Words that are like rain on dry soil

Valued? Rejected?

Yesterday, mid-afternoon, my phone notified me of a message. Opening it, I read a paragraph from someone commenting about how this daily blog was useful in her efforts to share the Christian life with her neighbors. Her note touched my heart because it was affirming, encouraging. Words like that are like rain, bringing fresh life and renewed commitment.  I have my critics, too. Not too long ago, a man pointed out what he thought was wrong in the work I do and added dire predictions of failure before walking out of my life. Even the memory of that conversation is painful!

Is it natural to desire affirmation? I think so.
Watch a toddler respond to her parents smiles and claps.
Observe a child around the age of 8 trying to fit into his class, carefully noting the style of the kid that everybody ‘loves.’  
You and I do on our social media, don’t we? Who posts a picture of themselves straight of bed, with hair a mess, eyes still sleepy, in old ragged pajamas?  You are smiling because you know it’s true.

We screen our image on Facebook putting up pictures of ourselves surrounded by smiling faces, when we are looking our best. Is that pride? In a way it is, but it also is just how we have learned to look for the affirmation of others.  But it is a dangerous thing to validate ourselves based on reactions, to believe ourselves a person of value only when we are getting high grades, applause, or encouraging notes via Messenger! That can take us down a road where we become actors, doing things that are not authentic, or even self-destructive in desperate pleas for love.  And you know, as I do, that there will always be someone who does what we do better, someone who appears to enjoy more friends, someone who is more popular.

In our Christian experience, our primary approval comes not from others, but from God.
Paul wrote to his critics in the church of Corinth, people he had brought to Christ who were being bamboozled by preachers who were smooth talkers with big stories. The apostle reminds those people that he is steadied by something other than their opinion of him. "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." (2 Corinthians 3:1-3, NIV)  He sees the work that God has done and it is the only letter of reference he needs!

Was Paul being arrogant? Not at all. Self-affirmation, born of our own pride or arrogance blinds us to the truth about ourselves and life. That is not what he is doing. He knows that he gave his best to them, knows that Christ worked through him, and the results speak for themselves about the value of his work. Further on in his letter, chapter 4, Paul states that he refuses to twist God’s Word to serve his own purposes, that he will not deceive or manipulate just to gain approval.  Then, he writes these amazing words that should steady us all as we serve God. "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV)  What freedom is found in knowing that God, the Holy Spirit, lives in us – weak and ordinary as we might be – and we become displays of His glory!

In another passage he reflects on his painful memories and his present peace, one forgiven by grace, the other empowered by the Spirit. "For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." (1 Corinthians 15:9-10, NIV)

Has rejection hurt you? Are you trying to erase the effect of a parent’s hurtful words spoken decades ago? Are you trying to overcome that terrible pain that came when you were dismissed, belittled, or ignored?  Know this – The One who knows you best, loves you most!  There is forgiveness for your failures, there is strength for this day, and there is the promise of a reward that will come from the One who sees you all the way to your heart, who sets every action in the context of your entire life. Amazing, isn’t that?

Here is the word from the Word. Jesus says,  “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love. “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature." (John 15:9-11, The Message)  Who needs more affirmation than that?

________________________

How He Loves

(worship at this link)

He is jealous for me loves like a hurricane

I am a tree bending beneath

The weight of His wind and mercy

When all of a sudden I am unaware of

These afflictions eclipsed by glory

I realize just how beautiful You are

And how great Your affections are for me

Oh how He loves us so

Oh how He loves us

How He loves us so

 (Yeah) He loves us

Oh how He loves us

Oh how He loves us

Oh how He loves

We are His portion and He is our prize

Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes

If grace is an ocean we're all sinking

So Heaven meets earth

Like a sloppy wet kiss

And my heart turns violently inside of my chest

I don't have time to maintain these regrets

When I think about the way that

(Yeah) He loves us

Oh how He loves us

Oh how He loves us

Oh how He loves

CCLI Song # 5032549

John Mark McMillan

© 2005 Integrity's Hosanna! Music (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing (Integrity Music [DC Cook]))

CCLI License # 810055

Bar Code Christianity

Remember the supermarket checkout before the bar code scanner? Each item was marked with a price and the checker had to punch it into the cash register. Yep, I really can remember those days. Now, the item is passed in front of the reader that ‘sees’ a little box with lines in it and instantly enters the price into the computer. The scanner cannot tell if it is pricing a can of peas or a box of Cheerios™ because it can only detect and decode a symbol inscrutable to our eyes.

In his book, The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard observes a development in Evangelical Christianity that he labels as “barcode religion.”  There is an event in which a “decision for Christ” is made. And, at that moment, God places a kind of spiritual ‘bar code’ on the individual marking him as destined for Heaven, all sins – past, present, and future – erased by Christ’s grace.  So, you are thinking, isn’t that true?  Well it is- but it is but  half of the truth. Salvation is a gift of God, provided by His grace freely, through Christ. But, to imply that once you have the barcode that all is said and done is a fallacy. Salvation is to be followed by discipleship.

It is a travesty to believe that such a profound inner change as being reconciled to God would not be followed by an observable change in values and behaviors, yet that is too often exactly the case! We have emphasized God’s grace and forgiveness of sin and left out the accompanying transformation called ‘sanctification.’ (becoming a person who is like Christ)  As long as you got the “bar code” it’s all good;  entrance to heaven assured. No worries needed about whether or not day to day behavior bears any resemblance to the Christian life that is described in Scripture. Concerned that we would preach a ‘works religion’ we have neglected to properly teach what it means to be a disciple.

