Pending Judgment—Part II
By Linda Rex
Last week I asked the question: If Jesus is indeed the exact representation of the Father, does that mean that our heavenly Father is a really nice guy who never did or does anything in anger or that might be hurtful to us as human beings? I wrote about how Christ is our reconciliation and perfect relationship with our Abba, but often we seek to hide our sin and brokenness rather than humbly bringing it into the light of God’s love so we can live fully in the reconciliation which is ours in Christ Jesus.
God loves all people everywhere and has reconciled them to himself in his Son Jesus. We read in John 3:16-17 that God gave his Son for each human being, not so they would be condemned, but that they would be saved. And yet we also read in the Old Testament conversations and situations in which it seems as though God loves some people more than others.
I was sitting on a sofa in someone’s living room one day talking with a gentleman who loved God and wanted to live rightly, but more often than not was unkind and uncaring to his family and others. This person had such a low opinion of himself, it was reflected in how he treated others. He told me that God loves some people and hates others, and wondered whether or not some people were born already unloved and unblessed by God.
The example he pointed to was the story of Esau and Jacob in a passage in Malachi. In Malachi 1:1-2 we read, “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have You loved us?’ ‘Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.’” Here, in most translations, it says that God hated Esau but loved Jacob.
Now my understanding of the language (I’m not a Hebrew scholar) is that what is being said is not that God hates or abhors Esau, but that comparatively, he loves him less. But that still doesn’t seem to jive with our understanding that Jesus came because of God’s love for every human being. How could God do that and love some more or less than others?
The thing to avoid here is “either/or” thinking. It is better to turn to “both/and” thinking, understanding that both things are true at the same time. God “so loved the world” and he “loved Jacob, but hated Esau.” Both of these are true statements and neither is contradictory of the other. Indeed, the whole outcome of God choosing Abraham, then choosing Isaac (over Ishmael), and choosing Jacob (over Esau), was so that God could fully express his love for the whole world in his son Jesus Christ, who bore the humanity which had its roots in these patriarchs.
The apostle Paul actually writes about what God did in choosing Jacob over Esau. In Romans 9:10-13 he wrote: “there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” Paul’s point here was that what God did in showing his mercy and love was not because of any particular person’s performance, but genuinely from his own heart of love and grace.
We don’t earn God’s love or forgiveness. It is fully a gift. Some have refused it. Others have not. God loves both Jews and Gentiles, and even though the Jews were his chosen people, he offered salvation to them and to the Gentiles. During Paul’s missions to the Gentiles, though, often it was the Jews, God’s very own chosen people, who refused to receive the gift of forgiveness in Jesus. The Gentiles, who had for centuries been excluded from the fellowship of God’s people, warmly received the gift of grace. They were willing to come into the Light and live in the Light, while the Jews continued to deny the truth of who Jesus was as their Savior and Lord, the Messiah of all.
Salvation is a gift from God, and the Holy Spirit, who has been poured out on all from Abba through his Son Jesus, works to bring each and every human being to saving faith in Christ. We do not know why some people come to faith now and others don’t. God has his reasons. The Holy Spirit works in ways we do not understand. But if we look at things from the view of eternity and God’s perfect love expressed to us in Jesus, we can see God has no desire to leave anyone out or reject anyone.
We are forgiven and accepted in the Beloved. But we are also free to reject and turn our backs on that gift of love and grace. We are included in God’s life and love but are free to live our lives as though we are forgotten, unloved, and unwanted. We exclude ourselves—God doesn’t exclude us.
The reason Jesus Christ is the Elect or the Chosen One is not so that only people who are Christian can be saved or go to heaven when they die, but rather so that each and every person might be included in God’s love and grace right now as well as for all eternity. Jesus Christ is our perfected humanity, and whatever may happen in this life that may make us feel as though God loves us less, as though we have been left out in some way, is a lie—a deception which Satan has suckered us into since Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden.
The question which arises now is whether or not someone who has refused God’s grace before death will be offered grace after death. This is a great question full of all types of complications. But I would, at this point, simply point out that death and Hades were defeated in Jesus, and will ultimately be tossed into the lake of fire. Death is a place Jesus has already been to and returned from, and so death is not a barrier to eternal life. God’s heart is that each and every person be saved: “God so loved the world.” And his Son Jesus Christ is his final and ultimate Word in this regard.
