Soul Renewal and giving up ice cream

Last Saturday, on a sunny winter morning, I took my car to be washed. While there, I threw open the doors, vacuumed the carpets, and wiped down the dashboard. The dirt, old receipts, and little spills all accumulated so slowly that I did not see them until I really looked and realized – “this car is a mess!” Similarly, all Christians need times of ‘soul’ renewal, don’t we?  The clutter of petty sins builds up almost imperceptibly.

• Nobody ever became godly or stayed that way without being intentional and engaging in effort. Oh yes, Jesus saves but we work out the implications of that salvation as we ‘keep step with the Spirit.’

Tomorrow, Christians are invited to enter the season of Lent, one marked by repentance, that includes time to reflect on life, to examine our hearts, and perhaps to enter a ‘fast.’ Traditionally the opening of Lent is called "Ash Wednesday" because ashes made from palm fronds from the previous year's celebration of Palm Sunday are used by some churches to mark the forehead with a sign of our humility. Those ashes are also a reminder of our inevitable appointment with death; that ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ thing we say at gravesides. 

Are you still stuck on that word – fasting?  In the most narrow meaning fasting is about abstaining from food but we can enter the joy of fasting in many ways.  We can choose to suspend our enjoyment of something like time on social media, or the amount of time we watch television. We can fast by laying aside the pampering of Self. Whatever our choice, true fasting is not focused on the ‘deprivation’ but rather on the pursuit of the Presence of God. If we enter into a fast as an act of obedience, offered in faith to God, we can our attention to the things of God sharpened.

God made us with a spirit-body connection! What we do in our physical body has an effect on our spiritual state- both positively and negatively. Paul starkly says "So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step. I am not like a boxer who misses his punches. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified." (1 Corinthians 9:26-27, NLT)  A literal translation of the NT Greek would read “I pound my body into submission!”  God does not ask us to abuse ourselves. We need not actually beat ourselves bloody, but there is maturity in reminding ourselves that life is more than food, clothes, or comfort.

Jesus urged us to practice spiritual disciplines like fasting, giving, and prayer without telling anyone. Such choices, because they are acts of faith, must be very personal. He said, "when you fast, don't make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, who try to look pale and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I assure you, that is the only reward they will ever get. But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face. Then no one will suspect you are fasting, except your Father, who knows what you do in secret. And your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you." (Matthew 6:16-18 NLT) If we 'show off' or if we judge those who do not practice spiritual disciplines as we do, we rob ourselves of the value of offering ourselves to God. Our ‘spirituality’ turns into a self-centered display of religion and empty traditions. Our Lenten devotions must not be used as a means of making ourselves feel better than someone else.

Will you give up ice cream for Lent?  If you do, do it for the purpose of seeking the Lord. (I think we might be better served by giving up some TV time for prayer, meditation or reading Scripture.) Don’t do it just because I said to. Rather, pray about it. Ask the Lord if you need to discipline your body to provide freedom for the Spirit, to allow for a reset.  Has junk accumulated in your heart? Lent is an invitation to get ready for the JOYOUS celebration of the Resurrection, God’s ultimate declaration that He makes all things NEW.

Here’s a word from the Word. Think deeply and prayerfully on the promise of this passage.  "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. … Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. … so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe." (Philippians 2:3-4, 12-13,15, NIV)

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Kyrie Eleison
(a Lenten prayer in song by Chris Tomlin)

Lord have mercy Christ have mercy

Hear our cry and heal our land

Let kindness lead us to repentance

Bring us back again

For Your name is great and Your heart is grace

Kyrie Eleison (translation - Lord, have mercy)

Over all You reign You alone can save

Kyrie Eleison

Lord have mercy Christ have mercy on us now

Who is this God who pardons all our sin

So ready to forgive

You delight to show Your mercy

For Your name is great and Your heart is grace

Kyrie Eleison

Over all You reign You alone can save

Kyrie Eleison

Lord have mercy Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy Christ have mercy on us now

Chris Tomlin | Jason Ingram | Matt Maher | Matt Redman

© 2016 S. D. G. Publishing (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

Said And Done Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

sixsteps Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

CCLI License # 810055

We’re family

While at lunch on Saturday in our little town of Belvidere, I looked up and coming in the doorway was my son, Sean. He lives in Florida so seeing him in a restaurant in my town was a surprise, to say the least! He showed up without announcement, expecting a place to stay, just as it should be because we’re family.  There was no need to call ahead and make a reservation or ask my permission. Because he is my son, he knows there is always a room at Dad’s house. I was delighted to enjoy his company for a day before he went to NYC for business concerns.

Do you know that you can be a CHILD of God with all the perks of being ‘family?’  The Scripture says, "Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence." (Ephesians 3:12, NLT)  In another passage, we are reminded that we are children with privileges. "This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children." (Romans 8:15-16, The Message)

God invites us to come close, to know Him, to trust Him, to love Him – because He loves us. Do you trust God with the affection of a child, or are you cowering before a distant Deity that terrifies you; guilty and ashamed?  Jesus has reconciled us, forgiven the past resistance to His grace, and offers a full restoration of our rights as children of God. We believe it, receive Him, and find ourselves welcomed home. That allows us to live with an even greater confidence of His welcome than my son felt when he came to my home this past weekend. We can be confident of His acceptance. We can learn to live in an ongoing conversation with the One who loves us most. What a privilege! 