The unintended result is to devalue the Cross of Christ by making what He did there into an eternal life insurance policy. In fact, what Jesus has done for us is to make a whole new life possible by announcing the arrival of God’s rule and to commission to be people of the Kingdom of God. His command that we ‘go into all the world and preach the Gospel,’ is not just about collecting ‘decisions to believe.’  It is about leading people to Him, so that they will be reconciled to God, filled with the Spirit, and transformed day by day into glorious being of love and holiness who are destined for heaven.

I wonder if Paul’s lament about “Christians” of the church in Philippi, is too often true of those who claim to know Jesus in 2018?  "For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior." (Philippians 3:18-20, NLT)

The Spirit-filled Christian life begins with a grace awakening and is possible only to those who maintain an intimate connection with Christ Jesus, one He described as ‘Vine and branch,’  impossible apart from Him. The life of the disciple is one of growth, one that is empowered, one that is changed and she is a change agent in the world where she lives. What a privilege to become a partner with God in making His rule known, in facing down oppression, in taking on prejudice,  living in a meaningful and purposeful way that is demonstrably different from those who do not yet know Jesus.  Are you living a ‘bar code’ kind of Christianity, content with the promise of grace but unconcerned with becoming His disciple?  Know that there is more, so much more, to faith.

The word from the Word challenges us to see the whole Truth.  The Word says that when Jesus is received by faith and the Spirit takes up residence in us, we "recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him." (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, The Message)

Let’s engage with Him and as He lives in us, we will make His life known, changing our family and home, our place of work, yes – the world in which we live.

________________

Beautiful Things

(worship along at this link)

All this pain

I wonder if I'll ever find my way

I wonder if my life could really change

At all

All this earth

Could all that is lost ever be found

Could a garden come up from this ground

At all

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

All around

Hope is springing up from this old ground

Out of chaos life is being found

In You

You make me new You are making me new

You make me new You are making me new

Lisa Gungor | Michael Gungor

© 2009 worshiptogether.com songs (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

CCLI License # 810055

Hungry still?

Frequently I come to the end of a worship gathering, or time in personal prayer, or study of the Scripture with a sense that ‘’there is more.” I remain unsatisfied. Is this normal? Is there some failure on my part that causes me to be hungry still?  Haven’t I heard it said a thousand times that Jesus will satisfy your soul?  But, what exactly am I looking for? What actually is that satisfaction that I desire? If my longing is to know God, then on this side of eternity, while still clothed in the limitations of this temporal body, I cannot know the Infinite, Eternal One completely. Thus, my hunger is not necessarily an indicator of my failure, but of the whispered invitation of the Spirit to lean in to know Him better, praying “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.”

Amy Simpson, in an article published in Christianity Today (Jan/Feb. 2018), offers these provocative thoughts. “When we come to Christ expecting satisfaction, we inadvertently approach him as if he is the answer to both our natural appetites and our consumeristic desires. Rather than ask him to transform our desires, we expect him to take them away or morph himself into the solution we’re wanting. We approach him as either a product or a solution. And God is neither.”

We love Jesus’ promise of abundant life (John 10:10), and we should, but we must give deeper thought to what He offers. Some of the pulpit rhetoric unintentionally sells us a half-truth, implying He is going to make us happy, solve every dilemma in our lives, if we love Him enough. I grew up singing this deceptively simple little chorus:

Christ is the answer to all my longing,

Christ is the answer to all my need,

Savior, Baptizer, the Great Physician,

O, Hallelujah, He’s all I need.

It is comforting, isn’t it? The words imply that there is a state to which I can aspire where every conflict is resolved, every temptation erased, every ‘longing’ satisfied in Him. Yes, there is a settled peace that every disciple finds in the assurance of eternal life. Yet, we hunger still, and that hunger continues to draw us back to the pursuit of the Holy. 

Simpson writes “Christ does far more than make our lives completely fulfilling. Repentance and redemption are more than transactional requirements for a good life. God is far greater than a quick fix, and his ultimate plan for re-creation and redemption is not a mere afterthought to a happy life. In some ways, a relationship with Christ intensifies our longings as God shapes them into visions of what he wants us to desire.”   God does not want us bored with Him. He remains Mystery, and only at the Throne will all our longings be perfected and thus, satisfied!

What of Jesus’ words that tell us "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." (Matthew 5:6, NIV)? We do find reconciliation with God through the Cross and that sense we are satisfied, but if we’re authentic, we will acknowledge that there are places in our lives that remain resistant to His will, and thus we hunger still for complete righteousness. We will be ‘filled’ when the Kingdom comes in fullness! Simpson points to Paul’s statement as evidence that even the Spirit-filled apostle, though intimate with Christ, still hungered to know Christ fully. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain,” he wrote (Phil. 1:21). Paul knew his ministry was important, yet people who are satisfied by the life they lead don’t wish for death. In his letter to the Romans, Paul is frank about our awkward position in this life, sometimes called the “now and not yet.”  

 Listen to the longing in these words. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." (Philippians 3:10-12, NIV)

Disciple, if you find yourself hungry still – don’t despair. Instead press on to know Him more.
And keep your mind and heart set on the "the glory He will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are." (Romans 8:18-19, NLT)

Here is a word from the Word. May it encourage you to seek the face of the Father, to remain focused even when your hunger is not fully satisfied.  

“The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." (Romans 8:18-25, NIV)

__________

Oh lead me

To the place where I can find You

Oh lead me

To the place where You'll be

Lead me to the cross

Where we first met

Draw me to my knees

So we can talk

Let me feel Your breath

Let me know

You're here with me

Martin Smith

© 1994 Curious? Music UK (Admin. by Capitol CMG Publishing)

CCLI License # 810055