Thank you, Abba, for loving each and every one of us so much that you sent your Son and your Spirit for our salvation and our communion with you. Grant us the grace to believe we are included and accepted in Jesus, and to live in the truth that each and every other person is also included and beloved in Jesus. We trust you to finish what you have begun, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His 1conly begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” John 3:16-17 NASB
Pending Judgment—Part I
By Linda Rex
If Jesus is indeed the exact representation of the Father, does that mean that our heavenly Father is a really nice guy who never did or does anything in anger or that might be hurtful to us as human beings? If we look at the Old Testament and our Abba through the lens of Jesus Christ, does that mean that God never did any of those things such as burning up cities or killing people? What does it mean that God is love, and that he is gracious and forgiving, and yet is also just?
I have said before that if the God we see in the Old Testament is different than Jesus Christ, then we need to consider if perhaps we may have misunderstood something about Jesus Christ or God himself. However, we cannot discard or throw out scriptures just because they don’t agree with the picture of God which we believe we see in Jesus. It is entirely possible that those who wrote millennia ago saw God through the lens of the angry-must-be-appeased God, but that does not exclude their writings, for as the apostle Paul wrote, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” (1 Cor. 10:11 NASB) We can learn from the failures and mistakes of others, and also learn from these events and people about the goodness and faithful love of our God.
Moses recorded a conversation he had in which God described himself. In Exodus 34:6-7, we read: “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” It’s interesting that God described himself as being very gracious and forgiving, but also as a person who does not leave the guilty unpunished. In fact, Moses wrote, whole generations experience the consequences of people’s disobedience to God.
I find this quite interesting, because during Jesus’ ministry, one of his disciples consistently sinned against the rest of the group, and was left unpunished by Jesus—sort of. The apostle John writes, “But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?’ Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.” Judas was a thief, and Jesus allowed him to continue in his thievery up until the end of his life. He offered him rebukes, but Judas did not turn away from his sin.
Now granted, Judas was included in the twelve disciples for the very reason that he would one day betray his Lord. In the listings of the disciples Jesus chose after spending all night in prayer is this man who would be a traitor, who would betray Jesus into the hands of those who wanted to crucify him (Lk. 6:12-16; Matt. 10:2-4; Mk. 3:16-19). The apostle Peter, after Jesus’ resurrection wrote, “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was counted among us and received his share in this ministry.” (Acts 1:16-17 NASB)
Jesus was a great a scholar of the Hebrew scriptures, as the teachers in the temple indicated he was, so he would have known the prophetic word about the one who would betray him in such a way that he would be crucified and die. Every one of his disciples was capable of betraying Jesus, yet Judas is the one who did it—the one who never dealt with the truth of his thievery by repentance and faith in Jesus. If you or I were running a non-profit business and we found out someone was rifling the petty cash every chance they could, we would most probably fire them the minute we discovered the truth. But this was not Jesus’ way.
Jesus’ view of justice and judgment comes straight from the heart of the Father—to restore the one who has estranged themselves by sin to a right relationship with Abba and those they have hurt. He told Nicodemus:
“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
Often God doesn’t need to judge anyone, because we are so good at judging ourselves—hiding in the darkness rather than coming into the light of God’s love and grace in Jesus. Hiding in the darkness eventually leads to painful and difficult consequences, some of which may lead to suffering and even death. Sadly, the outcome of Judas Iscariot’s hidden sin was his betrayal of his Lord, his subsequent remorse, and his tragic end of life by suicide. If Judas had only come to the Light—to Jesus—and received the grace which was his, owning up to the truth of his unloving behavior and allowing Jesus to restore him, his life may not have ended so tragically.
Peter wasn’t much better than Judas. He quite vocally denied Jesus three times—emphatically, with curses—because he was afraid of being arrested. After all his earlier promises to the contrary, when the chips were down he refused to identify with Jesus in his moment of greatest need. What might have gone through Peter’s head when Jesus caught his eye during his final denial? I can only imagine. Whatever it was, it led to Peter’s great repentance, and his urgent desire to reconcile with his Lord on the shores of Galilee after the resurrection.
Hiding in the darkness rather than coming into the light of God’s love is evidence of our lack of participation in our covenant relationship with our heavenly Father. Refusal to face the truth of our broken ways of living and being keeps us in the place of judgment. We have been given forgiveness and acceptance in Jesus Christ, but we can refuse it and live as though it isn’t true for us, and subsequently experience all the consequences due to us for having done so.
We can hide our “dirty deeds” in the darkness and pretend all is okay—living in the “freedom” of doing our own thing—and never receive the grace God has provided for us in Jesus. God has set us free from sin and death through Christ and empowers us by his Spirit to live in the truth of this and to share this truth with others. By refusing to receive what God has given to us in Jesus Christ, refusing to trust in God’s love and grace, we are judging ourselves.
