Category: devotional

Are You Ready For This?

Nothing compares to the joy of a child.  I think its a form of lunacy myself.  (But I’m an old man, so what do I know.)  Children love life–they are attracted to a vibrant life like bees to nectar.  They breathe it, feel it, wait for it.  They see it as an exclusive focus, they see nothing else.  It is what they want.

I, on the other hand, weigh out my options, I compare their value and I give it some time, think about it even more, then make my decision.  Children on the other hand are spontaneous and look closely at their first impressions.  They trust the innate ‘gut reaction’ and will choose accordingly.

Jesus made the outrageous statement, that we are to become as children, to enter the Kingdom, where God rules.  The obvious issue, is how do I get there?  (Nicodemus in John  3 was the typical prototype.)  Perhaps a deeper question is this,  what if Jesus decided He wanted to come to my house?  He knocks on the door.  Mom comes to the door, kicks the dog who is barking, shouts something unintelligible and reaches for the door.  She is hoping He didn’t hear her, and hopes the dog isn’t too traumatized by her feeble assault.

Jesus is incredibly gracious.  As a matter of fact, He moves and conducts Himself as if He were a member of royalty.  He steps into the foyer, as if He were stepping into a coronation hall.  But there is absolutely no arrogance, there is nothing but kindness and gentleness in His demeanor.  When He looks at the room, He is looking for people.  People are His focus, pure and simple.

My religious tendencies are idiotic and misshapen.  In my ‘spiritual’ world, Jesus has none of these qualities, and certainly not this approachable.  I simply cannot fathom such magnificence.  I have reduced Jesus down to a ‘puppet-savior’, and He is much easier to contain and understand.  He now poses no threat to me, or my way of life.  I may get assertive and even try to put a collar-and-leash on Him so He understands who is calling the shots.

You know what?  Jesus understands people like me.  He calls me ‘His brother’.  Me!  Full of ugliness and turmoil–His ‘brother’.  But His heart even now, is reaching for the children.  They have a quality that I only dream about.  These children will have a grace and purity poured on them, till their clothing is soaked with His presence.  They will run through a lawn sprinkler for hours!

The Kingdom is coming  (actually, it is rushing) to children who will embrace Him with a love and zeal that simply doesn’t compute in our calculations.  As adults, the more proficient of us, has read (and maybe written) whole books on systematic theology.  We develop nuances, and are able to parse verbs from our Greek New Testaments.  We are good!

But Jesus clearly rearranges the furniture.  And we are definitely confused.  But maybe, that is right where He wants us.  His Kingdom is wide open to everyone who has the heart of a child.  I suspect that Jesus has a plan that has a ‘shake me to wake me’ kind of an approach.  I want to open up to all that He is doing.  I need Him so much.

Contending for Our Faith

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our(F) common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you(G) to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

Jude 1:3, ESV

 

The Book of Jude is jammed with warnings and words of direction.  As we read though it, we are directed to understand that people who live sinfully are in mortal danger.  We check ourselves, and monitor our hearts to discern them.  Jude seems to reflect to us that the darkness out there is pervasive and a mite dangerous.

As we read this book, we should be lifted up in our confidence and boldness. We should find ourselves in a reasonable assurance.  However, Jude speaks out about a flood of darkness that is rolling right up to the very foundations of the Church.  Much of this small letter seems pessimistic.  But Jude in certain spots definitely gives us hope and encouragement.

There is a lot of personal reasons that I like this book .  Jude is one of the few books we can read in one sitting.  It also contains verses that are incredibly edifying.  We reach out for these promises and we find a good, strong rope to help us advance.

Jude tells his readers to be aware, and also to contend.  He really doesn’t want us to be argumentative.  But he does want us to ‘lock down’ and hold our positions.  Our faith has been handled and held by the generations before us.  Grandmas, and Aunties, and their parents, and parents of parents.  They all held our faith and stood boldly for the faith in Christ. 

It is now in our feeble hands, and its our turn.  We are called to ‘contend’ for our faith.  We stand in one spot against the darkness,  and we establish ourselves and refuse to compromise.  We stand against so much evil, but our faith should not erode.

The saints  from generations past had a have an aggressive brand of faith.  And the life we have experienced so far has been the life they also lived.  Day by day, their lives opened up for them, and they decided to live for God.  But their days could be very tedious, and they knew of them just as we know.  Believe it or not, tedium can be a difficult mindset to live in.

It is vitally important that we become ‘contenders’ of our faith.  That we stand in place while the flood water surge around us.  When the flood slams against us, will we stand at that moment?  Will we stay in our spot, when things get crazy and unrecognizable?  I have experienced first-hand a real flood,  and it comes with a powerful force, knocking down trees and buildings with no effort at all.

The Believer of today, has a tremendous amount of thinking to do.  Will we go against evil and ‘contend’ that our faith is real and that it is significant?  Will we stay rooted in the flood, and lift up the torch of faith?  He stands to see what you will do.  He despatches power and grace for our comfort and strength.

How You Make it Work

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves

Philippians 2:1-3

 

Being connected to Jesus sets us up for a way so much more then we thought.  Encouragement comes from being comforted.  It makes us stand back in amazement.  We are brought to this wonderful place, and personal growth begins to show exceptional results. 

There are a lot of ‘anys’ that are imbedded in these verses.  They take us to a point of extracting something of eternal value and worth, and then seeing it translated into our lives.  I certainly couldn’t come up with this on my own.

We grab this basic fact, we are just devoid of anything of real value.  We simply do not have the roots that will sink down into these wonderful things.  Our connection into Him however, puts us into a completely different place.  We discover we have this incredible ability from drawing out life into our beings.  He sets us up so we extract ‘life’ from our silly, feeble efforts.

We draw so much from the presence of Jesus.  When it’s hooked in, our ‘abundance meter’ kicks us up several notches.  Paul is asking us to draw out significant things from our contact with these things of wonder.  Verse 2 develops for us a sense of unity with our brothers and sisters.  Truth had better deal with us in this way. 

My newfound faith means I must connect with others in a new and a powerfully exceptional basis.  The Gospel had better effect me in this capacity, because, whether we know it or not, faith just doesn’t connect me with God– it connects me to His people.

‘One love, and one spirit and one mind’.  The unity that is to be developed springs from a knowledge of who we really are spiritually.  There is an idea of ‘commonness’, that suggests that we all have a direct unity with each other.  We all are drawing from the same source.  Just the very idea of this should, and could break down barriers and walls that exist.  It seems to be a new awareness of having all our extension cords using all the same electricity.  There is never any shortage, but we do need to consent to being hooked up to the same root.

This realization of the dramatic unity of Christ’s work should bring us to a deepness of the Spirit that has eluded us for generations.  Quite simply, He is the well spring that we all draw from.  Deep down, He is who we connect to, our roots extend to Him.  Baptist, Assembly of God, Anglican, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholic and more.  The big bunch of us have plunged our roots into Jesus.  We all draw from Him, and He imparts to us life that lasts forever.

Humility has become the virtual currency of the Kingdom.  We are issued as much as we need.  But we must act with what we take.  Our brokenness over our self (and our arrogance) must drive us to a gentleness with each other.  We simply don’t have the resources and the intellect to make the decisions that we have been making.  Humility is the wonderful key that will open the doors to the King’s castle.  If you have it, you get in.  But without it, you will go nowhere.