Christian life
Gratefully Yours
by Linda Rex
Note to self: Shop for Thanksgiving before Halloween, not after.
I was rather frustrated this year when I found that the Halloween items took precedence over the Thanksgiving items at the store. In fact, once Halloween was over, it was next to impossible to find any Thanksgiving, fall or harvest decoration and gift items to buy. I had assumed (wrongly) that they would stay on the shelf until Thanksgiving. But apparently they only stay until Halloween is over and then it’s time for Christmas.
I forget sometimes how our mercantile system drives our culture, especially when it comes to our celebration of our holidays. I’m happy to have access to so many fun things to celebrate with, but it is obvious that our culture has moved beyond the Judeo-Christian basis for its holidays.
Whether or not one is a Christian, there is always a place for gratitude in one’s life. Gratitude is a way of thinking and living that genuinely appreciates the little and big things of life as gifts. It is a way of being thankful for the people and relationships and blessings that come to us everyday unbidden and unsought—the air we breathe, a beautiful sunset, dear friends and family, a newborn baby.
When we lose our appreciation for these things that come into our life with or without our effort, we may become calloused, cold, and cynical. Nothing is ever enough for us—we will always need or want more. We can become sad, depressed and overwhelmed by all the negative stuff in life.
Gratitude in some ways is a discipline—a choice in how we approach life and the events we encounter day by day. When we make the effort to pause and be grateful for what we have and share it with others, we begin to have a more positive attitude and spirit with which to approach life.
Our gratitude and appreciation for all the good things of life, in my view, merely points to the reality that we have been given life, breathe, all the resources we need to be alive and to live blessed because of God’s grace. We can believe that God does not exist, but the truth is, we would not exist if it weren’t for his kindness and mercy in sustaining what he created.
And that wasn’t good enough for God—just giving us life and breath and food and things we could do. He wanted a relationship with us as well—so he came to our universe, to our earth to live as one of us. He forged a permanent bond with us in Jesus Christ—living a perfect life we could participate in, dying our death so we could live with him forever, bringing us into the presence of God so we could be in relationship with the Creator our Redeemer forever.
To me, that gives us every reason to celebrate not just once a year, but every day, with gratitude.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! May God bless you abundantly each and every day throughout this holiday season!
Lord, I give you thanks for all the wonderful people and blessings you have poured into my life. I pray you will watch over each of those who are reading this and bless them in every way. Let them feel your presence and peace in a deep way so they may be able to endure whatever hardships they are facing or struggling with. Thank you for your faithful love shown to us in Jesus. Amen.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.” Psalm 136:1
Intercellular Living
by Linda Rex
One of the most difficult ministry experiences I’ve had recently has been to be with members of my congregations as they go through the process of watching a loved one die of cancer. The strength they show in fighting this awful disease, dealing with the heartbreak and loss, and rebuilding after loss has been awesome and is a testimony to the grace and power of God. Losing a loved one is devastating, but it seems even more so when a family has to watch the loved one suffer and die slowly and progressively, whether from cancer or any other long-term disease.
Cancer, specifically, is so destructive to the human body because the building blocks of the body—the cells—turn into something they were never meant to be and subsequently attack the body they are a part of and are meant to help build up and sustain.
According to Wikipedia, cancer can occur when there is a loss of cell to cell interaction. When proper contact with neighboring cells is prevented from happening, cells become stunted and begin to collect into tumors and the unhealthy cells spread into other organs and places in the body. As the cancer continues it eventually spreads into the blood stream and lymph system and is carried throughout the body. And in time, and often after much suffering, the body dies. 1
Death, of course, happens to each of us at some point in our lives. It is inevitable. But I don’t believe God ever intended any of us to have go through the suffering and horror of cancer.
Yet it happens. It happens because we are frail and flawed human beings and we live in a broken world. It happens because we attempt to step away from and live apart from the God who designed and made us and the world we live in.
Thankfully, this life is not the end—God never meant it to be. He always meant for us to live in eternity with him in glorified human bodies which are strong, beautiful and whole, and in relationships with him and one another that are healthy and intricately intertwined by love and grace through Christ in the Spirit—just like the intricately intertwined relations of the cells in a healthy human body.