We are placing ourselves outside the door to God’s kingdom which Jesus opened up for us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and are saying to him that we can’t or won’t go in. The door is unlocked and even standing wide open—but we have no interest in entering. If Jesus is our true humanity, and he is the door through which we enter, the only exclusion which occurs is that which we choose for ourselves. God doesn’t have to stand with a big book of deeds either good or bad, deciding who goes in and who stays out. We do a pretty good job of doing that on our own.
Our entering in of the kingdom of God does not just happen at the end of our physical life. We live even now in the already-not-yet of God’s kingdom. This means we participate, or don’t participate, in Christ’s perfect relationship with his Abba right now, in this life today, as well in the world to come. We experience only glimpses of eternity right now, but we can begin to experience the blessings of the world to come in the midst of the struggles and difficulties in the world which is our today.
There are many things we need to learn about who Jesus is, and in learning about Jesus, come to understand about who Abba is. This will help us in our understanding of what was written in the Old Testament scriptures. I would like to talk more about this in next week’s blog. In the meantime, I encourage us all to find anything in our lives which we are trying to hide away from the view of Abba, and to bring it into the Light, so that through Jesus we may receive the reconciliation which is ours in him.
Thank you, Abba, for your perfect love and grace. Thank you that we can come to know you and your great love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Give us understanding of what it means to live and walk in the Light, exposed fully to your loving gaze, hiding nothing. No matter how broken we may be, you have redeemed us and set us free in Jesus. May we receive this gift with open hands. In your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
“The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” Exodus 34:6-7 NASB
The Gift of Surrender
By Linda Rex
This morning I read an excellent devotional by Steve Arterburn called “Surrender or Fight”. In it, using the example of King Saul from the Old Testament, he pointed out how often we as humans are faced with the choice between surrendering our lives and wills to God or continuing to fight God’s plan for our lives.
King Saul was notorious for being a people-pleaser, who valued the opinion of the people more than he did his relationship with God. Rather than doing just as God asked, he did what would gain him the most approval from those whose opinions he valued. For this reason, King Saul failed as ruler of his people, and was eventually replaced by God with King David.
Surrendering to the will and purposes of God is one of the most difficult things for us as humans to do. At times it is really hard to accept what God permits in our world and allows to happen in our lives. This is especially true when it means the loss of something dear to us, such as a beloved family member or friend, or our reputation, or our comfortable way of life.
In many parts of America, being self-sufficient is an honored tradition. Dependency upon God is seen, not as a necessary part of our existence, but as a weakness or flaw. Acknowledging one’s dependency upon God may even be seen as unmanly or foolish. Truth is, in this country, a person could live their entire life without recognizing their need for or confessing a belief in God. Every need is fulfilled, and everything can be explained without introducing any thought of a higher power or a supreme being.
Believers in Christ can also fall prey to this way of thinking. We can go through our everyday lives with very little thought as to what God wants us to be doing or not doing. We have rules we can follow and laws we can obey. We have the expectations of our church and its members which we can work to fulfill. And we can be so busy doing all this, we miss God’s call to surrender completely to him. Instead of living in moment-by-moment humble, obedient, dependency upon God, we rely upon our own efforts and wisdom, and we work to please those around us.
This is an ongoing struggle. Relationships ebb and flow, and this is also true about our relationship with God. As human beings, we struggle to maintain any form of consistency about how we live our lives and handle our relationships. Maintaining a consistent and fruitful relationship with God, if left entirely up to us, would be an exercise in futility.
This is why we are called by Jesus to come to him and to find our rest in him. Jesus was fully surrendered to his Father, and yielded entirely to his Abba’s will even when it meant dying an ignoble, agonizing death. He wrestled with our humanity in the garden of Gethsemane, with tears and groans, begging on the one hand for another path to follow, but on the other, surrendering in humble obedience, saying, “…yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39b NASB).
The surrender God calls us to is a denial of self. As Oswald Chambers says in My Utmost for His Highest, “It is a question of being united with Jesus in His death until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.” This is a surrender of all our preconceived ideas of what it means to be a good person or even to be a Christian. Following Christ means he has the right to redefine who we are and how we live our lives.
Surrender means giving up our idols—those things we count on, or depend upon for our value and self-worth, our security and our sense of well-being. Surrender sometimes means releasing our hold on those we hold near and dear to our hearts. It can mean letting go of a toxic relationship, or setting free that loved one who is hovering near death. Surrender can also mean doing the difficult thing, like telling the truth in a difficult situation, or being willing to admit fault and ask for forgiveness.
