in righteous deeds, but shows that righteousness comes from what or who my heart is dedicated to.  "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as a slave, you are slaves to the one whom you obey - whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (v.16)

The movement of goodness begins with immersion in Christ, not merely as an external act with water, but as a surrender of my desires and old habits and an acceptance of his grace and new life.  Only the regeneration of Christ can begin this walk with God.

Following new life brought by Christ is obedience.  Obedience leads to righteousness.  What is good?  Trusting in Jesus enough to obey him.  This obedience brings true goodness, that is, righteousness.  That righteousness leads to holiness.  Holiness is being closely associated with God in a life as he intends and therefore being separated from the world and its ways.  The character of holiness is what results in eternal life.  The life that Jesus begins through regeneration, he completes through obedience, righteousness, and holiness.  The completion never ends and always grows.  It is eternal.

Lord, may I reckon myself dead to sin and live to God.  May I stay the course with you of obedience, righteousness, and holiness and not be diverted to law or license.  I do not want to try to manage my sin or just ignore it, I want to see it dead and buried as it is.  Change my heart and mind to accept these realities and embrace your eternal life of living in and with you.  Amen.

The power of the gospel can lead to unwarranted conclusions, such as in verse 1.  Since God's grace so completely covers and defeats all sin and suffering without our righteousness, I have been tempted to conclude that my efforts toward salvation are unnecessary.  Although effort toward my own salvation is what self-righteousness is made of, not all effort toward salvation is self-righteousness.  To put it another way, all self-righteousness requires effort, but not all effort leads to self-righteousness.

Immersion into Christ-likeness begins with the cross.  The image of baptism is one of death.  I begin my walk with Christ by renouncing the devil, the world, and my flesh.  I choose God's way over my way.

The Gift Is Not Like the Trespass

Romans 5: How Faith, Hope, and Love Relate to Being Good


In answer to the question "Who is well-off?," Paul answers in chapter 3, "The one who is justified freely by God's grace." (v.24)  This is in direct contrast to the one who seeks to justify himself and seeks to obtain goodness on his own.  Such a blessedness from God frees me from boasting and worrying about how I am doing compared with others before God.  Instead I am free to be good because it is a gift that God gives by the blood of Jesus, which reconciles me to God.  That is, it places me before him in the relationship as son; it brings me into the home of the Trinity as family.  I am justified and made right by the work and invitation of Jesus.

In chapter 4, Paul explains that any boasting based on being a Jew is excluded because Abraham is the father of all who trust is God, whether Jew or Gentile.  Everyone is blessed through Abraham's trust in God.  His faith does not belong to the covenant of circumcision, but precedes and transcends it.  Circumcision comes from faith; faith does not come from circumcision.  Who is well-off?  Who is good?  Anyone who will trust in God and embrace the door he has opened into his home through Jesus.

Now Paul explains how I am justified or made good.  He moves into the question "Who is good?"  Paul describes goodness with three words: faith, hope, and love.  Faith gives me access to God's grace.  By trusting him, I obtain his favor and his ability to do what I cannot do on my own.  Such trusting brings hope.  I find that I am confident about my present and future life because I trust in God and his grants his grace.  Even suffering brings hope because through trusting God in suffering, I find perseverance and then a real change in my character.

I have experienced this change in an experiment in which I explored the power of the gospel.  Is it really enough?  Can it really satisfy my deepest longings and set me free from my most addicting habits and sins?  To this I found it to be remarkably able.  I let go of the remedies in which I had been seeking and trying to fix myself and manage my own goodness.  I surrendered to God and did what he asked and found that even though it seemed at first "the long way around," he addressed the root of my problem - my trust and love of him - and changed my character - the center of my own personal "kingdom" - into something else.  Such inward and outward change has brought me hope, so that I seek to grow daily into the likeness of Christ.