Even though the apostle Paul probably did not know what a cell was, his description of human interaction in the body of Christ reflects the truth of how we have been intertwined together by the Holy Spirit into one body in Christ. When we lose healthy interaction with one another, we begin to destroy one another instead of building one another up. When we believe things that are not true about God, about ourselves and others and act on those beliefs, we begin to destroy not only ourselves, but the body of Christ as a whole. This is also just as true in our communities, our state, nation and the world.
Even though we often try to live like it isn’t true, none of us exists apart from someone else. We were created to live in loving relationship with the Creator and one another. We were designed to exist in intricately woven webs of relationships which require healthy interaction and reciprocal caring in order to function in the best way possible.
We were each created uniquely, not so that we would be separate from one another, but so that we would all fit together into a united, well-coordinated whole—a body. This body’s life was given to us in Jesus Christ and has its source in the Holy Spirit.
Because there is one Spirit manifested in many ways, we are each unique and yet one. Just as a blood cell is not the same as a brain cell or a skin cell, none of us are the same. But the human body would not be what it should be if it did not have all three and every other different type of cell it needs to be whole and well.
When a person lives in a way that is contrary to their design by God, when they are abusive, selfish, fearful, hurtful to others, then they are like a stunted cancer cell. Such a person influences, affects, harms other people around them who in turn harm, wound and corrupt others—just as cancer cells metastasize and spread.
When society, culture, cities, nations, organizations, and churches become twisted and unhealthy, it is because the individuals within have lost their center in Jesus Christ. They are living out of their human brokenness instead of in the Spirit of life as God originally created them to live—in healthy relationship with God and one another. A cancer is created that in time, if unchecked, destroys families, churches, communities, organizations, cities, and nations.
So is cancer inevitable? Will cancer always win? Where’s the hope in this?
Our only hope is what it always has been from the beginning—in the God who loves us so much that he came himself in the Word, took on our human flesh and cleansed and healed it with his own divine Presence. Jesus Christ is the answer because he is the whole, cleansed and purified human we were all meant to be. He lived the life we were meant to live, suffered our pains, died our broken death and rose from the grave. He took our human flesh into the presence of God and gave us the gift of his blessed Presence in the Holy Spirit so that we could be regenerated or made new.
In Jesus Christ, every broken, cancerous cell in the human body, both individually and collectively, has been healed, cleansed and restored. God has declared us to be whole and well. He is offering to you and to me life in Jesus Christ by the indwelling Holy Spirit. When we receive and embrace this, believing this truth and living accordingly, our hearts, minds and lives will be healed and transformed.
The corrupting cancers of sin, self and Satan have been neutralized and transformed by the healing Presence of the life-giving Spirit in Christ. Death has been defeated. Jesus triumphed over the cancers of evil, sickness and death. They can only make a big noise, bluster and try to cause pain, fear and suffering and to destroy our faith. But they have no power over us any longer. One day they will be only a forgotten memory. In the presence of the Living God they are nothing but a moment in the eternity of his Love.
As we embrace new life in Christ and live in the intimate fellowship with God and each other we were created for, the cancers of sin, self and Satan will be supplanted by spiritual, mental, emotional and social wholeness and health.
Sometimes it is a battle. Just as we battle cancer of the human body with every possible instrument we have available to us, we battle these cancers of the spirit with the divine weapons of the Holy Spirit—receiving God’s gift of salvation, trusting in Christ’s righteousness, and believing and living in the Spirit of truth and the Word of God. We use divine methods of treatment, but we do this in Christ. He is our life. He is our breath. He is the One who lives the life we seek to live.
It is the Presence of the living Word within, the Holy Spirit, who reminds us we are God’s beloved children and who guides us and teaches us how to live in healthy relationship with God and others. As we listen to him and grow up in this divine Life, we become a healthy part of the body of Christ, of our family, our community, our state, nation and world. Our true value and worth can begin to be seen and contributed to the whole. And this is what God created us to be in our own uniqueness and giftedness. This is the intercellular life God designed us to have from, with and in him forever. This is worth living and dying for.
