Jesus' Aim

Jesus' work and miracles seem to be geared not simply towards making people healthy or physically whole, but instead to put them in a right understanding (and consequent practice) and relationship towards God. He didn't set up a hospital to heal everyone in Palestine, but was at least somewhat selective, and even apparently reluctant to heal some people. If His goal was first for people to acknowledge their real relationship to God, and to live in the light of Who God really is, then if someone could do that without being physically healed, He apparently might leave such a person in that redeemed, but physically broken, state. 

Trusting God

To "place your trust in God" is not merely to believe that you will go to heaven when you die.  It is to believe that God is trustworthy to rely on in all the details of this life, as well. Just as we believe that, through God's grace in the blood of Jesus, we will enter paradise in spite of all of our mistakes and sinful choices, so we can trust that God can and will use our lives, with all our mistakes and sinful choices, to bless us and others and Himself. We can relax, in a sense, and take a deep breath of peace when we really accept that God is working in and through us in everything that happens. 

God Is Your Protector

Do you really believe that God is your hiding place? Do you really believe that God is with you, really cares about you, and is ready to protect you from any adversity that would really damage you?

There is adversity that God wants us to go through. There are types and instances of adversity that God wants us to go through because He knows it will build us up, closer to what He wants us to be. But there are also types and instances of adversity that will truly damage us. Some adversity will draw us away from God, and away from becoming who and what He wants us to be. The path between where we are and where God wants us to be, who God wants us to become, is not always the same as the most comfortable path. And so, just because something is painful or uncomfortable, or makes us feel bad in some way or another, does not mean that it is an adversity that God is failing to protect us from. It is easy for us, and a society that highly values comfort, to assume that God's protection, if it is genuine and effective, would prevent us from experiencing anything painful, uncomfortable, or unwanted. "Progress" is virtually always equated in our society with comfort, increased comfort. If we don't have increased comfort or perceived control over a situation, we believe that it is inherently bad, broken, and to be avoided. And so, if we look for some evidence or understanding that God is our hiding Place, our protector, if our standard for the evidence of His activity in this manner is simply comfort or perceived control, then we will be repeatedly disappointed, and are likely to come to the conclusion that God is not our protector.

Ultimately, God's goal for us is not our comfort in where we are, who we are, etc. Instead, God's goal for us is reconciliation, with Him, with who He made us to be, with other people, and with all of creation.

Faith Includes Action

Luke 8:43-48; Mark 5:25-34

The woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years believed that touching Jesus' garment would bring her healing.  And it turned out that she had been correct in that belief.  But the power would not have left Him, and she would not have been healed, unless she had acted.  She had to reach out.  She had to risk.  She had to take a chance that He would be angry at her, that He would reject her as unclean (as, under the law she most certainly was).  She had to take a chance that it wasn't as simple as touching His clothes.  She had to take a chance that He would withhold His healing power to this anonymous, powerless, likely-rejected woman.

Everyone has burdens they carry, struggles that define how they carry themselves, how they see themselves.  And most people have at least vague ideas about the way they'd like things to be.  Faith healers will remind us that God is all-powerful, and insist that all we have to do is the equivalent of this woman's reaching out to touch Jesus' clothes.  The cynical among us tend to reject completely the healers' claims, reminding others and ourselves that God is not a vending machine, a mechanized slave that obeys our every request.  God is not tame, and owes no one anything, we are quick to insist.

So the life of faith is not as simplistic, God is not as easily manipulated, as the faith healers insist.  But neither are miracles, the chance of true, personal guidance and healing from the Almighty, impossible.  To claim that miracles are impossible is to sketch a caricature of God on another end of the spectrum, that of a distant, uncaring, or impotent deity.

Instead, the life of faith is that of co-creation.  We do well to remember how much God loves us, how active and involved He is, how He is always at work around us.  He is all-powerful.  He does love us.  He does do miracles.  But the tension comes as we work to hold that truth together with the truth that we can't control Him.  We don't know what He has planned, can't see what He sees.  As we devote ourselves to bringing Him the greatest glory (as is perfectly appropriate to us), we don't know whether our healing, our comfort, or our success will do that, or whether our failure, discomfort, or brokenness will do that.

So that's the tension.  We can't guarantee miracles.  But if we choose not to act, not to stretch out our hands, we can practically guarantee that God will not respond to us with miraculous power.  Take the risk of action based on that unprovable thing you believe is true.  When He opens the door, walk out of Egypt.  Walk to the sea, to see what He will do.  Reach out your hand to touch the tiniest fringe of His clothes.  Because you won't find out all that He will work together with you to accomplish until you do.

And there's a bonus: your action may allow others (like Jairus to the woman with the hemorrhage) to see what God can do, and give them the extra push they need to also act, to also grow in their relationship with the One who already loves them more than anyone else.