Such hope can only disappoint me if I am not continually bathed in love.  Faith (trust) is fleeting if I do not know who I trust in and what he is like.  Hope disappoints me if I the reason for my confidence is not based in the trust of a loving God.  Without love, changes in character quickly become a source of empty self-righteousness and boasting, which lead to bitterness, envy, and death.  Only love keeps hope from becoming senseless positivism.

Paul explains the great love of God: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (v.8)  God does all the work before there is any promise of our accepting and enjoying it.  The feast is laid out before he knows if we will come at all.  Actually, it is laid out as we actively rebel and attack him.  He plans for our arrival home even as we are abandoning him for our own desires and interests.  This is the love that God has.  When we were his enemies, he already had the treaty written out and waiting for our commitment.

To understand God's love, I must also understand myself.  To minimize or excuse my own rebellion against God, my own lack of concern, my own desire to have my own way, my own rejection of his love is to misunderstand how much God loves me and empty the cross of all its power.  Without sin, the cross is superfluous, even foolishness.  If I am "not that bad," then God is not that smart, or even enjoys cruelty for the sake of cruelty.  I must embrace my origin as sinner and never let that go in order to see God's love for what it is.

So Paul explains simply that from the time of Adam, "sin was in the world."  His evidence for this is that even though people "did not sin by breaking a command" before Moses, "death reigned."  The outcome of sin is death, so even without a command to break, the outcome of sin was still obvious among all people - death.

God's remedy is not a simple reversal of the problem.  "The gift is not like the trespass." (v.15)  I do not have to "make up" for each and every sin that I have made in the pattern of my predecessor Adam.  His one sin is the father of all sin - a lack of faith.  All sin is not trusting or loving God.  I do not have to climb back up out of the pit I have dug through my lack of trust and separation from God one step at a time.  Instead, "the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification."  (v.16)  I am made into a son by Christ's one act of grace rather than having to "make up" for all my acts of disobedience and mistrust.

In this way, the gift is like the trespass.  Adam's sin is the model and picture and precursor to all sin.  It is faithlessness, no more and no less.  Christ's work is the work of ultimate faith.  It is the complete opposite to Adam's betrayal.  "Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."  (v.19)

What a picture of God's grace!  Who is good?  The one who trusts in God's love, receives God's love in his own heart, and finds hope in the changes that love brings to his life.  Such goodness is not earned by a simple reversal of doing good for all the bad I have done.  Instead, it is embraced by trusting that Jesus' work on the cross has indeed made me good enough to bring home to God and live in his presence and be changed completely from the inside out.

Lord, I am so grateful that your gift is not like the road I have taken away from you.  You have brought me back to you with one sweep of your mighty, loving arms through Jesus obedience to the cross.  The way is before me and there is much work to do, but none of it will bring me home to you.  I am already there, already in your presence daily because of Jesus.  My work will only make me more at home with you, more like Jesus.  That is what it is all for.  My praise to you!  You have made an everlasting way to you that I can walk for all eternity even though I started out as your enemy.  Amen.

Listening to God

Listening to God is not really the same way twice, which makes listening for me real work.  Yet, there are consistencies in my relationship with God.  Often it is more a matter of letting go of something than doing something.

A couple of nights ago my daughter Sami was tired and worried and said that God hadn't spoken to her in "forever."  But she had told recently of something that God had said that spoke to her powerfully and in a way that I thought fit her current troubles well.

Maybe she didn't want to hear what God was saying.  Also possible is that she heard and thought she understood what he had  said a week ago, but his word to her needed to be remembered and lived out to really be heard.

So one of the things that can help in listening is writing things down and reviewing them.  A journal or just a sticky note with something God has said that impresses or confuses me can really help me to hear God.  Sometimes the "daily bread" of what God gives supplies my needs for days to come if I am not too eager to "move on" or gain "greater insights."

It reminds me of Psalm 131:

My heart is not proud, LORD, 

  my eyes are not haughty;

I do not concern myself with great matters 

  or things too wonderful for me. 