Almighty God, Maker of heaven and earth and all that is in them, thank you. Thank you for life and breath, for all that you give us each and every day. Holy, Eternal Father, we believe in and embrace the gift of new life you have made possible for us in the life, death and resurrection of your precious Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for giving us new life even now in Christ by your Holy Spirit, your Presence within. Dear Jesus, we acknowledge you as our Lord as you are our Savior—we commit ourselves to live not in ourselves and our sin and brokenness, our guilt and shame, but in the forgiveness, healing and wholeness we have been given in you. Be our life, be our breath, our healing, health and wholeness. Almighty God, in your One Name as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.
“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:3-5
1 “Cell–cell interaction”, “Metastasis”, “Metaplasia”, “Dysplasia”, “Anaplasia”, Wikipedia.com. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell-cell_interaction (Accessed 11/22/13).
The Out Loud Word
by Linda Rex
It’s come to my mind quite often lately how much I have taken for granted the gift of being able to read, and to read quickly and with comprehension.
I go places and find that I have to be able to read the signs to know where to go and where not to go, how fast to go, what street I need to turn at, and so on. I walk into the store and find I have to be able to read the labels to make sure I’m buying the right thing.
The blessing of reading, by necessity, includes the blessing of sight, unless a person learns to read Braille. Someone was telling me the other day about a man who was more or less blind and who, because he couldn’t see to read the labels on the cans at the store, had eaten dog food for years. That seems like a stretch to me, but who am I to say any different? I just realized, though, what a blessing it was to be able to see and to read.
I have been finding also when leading worship in my congregations, that I must never take it for granted that the people who come to church have a Bible, or if they have one, that they are able to read it. We want all people to participate with us in the learning and understanding of God’s Word as they grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. So the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to Timothy to not neglect the public reading of scripture is just as relevant to us today as it was then. This is why we read the Scriptures out loud during our worship services and in our study groups.
It is easy to ignore or neglect the reading of Scripture. It can be a chore we’d rather avoid. But if we feel we’ve read the Scriptures and we know everything that’s in the Bible, then we most likely are merely reading the Scriptures for information. It is no wonder that it is meaningless, boring and empty reading to us. But if and when we have entered into a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ, we are able to read the Scriptures in a whole new way.
We are able to read them as God’s Word to us both collectively and personally. We can begin to seek Jesus Christ in the midst of them. Before we begin to read, we say, “Lord, what do you have to say to me today?” We invite the Holy Spirit to open our minds and hearts to receive whatever it is God would like to say to us in that moment. We ask Jesus by his Spirit to live out in us what we hear in his Word.
It is often in the hearing as well as reading of the Word of God that conviction occurs and life-change begins. The Spirit of God goes to work when the Word of God is read, whether silently, or out loud. We continue in the reading of the Word of God day by day for God’s Word to us is made new to us moment by moment in our relationship with Jesus Christ in the Spirit.
Thank you, Father, for giving us the Living Word, Jesus Christ, who came for us in our place to live out our perfect life in his human flesh and who comes to us in the written Word by your Holy Spirit. Give us a holy hunger for your Word and may your Word transform us as we read and hear it each and every day. In Jesus name by your Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.
“Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.” 1 Timothy 4:13 (NLT)
Canine Lessons on Living in Fellowship
by Linda Rex
I hate it when the dog is right and I’m wrong.
This afternoon she sat on the floor next to me, periodically bumping my elbow with her nose. With every bump the mouse jerked and I had to reorient the cursor on the screen. I was frantically trying to finish the last few touches on a PowerPoint presentation for Sunday and didn’t want to quit right yet. And she wasn’t exactly being very helpful.
Bump. “Just a minute. I’m coming.” I gave her a pat on the head and told her what a good dog she was. Bump, bump.
She’s really a patient pooch for the most part. This meant it was important that I get done and let her out the door. “All right! … I’m sorry—I’m going as fast as I can!” Bump.
Silly dog. I realized that indeed the project could wait a few minutes while I tended to the needs of someone other than myself. So I stopped where I was, put my shoes and jacket on, and took her out. As I was waiting for her outside, I heard myself urging her to hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!
And then I started laughing. Because if I didn’t know any better, I’d have to say that she was being pokey on purpose just to show me! She had to wait on me, so why shouldn’t I have to wait on her? As she curled up in the grass in the sunshine for a moment, I just had to laugh.
