Christ in us
Just Making Noise
By Linda Rex
February 2, 2025, 4th Sunday in Epiphany—During this season of Epiphany, we consider how Jesus Christ is revealed to us as being the Son of God in human flesh, and what that means for us as God’s children. Recently, we’ve looked at the way in which God has equipped his people with spiritual gifts, for the sake of the community of faith, so that we all may grow up in Christ, share the good news of Jesus, and serve others.
In our New Testament passage for this Sunday, 1 Corinthians 13:1–13, the apostle Paul uses a poetic summary of the love of God expressed to us in Christ, to enable the members in Corinth to see themselves in a new light. They believed that the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues was the supreme gift. They valued prophetic speaking and special knowledge, and miracles. But Paul says that apart from love or agapē (God and Christ’s self-giving love—Utley), a person speaking in tongues is just making a lot of noise. In the same way, a generous and sacrificial person, apart from agapē, has done nothing profitable. Paul says that person who is a great preacher and does a lot of miracles, apart from agapē, is nothing.
For those of us who are active in the Christian faith, and trying live lives that are full of service and sacrifice, these are powerful words. Just what are the motives which drive us? How do we express ourselves in our everyday lives? As I have gotten older, the Lord has shown me more and more how my motives for doing what I do are often mistaken. This is why it is all of grace. We need Christ in us, the hope of glory, for apart from his love at work in our hearts by his Holy Spirit, we are all just making a lot of noise.
The apostle Paul wanted the church at Corinth to realize that the Lord they said they worshipped was not at all like how they were living. He wanted them to grow up in Christ—to put on Christ in such a way that they were a true expression of humanity as God intended it to be. By looking into the mirror of their soul, Jesus Christ, they would see themselves as children who needed to grow up and put away the childish things which were keeping them from living in God’s love as they were created to live.
When reading this passage closely and with open hearts to the Spirit, we begin to realize that this is a description of Jesus, and of our Triune God. In his life here on earth, Jesus was patient, kind, and not jealous. He did not brag, but spoke truthfully about who he was and why he was here on earth, even though people did not believe him. He was never rude, though he was often straightforward and honest with the people he encountered. He did not take into account any wrong done to him, even those wrongs which placed him on the cross. We find Jesus, to the bitter end, loving all of us in spite of how we treated him, in such a way that he died a horrific death.
It is hard to look at ourselves sometimes, to see the truth about our motives and inclinations. We don’t like it when the Spirit gives us that gentle nudge which says, “That thing you are doing—it needs to stop,” or “To not do that when you could do it to help them—that’s sin.” When our hearts condemn us—and they do sometimes—God is greater and knows the truth. But he also knows what’s going on inside when we go through the motions of the Christian life without having our hearts in the right place. And he calls us to repent—to have a change of heart and mind which turns us around and gets us going in the right direction again.
It is God’s heart of love, given to us by his Spirit, which flowing into us and through us, enables us to love others as God does. It is Christ in us, living in and through us, who enables our everyday life to reflect the divine glory. We open ourselves up to the Spirit, welcoming the presence and power of God, flowing in and through us. And we respond to the Spirit’s lead in ways that express the love of God in Christ. As the apostle Paul shows us, these are ways grounded in the motive of agapē which reflect the very nature of God, and are an expression of spiritual maturity, a true reflection of our Lord Jesus Christ in this dark world. Apart from God’s grace, we are all just making a lot of noise. Thankfully, God is ever at work bringing us into the orchestrated wonder of his heavenly kingdom, and he will not quit until we are all singing his perfect song of agapē as his beloved children.
Father, Jesus, Spirit, thank you that your motive in all that you do is genuine love. Fill us anew with your presence and power, that we may love as you do. May all we say and do come from your heart of love and grace, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:1–13 NASB
“And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’ … And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, He went His way.” Luke 4:21–30 NASB
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Pushing Away God’s Love
By Linda Rex
August 11, 2024, Proper 14—Last week I wrote about our role as members of the body of Christ, the Church (meaning the universal, all-encompassing, cross-denominational and cross-distinctives body of Christ). In our current culture, a group of people from all walks of life, backgrounds, and ways of being who live together in unity and other-centered love is in many ways a countercultural entity. People who have lived much of their lives in a very individualistic, self-absorbed manner may find it very challenging to be warmly embraced and invited into close relationship. In fact, it may feel invasive and even frightening to some people.
Over the years, I discovered that one reason we may push away such a welcoming, inclusive experience is because we are afraid that if we let anyone get close, they may discover what we are really like and reject us. What God has called his Church to be is the place where people are fully known, yet fully loved and accepted. The body of Christ, the Church, is meant to be a safe place for all God’s children. Unfortunately, the Church too often has been the place where when someone opens up and begins to get real, they are condemned, criticized, and or rejected. We do this in our families and in our other relationships, but this is not the way God treats us—so we should not treat each other in this way either.