But any surrender we attempt to do finds its roots in the wholehearted, complete surrender of Jesus Christ. We are called to rest in him, and participate fully in his communion with his Abba both now and forever. In some respects, surrender is a way of being—a frame of reference out of which we live our lives. Our decisions, day by day, are drawn out of this orientation of surrender to our Abba through Jesus in the Spirit.
In high school when talking of a particular war, one of my teachers liked to use the term “capitulation.” According to dictionary.com, to capitulate is to: 1) to surrender unconditionally or on stipulated terms, or 2) to give up resistance. God is calling each of us to capitulate, to surrender unconditionally to his perfect, loving will, and to give up our resistance to his Spirit at work in and with us and in our world.
Our capitulation, or unconditional surrender is our response to what God has done in Christ and is doing by the Spirit to bring our broken humanity into conformity with Christ’s perfected humanity. Our response, however feeble it may be, though, is swept up into Jesus’ perfect capitulation to his Father. This means we rest in Christ, in his perfect surrender or capitulation to his Abba’s will and purposes.
God brings us, at different times in our lives, to places of surrender. Circumstances in our lives, the evil Satan seeks to work in this world and in us, also create situations in which we are faced with the decision to either surrender to God’s will or to fight it. Growing in our intimate knowledge of God, learning to trust in his perfect love and grace as demonstrated to us in Jesus, enables us to capitulate. We rest in Christ and yield to the will and purposes of God, believing he will, in the end, take whatever is happening and work it for the best of all involved.
Thank you, Abba, that you are completely trustworthy and faithful. Thank you, Jesus, for fully surrendering to the will and purposes of your Father, and for including us in your perfect capitulation. Grant us, by your Spirit, a heart of surrender, and grant us the grace to rest fully in you, Jesus. Free us from our stubborn resistance to you, dear God, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but loses or forfeits himself?” Luke 9:23-25 NASB
Walking Through the Valley
By Linda Rex
Life never ceases to amaze me with it’s twists and turns, and unexpected movements. It is rare that my life has been on an even keel–there’s always something at work in it bringing disruption, or concern, or just adjustment.
Sometimes the difficulty is a long-term illness which ends in death. Its timing may or may not be predictable, but death is the only possible outcome in this life. During a long-term terminal illness the grieving process very often occurs before the death, along with some grieving after. Very often death is seen as a release from suffering, and a blessing to both the loved one and the caring family.
Death was never meant to be a part of the human condition. We were created for life, the life Jesus described by Jesus as knowing the Father and him whom he sent, his Son Jesus Christ. This is life in loving relationship, an interpenetrating oneness of equal yet distinct persons.
Separation, division, or loss of relationship was never intended to be a part our relationship with God or each other. But it is, because of our choice to turn away from the intimate relationship with God we were created for. At Adam and Eve’s decision to eat of the tree if the knowledge of good and evil, sin and death entered our human existence. We stubbornly embraced a twisted view of God and who we are, as excluded from relationship with him and in broken relationship with one another. Since then, our human existence has never been the same.
However we may feel about what is written in the Bible in regards to death, we are–no matter what we believe about the afterlife–faced with its reality at some point. Death, and the separation from one another which comes with it, brings heartache and grief. This is because something has occurred which we were not meant to have to experience.
But this need not be a bad thing. Experiences such as these have been redeemed by God in and through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. God can take these experiences and use them to create stronger bonds between us and him, and between us and others.
In Christ not only are we bound to God forever in Christ’s perfected humanity (hypostatic union), but by the Spirit, as we trust in Christ, we participate in his perfect union with our Abba by the Spirit. It is in Christ that we are bound together with one another in spiritual community. It is also true that the Spirit is always at work creating community, often in forms we don’t recognize because they may not have any religious trappings.
Family is meant to be a spiritual community which reflects the nature of God as revealed in Christ. When the Spirit is at work in a family, the relationships reflect the inner relations of the Triune God, where there is harmony, humility, mutual submission, and outgoing love. There is a pouring out from and receiving from one another–an endless movement of gracious love which defines God’s very nature as love.
God has always lived in this way, and this is the way of being we were created for, which we lost, but which Christ restored to us in his saving work. This means when we lose someone dear to us through the momentary separation which is death, the best thing to offer the grieving one is loving, gracious relationship. An unconditional relationship–listening, affirming, accepting, and just being present–are critical and essential gifts to offer someone who has lost a dear one.
This means we don’t have to come up with the right thing to say or do, but rather, in the Spirit, we can just be present in Christ with them in the moment. We can remind them they are not alone in their pain, for whatever Satan or our human brokenness has done to attempt to separate us from God or one another has ultimately failed. In Christ we are forever held in the center of God’s love and life. God knows, understands, and participates with us in our loss, suffering and pain. We are not alone.