It’s funny how the simplest things in life are opportunities for God to teach us how to live in fellowship and communion with one another. Something as simple as the Golden Rule and treating others the way we would like to be treated can be easily swept aside when we lose our focus on what really matters—our relationships with God and each other.
Thankfully, if we pay attention, God can draw us right back into holy fellowship with himself and others. All we need to do is to agree with him that we have momentarily lost our way and thank him for his gracious forgiveness and for helping us get reoriented once again. And, if you are blessed like I am, we can also thank him for the pooches he sends our way to remind us of what really matters.
Lord, thank you for the lessons you send us each day, even through the animals and nature that we share our life in you with. Give us open and alert minds and hearts so we can hear and see what you wish to say to us, and grant us the hearts to always treat others as we wish to be treated. In your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
“Treat others the same way you want them to treat you.” Luke 6:31
“End of the World” Addiction
by Linda Rex
A Facebook friend of mine posted a story the other day about a new opiate drug that started in Russia and is making its way into America. It was difficult for me to read the story about the drug krokodil (pronounced like crocodile) or desomorphine because the users of this highly addictive heroin-like drug will use it even though the use of it may cost them the loss of parts of their body. It made me physically ill just to think of it. How tragic that we seek so hard to end our pain or escape our world that we are willing to self-destruct in order to do it!
The truth is that users of krokodil are not much different than us abusers of food, especially those of us who are so addicted to sweets that we are willing to risk similar consequences in an effort to feel good for a few moments. We are all guilty of this escapism in one form or another. Our method may vary: watching a game or video on TV, playing video games endlessly or reading another fairy-tale sex-laden romance novel.
We can see our desire for a savior to come and rescue us from our insanity in many of the plotlines of the stories we watch and read. Superheroes such as Superman, Spiderman or Batman are popular. Legendary heroes, superstars and sports giants all capture our imagination. The key is that they are human and down-to-earth like us, but they are more than us—they achieve what we only dream of.
Wanting the world to end, or the carousel to stop so we can get off, is not unique to us in our generation, however old we may be. It’s the human condition, really.
Christians down through the ages have had a similar focus. This is the “end of the world” mentality that grows especially intense whenever there are calamities ahead or Christians are facing intense persecution. Maybe now Jesus will come, they think, and those who are addicted to prophecy begin to reinterpret the Bible to fit the new hope of deliverance.
Indeed, Christian believers hold fast to the hope of the return of Christ in glory to make all things right in the end. He will one day bring about justice in every way. But if we focus solely on this as a means to escape whatever it is we are going through at the moment, we are missing a golden opportunity to participate in God’s work in this world today in a real and personal way, helping to ease the pain and suffering of those around us and making this world a less painful place in which to live.
Jesus’ disciples were constantly expecting him to bring about an overthrow of the Roman government and to restore the Jewish people to their “rightful” place. Jesus worked throughout his ministry to get them to understand that he came to establish an entirely different kingdom, the kingdom of God. This was not a kingdom that was apparent in a physical way, but was a kingdom of the heart and soul. This was a kingdom of the spirit that involved trusting in him as Savior and Lord, knowing that he was the Son of God in human flesh, and believing that through him we all are adopted by God as his own sons and daughters. What Jesus was looking for was faith.
What if all the energy we put into escaping those things that are our rulers today was put into trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior and participating in his mission to extend his kingdom into all the world so that others could be free as well from their slavery to the addictions and compulsions that control them? What if we had such an intimate relationship with the One who is willing to walk with us through every problem that we were in tune with his Spirit and were walking in his Word day by day, sharing it boldly with those around us? What if our Christianity were more than just a profession or an ideology and was instead a transformed way of being, thinking and living that involved a daily encounter with the living Lord and embracing each and everyone around us in God’s love?
With such a faith, we would embrace the pain and suffering we encounter and by God’s grace begin to be transformed ourselves and then begin to positively influence the world around us. We would bring Jesus’ healing touch into places that hunger for freedom from oppression. But we would not do this under our own power or in an effort to establish God’s kingdom on earth in a physical way. It would solely be a work of the Spirit who lives within us. He would bring about a changed world as we put our faith in the Lord Jesus who gave us the Spirit as the gift of his Presence in the world today. It is Christ’s faith, not our faith, that is world-changing and life-transforming.