In the New Testament passage for this Sunday, Ephesians 4:25–5:2, the apostle Paul describes what it looks like when people live together in the union and communion of the Triune life and love. As they live in these ways, they imitate the being and inner life of our Father and his Son in the Spirit.
What does this way of living together look like? Paul says that people are honest with one another—they practice truth-telling in love. They do not allow anger or rage to rule, for they do not want the evil one to have a chance to cause harm or division. They work hard, rather than steal, so they can help others out. The words they say build each other up, and they avoid any kind of slander, malice, or bitterness. They are always forgiving and kind to one another, no matter what may be going on in their lives. Living and walking in this way does not grieve the Spirit, for it is a reflection of the very union and communion of the Father with his Son in the Spirit.
When we look at our relationships within the body of Christ, especially when we look cross-denominationally or across lines of distinctions, do they manifest this kind of unity and love? What about in our own marriages and families? And what about our relationships with people outside the Church—how do we relate to people who do not yet believe in Christ? When I am honest with myself, I have to admit that too often I have fallen far short from being a true imitation of the divine Being.
Thankfully, this is where grace through faith comes in. And this is where we are privileged through Jesus to offer grace to one another. The reality is that whatever our life is in Christ by the Spirit, it is grounded in the love of God in Christ and in the grace that is ours through what Jesus did in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We are so grateful that we are held in Christ in his own face-to-face fellowship with his Father in the Spirit, so that even when we miss the mark, our own fellowship with God is unshaken. The Lord ever draws us back into that place of union and communion, while by his Spirit, he works to form Christ in us.
Evil constantly seeks opportunities to separate, divide, disrupt, confuse, and destroy all that is good, holy, and unified. We are constantly pressed upon by people and circumstances whose sole purpose is to steal or ruin or kill anything in our lives that may reflect the divine Being of Father, Jesus, Spirit—Three Persons in One Being. Still, the Spirit ever works to bring unity and oneness, while, like a parasite on all that is good, the evil one ever works to bring division and discord. At times, we participate in either direction, and we reap the consequences of our choices in this regard. But Jesus continues to invite us to follow him wherever he leads, and by his Spirit, he always leads us down the path to unity, oneness, love, and grace. And he holds us, now and forever, in his own face-to-face union and communion with his Father in the Spirit. This is our comfort and our peace.
Like Jesus, our fellowships of faith are called by God to be places where the Spirit is not grieved, but joyfully shares with us the divine fellowship of union and communion which is ours in Christ. As we gather together to worship God in Spirit and in truth, may we mirror more and more accurately the life and love of our Father, Jesus, and Spirit, and may we welcome warmly, gently, and wisely those who enter in, seeking a safe place to participate in God’s life and love.
Heavenly Father, Jesus, Spirit, thank you for including us in your life and love. We are ever in need of your forgiveness, for we are so often poor reflections of you. But by your Spirit, you are ever working. We trust you to finish what you have begun, through Jesus in the Spirit. Amen.
“Therefore, laying aside falsehood, ‘speak truth each one’ of you ‘with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another. ‘Be angry, and’ yet ‘do not sin’; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” Ephesians 4:25–5:2 NASB
“Faking it and lying to one another was part of the old life; now truth remains the constant inspiration in your every conversation. We are related to one another like different parts in the same body. (Which means that cheating one another would be cheating yourself! …) Even if you think you have a valid excuse, do not let anger dominate your day! If you don’t deal with it immediately (in the light of the likeness of Christ in you) the sun sets for you and your day becomes one of lost opportunity where darkness employs anger to snare you into sin. Any sin that you tolerate is an open invitation to the devil. Do not give him a platform to operate from. If you were a thief before, you are one no more. Find an honest joy where the fruit of your labor can be a blessing to others! Instead of cheap talk, your mouth is now a fountain of grace, giving encouragement and inspiration to everyone within earshot. The Holy Spirit is your signet ring from God to confirm that you are redeemed to live your life in the light of day; any conduct that belongs to the night grieves him. Take up the strongest possible position against every form of distorted behavior in your own life. Do not allow yourself to be spiteful; outbursts of violent emotion and rage do not become you. You don’t have to shout in order to make your point. People must feel safe in your conversation; therefore, slander and hurtful words (blasphemy) are out! Be inspired by kindness and compassion; your forgiving one another when you might feel irritated and frustrated demonstrates the way God graciously treated us in Christ. Mirror God; you are his offspring. (2 Cor. 3:18.) This is how; let the love of Christ be your life; remember how he abandoned himself to us. His love is contagious, not reluctant but extravagant. Sacrificial love pleases God like the sweet aroma of worship.” Ephesians 4:25–5:2 Mirror Bible
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The Ultimate Victory
By Linda Rex
May 5, 2024, 6th Sunday in Easter—“I wish I had your faith,” a friend said to me. We had been talking about a change God had done in my life. The Lord had given me a totally new perspective about what it meant to follow Christ. And his grace had transformed my life.