Hear the Truth again - "Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you. Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. And now that you have found God (or should I say, now that God has found you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual powers of this world?" (Galatians 4:7-9, NLT)

Is there something in your life that is stressing you, keeping you awake at night, making your head ache? Share it with the Father. With child-like faith go to Abba and ask His wisdom, His comfort, His resources for your need. Don’t be shy; be boldly confident. No concern is too small or too big. No joy beyond His interest, nothing in your life outside His care. Though my children are all grown with kids of their own, in their own careers and successful, I am still delighted to share their lives, to hear their hearts, to pray for their needs, to rejoice in their successes – because they’re family.  Your Heavenly Father desires your love and will hear your heart. Oh yes, as with any good father, He may not do what you want Him to do, but He will do what is best for you. If He corrects you, it is because He loves you.

The word from the Word is a single line. Meditate on the declaration. Ask the Spirit to help you to accept His love today. Don’t live like an orphaned child.  “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.”  (1 John 3:1)
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No Longer Slaves

You unravel me with a melody

You surround me with a song

Of deliverance from my enemies

Till all my fears are gone

I'm no longer a slave to fear

I am a child of God

I'm no longer a slave to fear

I am a child of God

From my Mother's womb

You have chosen me

Love has called my name

I've been born again into Your family

Your blood flows through my veins

You split the sea so I could walk right through it

My fears were drowned in perfect love

You rescued me so I could stand and sing

I am a child of God

Brian Johnson | Joel Case | Jonathan David Helser

© 2014 Bethel Music Publishing

CCLI License # 810055

Thoughts on the Sadness

On Wednesday evening, on a local backroad, a teen-age boy’s life ended in a terrible crash. Yesterday the tragedy compounded when news outlets reported that he took his own life. I did not know him but I cannot shake the sadness. How can a young person with his whole life before him conclude that life is no longer worth living?  It is both unfair and wrong to try to find someone to blame. 

So I have been prayerfully thinking, how is the Gospel I love, the Christ I know, made available to this generation? How can we communicate hope and life with meaning to others?

Then I read about two You-Tubers, Rhett and Link, who are popular in the United States among teens. They recently ‘deconstructed’ their faith.  These two articulate, funny guys who were Christians, active in local churches, explained that they are walking away. It is almost impossible to measure the impact they will have on young minds by stating their conclusions that Jesus’ resurrection is a myth and that Christianity does not stand up to modern science and contemporary sexual ethics. Again, I’m not blaming anyone or anything for this ‘death of faith’ but it makes me do some self-examination. Am I living a consistent, charitable, open kind of faith life that invites others to consider Christ as Savior and Lord?

When people lose hope and transcendent purpose the results are generally not good. We need anchor points in life that can hold us steady when we encounter those rough things that inevitably come our way. Death is going to show up, sooner or later, in our lives when parents die, friends die. Even with faith, encountering mortality is a jolt that shakes people to the core. If faith’s call to greater purpose, to living for something or Someone greater than one’s self, is lost- how does a person remain whole and loving especially when life makes it clear that we are not ‘masters of our own fate?’  We are just small beings surviving in a harsh environment and without faith we can despair or just exist without joy.

I make no defense of the fundamentalism of my youth that mistakenly taught me that ‘absolute certainty’ about the Bible and all matters of faith is possible. It isn’t. Faith is, by definition, wrapped around mystery.  Faith is the bridge between the ‘unseen’ and us. Without it, we cannot know or please God, but it must not be sold as a ‘learn this verse and erase all your doubts’ kind of experience. Faith involves our mind and our heart, our reason and our emotions. Christ invites us to come and find Him good but, if our Gospel is to survive we must make it safe and possible for questions to be asked.  We are authentic if we will admit when we cannot understand the ‘why’s’ or outcomes of life, or all of the ways of an eternal God.

Then, too, I think that Christians need to stop making secondary issues into primary ones. For example if we insist that real Christians must adopt a literal view of 6 days of Creation and declare that the earth is just a few thousand years old, without allowing for discussion, for many minds today the conversation about the rest of the Bible is over.  Do people have very different convictions about that issue? Of course and that is as it should be, but those convictions do not replace Christ at the core of our faith.   And, then too, if we reduce our understanding of human sexuality to a few simple Bible quotes and prohibitions without attempting a fuller conversation about why God made us sexual creatures, how this sacred gift fits into the whole picture of life, we will not connect with those who have been taught that sex is just another natural appetite to be satisfied in any way that does not hurt anyone else.

In Christ Jesus, I find hope that is rich and steady. In His story I find an invitation into life that is fuller now and that has purpose beyond what I see and know in this world.  I hold tightly to these declarations about Jesus - "to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—" (John 1:12, NIV) "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)  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, NIV)  Trusting His love for me, I learn to love Him and the world which He came to restore to the Creator.

Thanks for reading along with my meandering thoughts this morning. My heart is heavy for the world in which I live. I want to know Christ and made Him known. Don’t you?

Before you go, join me in meditation on this sweet invitation of Jesus to a kind of life that knows His power and peace.

Here is the word from the Word.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NIV)  This paraphrase might make His words more accessible for you. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

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Abba, I want to know You better,

to live so that the Light shines through me

into a world stumbling around in the dark.

Transform my sorrow over those who have abandoned You,

over the death of faith that is almost an epidemic around me,

into a desire to pray, to listen, to invite, to show You in my words and actions

as the Beautiful One that You are.

Make your Name glorious, Your Presence compelling.

Come, heal us. Revive my heart with the Breath of the Spirit.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.