God loves you and me and each person who has ever lived. He has demonstrated this love by sending us the savior we long for—one who is fully human and understands our frailty and faultiness without being faulty himself, and yet is transcendently divine—so beyond us that with him everything is possible. And he has sent his very Presence in the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of those who believe. Will you let him rescue you from every oppressor and bring you into his heavenly kingdom of light?
Lord God, thank you for sending us a Rescuer in Jesus Christ and a present Comfort and Help in the Holy Spirit. We trust you to save us and to transform us by your grace into all you mean for us to be. Grant us the faith to believe and to trust fully in you for your salvation in every way. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:7-8
Still Waiting
by Linda Rex
Once one of my friends showed me a picture of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. On one side of the towering walls of water between which the thousands of Israelites were fleeing the Egyptians was a man in a boat. He had a fishing pole in his hand which was bent under the strain of having a large fish on the hook. The only problem was that the fish with the hook in its mouth was on the other side of the great chasm!
How often in life we are caught in a predicament like the fisherman who was out of his league. Or the Israelites who froze in fear when the Egyptians caught them with their backs to the Red Sea with nowhere else to go. But God’s word to the Israelite nation then are his same words to us today: “The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent.” (Ex. 14:14). All God wants from us is for us to trust him in the midst of our predicament.
The problem is the “keep silent” part—the “be still” part of the whole thing can make us really anxious. It’s counter-intuitive to do nothing in the face of a real problem but sit still and keep silent. And that makes us very uncomfortable, especially if we are one of those Type A personality people who likes to “get ‘er done!” It’s the waiting that kills us.
But the waiting in silence is the key to the whole process. This is because God is a whole lot more concerned about what we learn from the whole experience and how we grow in our faith and love for him than he is about rescuing us immediately from our struggles. It is in the silence and in the waiting that we begin to see the situation more clearly. We begin to hear the Holy Spirit’s calming whisper and encouragement. We find that the Lord does have an answer for us in the midst of the chaos. It may be just as simple as, “Hang on!”
The spiritual disciplines of silence and stillness are important for Christians to practice regularly. In silence and stillness, we open ourselves to hear what God has to say to us and we make ourselves available to God for his Spirit to give us guidance, encouragement, correction and hope.
Many times in the midst of the quietness we are amazed to find the answer come to us in a complete and clear way we would never have thought of on our own. Or we may get that phone call we’ve been waiting on and fretting about. God often moves powerfully when we determine to be still and just trust him. Waiting patiently for God in silence and stillness is worth the effort.
Lord, thank you that we can turn to you in the midst of our predicaments and wait in silence and stillness for you to act on our behalf. Grant us the grace to trust you and wait on you patiently when we are in need or in trouble. Amen.
“Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;…” Psalm 37:7
When Words Aren’t Enough
by Linda Rex
I was thinking about the lost art of Bible reading. The Bible used to be the main textbook in the classroom. Many parents and teachers used the Bible to teach their children to read. Although I don’t really see the benefit of teaching a child to read using, “and Attai begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Zabad, and Zabad begat Ephlal, and Ephlal begat Obed,…” (1 Chr. 2:36-37 YLT) when most adults including myself can’t even pronounce the names correctly, there is benefit in the Bible being used so frequently. The words and content were more readily available to the average person, so that many learned a basic form of morality and Christian basis for living as part of their daily life.
The great Protestant tradition of each person being able to read and interpret the Bible as the Spirit leads has allowed for a great variety in translations and religions within the realm of Christianity. But, naturally, there is some danger in this. When a person believes that they have received a specific revelation out of scripture and they begin to spread it around as though it is the truth (when really it is a misinterpretation of Scripture) then this is a problem. When the Scriptures are used to lead people away from the central truth of Scripture—Jesus Christ and salvation through him alone—this is a serious situation indeed.
In Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes, who were taking him to task for associating with and caring for the sinners and outcasts of society, he brought up the fact that even though the Israelite nation had had the word of God for centuries, they really never did hear it. Or when they did hear it, it did not transform their lives. It pointed them to Jesus Christ, who would be the fulfillment of the scriptures and bring salvation for all people, but they didn’t recognize him when he came.