The interesting thing about faith is that we cannot drum it up ourselves. We can only receive it as a gift from God. It is the faith of Jesus Christ that we need most, for only Jesus truly knows the trustworthiness, faithfulness, love, and goodness of the Triune God.
This Sunday’s reading in the New Testament, 1 John 5:1–6, speaks of the need to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God who lived in our human flesh, was crucified, and rose again. Bound up in the sacrificial self-offering of Jesus Christ is a profound expression of God’s love. As we believe, we receive this gift of love he offers us. This gift is God’s love poured out in the Spirit of truth. The Spirit bears witness within us to the reality that God has come to dwell in human hearts, through Jesus in the Spirit.
The love of God is poured out within our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). It is Christ in us by the Spirit who is the law of God written on human hearts. It is Jesus’ own face-to-face relationship with his Father in the Spirit that we participate in. It is his triumph over evil, sin, and death that we share in. And we find within his victory our own victory over all that opposes God. This is the beauty of our new life in Christ.
Too often we focus on the dos and don’ts of our life in Christ. We focus on whether or not we (or others) are measuring up to the standards we believe God requires of us. We find ourselves trying to hide our failures to love. We stuff down inside, as best as we can, all those things we are ashamed of and feel guilty about. And they only seem to gain strength and power.
What we miss is the reality that, in Christ, we are who God has declared us to be—his very own beloved children. We cannot alter our inclusion in his life by our behavior or misbehavior. God’s love is unconditional. However, the reality is that our experience of his love is affected by our behavior or misbehavior. And we may need to be reawakened to the reality in which we exist.
When my toddler threw a temper tantrum, it did not change the reality that they were my beloved child. It did not alter my love for them or my desire to be with them and to have them in my life. It did require that I respond to them in the most loving way possible. They needed to know who they were—my beloved child—and that the behavior they were manifesting was out of sync with that reality. The reality was they could not continue their misbehavior and fully enjoy the fellowship of our family.
Every person who has ever lived was created to participate in God’s life and love. God has loved every person since before the foundation of the world. God knew we each tend to turn and go our own way. This has not altered his love for us. Rather, he has worked since before time began to ensure that nothing, not even our own stubborn disobedient wills, would stand in the way of us being able to participate in his life and love. For it is God’s purpose that every person be included in his life and love for all eternity.
We cannot do any of this on our own. Our own efforts as humans have sent us down the road to ruin, back to the nothingness out of which we were created. God is not willing that anyone perish, and so the Son of God came. Born of a woman, he lived a very human life in obedience to his Father, and died a painful, bloody death. And he rose from the grave to carry our human flesh with him into glory. Now we all are able by faith to participate in Jesus’ own life with his Father in the Spirit. Jesus sent the Spirit from the Father to us so he might live his life in and through us. We have been given Christ’s own life of faith, obedience, and right relationship with his Father, by the Spirit.
We stand with open hands and open hearts to receive this gift of God’s love and grace. We are God’s beloved children. He is our very own Father. Jesus, as our brother and friend, includes us in his own fellowship with his Father in the Spirit. And the Spirit says in our hearts, the words of the Father and Jesus, “I am yours, and you are mine.”
If you are struggling to believe, simply ask the Lord Jesus to give you his faith to believe. He will be happy to share everything he has with you, including the faith to believe.