But I have calmed and quieted myself, 

  I am like a weaned child with its mother; 

  like a weaned child I am content.

Israel, put your hope in the LORD 

  both now and forevermore.

Lord, let me not go on before I have received your word.  Let me learn how to remember, wait, and trust.  Amen.

The Goodness that Makes Life Worth Living Is Obtained by Trusting God and His Ways

Romans 1:  The Problem Is Shame in What God Has Supplied as the Way to Life

When we ask again: ‘How is it that when he enjoined us in this book of yours not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you did not ask him: “First do you show us by witnesses that you are a prophet and that you have come from God, and show us just what Scriptures there are that testify about you”’—they are ashamed and remain silent. [Then we continue:] ‘Although you may not marry a wife without witnesses, or buy, or acquire property; although you neither receive an ass nor possess a beast of burden unwitnessed; and although you do possess both wives and property and asses and so on through witnesses, yet it is only your faith and your scriptures that you hold unsubstantiated by witnesses. For he who handed this down to you has no warranty from any source, nor is there anyone known who testified about him before he came. On the contrary, he received it while he was asleep.’ (John of Damascus, Fount of Knowledge, Heresies, concerning Islam)  

Take note of verse 2.   The prophets testify about Jesus and lead up to him.  This is important to Paul in his writing about the gospel.  It is new.  It is unique.  It is also foretold and anticipated.

Paul received grace and his calling to apostleship for this gospel which in verse 5 he explains as "obedience that comes through faith."  We do not believe the gospel so that obedience is optional or unnecessary.  We believe the gospel so that we might complete our obedience to God.  The law and the gospel go to the same place and describe the destination the same, but only the gospel can get me there.  The law taken rightly is more descriptive than prescriptive.

His visit is for mutual encouragement, the heart of spiritual gifts (v.11).  Spiritual gifts, then, are about a connection between believers and not merely possessed in one's own life.  Without mutual edification, spiritual gifts are not really spiritual gifts.

The point of Paul's letter to the Roman church is addressing the shame that some people place on the gospel.  People prefer other "ways" to God and tend to leave the gospel because of its apparent weakness and unpopularity.  In contrast, Paul says that the gospel is God's power revealed as a righteousness by faith from "first to last."  (vv.16-17)

Shame in the gospel is nothing new.  It's unapologetic dependence on God as well as its unmitigated promise for real goodness in the lives of those who embrace and exercise it make it unpopular at all times.  People prefer to rely on their own resources.  They also prefer to have a goodness that appeals to people around them rather than a goodness that really changes them.  We all wish the world could be a better place, but we are largely unwilling to cling to the goodness that God gives because it requires real change to our lives.

Of course, righteousness by faith will be fleshed out in this letter, but at the outset, I find it helpful to understand this righteousness that Paul preaches answers the important life questions "What is real?" The power and ability of God.  "Who is well-off?"  Those who are being delivered from this evil age.  "What is good?"  What God has revealed in the gospel.  "How does one become a good person?"  By trusting in God's work through the gospel.  Faith is trust and always implied is trust in God and his ways.

Lord, may I shed my shame and embrace this faith that places your good news at the center of my life as the one thing I can count on and the one thing that will bring goodness and well-being to myself and others.  Amen.

The Good Thing, the Bad Thing

Good deeds do not always lead to God.  There are good deeds that can take us away from God.  This is a tragedy in life.  One of the main reasons that Jesus died was because he pointed this out repeatedly and severely.  He pointed out the difference between the "good" deeds of the Pharisees and the good deeds of many of the sinners.  In one of his teachings he said,

Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven.  Many will come to me one that day and say, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons and perform many miracles?"  Then I will tell them plainly, "I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers!"  (Matthew 7:21-23)

It is possible to do "good" things, but not the good thing.  As a matter of fact, many "good" things keep people out of the kingdom of heaven and away from God.  What keeps us out of the kingdom is the idea that there are some things that are good in themselves apart from being with God.  Jesus came to say, "Only God is good."  There are no actions or intentions performed by people on their own that oblige God to allow their entry into his kingdom or his life.