We have the assurance that there is one relationship which, having been established in Christ, and being brought into reality in individual lives by the Spirit, we will never he separated from. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ. We are loved simply because we are, and we are his.
And as we face having to redraw the plans of our lives due to a loved ones death, we can be assured that we need not do this alone. Our life is not over–God’s mercies are new every morning and he has new plans for our life which will bring us joy and fulfillment as we participate with Christ in what he has for us.
Finding a new normal is a process which may take years–but there is no set agenda to it. Part of the process may include anger, depression, and denial. The grief may ebb and flow like the ocean’s tide, taking us sometimes by storm or sneaking up on us when we least expect it.
But in the midst of it all, we can be assured we are never alone. We as friends and family of those who have lost a loved one can offer our faithful presence and understanding, with a listening ear and comforting shoulder to cry on. And we can point them to their loving and faithful God who has promised to never leave or forsake them.
Indeed, in Christ, death has been defeated. It has lost its power. And we share in this victory over sin and death as we offer one another comfort, unconditional love, and assurance of faithful relationship in the midst of death and other losses. Just as God in Christ by the Spirit ministers his love and grace to those who grieve, we also share in that ministry to those near and dear to us who grieve.
Abba, thank you for your faithful love and grace. Thank you that we can count on you to be with us and to carry us through our losses and suffering. Enable us to bear one another’s burdens when they become too great to be borne alone. Empower us to offer hope, comfort, and faithful relationship to those who have lost loved ones. We trust this is all possible through Jesus our Lord by your Spirit. Amen.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 NASB
Misguided Introspection
By Linda Rex
I remember the first time I ever participated in a sacred service which involved eating bread and drinking wine in communion with others of like faith. I had just been baptized and was new at the whole process. At that particular time, our church only observed this once a year. That particular observance stands out in my mind because it was so solemn and so serious. Hundreds of us stood in line to participate and everyone was completely silent.
Back then I heard many a sermon prior to this observance telling us that we were to examine ourselves so we would not take of the elements in an unworthy manner. Examining oneself meant comparing oneself against the law, including keeping food laws and holy days. By the time I was through with this kind of self-examination, there was no way I could ever come away believing anything positive about myself. It was a one-way trip towards discouragement, humiliation, and defeat.
Then one day, I heard a pastor bring out another verse which talked about self-examination, 2 Cor. 13:5-6: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test? But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.” That particular passage put the whole discussion on another level.
The first type of self-examination is really easy for an introvert like myself. I can go down a million rabbit-trails in my head where I see all the things I’ve said or done wrong, and beat myself up for each one as I go. It is a lot more difficult to do the second type of self-examination, because it involves looking beyond my broken humanity to who I am in Christ.
To see Christ in oneself is to see the truth about one’s being. First, we were created in the image of God in his likeness, to be his image-bearers—adopted children who live in loving relationship with God and one another. In Christ, God redeemed our broken humanity, restoring our fellowship with him and one another—and in the gift of the Spirit, God came to work this out in us individually, enabling us to live and walk in Christ, who was and is the perfect image-bearer of God.
When we look within, not to see ourselves but to see Christ in us, we come up against the reality we indeed fall short of Christ’s perfection. But in the same moment we find Christ stands in our stead and on our behalf. Grace triumphs over judgment in that moment. Not only does Christ intercede moment by moment in every situation. He also works to heal, restore, and renew our relationship with God and each person in our lives as we turn to him in faith and respond to the Spirit’s work in our hearts and lives.
Self-examination, then, becomes not a negative thing, but an encouraging, anticipatory experience in which we begin to see what Christ did on our behalf and what he is doing right now in each moment on our behalf. And we begin to have some hope in what he will do in the future because we are learning he is trustworthy and faithful as well as loving, and he, by his Spirit, is at work within us, transforming us from the inside out.
The first type of self-examination tends to create an outlook which is self-absorbed rather than one which is outward-looking and other-centered. The life of the Trinity is other-centered and focused outward—towards God’s adopted children who are being brought into the life and love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Within the inner relations of the Trinity, there is a mutual pouring out and receiving—a movement which is unending, and which we were drawn into by Christ, and participate in through the Holy Spirit.
We were meant, not to be self-absorbed or self-conscious, but to be focused on Christ and conscious of his indwelling presence as well as aware of his work in the world around us. Attending to God in Christ and what he is doing by the Spirit in us and the world around us keeps us from being self-centered and self-absorbed. Indeed, it is best that we come to have no thought of self-at all, but rather find our self in Christ, who by his Spirit enables us to be truly ourselves.