The truth is that a person can have the Bible and even read it and memorize it, but without a heart of faith, a heart that is humble and surrendered to the Father, that trusts in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and is open to the work and will of the Holy Spirit, the Bible will make no difference in their life. Until God, by his Spirit, writes the law of love on a person’s heart and mind, the words cannot and will not be understood correctly, or believed and obeyed as God intended.
Surely, a person can have an outstanding “form of godliness.” We had a form of godliness for many years as members of the former Worldwide Church of God. We had seventh day Sabbath-keeping, holy day keeping, tithing (3 of them even) and clean foods eating godliness. We had the “we are the nation of Israel” holiness that excluded people of other races and ethnicities through our Anglo/British Israelism. And we brought the Holy Spirit along as the power we needed—always asking God for more of it because we never could be quite good enough. We definitely stood out in the society as being “separate.”
It was a “feel good” religion because all of us felt how good we were compared to everyone else because we were doing what was right while everyone else was obeying pagan holidays and disobeying God. The truth was that this “form of godliness” was a slavery and we didn’t really feel that good after all, because in our hearts we knew we never could be good enough. We were constantly striving to “overcome” so we could make it into God’s kingdom. We lived daily with that nagging feeling of guilt and shame that comes when we are striving to do relationship with God in our own strength. We were never sure that God really did love us, individually, fully, unconditionally.
Being immersed in this religion since the day I took my first breath and having seen and heard the founders, movers and shakers of this religion since the time I could first remember, I, much like the apostle Paul in his day, feel a deep yearning for the freedom of all those who are still bound by these ways of thinking and believing. How I long to help others see that Jesus Christ, who is/was God in human flesh, brought together all of Israel and all other people together in himself, in his person! He joined us forever in himself so that now he is the law, the law written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the Scriptures points to Jesus Christ as the center—the old covenant and new covenant have him at the core. It is all about him—he is our Sabbath rest, he is our holy day, he is our clean food as the Bread and the Wine, he is our baptism, he is our tithe—the One set apart for holy use!
Was it not enough that he lived in our place, died for us and rose from the dead? Must we continually add things to this in order to feel good enough? If we need guidelines for living, then we need to look to him and look to those he taught when he came. They provide plenty of “rules for living” if we need them—but the apostles all began at a central place, faith in Jesus Christ and in our union with God in him through the Holy Spirit. This is the beginning of our faith and from there we build. This means we have a unified basis for belief and faith.
Jesus warned of the dangers of attributing the work of the Spirit to Satan. This is what our church did. We taught that the early church was deceived and left the faith. This is a denial of the Spirit and his work and I shudder to think that we disrespected him by professing this. May God forgive us! The real truth is that as the Spirit led the early church into a new and deeper understanding of the nature of God that had been revealed to them by Jesus Christ, they included this in the creeds and in their worship. Rejected by the Sabbath-keeping Jews, they began to center their life around Jesus Christ, with the Christian calendar focused on his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension. This was not a twisted deception, but a leading of the Holy Spirit and a handing down faithfully of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles. It was Spirit-led and Spirit-filled.
Moses and the Prophets spoke of these days, when the knowledge of God would fill the earth like waters cover the seas, when the worship of God would be found in all nations. Moses and the Prophets pointed us to the One who would come and transform the world by transforming human hearts. When God goes to work in someone’s life and heart through the Spirit and Christ becomes the foundation of their faith, they become a new person. There is a joy and light in their eyes that comes from them knowing to their core that they are loved and cherished by God. I pray that that light will never be extinguished by the lie that somehow being loved and forgiven, being in Christ, is not enough—that they have to add something to this, that they have to add all the things Christ did in their place. May God grant us all the grace to truly trust in Christ and to trust in him alone!
Holy Father, it breaks my heart that so many cannot see the wonder of what you have done for all of us in Jesus Christ. It makes me sad that we are so easily deceived by words, words that twist and corrupt the simple message of the gospel, of faith in Christ. Holy Spirit, forgive us for grieving you, for attributing your gracious work for humankind to the devil. I’m so sorry! Lord Jesus, please come in your Spirit and transform hearts. Forgive and bring healing, liberation, hope, regeneration, God, please. Jesus, in your name, for your sake, I pray. Amen.