Since no "good" deeds can oblige God to bring us into his family and into his life, we can only enter by grace, God's strength and undeserved favor.  Grace is opposed to earning.  "Good" deeds that do not lead or contribute to a personal relationship with God are efforts to earn.  This is why Jesus constantly pointed out that the "sinners" of his day were entering his rule before the "good" people.  They were not doing "good" things to earn (demand) God's approval, but instead were seeking to be near to Jesus and follow him.

From this we also learn that there is no bad deed that can exclude us from God's kingdom.  If bad deeds lead to regret, sorrow, rethinking how we think (repentance), and seeking Jesus, then they become good.  Bad deeds become bad when they separate us from God (which they do), but can become good if they lead us to confession and repentance and doing truly good things.  "Bad" people can find God sooner than "good" people because of repentance.  For most of us, we find it easier to repent of the bad things we have done rather than repent of the "good" things we have done.

Really, there is only one good deed:  Jesus' death on the cross.  Anything good must come out of this goodness.  Any "good" thing done outside of this goodness as competition to it, as evidence that I don't need it, or in willful ignorance of its necessity end up taking me away from God and his plans for me and all people.  When my good deeds come from gratitude for the cross, praise to the God who planned such a deed for my sake, and desire to imitate the cross in my life by putting to death the things that come "naturally" but lead me away from God, then they are truly good because they come from the good of the cross.

Perhaps there is also only one bad thing.  Perhaps that is what Original Sin is about.  All bad things come from that first willful act of disobedience and distrust of God.  There is nothing new under the sun.  Bad things can look surprisingly "good," but when they lead us from the loving arms of God they are bad.  Such bad things can be unrepentant actions of self-service that hurt ourselves and others, or they may be acts of self-righteousness that ignore our daily need of God in our life.  Either way they come from a lie that is told: "You don't need God; you can be your own god."  They come from a world living out that lie to its fullest.  They come from an inward propensity to "make it on my own" and "do what I want to do."

Certainly, God is merciful.  He will not turn away people who want to be with him, even at the last moment.  The thief on the cross stands as an icon of hope.  Our good deed may not be much, but when it is turned toward Jesus as our hope and deliverance, it is enough because of the grace poured out on all of us through the cross.  There have been people reported in the Bible who have been delivered by God without knowing much about him: Rahab the whore, a Syrophoenician idol-worshiper, and a thief on a cross.  This shows the kind of God we might serve.  One who is "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love."  (Psalm 103:8)

However, we must be honest about each of these people.  Rahab was one of an entire city.  The thief was one of a great crowd who gathered to see Jesus die.  Many will not come to grace.  The gospel is God's power exerted to save people, his last, best word of mercy and grace, his effort to open up his kingdom to everyone and anyone.  God's mercy to people who do not know Jesus is not the good news primarily, but a loophole of his kindness.  The good news is that we need not guess nor do we have to wait until we are at death's door to draw near to God.  We can see his mercy and live in it through Jesus.  The good news is that the good deed is done and that we merely need to live with it and live by it and live in it.  The kingdom of God has always been, since God has always been king, but now we see that his rule is one of grace and mercy and those who can accept this through Jesus can enter.

The reason we know we are delivered is that we can live with God's voice in our hearts and God's presence at our side daily.  He will not abandon us to death any more than he abandons us in this present age.  The life we begin with him will continue and grow, just as existence without him will also continue and degrade.  The gospel, the good news is that we can start living with Jesus and like Jesus now.

So not all "good" things lead to God and not all bad things lead away from him.  What is needed is a will set on choosing Jesus and his way rather than our own.

Lord, may I learn to see and live in your goodness rather than my own.  May I allow my sins to lead me to your feet.  May I live by the cross so I might be raised with you in every aspect of my life.  Amen.