This does not mean we negate ourselves or diminish ourselves, but rather that we begin to truly believe we are those people God intended us to be in the first place—his beloved, adopted children who with their own unique selves live as equals in loving fellowship and harmony. And in believing, we begin to act as if this is indeed the case. In this way we image the God we were created to reflect, and find in doing so, we experience the love, joy, and peace God meant for us to participate in from the beginning.
To examine ourselves and find Christ within is a far cry from examining ourselves and ending up discouraged, defeated, and despairing. We are reminded by the apostle Paul, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).” Our life in Christ is a journey in which we grow—it is not a static position or a place we come to and stay in. This is an existence where all of life is a participation in Christ’s life. We find our everyday tasks and experiences take on a whole new meaning as we realize we do not live alone and on our own, but share all things with Christ in the Spirit, and join in with what God is actively doing in the world around us.
Then when we come to the communion table to eat bread and drink wine, we are seeing Christ much more clearly. The body of Christ takes on a whole new meaning, including not only the human body of Jesus Christ, and the bread and the wine, but also the group of fellow believers with which we share a common faith. It also makes room for us to welcome all others to the table, since we were all taken up with Christ in his hypostatic union with God when he bore our common humanity to the cross, died, and rose again on our behalf.
Our participation in communion is a reminder, not of our failures and shortcomings, but of the gracious gift of Christ in our place and on our behalf. By the Spirit, we put on Christ, and we live in the assurance of his mediating presence with the Father, as now we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. This makes sharing communion with others a pleasant remembrance of joy and warm fellowship, rather than a silent, serious, painful experience we would rather forget.
Thank you, Abba, for the gift of your Son, and the pouring out of your Spirit. Thank you we are in Christ and by the Spirit we are able to share in your joy, peace, and loving fellowship. Free us from our self-focus and self-absorption, from our self-centeredness and self-condemnation. Enable us to see and embrace our true self—forgiven, accepted and beloved in Christ—and live in the truth of who we really are. In examining ourselves, may we discover we are in Christ and Christ is in us, and that by the Spirit, we are bound up in you, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.” 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 NASB
Just How Radical is God’s Grace?
By Linda Rex
I’m so grateful God loves every stubborn, willful child! If he didn’t, I would be in a very difficult place right now. And a lot of other people I know would be as well.
Do you know what it is like to raise a strong-willed child? I do. This is the child who, when given the choice between obedience and consequences, will choose consequences almost every time. This child is the one who may grudgingly obey, but in their heart of hearts is plotting some way of getting out of doing what they were told to do. Often, they are more inclined to do the exact opposite of what is asked of them rather than simply doing what they are told.
The neat thing about such a child is when they turn that strong will in the right direction, they become determined, decisive, and diligent adults. They accomplish things which us less strong-willed people never quite get around to finishing. They stand their ground on those issues which those of us less stalwart of heart tend to yield on. There is a hidden glory in a strong-willed child—one designed by God to reflect part of his own glory.
One thing I have learned from these precious children of mine is that often I am that strong-willed, stubborn child. I am the one who knows better and yet does it anyway. I am the one who chooses the consequences over obedience because “no one is going to tell me what to do!” As time has gone by, and the merciful Spirit has done his work, I have come to see more and more how my Abba has had all these years to “put up with” the stubborn, willful child I am.
Surely this must resonate with some of you. Every day I see or meet someone who is stuck in the consequences of the life choices they have made. Even though they know a better way, and could choose a better way of living, over and over they choose consequences over obedience. The Spirit says to them, give up your broken path and follow Christ—and they hear and turn back to the way which they freely have chosen for themselves, refusing to turn back to Abba and to his way of being.
The hardest thing we face as human beings is surrendering to the truth, to the One who is the truth of our existence—Jesus Christ. We don’t want anyone, Christ especially, to tell us what to do or how to live our lives. We want to be free—free to decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil, what we can and should do, and what we shouldn’t do. Freedom for us means we do whatever we want, whenever we want, to or with whomever we want, no matter the consequences.
But true freedom, the freedom which reflects the image of God, is a freedom bounded by the love of God, which is the very way of being of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This love makes room for others in a mutual submission and a giving and receiving which is fully reciprocal and genuine. In Christ we participate in this divine freedom, as we surrender ourselves to the truth of our beings as those made in the image of our God after his likeness.
As I drove home today and enjoyed the sight of newly mowed hay in the fields near where I live, I was reminded of the many ways in which I tend to stubbornly refuse to allow anyone to dictate to me how things should be done. So often in my life I have intentionally done the exact opposite of what I knew I should do just because someone told me I shouldn’t do it. I know I have reaped the consequences of these decisions, but I also know that this has also been a way in which God has taught me the meaning of grace and divine forbearance toward each of us.
