Listening to all the words

 

In a loud or crowded room conversations can be difficult because my hearing is not what it once was. I cope by mentally ‘filling in’ the words I miss, making an educated guess based the context of the conversation.  I don’t always get it right and that can be hilarious and sometimes, unfortunate!  It is better to just admit, “I did not hear what you said.  Would you please tell me again?”

There is a similar problem that can develop in the Christian as she approaches the Scripture. God speaks to us in the Holy Word but we can miss the message when we bring our own conclusions to the text, forcing the words to fit into what ‘we think it must mean’ rather than listening to the Spirit as He speaks to us.  More than a few times I have heard Christians say, “I know the words but I just don’t accept them.”  Or,  I hear others re-interpret passages with tortured logic to forced them into the framework that they have already created.  

I will be the first to admit that there are passages in the Bible that leave me wondering, others that pierce my heart with conviction, others that stretch my faith.
When I read them I have a choice to make.
Will I invite the Holy Spirit to speak to me, approaching the Word with reverent faith?
Or, will I ignore the text because it is ‘hard to understand?’

Let’s go to the Gospels for an illustration of this. When His disciples questioned Jesus about cursing a fig tree that withered he said “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” (Matthew 21:21-22, NIV)  

 That is a challenging text for me!  My mind immediately forms an objection to the text by insisting that mountains cannot be moved!  If I read it completely literally, I am left with just one conclusion – nobody has great faith. Why? Because I know of no recorded instances in all the years of Christianity when anyone commanded a mountain to go throw itself into the ocean.  The second part is equally challenging. “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”  I understand those words, too, but I also know that I have prayed about some things with the deepest of faith and have not experienced the answer I sought!  If I read that text and conclude that every unanswered prayer is solely the result of a deficit in my faith I will become afraid to pray at all.

Both of those objections to Jesus’ words grow out of the preconceived ideas that I drag into the text. If that is how I read the Word, I will become partially deaf, missing God’s message.  So, I come at it with prayer, with faith, and with acceptance of something I call ‘mystery.’  When I find my mind objecting, I ask God to grant me insight, to help me to hear the words as He speaks them. While I may not understand why Jesus talks about throwing mountains into the ocean I can hear a teaching about great faith, about trusting Him radically with the obstacles in my life that look like mountains in the way.  I hear Jesus’ invitation to greater faith for the daily needs of my life and focus on Him, not on myself, willing to live with the questions.

Tish Harrison Warren writing about the many ‘deconstructors’ of Christian faith, people who decide to destroy Christianity because they have issues with how other practice it or because of their own inner conflicts urges us to trust both the truth of the Scripture and the voice of the Holy Spirit.  One line she writes needs to be heard – “Many of those who most vocally deconstruct Christianity jettison a thin version of American fundamentalism and mistake it for the whole tradition … what a sinful Church needs is not deconstruction but deep construction. We have to forsake shallow critique to build a more faithful vision of the community of Jesus, but we cannot do it without holding to the deposit of faith we have received from the historic church.”  (Christianity Today, November, 2021, pg. 32)

Are you wrestling with faith? Have you come to a place of questions?

You are not the first.  In John’s Gospel, chapter 6, Jesus said some hard things about being a disciple, about ‘eating His flesh and drinking His blood!’  Many who heard Him, turned away. Even the inner circle struggled. "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.” From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

The word from the Word is a confession of faith I make. Will you?  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:60-69, NIV)

(Video of this blog at this link)

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Lord I Need You

Lord I come I confess
Bowing here I find my rest
And without You I fall apart
You're the one that guides my heart

Lord I need You oh I need You
Ev'ry hour I need You
My one defense my righteousness
Oh God how I need You

Where sin runs deep Your grace is more
Where grace is found is where You are
And where You are Lord I am free
Holiness is Christ in me
Where You are Lord I am free
Holiness is Christ in me

So teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
And when I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus You're my hope and stay
And when I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus You're my hope and stay

Lord I need You oh I need You
Ev'ry hour I need You
My one defense my righteousness
Oh God how I need You
My one defense my righteousness
Oh God how I need You

Christy Nockels | Daniel Carson | Jesse Reeves | Kristian Stanfill | Matt Maher

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“We”

 

It is a curious paradox of the 21^st century. Despite having technology that makes us the most ‘connected’ society in history Americans are lonely! Just prior to the outbreak of COVID a reputable national survey found that three in five (60%) of Americans reported that they felt lonely. They described themselves as feeling “left out, poorly understood and lacking companionship.” 