Conflict in This Present Age

 How often have I failed to find faithfulness, where I thought I possessed it. How many times I have found it where I least expected.

Who is the man who is able to keep himself so warily and circumspectly as not sometimes to come into some snare of perplexity? But he who trusteth in Thee, O Lord, and seeketh Thee with an unfeigned heart, doth not so easily slip. And if he fall into any tribulation, howsoever he may be entangled, yet very quickly he shall be delivered through Thee, or by Thee shall be comforted, because Thou wilt not forsake him that trusteth in Thee unto the end.

Oh, how good and peacemaking a thing it is to be silent concerning others, and not carelessly to believe all reports, nor to hand them on further; how good also to lay one's self open to few, to seek ever to have Thee as the beholder of the heart.  (Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 55)

In dealing with conflict, I am encouraged to know that failing to find faithfulness in other people is not just a current thing, since Thomas a Kempis was writing about it in the 12th century.  Also, I am encouraged to know that faithfulness does come up in a number of places where I least expect it.  This shows me that such faithfulness is not a consistent practice in people's lives, but a common one built into the creation.  It explains why I can trust God to show me faithfulness and kindness, often through unexpected persons, while not being able to rely on any one person in particular for complete faithfulness.



Peace and rest cannot be expected to last a long time anywhere in this current age.  This goes doubly in relationships.  I often run into some "snare of perplexity," not matter how hard I may try to avoid it.  This is why a Kempis recommends not seeking peace and rest as much as trust in God and his comfort.  Trying to find peace in this world leads to anger and depression.  Rather, I find hope in knowing that God will quickly save or quickly comfort me in the face of all trials.

Silence leads to much peace with other people.  Often I am tempted to "share" and "talk things out" when silence would serve best.  In communication, no one mode answers every need, but silence is seldom used for anything but resentment ("the silent treatment").  Silence so often protects me from hurting other people through harsh or slanderous words.  Silence also protects me from exercising pride and bitterness which hurt myself.  The helplessness of silence can move me to pray and trust in God more when I am concerned for the good of God, others, and myself.  Often true: "Much dreaming and many words are meaningless; therefore stand in awe of God."  (Ecclesiastes 5:7)

Father, conflict is a regular part of this present age.  I spend time fuming about it and trying so hard to avoid it.  Let me instead walk hand in hand with you, knowing you alone can deliver me from trouble and only you can truly comfort my aching heart.  Lead me to a few who I can trust and let me lead others to the only one they can truly trust.  Amen.

Into the Arms of Jesus

From a Spiritual Exercise in the Renovare Institute:


Ask yourself, What breaks my heart that breaks the heart of God? Consider passages of Scripture that talk about what breaks God’s heart. Then consider, What disadvantaged, overlooked person or group of people’s condition do you find heartbreaking?

This morning my heart goes out to children and youth.  For all the attention that both groups seem to receive, I ache when I see how little they learn about God's love.  "Let the little children come to me" are the words of this God.  Childhood and youth are the places where innate trust or distrust of God are formed.

For all the lessons and classes and "education" that our children receive, they ache to see adults who are living as God's children themselves.  I look around and look back on my own childhood experiences and have to agree with Rich Mullins when he sings, "I heard so much of the dribble, it's a wonder I can think."  I was immersed in a world hiding from God.  I see children and youth caught in the same world where the greatest injustice is that they are not taken to the Lord's loving arms.  Actually, they are even prevented from finding him.

For this Jesus said one of his strongest statements.  "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."  I do not think he was only talking about children and youth, but I think that they were certainly included and even highlighted in the statement.  It is one reason that, even with my own children, I remind them at times not to look to me always, but remember that "God alone is good."  I pray for mercy for where I fail them and for grace for them to find the Lord in their own lives.