Three Provocative Questions

  • Should society honor the fluidity of identity dictated by one's own internal movements, or should one's identity have a connection to the past, and to the people around you, with an emphasis on solidity instead?
  • Should the great disagreements of a society be decided upon by a great bureaucracy staffed with the best experts, telling us all what we are and aren't allowed to do, or should those disagreements be worked out in the rough and tumble of everyday life, of people sitting across the table from others and slowly working towards an agreement not imposed, but arrived at?
  • Should America step back from colonialistic overlord-dom to allow the nations of the world to step into greater responsibility and self-determination, or should America accept the responsibility commensurate with its wealth and power and do the best it (in its humanly fallen way) can to create "safe spaces" for other countries to develop towards more humane governmental structures?

The River of Music

I want to write music, to write songs, that reflect, illustrate, and illuminate every passage of Scripture, every great and challenging teaching of every significant branch of the body of Christ. There is already so much good and great music and words that have been created for these purposes. And in an affluent society like ours, with such widespread education and leisure time, thousands of new works are being created all the time.

My creations are just a few drops in an enormous and powerful river. Others will dip their cups into the river and drink of others' works, and receive powerful nourishment and enlightenment from them. Maybe, if I work hard enough, create works that are good enough, and all happens by the grace of our gracious and generous Creator God, perhaps my works will go on to nourish some of those who come to the river to drink. 

Cause and Effect, for Granted

We take so much cause for granted. When the pool player breaks at the beginning of the game, the cause is the forward movement of the cue. But saying that takes for granted all the existing conditions: the felt, the flat surface, the manufacture of the balls, the tightness of the racking, etc., etc.

And under it all, before it all, is the assumption of the continuity and consistency of all the known universe. The faithfulness of God, upholding the continued and consistent existence of every quark and photon, is taken almost completely for granted.

Casting Fire Upon the Earth

Here's an interesting juxtaposition that occurred to me this morning: 

“"I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭12:49‬ ‭NASB‬‬

http://bible.com/100/luk.12.49.nasb


“And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.”

‭‭Acts‬ ‭2:3‬ ‭NASB‬‬

http://bible.com/100/act.2.3.nasb

Denying Reality

To be pro-choice is to be in profound denial about the fundamental, biological reality of human reproduction and the beautiful, glorious role that women play in that process. It is to celebrate autonomy, to celebrate the division of human from human, human from creation, and human from God. It is to celebrate the fallenness of creation, the brokenness of human nature, the separation of people from each other. In this way, to be pro-choice is to celebrate the natural effects of sin. It is to deny the solidarity we all share with our fellow human beings. If you do not love the child growing within you enough to at least let her survive, how can you love the poor and oppressed whom you have no connection to? 

Why Procreation Matters More

"if it feels good, do it" is particularly consequential when it comes to procreation. That's one reason why it's so devastating. It's one thing for our desires to take on a godlike force in making decisions in our lives.  But when you combine that with or apply that to sexuality, which of course centrally involves the reproductive system, you end up procreating new people. And if a person is created into a situation where his or her parents are not able to wisely and appropriately raise that child, then far more problems are created then were solved by the initial sense of "if it feels good do it."

Following one's desires is risky at best, but if it is practiced in other areas of life that do not result in a brand-new person existing where they did not before, then the damage is generally more limited. Because sex is centered around the reproductive system, The consequences of actions in that area are of life and death. Generally speaking, contraception tends to mask this fact. Through the use of contraception, people tend to assume that they have control over the process, and therefore can ignore the fact that life and death are at stake, that real people can come into existence through actions involving this area of life.

The secularizing of society, which tends toward seeing people as not complete, divinely inspired souls, but merely physical bags of desire, contributes to this. It tends to suck the hope out of a life, so that all we strive for is the fulfillment of our desires, and we believe that that's all that there can be. And then, on top of emptying our own lives of meaning and value, it then makes it easier to believe that children who are procreated (and then sometimes destroyed through abortion) don't have an intrinsic, enormous value that needs to be preserved or taken care of.

To God What Is God's

Matthew 22:15-21

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

The interpretation I hear most often these days for this particular verse is that just as Caesar's image is imprinted on what you need to give, God's image is imprinted on all human beings. Thus, we are to give ourselves to God.

But I have other questions arise when I read this passage. Does Jesus mean that all money belongs to the government, so we should not expect such wealth to accumulate in the lives of His faithful followers? Another question that arises is what all belongs to God? Everything? I have argued for years now that care for the poor, handicapped, prisoners, and the like rests first and foremost with the church. This seems clear from the account just a few short chapters later, where what separated the sheep and the goats was what they did and didn't do. The indication seems clear to my reading that God has given ministering to the disadvantaged to the church to accomplish. It's not primarily the government's responsibility.


Are you giving to God what is truly due Him?