There are many reasons that account for this.  Our families tend to be more scattered than they were a generation ago. We live longer and loneliness is an issue especially prevalent among the aged who are no longer able to be active.  We marry less and have fewer children.  We turn to television and computers as a substitute (very poor ones) for complex real friendships! We no longer ‘join’ clubs, churches, and community service organizations like we once did.

Sometimes, too often really, the loneliness we feel results from being ‘left out,’  unable to find a place where we can build and sustain relationships. From the time of childhood, right through adulthood, we human beings have the awful capacity to ignore or marginalize that person who is different - in color, in race, in religion, in language, even in ability. 

During World War 2, Americans decided that being of Japanese descent was enough to make a person suspicious. This nation, which prided itself on being free and open, because of great fear took thousands of citizens and locked them in internment camps. I wish I could say that was a singular aberration but it isn’t.  20 years ago, after the attacks on 9/11, Muslim citizens endured awful discrimination.  More recently, when COVID was made a ‘China’ issue, people of Asian descent dealt with hatred and rejection in many cities and town. 

Our pastor at FDC reminded us yesterday that we are called to bear the image of God, our Creator and that basic to that image is the idea of community. God, the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit – exist in eternal community and we are made to be like Him!  He has designed us to share life – with Him and with others. We can know Him because Christ Jesus restores us, by grace through faith, to a right relationship. And, loved by God, we become people who seek to create relationships with others, who care and share.

Let me remind you that God loved us not because we are wonderful, charming, or beautiful. He did not love us because we were eagerly seeking to please Him. Scripture tells us that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" He stood with us and His genuine love is to change us, making us into people who love people. 

Yes, we care about (not pity!) even those that are rejected or marginalized by others. We identify ourselves with them, standing with them. This is what Jesus did and so must we. The Scripture says, "Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world." (James 1:27, The Message)

We need to guard against a patronizing kind of assistance that reaches 'down' without really coming alongside of those in need.  The person who struggles to fit in, that one who has material need, the one who is rejected because of her skin color or ancestry does not want us to pretend to care so that we can feel noble or like we have ‘done our duty.’  We cannot love as God desires without becoming one with those we consider to be ‘other.’ Simply offering a meal or a pat on the back or a check to help with rent is a nice gesture and relieves some measure of suffering, but such efforts do not change people's lives or show them God's salvation.

Only if we are willing to get involved in a way that makes our lives intersect with those in need, can we hope to really make a difference. This is what Jesus did in the Incarnation! "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14, NIV)  He moved into the neighborhood, joined our church, and made life with us. This is our model for the kind of love and community that God desires. We cannot just ‘let it happen.’ We must work at it, be intentional, strategize to create a strong churches that honor the God who calls us into His Body.

My friend, it is time for those who are ‘in Christ’ to work against the divides of America. We are too ready to be politically, socially, racially, religiously, and economically divided. We paint those who are ‘other’ with broad brushes of generalizations that really do not fit. We tend to see only the caricature not the reality.  Let’s start to pray that God will start to heal our land starting in our church.  Let’s pray for the ability to love and accept those who have different convictions about the world. Let’s invite others to join the ‘family’ of God. 

It’s not a dream, it’s a calling! It can happen because God supernaturally makes us one. Here is a word from the Word. Would join me in praying that these words will become more than ‘words’ turning into truth we live by?  "So you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have been made like him. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians—you are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:26-28, NLT)

A simple prayer for this day – “Lord, change my love for ‘ME’ into a love of ‘WE.’ Amen.

(Video of this blog at this link)

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If We Are The Body

It's crowded in worship today
As she slips in trying to fade into the faces
The girls teasing laughter is carrying
Farther than they know
Farther than they know

(But) if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them there is a way
(There is a way) 

A traveler is far away from home
He sheds his coat and quietly
Sinks into the back row
The weight of their judgmental glances
Tells him that his chances are better
Out on the road

Jesus paid much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the body of Christ 

Jesus is the way

Mark Hall
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My Refuge Music (Admin. by Essential Music Publishing LLC)

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What kind of Friend?

 

There are people with whom I am ‘close.’  I know them, love them, and share life’s up’s and down’s with them. Life would be so much poorer without those relationships. There are hundreds of people with whom I am acquainted; knowing some things about them, but only a handful are what would be called ‘intimate friends.’  Intimacy, which enriches us, does not just happen. Developing it and sustaining it requires both the investment of time and a foundation of trust.  We cannot truly know another without significant time spent in conversation and connection. 