“But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’ ” Luke 16:31 (NASB)
Balancing the Books
by Linda Rex
I remember back to my early twenties when I went to a bookkeeping class and learned how to keep track of the debits and credits in an accounting system. As part of the final exam for the class I had to balance the books for a pretend business and complete all the year-end financial statements.
This was a challenge for me. I will have to say that this type of accounting is something I can do, but not something I am good at. It was a struggle to get every debit and credit to balance, but I finally got it to balance, after hours and hours of work. At some point I had inverted two numbers and it took me a long time to find my mistake—time I didn’t have, due to the deadline set before me.
I have come to have a deep respect for those number-jugglers among us who are able to handle debits and credits with finesse and ease, getting them to do their bidding by balancing the books at the end of the month and the end of the year. How they do this without altering or cooking the books is amazing, and as I said, it is a profession worthy of respect.
Jesus told a story about a man who wasn’t quite so up front in how he handled his boss’s books. In fact, this manager had to give an accounting to his boss for his mismanagement of his master’s accounts. His mishandling of the funds meant he was facing the loss of his job. So he did something totally off the wall—he went to each person who owed his boss money and cancelled part of their debt. His motive? To ensure he had friends somewhere when all was said and done. And, amazingly enough, his boss commended him for his shrewdness.
What was so shrewd about what the manager did? What was shrewd was the manager used the one method by which reconciliation can be done honestly, apart from the debits and credits side of the ledger. The only other way in which reconciliation of the books can be done if the debits and credits don’t align, is through the forgiving of the debt. Grace is the only way in which a debt can be removed from the books when it is not paid in full.
Jesus pointed out to his disciples that the true wealth, that of forgiveness or grace, always supersedes the bookkeeping of lawkeepers. If one is focused on the keeping of the law, since it must be kept perfectly, a person always ends up in debt, with no way to ensure payment in full.
When trust is put instead in the goodness and compassion of the One who is the Law, Who kept the law faithfully and fully for us, in our place, we live without debt, for the debt is always and ever, paid in full. With our debt paid in full, we live gratefully and joyfully from a heart filled with God’s love and Christ’s obedience to the Father by the Spirit. We live debt-free. And this is true wealth indeed.
Thank you, dear Father, for paying all debts in full in your Son Jesus, so we might live freely before you, unhindered and unburdened. We offer ourselves fully to you in gratitude and thankfulness that in Christ by the Spirit, we may live a debt-free life that glorifies and serves you, for your glory and praise, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
“‘And he called him and said to him, “What is this I hear about you? Give an accounting of your management, for you can no longer be manager.”’” Luke 16:2 (NASB)
The Angry Response
by Linda Rex
One of the conversations I used to have with my children was about anger. It seems that we tend to look at anger in one of two extremes—either it’s a really bad thing and we should never get angry or it is a good thing and we should be free to express anger in whatever way we wish. So I would tell my children that anger is a healthy, human response to being violated in some way—it is an inbuilt self-protection system.
The problem comes in how we use our anger. What is our response to those violations of our personal space, personal value, property and belongings? We can respond in such a way that we cause harm, are hurtful to ourselves and others, or we can use our anger to make things better—to improve the situation and restore broken relationships and circumstances. Our motivation, when it is love, will move us to seek to improve or heal the situation rather than cause harm or exacerbate the situation. But ultimately it is up to us to make this choice to respond out of a heart of love.
The story Mark relates in his gospel (Mark 3:1-6) illustrates this. Jesus called a man with a withered hand up in the midst of the synagogue. Jesus did not sense any compassion for this man in the hearts of the Pharisees who were there—they were more concerned with watching Jesus and finding some reason to accuse him of wrongdoing than with helping this man get well.
But Jesus had already perceived what was going on in these men’s hearts. They were plotting to kill Jesus while at the same time they were defending the laws they had instituted with regards to the Sabbath. This “hardness of heart” grieved Jesus and angered him. So his response was to heal the man whose suffering was being ignored and superseded by a spirit of murder.
When Jesus healed the man and his hand was restored to normal, the men in the synagogue did not joyfully praise God and congratulate the healed man on his wonderful transformation. Instead, they accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. And then they went out and began to seriously plot Jesus’ death.