We thank you, heavenly Father, for the gift of your Son and your Spirit. We ask for the grace to believe—free us from our unbelief. Enable us to leave each day, by your Spirit, in the truth of who we are as your beloved children, accepted, forgiven, redeemed, and renewed, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” 1 John 5:1–6 NASB
“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the incarnate begotten son of God, loves the Father and esteems the son with equal affection. In this knowing [of mankind’s co-genesis revealed in the Christ-incarnation,] we love the children of God with the same love that we have discovered in God; we treasure the conclusion of his prophetic purpose with affection. For the love of God is realized in the way we evaluate his precepts; if love’s triumph is the conclusion of every prophetic pointer, how can this be interpreted as an unbearable burden? Whatever is born of God is destined to triumph over the world system. Our faith celebrates a victory that is already accomplished! This is the ultimate victory: the certainty that the human Jesus is the divine son of God; (that he is indeed the incarnate Christ—and the central theme of both the Word that was before time was as well as the key to understanding all of Scripture. He is the Savior of the world. …) This is he who was to come; he arrived in the flesh via his mother’s womb—by water and blood—Jesus Christ. And in his ministry as the Christ, he was not only borne witness to by John the Baptist in the prophetic baptism of water, but he went all the way into his baptism of death, in his shed blood, where he died humanity’s death. And it is the Spirit that bears witness according to her own being, which is truth!” 1 John 5:1–6 Mirror Bible
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It’s a Mystery
By Linda Rex
December 24, 2023, 4th Sunday in Advent, Christmas Eve—I don’t know about you, but I love a good mystery, the old-fashioned kind, like in an Agatha Christie novel. As you read the text, you try to pay attention to the clues and guess who the villain is before the author unveils the truth at the end of the story. A good author throws about lots of red herrings to distract us or divert us from the truth, and sends us down rabbit trails which keep us from seeing the true perpetrator of the crime.
I wonder if the reason we love mysteries so much is because God loves a good mystery. Indeed, God is the One who set us all in the middle of life’s greatest mystery, and the apostle Paul refers to this mystery in his letters. In our passage for this last Sunday in Advent, Romans 16:25–27, Paul refers to this mystery at the end of his letter to the church in Rome, as he closes with a doxology of praise to God.
Paul says that “the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past” has been revealed. The prophetic word gave us many clues about this mystery, but it was not fully disclosed until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Eph. 3:3–9, Paul calls it the “mystery of Christ” which the Spirit revealed to the prophets and apostles, and that it was for many generations, he says in Col. 1:26, hidden in God but was now made manifest to his holy people.
What is this mystery? In Colossians 1:26, Paul puts it this way: “this mystery among the Gentiles [non-Jews], which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” This is why in Ephesians, he calls it “the mystery of Christ.” The “revelation of the mystery” was the fulfillment of the promise God made over and over, beginning in the garden and on through many centuries to his people ancient Israel, that the Messiah would come and save them.
Even though his people believed this salvation had something to do with land and an earthly kingdom, the Scriptures pointed to a Messiah who would usher in the age of the Spirit, when God would free his people from their proclivity to sin and turning away from him. What was overlooked as well was the many passages which pointed to the redemption and salvation of the nations—people from all nations would be saved and come to worship the Lord.
The mystery revealed to us in Christ is that Father, Son, and Spirit, before time began, determined that all humans God created would be able to share in the divine life and love, and that this would require the self-giving of the Son of God through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. This free gift of love and grace was always in God’s plan for every human being, and even though we as human beings did not know this gift was planned for us, God gave us lots of clues along the way, and when the time was right, fulfilled his plan in and through Jesus Christ. Looking again at our passage in Romans, we see that the ability to see this mystery is given to us as a gift. It requires a revelation that only God can give us, and he does this through Christ by his Holy Spirit. We receive it through repentance and faith in Christ.
What you believe about who Jesus Christ is, is important. To see and acknowledge Jesus Christ for who he is as both Lord and Savior opens the way for us to comprehend the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and enables us to grasp this greatest mystery: God has come to us in Christ, joined us in our human flesh, shared an authentic human existence with us, died the death we all die, and rose again, bringing our human flesh into the divine life and love, and sending the Spirit so we all can individually begin to participate in God’s life and love by faith in Christ. As we come to faith in Christ, which is a gift God gives us by his Spirit, we begin to see more clearly all the clues that led to the revelation of this mystery, and we grow in our understanding of the mysteries of the kingdom.
This Christmas season, my prayer is that you experience in a way you never have before, this mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory. May you have a profound personal revelation of this mystery and begin to share this good news with others. Merry Christmas!
Our Father, thank you for the gift of your Son and you Spirit by whom we may come to share life with you now and forever in your love and grace. Grant that we may see in a way we never have before that Christ is in us, and we are in Christ, and Christ is in you, by your heavenly Spirit. Amen.
“Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 16:25–27 NRSV
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Face to Face
by Linda Rex
One of the hazards of a long-distance relationship is the inability engage a person in face-to-face conversation. Communication tools such as Skype™ and Vsee™ make video-chats possible now, and I love the way we are able to see someone while we talk with them without having to make a long trip somewhere in order to do so. A conversation via computer may not be the same as having a face-to-face conversation, but it is much better than simply having one on the phone.
Face-to-face conversations have the advantage of enabling us to see the body language and facial expressions of the person talking with us. We are able, if we are good at it, to sense the sincerity and intent behind what is being said. Often we can determine a person’s mood, their hostility or friendliness, just by how they respond as they talk.