Has God ever given me just what I deserve in these situations? More often than not, God has not given me what I deserved, but rather what I did not deserve—his unconditional love and patient, compassionate forbearance. Even when I was wallowing in the midst of my well-deserved consequences, God has heard my plea for deliverance and forgiveness and has lifted me out and let me start over again. Even when I was sitting in the wreckage of what I did wrong, God came and held me, and gave me the courage and strength to get up and start doing the next right thing.
Sometimes we need to experience the consequences of our foolhardiness and stubborn disobedience. But more often than not, God is gracious and overlooks things, enabling us to turn around and start going in the right direction. Not only does God pass over our shortcomings, he also forgives our stubborn, rebellious disobedience. He doesn’t do this so we’ll keep taking the wrong path and making bad decisions, but so that we may turn the other way, and begin living and walking in truth.
Repentance and faith are lifelong companions on our journey with Jesus. As we get to know him better, we come to see how far we fall short of his perfected humanity. And yet this does not alter our relationship with Abba or Jesus. For in Christ we are united with Abba in the Spirit, and this perfect relationship which Christ forged for us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension is ours forever. It is unchanging and our failures do not alter it on God’s side. They only blind us to the reality of God’s infinite love and grace and cause us to suffer all kinds of needless consequences.
The repentance, or metanoia, which God brings us to by his Spirit’s work in our hearts and minds, is a turning around. We turn so that we no longer stubbornly have our back towards Abba, but rather we are turned toward him in a face-to-face relationship which is our participation in Christ’s perfect relationship with his Abba.
When we get turned the correct direction, toward Abba instead of away from him, and begin living in the truth of our real being as his beloved children, we will find our hearts and minds beginning to change. The way we think, say, and do things will begin to change. We won’t lose our unique way of being, but we will begin to shine with that glory which was our all along, that glory which is a reflection of the very glory of the God who made us, redeemed us, and who loves us unconditionally and freely in and through his Son Jesus Christ both now and forever.
Abba, thank you for your faithful love and endless amazing grace. Grant us repentance and faith, in deeper and deeper ways—so we grow in our trust of you, and in our relationship with you through Christ in the Spirit. Open our eyes to see you, our ears to hear you, and our hearts to know you, as you have revealed yourself to us in your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. We thank you and praise you for your goodness and faithful love, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” Colossians 3:12-17 NASB
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Free From Accusation
By Linda Rex
The antics of my daughter’s pets are keeping me amused this morning. Earlier this week we brought home a kitten to be a companion for my daughter’s black cat. This half-grown kitten is white with gray and orange patches and has beautiful green eyes. She had surgery right before we brought her home, so my daughter has had to keep her calm and the kitten has had to wear an e-collar to keep her from tearing up her stitches.
My daughter’s dog is about 15 years old and has raised pups in her past life. She’s decided she is this new kitten’s keeper. When the kitten is placed on the floor, the dog follows her around and keeps track of where she is. She talks gently to her and tries to help her understand she just wants to be friends. Right now, they are resting together in the sun next to the sliding glass doors. She has been gentle and kind to the kitten, doing her best to make her feel safe, while at the same time not allowing her under any circumstances to come near her food dish.
The kitten, however, seems to believe the dog is a fearful creature. If the dog gets too close, the kitten snarls and aims her claws for the dog’s nose. But the dog keeps trying to be friends, hoping the kitten will get over her fear. It seems that even the creatures God has made for our pleasure and companionship struggle with understanding one another and making room for one another.
This puts me in mind of how we as human beings so often live our lives in fear of God and/or in fear of one another. Fear, as opposed to love, keeps us in the fight or flight mode and prevents us from really being at rest in our circumstances and in right relationship with one another. When we view the world around us through the eyes of fear, we see things differently than how they really are. What we believe about the people, situations, and circumstances around us affects our ability to truly know God and others and to be known. Fear puts us on the defensive, causing us to hide, self-protect, self-justify, and accuse.
Even though God has reconciled us with himself and restored us to our true humanity in Christ, we still distance ourselves from God and one another. We so often allow fear to dominate our minds and hearts rather than trusting in the truth about who God is and who we are in him. We allow fear, and a host of other false concepts, feelings, and prejudices, to come between ourselves and our loving God and those God meant for us to live with in loving relationship.