Degrees of Reality in Imagination

"Jesus said to his disciples: 'I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.'" - Luke 12:8-9

I have a confession to make, of something that I'm still only just starting to make sense of. When I try to picture the verses above, I think I'm using my mind and imagination in the same way as I do when I'm imagining something that I don't think is historical fact. It's a different process to picture something I am completely confident has happened at some place and time. 

Intellectually I do believe that Jesus' words here are absolutely true. But it's obvious to me that I have some work to do to more deeply internalize the reality of the things. How about you? When you picture the stories of Heaven, or the miracles described in the Bible, do you use your imagination to create pictures that some part of you knows aren't historically true? Or are these and other scriptural pictures in your mind off the same quality and style as anything else you'd imagine in "the real world"?

Belief Credited as Righteousness

Romans 4:1-8 - “For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."”

I've been turning this over in my head, and I still find it stunning. Thousands of scholars and pastors have written and preached volumes on Romans, so there's nothing new I could add to the understanding of this passage. 

What is it about "believing God" that God Himself finds so compelling? How does it work that no amount or quality of works has the same forgiving and redeeming power as "just" believing God? 

Maybe it works like this: the pure reality is that, without God, we are nothing, or at least virtually nothing. If we believe otherwise, then the truth is not in us: we are living out a lie. 

So if we believe God, then we are submitting ourselves to Him, aligning our lives to Him, and thus aligning ourselves to the Truth, to the reality of things. And if we align ourselves to God and reality, we also align ourselves to humbly accepting the free gift of His salvation. Union with and obedience to the only Living God is the only true and fulfilling goal we can take on. Can you take on that goal? And when (not if) you fail from time to time, day to day, believe that the One who is faithful will continue to hold out forgiveness for you to embrace. The quicker you can accept this, the greater the part of your life will be that is filled with joy and peace, enthusiasm and love. Your belief in the Living God will check the box labeled "righteousness" for you, and the redemptive power of salvation will spill into your life.

Patient God

Love is patient. 

God is patient. He has designed and placed us within a universe that acts, more often than not, in ways that discipline and guide us more than they punish and destroy us. He repeatedly reaches out to us with grace and mercy, leading us over and over towards Him. 

He would be honored and glorified if you would actively respond, out of gratitude, to His overtures. And you yourself will benefit from obeying Him. It's a win-win. 

Respond with obedience to His patient kindness. 

Lambs Among Wolves

Luke 10:1-9

The next time someone indicates to you that following Jesus is supposed to bring us comfort and riches and lack of conflict with others, have them explain to you Luke 10:3. Jesus is directly sending his closest followers to tell people that God, their true King, is near. In His brief instructions (which go against a number of principles of conventional wisdom), He clearly says they will be vulnerable and defenseless among a group of the vicious and the violent: lambs among wolves. I wonder, did any turn back when they heard this image from Him? Did anyone argue or even discuss the risk, the danger, that this metaphor indicated they were walking into?

But at the end, the seventy(-two) "returned with joy." Jesus didn't lie to them, so there must have been very real risks they were walking into. But because they stepped forward and took that risk, the Shepherd guided them into joy. 

Why were they joyful? They had experienced firsthand the power that God through Christ has over the demons. I can only imagine what a thrill that was to experience.  But Jesus doesn't leave them worshipping or overly valuing this experience of power flowing through them. He points them to what's really valuable: the fact that God knows their own names. They are in the process of being reconciled to God. Union with the Divine is on their horizon. Exorcism, as much of a thrill as it must be, cannot compare with the eternal joy and thrill of being eternally in the presence of Love Almighty.

When we put both of these together, we can then wonder if Jesus also intended them to connect the dots: what these disciples did as God worked His power over demons through their hands, they were also, through that very process, freeing people from spiritual bondage, that the healed ones might also know and be known by God.

Fuller blessings arise for everyone as God works miracles of freedom through us. Ask Him to show you where you are in bondage, where He wants to free you. Ask Him also to show how you can humbly allow His power to work through you to set others free to also find Him.

In Him We Think

Every thought you think emerges in the presence of God. From the holiest, wisest, most profound ideas that have ever been thought, those that you would expect to have come from someone living in the presence of God, down to the most vile, perverse, reprehensible thoughts ever imagined, all thoughts have come into being on the deep ground of God's preexistence, His keeping the universe, visible and invisible, in existence.

The only difference between thought and prayer is an awareness and acknowledgement of the presence of God there.

Seeing Christ Today

People want to witness the birth, the life, the miracles, and the resurrection of Christ with their own eyes. They don't want to rely on someone else's memory, someone else's words on someone else's paper. Since they can't go back and witness those things with their own eyes, in order to believe in Him, they must see those things in us. And if Paul's crazy words are true, if Christ really lives within us, then it seems like it shouldn't be that hard for the people around us to see those things of Him, shining through us, now.