So I ache for children and their parents and teachers.  I long for them to know just how serious the responsibility is for letting the children come to Jesus.  If all things were equal, if this world were not what it is, children and youth might "find their way" on their own.  But since the world is a trap, Satan is alive and well, and hearing God and trusting him is not instinctual but sought, acquired, and learned, our children and youth need to hear the words "Let the little children come to me" and they need to see adults running to him as well.  Besides, one of the greatest joys in life is leading little ones into the arms of Jesus.  It reminds me that my place is there as well.

Because I long for the children to come, I find myself teaching them and trying to remind and encourage their parents to do the same.  I long to share not because I have the answers, but because I know how much help children and parents and teachers need to face the obstacles in this present evil age.  We must not lose our focus on the sufficiency of Christ nor the hope that our children can live in that sufficiency.  In comparison to this hope and faith, nothing else matters!  Without it our children are lost as much as we are ourselves.

I say all this to express my concern for those I consider "overlooked."  It is ironic that so much attention can be given to youth and children and yet somehow what is most important be left out.  This speaks about our own hearts more than anything else.  For myself, it speaks to how I raise my family, but also to how I lead or take other children and youth either into Jesus' arms or away from them.  The children are his - consecrated and set apart - I am merely a steward set to watch over them for a short while. 

Satisfied with God Alone

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

I will be satisfied as with the richest of foods,
  with singing lips, my mouth will praise you. (Psalm 63:5)

I have told you this that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11)

One summer a number of years ago, I came home from college to spend time with my family.  I loved to be at "home" with my parents.  I was enjoying a few days without work before the new semester began, I think.  I enjoyed eating there, sleeping there, playing games with my family, and also taking walks next to White Rock Canyon.

Somehow there was peace for me in the vastness of that canyon, especially in the morning.  The smell of the sagebrush and juniper (I've never been allergic to it) and the morning light has always brought a rest for me that I could never find elsewhere.  I was going to miss that place going back to the city for school, so I intended on taking in all of the space and quiet I could from the canyon that morning.

Instead, I found myself restless.  I missed Dawn, who at that time was my girlfriend.  Although I had been disturbed at missing girlfriends before, I had never really had them intrude on this time and place of sanctuary at the canyon's edge.  I had never quite had that sense of dissatisfaction that I had in being apart from her.  She was going to be going to a different university this semester and I was not going to see her when I returned to school.

This dissatisfaction took me by surprise.  I was alarmed by it.  I even wondered if it was a bad sign to have the longing for her ruin what had always been so precious and peaceful to me.  I was not aware of it then, but God spoke to me plainly.  He told me that without her, I could not enjoy the things I used to enjoy.  I think this was the moment I realized I would marry Dawn.  It wasn't so much that I couldn't live without her, but that I knew that my life was for sharing with her and giving to her as long as I was able to do so.

This morning I was drawn back into that moment by realizing that dissatisfaction was the reason for much of my restlessness in life.  I was made to share my life with someone else and give my life to another.  Dawn is part of that ache, but it goes deeper.  I have moments in which I am overcome with such satisfaction.  After a job well done, when I see my children laughing together, when I go to bed and hold Dawn close on a cold night, when I smell the rain in the trees when I go outside in the morning, I have moments of peace and contentedness.  But like that morning, the moments are, at best, just moments and fade quickly in the light of a deeper dissatisfaction.

I find that I am restless.  I go from moment to moment of rest and joy only to find them slipping from my fingers.  The moments not only fade with time, they fade with use.  The law of diminishing returns seems to play out with most experiences.  There is a desire for something new and often something more.   Contrary to my natural expectations and usual experience, though, the way of peace and joy is not primarily made up of what is new and more, but the enjoyment of what is common and less.

The newness and abundance must come from somewhere other than the experiences themselves.  They come from finding that true desire, that place where I can give and share.  Other people provide an example of how such giving and sharing is found in relationship, but there is a profound dissatisfaction at the depth and ability of other people to be a part of this in my life.  I have had to learn that their own incompleteness keeps them from being that place, that person that I need.  I see that incompleteness in myself as well as I live with and love my wife and family.  I cannot be their joy and peace any more than any other person or experience they may have.