To some limited extent we can have meaningful and deep conversations over the phone. But in order to have an honest and open relationship, we really need to meet with someone face-to-face. We need to be able to meet with them in person. If we want get to know someone in a deeper way than just an ordinary, casual conversation, we’ll want to get them by themselves, and spend time just talking, face-to-face.
I love the way God made the effort to engage Moses in these kinds of conversations. In Exodus we read about the relationship God built with Moses over time, and how the Lord spoke to Moses “face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.” As time passed, their relationship grew to where they conversed just like we do when we are talking with a close friend.
We may think to ourselves, that’s just Moses. God doesn’t have those kinds of conversations with ordinary people like you or me. After all, he is God. He has much more important things to do than talk to all the people in the world individually. We can kind of grasp the idea of everyone praying to God, but God replying and having a conversation with each person? Now that’s a different story entirely.
And yet, this is what each of us was created for. When God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden, it was a prelude to what he had in mind for each of us. He created you and me for relationship—with him and with one another. He did not intend for us to live independently of him, or of one another. We are created for interdependence, for intimate relationship.
And when I say intimate relationship, I’m not talking about a sexual or romantic relationship. I’m talking about sharing the deep parts of our minds, hearts and souls with another person—sharing life and being at a very deep level.
I believe the current obsession with sexual and romantic relationships of every kind has short-circuited our capacity for true, deep relationships—the kind we were created for with God and one another. Our ability to use social media for relationships is great, but we need to be careful not to let this keep us from building deep, meaningful relationships with the people in our lives through face-to-face interactions. It is very easy to keep people, and God, on the fringes of our lives and never really engage anyone at any kind of a deep level. And this is not healthy.
Going deep with people and with God in this way means becoming vulnerable and facing up to the mess inside ourselves. We don’t want to expose our deepest hurts and brokenness to others, much less to God. And yet, this is the path to healing.
Opening up these wounds to others, to us, or to God, means facing things we don’t want to face. We may have to change or deal with things we don’t want to have to deal with. We may have to do the dirty work of dealing with family dysfunctions or grieving our losses. Sadly, we often prefer taking painkillers and finding other ways to numb our pain rather than facing our issues. But we weren’t created to ignore our pain or to try to hide it—we were created to engage it, and through sharing it with God and others in healthy ways, find comfort and renewal.
Face-to-face sharing is an important part of the process of healing. Getting real with someone about what’s going on at a deep level in our hearts and minds is essential to our mental, emotional and spiritual health and our physical health as well. We need to drop our facades, and our false selves, and just be real with God and one another. And this is not easy to do, much less safe. Not everyone can be trusted with our secrets.
But God understands our need for face-to-face, conversations at this deep level. This face-to-face sharing is so important to God, he came himself to share in our humanity. He became one of us—the Word in human flesh. He experienced what it was like to be born of a woman, grow up as a child, be baptized and live as an adult, and he shared every part of our human existence. God came and met with us face-to-face in an even more personal way than how he met with Moses centuries before.
God wanted to share every part of our existence and be included in it. This was so important to him, he was willing to take on our humanity and share all we experience as human beings, including death and suffering. But he did much more than that.
He brought our human existence to a new level by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, and by sending his Spirit to dwell in human hearts. God’s Spirit in you and me means God dwells in humanity—he meets with us face-to-face within our own human hearts. Nothing can be more intimate than that!
In fact, we cannot escape him now—no matter how much we try. Eventually he will open our inner eyes to see, we have Christ in us, the hope of glory. We have God in us—Immanuel. Better than any Skype™ conversation—we can converse with God in our hearts and have a dialogue in which, by the Spirit, God knows us intimately and we can know God’s heart and mind as well. Our conversations with God can be just as deep and wonderful as those Moses had because God calls you and me friend, and speaks to us in our hearts.
You may say, “How can this be? God doesn’t speak to me. And that’s kind of creepy, you know—someone talking to me in my heart.” Well, perhaps it’s not that God hasn’t been speaking, but rather, that we haven’t been listening.
I was taught to be afraid of that inner voice who spoke in my heart and so I never listened. I ignored it and pushed it away. But when I did finally talk with God and invite him to speak to me and to help me to hear and discern what was his voice (and not the other unhealthy voices), I discovered he was speaking words of love and grace to me all along. I found that God really does want to walk and talk with us, and share all of life with us. And this has been the experience of many others who have sought a deeper walk with Jesus.