Looking with fallen human eyes, we see our differences rather than what unifies us. God is so other than we are, we don’t see how we can relate to him. Even though we as human beings are constantly coming up with new ways of trying to appease God, we cannot on our own come to an understanding of who our loving God is as Father, Son, and Spirit apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension and in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We may believe that God doesn’t want us to enjoy life. He’s always making demands on us that just aren’t realistic: do good to those who hate you and persecute you, for example. We may believe that God allows bad things to happen to us to punish us. What we’re being punished for, we’re not certain. But all hell has broken loose in our life and the only explanation must be that either God hates us or is punishing us because we have been bad. Maybe we do think we know what God is punishing us for and we believe we even deserve hell because of what we did. It never crosses our mind that maybe God isn’t holding anything against us and is not accusing us of anything whatsoever.
We may believe God is the cosmic vending machine who owes us when we have lived a good life, done lots of good deeds, and have done our best to be good people. When God doesn’t seem to understand that this is how life works (in our view), we get angry with God and angry with one another. We begin to allow fear to dominate our being rather than continuing to trust in the love and grace of God.
Can you see that the issue isn’t on God’s side, but solely on our side? God has never changed in his love and faithfulness toward us. God has never ceased to reach out and draw us deeper into loving relationship with himself. He even took on our humanity so we could come to know and understand who he really is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He was willing to allow us to do whatever we desired to him in Jesus Christ and the cry from his lips on the cross still was, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Often, in our fear, we are very busy accusing God of being someone he is not and doing things he hasn’t done, merely because we do not really know who God is. We are only able to apprehend a little about the nature and being of God and what he is doing in this world. We cannot ever fully comprehend any of this because we are merely creatures God has made. God revealed himself to us in his Son Jesus Christ, but even so, we only see and understand a tiny bit of the truth.
In the same way, we are often very busy accusing ourselves and others of being people we are not and doing things which we may very well have not even conceived of doing. Sometimes our accusations of ourselves and one another have some substance in truth, but we tend to forget that any and all of these things have been and are forgiven and accepted in the Beloved.
I’m not saying that we as human beings can live however we please without any negative consequences. That is not the case. Living apart from our true humanity in Christ produces negative fruit and destroys relationships. That’s the reality of our existence.
But I am also saying that we have an accuser who from the beginning has accused God and us of things which were lies. He has planted so often in our hearts, via circumstances and unhealthy relationships, a lot of lies about who God is and who we are, creating in us an unhealthy fear of God and one another. He reminds us, as the prince of the power of the air, of all the things we and God have supposedly done wrong or neglected to do. And we believe him.
What we believe does have power. But God’s power is greater. What God did in Jesus Christ has conquered all that. Jesus, in his grace and truth, has poured out on us his Spirit of grace and truth, enabling us to begin to apprehend the truth about who God is and who we are as his beloved, forgiven, adopted children. Jesus gives us his faith in Abba and Abba’s faith in us as those created in his image to reflect his likeness. God never gave up on us, and he will never give up, no matter what the accuser may do or say in contradiction to this.
The truth is—and we are reminded again and again in our weekly participation in communion to believe anew this is so—we are accepted and forgiven, we are healed and made whole, we are adopted and received as God’s very own. We are a part of God’s household and have a place at his table. There is no room for accusation or fear, for in Christ all is made new and restored to its original design. We can lay down all our burdens and labors and truly rest in the Son, together with all the other members of God’s household.
Abba, thank you for never giving up on us, but for doing all you could possibly do to tear down the walls of fear and accusation between us and you, and us and one another. Grant us the grace to rest in your Son Jesus Christ, in your love and grace, and to walk in your truth—the truth of who you are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who we are in you, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“21 Your indifferent mindset alienated you from God into a lifestyle of annoyances, hardships, and labors. Yet he has now fully reconciled and restored you to your original design. (The word, poneros, means annoyances, hardships, and labors, often translated as evil. [See Septuagint: tree of knowledge of good and hard labor!] To reconcile: apokatalasso, fully restored to the original value. (In Thayer Definition: to change, exchange, as coins for others of equivalent value.]) 22 He accomplished this in dying our death in a human body, he fully represented us in order to fully present us again in blameless innocence, face-to-face with God; with no sense of guilt, suspicion, regret, or accusation; all charges against us are officially cancelled. 23 Remain under the influence of what your faith knows to be true about you, firmly consolidated in the foundation of your belief so that nothing can distract you from the expectation of the Gospel, a hope that is consistent with what you have heard. Just as I, Paul, am in the ministry to proclaim the one and only message that rings true with resonance in all of creation under heaven. (The dimension of the invisible spiritual realm. “You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.”—The Message.) Colossians 1:21-23 Mirror Bible
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