Here we see two responses to anger that arise out of two hearts—one of love and one of hate. Jesus’ heart was full of love for both the man with the withered hand and the men who refused to acknowledge him as Messiah. He did the most loving thing he could do in the situation and that was to heal the man who was suffering while at the same time showing the other men their hearts and inviting them to change their minds and hearts toward him.
The men whose hearts were filled with hate responded by plotting Jesus’ death. Their anger had its source in something other than love and when it was acted out, it did not bring healing, health and wholeness, but in the end led to the crucifixion of our Lord. Thankfully, anything we do is never beyond God’s ability to turn it to fulfill his purposes, and this was not the end of the story for Jesus.
From this story we can see that how we respond when anger comes depends largely on what is going on in our hearts. Are we filled with the Spirit of love or are we consumed with our own spirit with its hate, resentment, jealousy, and selfishness? When we turn away from those human emotions and attitudes that tend to fill our hearts and seek God’s heart of love, asking him to renew and refresh us daily in his Spirit, we will find that our responses to the things that anger us will begin to change.
As we put distance between those events that anger us and our response, inviting Jesus by the Spirit to fill that space, we will begin to respond in ways that are more loving, thoughtful and helpful. It is a process and something we grow in, but in time we will find that anger will become something that is a blessing, not something that masters us or that we need to be afraid of. It will begin to be what it was meant to be in our lives.
Lord, thank you for the gift of anger—that anger that was meant by you to be used in healthy ways to make our world healthier and happier. We give our anger and our hearts to you to transform. Make them how you mean them to be so that we will glorify you in all we think, say and do. For your name’s sake. Amen.
“And He said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?’ But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” Mark 3:3-4
When Light Dawned
by Linda Rex
I wandered through my yard in the early morning blackness. I was alone with the crickets, hearing them creak and an occasional car pass on the highway nearby. There were a few streetlights that pierced the darkness, but across the farm fields nearby, there was only blackness.
I sat down in my iron lawn chair, quietly awaiting the dawn. This was a favorite part of my day, watching as a pale light began to glow in the sky. I loved when the crickets would suddenly go silent and there would only be one sound—that of a single bird’s carol welcoming the morning. One by one other birds would join in the chorus as the sun burst into view through the trees. It was a magical time—one I savored.
It is a comfort to me that God created and placed me in a world where morning always follows night. There is always light to welcome us on the other side of darkness. God has ensured that there is no darkness deep enough that he will not come and bring his Light there. He came into our darkness and brought his eternal Light to us in Jesus Christ and he has promised to never leave us or forsake us.
How sad that too often we would prefer the darkness to the Light! And how unfortunate that after all he has done to bring us into the Light and to welcome us into oneness with himself, we would reject this gift! Why wander about in loneliness and lostness when we could have his presence, his comfort and his peace? Why struggle with the will to live when the One who gives life wants to enable you to live it to the full?
When we wrestle with the darkness and feel it overwhelming us, there is one assurance we can have. We need only cry out and God will come near. And if we are in that darkness and we have cried out to him again and again and have not heard from him—that is the time to hold fast to the promise that morning always follows night. In the “dark night of the soul” it is the time to hope when all hope is gone, to believe when no reason to believe is left—to hold to the promise when it seems all expectation of its being answered is gone. This is when we choose to love and trust God even when we feel he has given us no reason to do so.
The truth is, as it says in Psalm 139:12, darkness is as light to God. God has met us in the midst of our darkness in Jesus Christ and has reconciled it with himself. Darkness and evil only exist in opposition to God and his Light—they are always subject to God’s will. No darkness is ever dark enough to prevent him from bringing us back to himself. For Jesus Christ is the Victor and in him the Light has come. Come welcome the dawn with me—share in his glorious light with me forever!
Lord, come to our darkness and let your Light shine on us once again. Give us strength to hold on through this dark night till the morning comes. Let your glory, love, and mercy dawn on us anew. Thank you for making it possible for us to live this brand new day with you. In your name, Father, Savior, and Comforting Spirit. Amen.
“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.” John 3:19 (NASB)
Our Life in the Trinity 