God has brought each and every one of us through Jesus and by the Spirit to a place where we are able to have a deep, intimate, face-to-face relationship with him. In growing in our relationship with him, we will find ourselves growing in our ability and desire to have deep, meaningful relationships with one another. And we will be living out who we really are—human beings, created for loving relationship with God and one another.
Father, thank you, through your Son and by your Spirit, you have brought us into deep, intimate relationship with yourself. Thank you for making it possible for us to have close, intimate relationships with one another as well. Grant us the grace to set aside time and space to listen and talk with you and one another face-to-face, for this is what we were created for. Through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. … And He said, ‘My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.’” Exodus 33:11a, 14 NASB
It’s Tempting, But…
by Linda Rex
Lent: In our two churches we have been considering the reality of temptation. We’ve been learning that temptation is something every human faces, especially when it comes to our relationship with God and our relationships with one another. Falling prey to temptation is part of our human condition—none of us are exempt from the lure of sin.
As we look towards Holy Week and the gift of the death and resurrection of God’s Son on our behalf, we can find comfort in the life Jesus lived, the death he died, because he faced every temptation we face, but did not sin. We participate in his perfected humanity by the Holy Spirit, and in that way we are able to endure temptation and resist the pull to sin.
It is normal for us as human beings to come up against something in our lives that tells us quite convincingly that God is not to be trusted—that he is not the loving, compassionate God he is in reality. Life circumstances, the way significant people in our lives treat us and our response to these experiences, all play a role in the way we view God and whether or not we believe he is trustworthy and loving.
What we believe about God and who he is, and about ourselves and who we are, directly impacts the way we respond to the events in our lives as well as the way we respond to the desires and pulls of our broken humanity. The emptiness we may feel at times and the hidden dark areas we push down inside ourselves because they are too painful to face often drive us in ways we don’t recognize or expect. Sometimes it seems that our behavior is beyond our control.
We may find ourselves addicted to substances or habits we’d rather not be held to, and we may find ourselves in relationships or circumstances that are unhealthy and destructive, but we don’t know how to step away from them and move on. We may hear some preacher say that we need to repent and put sin out of our lives, but sin doesn’t hear the sermon and stays in spite of all our efforts to get rid of it.
If facing temptation is a common human experience, and temptation is something that Jesus faced alongside each one of us during his life here on earth, then we need to understand being tempted to do or say or be something that does not express love for God or for others is not a sin in itself. Temptation happens. How we face that temptation will determine whether we will endure and resist it, or whether we will give in to it.
The key, when it comes to resisting temptation, has to do with our relationship with God in Christ through the Spirit. We need first to understand that God is faithful. He would not allow us to be tempted if he hadn’t first provided us with what we needed to overcome that temptation and to resist it. And he did this—he gave us Jesus Christ and the Spirit.
Jesus Christ endured the same temptations and yet did not sin, no matter how enticing those temptations were. His perfected humanity is ours through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit, Jesus dwells in our hearts. The “mystery of godliness” the apostle Paul said, is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ in us by the Spirit is what we need to overcome every temptation and resist it. Christ did it, and we participate in that finished work by the Spirit in us.
When we are living in intimate relationship with the Father, through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit, in a daily walk with God that involves transparency, authenticity, humility and an acknowledgement of our dependency upon God for all things, temptations begin to be seen for what they are. We begin to see that temptations are invitations to break fellowship with God and others.
When we experience the broken relationships, alienation and separation that comes with yielding to temptation, and we face the pain that comes with the consequences of our sins, this can be a springboard to a deeper relationship with God. It is God’s mercy and kindness that brings us to the place of repentance so that we will give up our idolatries, our immorality, and our ingratitude towards God.
When we have experienced what it is like to walk in a close relationship with God, where the Spirit begins to work to transform us and we encounter Christ in a personal, intimate communion, we find that we don’t what to do anything that will mar or break that relationship. We won’t want to offend or insult or harm God or others in any way. This is Christ in us—God’s heart and mind are beginning to become ours. This is our best resistance to temptation.
Granted, we do participate in the process of resisting temptation. We do this by growing in and deepening our relationship with God. We open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit, and invite him to grow Christ in us, and we do this by practicing spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation on God and his Word, meeting together for worship and fellowship, reading the Word of God, caring for others, and participating in small groups.
We may need to practice a spiritual discipline which offers up to God our commitment to put away things that cause us to be tempted to do what is wrong. We may need to eliminate certain things or particular relationships out of our daily existence because they cause us to be tempted to break fellowship with God or others. We may need to stop listening to or watching things that encourage us to participate in ungodly ways of living or being.
Not all of us are strong in every area of our lives to where we are never tempted in some way. It is foolish to constantly tempt ourselves, especially when God is calling us to put off the old self and to put on our new self which was given to us in Christ Jesus. Part of our participation in Christ’s perfected humanity involves choosing to live in agreement with the King of the kingdom of God rather than insisting on being a law unto ourselves.
