Tag: love

Insist on the Light

I’m starting to raise my voice now.  Please, in regards to your discipleship.  Please insist on the light.  Demand–don’t try to live without it!  There will only and always will be sore regret and dark confusion if you move through your life, “sleepwalking.”

We need for people to “shock” us and guide us to the certain truth of the Gospel.  This world system impedes us, and blocks our progress.  It is a deep dark mist that separates us from the light.  The darkness is a confusing presence.  It is most difficult to deal with.  Our race (the human race) is most crippled and handicapped by the presence of evil.  It scatters us and than it seeks control of us.

The one thing that can save us is to insist on the light.

“He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them.”

2 Thessalonians 2:10, NLT

 

The battle is fierce and it is long.  Someone is hunting us.  Satan‘s great strategy is too bring us into even more confusion than we are even now experiencing.  His specialty is to lead us right into the dark.

I have many brothers that have been drawn into the dark.  They’ve now grown accustomed to it, and they say they were just going “through a phase.”  I’m deeply saddened, for Kelly, and Allen, and Jonathan.  They were, and still are my brothers.  I am ripped up inside because of their apostasy.  I know they can’t be happy.  And, part of me waits for them to rejoin the faith they once professed.  It has been 30 years since we worshipped together.  I miss them.

We must insist on the light.  We really can not compromise on anything less.  His light guides and delivers us into his hands.  Second Thessalonians speaks about having “a love for the truth.”  Could that be the reason so many have stumbled?  To “love” someone of something implies devotion or committment.  We are to become “lovers” of everything that is true.

The dark is sticky.  It more or less grabs you, and you can’t get it off your hands.  The love, power and blood of Jesus is the only thing potent enough to remove it.  Since we go through this life “hurley-burley” and a bit confused, we will need to rely constantly of God’s remedy to cleanse fully.

I exhort you most deeply and certainly, love the light.  Welcome it and seek its control over you.  Abolish any attempt on finding another way.  Be illuminated and throughly affected by the light’s presence.  There will be many who violate and distort the light.  Do not believe them.

 

 

Umbilical Cord Christianity

 

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who gave me strength, because he trusted me and gave me this work of serving him. In the past I spoke against Christ and persecuted him and did all kinds of things to hurt him. But God showed me mercy, because I did not know what I was doing. I did not believe.”

1 Timothy 1:12-13, NCV

 

Coming out and thanking God is a critical way we can grow.  Paul thanks God out loud.  He has in mind, through a modern metaphor, God as a power plant, providing him with everything he needs.  He is now being energized by God, and this infusion enables us to do some amazing things that others consider quite exceptional.  (Handling this piece of understanding is critical to fitting into the Kingdom.)

Umbilical cord Christianity is the way Paul seems to view his walk and ministry.  He seems himself connected with the Holy Spirit which transforms him and his work.  Without this deeply vital connection, Paul becomes open to all kinds of evil and atrocity.  It’s fascinating, but we actively expand darkness if we are not attached.  We will end up doing all kinds of evil.  There are many who can’t see this truth.

In these verses we find another issue–that of forgiveness of self.  Paul had an ugly past.  He had once been an effective tool in the evil one’s hands.  On a logical level, this should taint him completely and irrevocably.  Paul was marked to be a wicked presence in the early Church.  Everyone knew him and braced themselves against his personal darkness.  They all thought that Paul was completely evil.

But in a dramatic moment, Paul is converted to Christ on the Damascus Road.  This is a radical shifting in the early Church.  Paul points to the mercy that God has, and makes it very clear that God has exclusively arranged and administered this miracle.  He points to the Spirit’s work that has intrinsically changed everything.  Paul is now completely altered by the Holy Spirit.

Another vital point; it was Jesus Himself who was hurt, when His children were hurt.  All of Paul’s viciousness and meanness was really directed against God.  We seldom think this way.  We may admit sin, but we will rarely view it as against God directly.  There is an old Yiddish proverb, “If God had a house, people would come and break His windows”.  In my own desperate and personal war against the Almighty, I often strain and strive to strike at His children.

There is an immense mercy and grace for sinners like Saul.  And nothing is irrevocable.  Grace insists on that.  All we can do, is change our mind and our heart (repent).  Then, we must tether ourselves, reviving that umbilical cord, and connect to Him our very lives (sanctification).  The very presence of Jesus will change everything.

 

I have a definite sense that there are things in this teaching which are touching hearts.  I have very few ways to help you.  But I can pray, and hold you up to our Father.  Let me know, ok. 

 

 

 

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.

Faith Like Jello

—

Three Translations of Joshua 3:5

  • Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.”, NIV 

  • Then Joshua told the people, “Purify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do great wonders among you.”, NLT

  • Joshua told the people, ” Make yourselves acceptable  to worship the LORD, because he is going to do some amazing things for us.”, CEV

 

*****

The three translations of the same verse in Joshua each contributes a thought that adds to the whole.  Very often we need to make a comparison like this to speed our understanding.  There is a common theme of spiritual preparation.  Also anticipated is a direct intervention by God Himself.

Joshua is charged with not only the physical, but spiritual condition of the people.  He has sensed that God is going to amaze everyone, and He is on the verge of taking this mass of people through the river and into the Promised Land.  This will be the fulfillment of an awesome covenant promise.

Joshua has taken the initiative.  He declares the need of the people to prepare.  They are about to be led by God.  He builds anticipation for the grand things imminently approaching.  But the Israelites have got to prepare.  They must get ready.  Effort needs to be made. 

We have a strong tendency to see God’s promises apart from our efforts to prepare for them.  We think God saves us by grace.  But a faith that doesn’t work, cannot save.

“We are not made righteous by doing righteous deeds; but when we have been made righteous we do righteous deeds.” –Martin Luther

We cohabit with a Holy God who is like a strange roommate insists on sharing everything.  (Everything He does, in some way He does for us.)  “He picks up the tab” for everything!  Joshua, on the other hand, has 12 hours to get Israel ready.  The people must adjust.  He declares that everyone make themselves decent, to cleanse themselves from sin and give themselves to God.  Israel must do some things to get ready.

We must not enervate our faith to turn it into some religious jello— a blob with no backbone.  Our faith must work, and sweat.  If it doesn’t, we are in trouble.  I’m thrilled to be saved by grace through faith.  It is a precious marvel to me.  But I must remember that the grace that saves is a grace that works.  I don’t want my faith to be jello faith.  I want it to be a living faith.

“As in the candle I know there is both light and heat, but put out the candle, and they are both gone.”  Unknown