I think I am tempted like most people to live with this as a matter of fact and try to get all of the moments I can as I go through life.  This has led me into problems of using people as things to get those moments as well as seeking experiences that are more and more.  Paul talks about this sort of life when he writes

So I say to you and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.  They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God by the ignorance that is in them.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. (Ephesians 4:17-19)

It seems kind of rough, but I have found myself in this cycle many times.  I have found myself with "futile thinking" seeking after God in the wrong way and in the wrong places.

This morning I was not so much filled with dissatisfaction as with joy in knowing that I do not have to live quite so restlessly.  I can live with God, giving to him and sharing with him.  Such a relationship has enabled all things in my life - even the bad things - to become new and more than they are in themselves.  Joy - a pervading sense of well-being according to Dallas Willard - can come in the morning and follow me throughout my day as I give my days to God and share them with him.  Through this relationship, God shows  me that what I need is not so much more experiences in number or intensity, but more of certain experiences in depth and enjoyment.  Only in remaining with him can I escape the law of diminishing returns, because only he is infinite and eternal in his being.  He has made me eternal so I can enjoy his infinitude.

I see this as the only way to navigate this life because as my body gives out and as I go through more experiences in life, I must either become more and more dissatisfied with life because I cannot get as much out of it, or I must find a way to enjoy less and less more and more deeply.  Only through the Spirit with my spirit can such a life be possible. May God save me from "futile thinking" that seeks to live without him.  I want to start and end my day seeking my satisfaction in him alone and letting the experiences and people in my life color and fill in that contentment.  I pray with Thomas a Kempis:

Grant me, most sweet and loving Jesus, to rest in Thee above every creature, above all health and beauty, above all glory and honour, above all power and dignity, above all knowledge and skilfulness, above all riches and arts, above all joy and exultation, above all fame and praise, above all sweetness and consolation, above all hope and promise, above all merit and desire, above all gifts and rewards which Thou canst give and pour forth, above all joy and jubilation which the mind is able to receive and feel. (The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 21)

Rock of Ages and Communion

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law's commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
when mine eyes shall close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.

I was deeply moved by this hymn this last Sunday during communion.  I am hoping to commit it to memory.  In one of the complines my family does at night, God is referred to as a "crag" in which I hide and take shelter.  The image sticks with me when I think of my Rock of Ages.

I had someone ask me what "cleft" means.  I told them it was "split" or "divided."   The very place of God's brokenness, where he was "split" on the cross, is my hiding place and my place of security.  It is where his love shows best, where his utter humility led him, the only safe place for us to meet.  It is where he placed himself below me as a servant so that I might lay myself out beside him as a living sacrifice.

I never used to like this hymn because of of how it says I am saved from "wrath."  It used to bring pictures of God needing to punish someone, "Someone has to get a beating."  After I read the chapter "God Is Holy" in The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryhan Smith, I realized what wrath is.  It is not a quality of God nor is it a fuming, raging anger.  It is God's continual opposition to sin, which hurts and destroys people.  The cross is place where I am safe from God's opposition to sin because it is where I learn how to be crucified with Christ to sin in my own life.  I cannot start or finish such work, but I can labor with God by surrendering to his work in and on my life that will save me from this present evil age.

At a memorial service at the graveside of a friend of our family, I was asked to share a short devotion.  I was drawn to Revelation 5:9-10:

And they sang a new song:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
  and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
  and with your blood you purchased men for God
  from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
  and they will reign on the earth.”

She was a marvelous musician, so I thought of this "new song".  The Israelites sang new songs to celebrate each new work and wonder of God.  Of the many things this song says, one thing that hit me most was that Jesus is our Judge - "worthy to take the scroll and open the seals" - but he is also our Savior - "you were slain and with your blood you purchased men for God."  That is why in the last verse when I see him on the judgement throne I will be able to hide in him, the one I know as Savior.

What a great song for Communion.