But ultimately, we will face temptations that seem beyond our ability to resist. We will have areas in our lives where we cannot seem to ever overcome some flaw or fault or sin. We will struggle in some areas and no matter how hard we try to resist the temptation, we fail. God will, more than once, bring us to the place where we have to recognize and acknowledge that we are incapable of resisting sin on our own. We are incapable of perfection in this life—it cannot be done by us, on our own.
God says to you and to me—accept the reality of your need for grace. Turn to Christ. He is your perfected humanity—he is your life. Respond to the gift of the Spirit God has given you. Open yourself to the work he is trying to do in you and in your life even now. God is at work in you, providing the way of escape from temptation and enabling you to endure the temptations you are facing. He is faithful. He will not stop until he has finished what he began in you—to reveal Christ in you. Praise his holy Name.
Lord Jesus, I thank you that you endured every temptation you faced and you did not sin. And thank you for sharing this perfect resistance against temptation with us by the Spirit. I pray, Father, that you will finish the work you have begun in us so that we might fully reflect the image of Christ and that by your Spirit we may live in close fellowship with you and one another. We look forward to an eternity spent in gracious loving communion with you and one another. In your Name we pray. Amen.
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13 NASB
Consequently…
by Linda Rex
What would it be like to live life without any consequences?
Sometimes I think that this is what we all secretly want—to be able to do whatever we want without anything bad happening to us or others. It’s too often that I see or read about someone who closed their eyes to the consequences of something they were doing, even though they were hurting themselves or someone else. It is like when my babies played hide and seek by putting their hands over their eyes, thinking they couldn’t be seen, but standing in full view of everyone.
Do we truly believe, down to the core of our being, that we live life unobserved, all alone in the universe—just us and no one else?
Humanly speaking, I think it’s really hard to believe that any more, considering how many satellites circle this planet and how many cameras observe us as we go through our lives. Now we even have to worry about some hacker watching us through our technology. There’s just not much privacy any more.
But there is something in each of us that wants to live life as though there are no consequences. Life without any repercussions—no one caring what we do or don’t do: why is it that we want to live this way?
There is a time and place where each of us will be called to wrestle with the reality of life beyond our human life. There is an existence that goes beyond our next breath. We may not know what it is, but it is more real than the hand at the end of our arm.
Recently I followed the series “Proof” as they explored the possibility of scientifically determining if there was life after death. It is interesting when human beings try to quantify and scientifically evaluate spiritual realities. If it is not something that can be experienced, tested and evaluated according to the scientific method, then it is considered unreal. And yet there is something down deep inside that drives us to seek out the truth about life beyond this life.
We are more connected than we realize with the One who created all of us. Like the philosophers of old, if we do believe in God, we want to put him up in a heaven somewhere so we don’t have to deal with him until our life comes to an end. Then hopefully, he’ll be nice enough to let us live with him in that place, wherever it is.
But God isn’t the God who is separate from us—outside our cosmos somewhere. Rather, all that God created is held in him—he is God with us. As the psalmist wrote—wherever we may be—God is there. There is no escaping God’s presence. (Psalm 139)
Even more than that, God was not satisfied just to uphold the universe and all creatures in his loving hands. He took on our humanity and became one of us. He lived in our humanity, died and rose again as Jesus Christ. In doing that, he is connected to each of us in a union that is so intimate and close that we cannot escape it. And God sent the Spirit to awaken us to the reality of Christ in us. God has ensured that nothing can separate us from him ever again.
Oh dear. This means that whatever we do, think, or say is done, thought or said in God’s presence. And everything we think, do or say has consequences. We don’t live in a vacuum—even if we are standing on a mountaintop with no one around. God is present. God is real. And God knows, sees, and is a part of whatever we are thinking, saying or doing and we are a part of what he is thinking, saying and doing.
This puts a new spin on everything. Whether or not there are consequences really isn’t the point any more. Because now it’s all about relationship. We are intimately connected with the true spiritual reality and Source of our being. We live and move and have our being in him. We exist moment by moment in the reality that God lives in us—we share our being with the Lord of the universe.
And now Jesus Christ defines our true humanity. Consequently, we do not exist here on our own terms but on his. And that’s the rub—we do not want anyone dictating to us how to live our lives. We want to live without consequences.
So at some point we each have to come to terms with the true reality in which we now live—Christ in us, the hope of glory. We can continue to cover our eyes and try to deny this spiritual reality, living as though there are no consequences. Or we can open our eyes to the truth of the deep love that surrounds and fills us, and begin living in harmony with the true reality we are held in. We are free to choose.