“Close” families make the effort to re-connect, to stay in touch. “Close” friends regularly ‘do life’ together, making choices to be together their priority. In addition to those regular connections, there must be honesty, a willingness to lose the masks we all tend to wear when we interact. That creates trust, a sense of safety so that we can let down our guard, take off our armor, and reveal our heart. 

Our relationship with God is quite similar to our human relationships in this sense. We can just know things about God, content to just be acquainted with Him through Sunday worship gatherings and perfunctory prayers, or we can invest time and build trust that allows us to become intimate with Him. Yes, we can know the Holy One and knowing Him fulfills us in a way that no other relationship can.

The Scripture is replete with examples of people who knew God.  In my reading in Genesis, I found this gem.  "When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:16-17, NIV)  Jacob was in a crisis, one of his own making. He was forced to leave his family behind and in his journey to live with distant relatives he met God in a way that began to change him.  

 Another Genesis line without much detail tells us "Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." (Genesis 5:24, NIV)   David, in spite of his rogue’s heart, knew God and gave us the worship songs of the Scripture, the Psalms. His intimacy with the Lord shines in these words of longing, in a moment when he felt distant from his God. " How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?" (Psalm 13:1-2, NIV)  One does not ask such a question of a mere acquaintance!

Jesus withdrew from the company of His friends often to spend time with His Father. His disciples saw that rich relationship and asked Him – “Teach us to pray.”   Their real request was ‘show us how to know that kind of intimacy with God!’

How can we know the Presence of God, walking with Him as our Friend?

First, we cannot confuse knowing things about God with actually knowing Him.  

Doctrine and theology are important, but they do not replace the pursuit of His Presence. The religious leaders that Jesus dealt with thought they knew God because they had great knowledge of the Law. Jesus shocked them when He said: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39–40)  One writer rightly observes “never in the history of the Christian church has so much theological knowledge been available to so many people as it is today. The American church enjoys perhaps the greatest amount of this abundance.”  And yet, intimacy with God is not common among Christians.

Second, we must not believe that we can create some ‘right place’ where He will be found. 

Depending on training, past experience, and even personality Christians will seek God in different ways. Some will love their liturgical setting, the ‘sanctuary,’ the candles, the robes, the incense.  Others will love their worship band and high energy gatherings. Some will look for some circles of people who quietly wait on God in someone’s living room. Some will pursue Him in their libraries of books and heady conversations about theological concepts.  While each of those settings may be a place in which, like Jacob, we might muse ‘surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place,’  none guarantees intimacy with Him.   

Thinking that it does is rather like a married couple thinking that a romantic candlelight dinner will make them true lovers. There’s nothing wrong with such a dinner, but true intimacy demand more than being in some ‘special place.’  Intimacy is found in doing dishes together, in long talks about life’s frustrations, in trying to figure out the household budget, in dealing with intransigent teenagers, and wrapped in each other’s arms.

Ultimately intimacy with God is found in the Person of Christ Jesus! 

He says to us “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!” (John 14:6-7, NLT) The only foundation of a relationship with God is Jesus and the only way to find Jesus is faith. We can never ‘do enough’ good things to become His intimate. We come to Him, with open hearts, to receive the gift of grace offered because of His love and assured us by His death on the Cross.  That does not mean that there is nothing for us to do. Intimacy with God requires time and trust, investing in Him as the priority choice and wrestling through the trials of life where we learn to trust Him equally in sunshine and rain!

Are you a friend of God?  Do you find yourself in His Presence, filled with His peace, guided by His purpose?  This is true life, the ‘abundant life’ of which Jesus spoke.

Our word from the Word is not a comforting, soothing one today. Jesus challenges us with an ‘in your face’ statement. Prayerfully read His words even as you invite the Holy Spirit to lead you to a deeper friendship with God.

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 10:37-39, NIV)

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
- Jim Elliott

(Video of this blog at this link)

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Surely The Presence Of The Lord

Surely the presence
Of the Lord is in this place
I can feel His mighty power
And His grace
I can hear the brush of angel's wings
I see glory on each face
Surely the presence
Of the Lord is in this place

In the midst of His children
The Lord said He would be
It doesn't take very many
It can be just two or three
And I feel that same sweet Spirit
That I've felt oft times before
Oh surely I can say
I have been with the Lord

There's a holy hush around us
As God's glory fills this place
I've touched the hem of His garment
And I can almost see His face
And my heart is overflowing
With the fullness of His joy
I know without a doubt
That I have been with the Lord

Lanny Wolfe © 1977 Lanny Wolfe Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)
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