And we live even now with the consequences of that choice—experiencing a sense of separation, loss, loneliness and hunger we were never meant to experience—or walking in intimate fellowship with the One who made all things, experiencing his joy, peace, love and grace day by day. We can begin now to participate in the heavenly realities we hope to share in for all eternity. May God grant us the grace to choose wisely.
Dearest God, thank you for sharing your very life and breath with us, and for coming so near as to share our very life and breath as human beings. Awaken us, Holy Spirit, to the reality of Christ living in us. We need to know you are real and present every moment. Grant us the grace to live in this true reality moment by moment, day by day. Through Jesus and by your Spirit we pray. Amen.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” Galatians 6:7–9 NASB
The Naughty and Nice List
by Linda Rex
I’m always amused by the Christmas song that tells us that Santa has a naughty and nice list, and that we’d better not be naughty if we want something other than coal for Christmas. And it’s interesting how many Christmas movies show Santa checking out the list, and since he doesn’t want to give anyone coal, he is extremely gracious and makes excuses for the naughty kids, giving them presents instead.
I was speaking to a dear friend this morning about our human proclivity to not get things right, especially when it comes to how we treat other people. We find ourselves being insensitive, unforgiving, and irritable even when we want more than anything to be loving, warm and gracious. We want to be nice, but we end up being naughty instead. And so we go around in a funk because we can’t get it right.
I know it’s been said before, but we have to quit treating God like he’s a Santa Claus with a naughty and nice list. The whole point of Christmas is that he doesn’t have one. Instead going by the naughty and nice list, he gave us the gift of his Son. This little baby born on that Bethlehem night was a real person, who in the Spirit lived that perfect human life that we all struggle to live. Immanuel. God with us. God in human flesh, born to be a king, but living as one of us.
Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, talks about what Christ did for us. It’s described by theologians as the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. Christ in our place. Jesus for us, in us, with us.
When he was born, we were reborn. The life he lived, he lived for us, in our place. When he was baptized, we went down into the water with him, and came out, receiving the Spirit as he did. As he wandered in the wilderness, battling the evil one, we were right there with him. When he died, we died, and we rose again in him. We ascended with him and are seated in heavenly places in him.
And most significantly, even now, he stands in our place in the Father’s presence in the Spirit, interceding in every situation. We are the fallen Adam—the ones who can’t get it right. He is the second Adam—who did everything we should have done and didn’t and couldn’t do—and offers us his perfected humanity in our place.
We have adopted the mentality that in some way we are the ones who have to work out our badness and goodness. We are the ones who have to get our relationships right and handle every situation perfectly. I don’t know how well you are doing at that, but personally, I am a flop. I can’t and don’t get things right like I should.
But that’s not a bad thing. Actually that is the very thing that God uses to bind us to himself in Jesus. It is our weaknesses, our failures, and our faults that Jesus comes into the midst of by the Spirit and uses to draw us to himself. We turn away from God in guilt and shame, but God calls us to himself and offers us grace and a new life in his Son. He embraces us in our naughtiness and declares us nice instead.
This is unfathomable. How and why can he do this? Because God knows that it is his goodness and his kindness that brings us to repentance. In the offering of forgiveness, free unmerited pardon, we are shown that we have been wrong and need forgiveness. In receiving that forgiveness, we are in the same moment having to admit that we need to turn our back on the old Adam, to reject the naughtiness that plagues us and holds us captive.
It is an incredible exchange God is offering us. We hand him all that we are as human beings, both our naughtiness and niceness (since even our niceness is faulty) and he gives us Jesus and his perfected humanity instead. We participate in Jesus’ perfect life—he stands in the presence of God in our place.
What we do now is to live moment by moment in that relationship. We look to Christ instead to ourselves for the answers. We listen to, trust in and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit as he speaks to us and guides us throughout our day. We surrender to God and allow Christ to live in us the life he has created us to live. This does not make us any less ourselves, but rather we become more fully the person we were created to be.
And when we hear the jingle of the naughty and nice list come up, telling us that we’re going to get coals in our stockings again this year, we can laugh. Because we know that what we have coming to us are all God’s heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus—something we could never earn, but God has said already belong to us. And that’s what Christmas is all about.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us the most perfect gift of all, your precious Son Jesus and the gift of your Spirit through him. Thank you, Jesus, for standing in our place and interceding for us moment by moment as we struggle through our niceness and naughtiness. We trust you to finish what you have begun so that one day we can fully experience all the wonderful things you have in mind for us. May we experience them even now and throughout this New Year. In Jesus name, amen.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” Eph. 1:3–6 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 