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The Great Renewal
By Linda Rex
GOOD FRIDAY—Submission. Surrender. Relinquishment. Obedience. Many people in America today do not see these as qualities to embrace. What is valued is independence, freedom, and self-reliance—all stand in opposition to what really matters to God. The reality is that our way of looking at all of these things needs to be renewed so that it is driven by the spiritual realities rather than our fleshly passions and desires.
For example, freedom is a treasure we hold dearly to. Yet true freedom is much different than the freedom most people seek. There is a profound difference between the freedom to do whatever we want, however we want, whenever we want, no matter the cost to another, and the freedom to be that person we were created to be by God—to love him wholeheartedly and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The first kind of freedom is a movement inward, toward the self; the other freedom flows ever outward and upward—moving in unity with the divine dance of love, endlessly drawing its life from God and pouring it out freely and abundantly toward God and others.
This dissonance between the two types of freedom has its roots in our human proclivity to seek our own way—to be self-reliant and to establish our own “rules for living.” Even when we call ourselves Christians, we tend to find things we can pull out of the Bible as laws by which, we say if we just live, then God has to bless us, love us, or do things for us. Underlying such a view of “obedience” is really just another method of independent thought or self-reliance.
What Isaiah wrote is so true: “All of us like sheep have gone astray, / Each of us has turned to his own way” (Isa. 53:6a NASB). We may not want to admit it, but we like doing things our own way. Even when we believe and trust in Christ, we find we still have within us a stubborn resistance to God and his way of being. We prefer to do things on our own, to seek our own salvation, so to speak. When we can set things in stone—do this, don’t do that, wear this, don’t wear that—we think that somehow we can control the outcome, not realizing even so, we are trying to control God. We have missed the mark.
When God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, he turned our human values on their head. He didn’t value independence or self-reliance—no, he came as an infant in his humanity, fully dependent upon a young woman to care for his every need. In his ministry and life, he lived fully dependent upon his heavenly Father. He drew strength and wisdom from God in the Spirit, and spent many hours in prayer, drawing what he needed from his Abba.
Jesus lived free from human expectations and requirements and yet submitted himself to human government as necessary. He taught his disciples to pay taxes and not to resist when his life was at stake. He knew the evil inclinations of the human heart, so he did not place his trust in humans, but placed his trust fully in his Father. He lived in an outflowing way, drawing his strength from his Abba and pouring into the lives of others as they came to him for instruction, healing, and deliverance.
In his life here on earth as God in human flesh, Jesus showed us he valued the qualities of submission, surrender, relinquishment, and obedience over those of independence, self-reliance and self-directed freedom. Every moment of his life was a battle to resist the pull of his humanity into the false values of his flesh and to hold fast to the true values of his Abba.
Submission, for Jesus, was his way of being in relationship with his heavenly Father. He also lived in submission to those around him, allowing them so often to direct his daily life. When he went to a private place to pray and draw strength from his Father, the crowds followed and demanded his attention. His compassionate response was a submission and surrender not only to his heavenly Father’s will, but also to the needs and desires of those coming to him for help.
Jesus said that he only did what he saw his Father doing. He obeyed his Abba’s will in everything, not because he had to, but because he chose to. His walk to the cross on your behalf and mine was not because he didn’t have any choice but to obey. It was because he voluntarily chose to obey his Father. His heart was a heart of obedience.
The scene of agony and passion in the garden of Gethsemane is a real demonstration of the battle waged within Christ’s own being. The evil one whispers to each of us that there is a better, easier way which doesn’t involve submission, surrender, or obedience. Hang on, he says—you don’t need to relinquish anything. Yet he lies—he seeks only our death and destruction, not our salvation.
To be saved from our misdirected ways of being and from our reliance upon ourselves and our resistance to God required divine intervention. God’s love for each of us from before time began was so great, the Son of God was willing to take on our human flesh, live in full surrender and submission to his Father and in a surrender and submission to humanity that would result in his torture, crucifixion, and death.
Knowing what would happen to him, he walked forward to those led by Judas Iscariot and surrendered himself into their hands. He relinquished his rights as the Son of God, allowing himself to be falsely accused, beaten, humiliated and shamed. As Jesus hung on the cross, he had the power and authority of heaven at his disposal—he could have called legions of angels to his aid. But he chose to submit himself to the evil plans of human beings and to this ignominious death for your sake and mine.
Jesus knew what we as humans can only barely begin to understand. It is in dying that we live. It is in humility that we are exalted. It is in submission that we find our true ennobling. It is in relinquishing all we have that we receive what really matters and will last for all eternity. It is in obedience to Jesus and the Father in the Spirit that we find true freedom.
The kingdom of God is a great reversal of all our distorted fleshly values which Jesus brought about in his life, death, resurrection and ascension. This is why we are called to fix “our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 13:2 NASB). To value surrender, relinquishment, obedience, and submission is to value what really matters and what will last on into eternity.
Abba, Jesus, Spirit, thank you for all you did for us on the cross—for enduring the agony and choosing to submit yourself to the temporary will of man so that your eternal will was accomplished in Christ. Remove our resistance, our stubborn insistence on going our own way. Fill us anew with your heart of surrender, submission, relinquishment and obedience. Thank you, Jesus, that by your Spirit, you will make this so. Amen.
“All of us like sheep have gone astray, / Each of us has turned to his own way; / But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all / To fall on Him.” Isaiah 53:6 NASB
“So Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?’ ” John 18:11 NASB
Learning to Trust
By Linda Rex
MAUNDY THURSDAY—A few years ago I was wrestling with a command God had given me that I wanted to obey but found so very often I couldn’t. The simple command from God to me was, “Trust me.”
Often I would hear this command in my inner spirit and I would ask, “How? How are you wanting me to trust you—to do this or to not do this? What does it mean to trust you?” Trusting God probably is a very simple thing but for me, personally, it seemed to be very complicated. Just what does it mean to trust God?
In many situations we are faced with the choice of relying upon ourselves and our good judgment and wisdom, or relying upon God, his wisdom and guidance. Pausing in the midst of our everyday lives to seek the heart and wisdom of God can be counter-intuitive and may seem to be a waste of God’s time and energy—shouldn’t we be able to handle this on our own?
It wasn’t until I began to hear the still, small voice of the Spirit telling me to trust that I became aware of how often I don’t trust God. Trusting God means I will do the uncomfortable thing rather than the easy thing when it’s what he wants done. It means I will love and serve and share when I absolutely don’t in my flesh want to love, serve, and share. It means I will look for the ways God is in the midst of a circumstance rather than seeing and experiencing only the discomfort, pain, or loss.
To trust is to believe in the good and loving heart of the one we are placing our trust in. It is believing that in spite of how things appear at the moment, that person has our best interests in mind and means well, and does not mean us harm in any way. Trust relies on the goodness, integrity, and compassion of the one we are trusting in.
As part of my current work of reconciliation and restoration, I have been studying the ways in which I as a woman need to grow in having a healthy relationship with a spouse. One of the hardest things to do as a woman is often this very thing—to trust the man I love. I want to trust him, but sometimes it is hard. When I lose faith that he means well, that he has my best interests at heart, I can really struggle with being able to trust him.
Yet trust is what he needs most from me. Sometimes we don’t see obvious reasons to trust. My words, my actions, and even my thoughts can deny this trust and express to this man that I don’t trust him. And not to trust can hurt and wound him. Here relationships can get really hard—trusting when we don’t feel like trusting means drawing upon a source beyond ourselves for the ability to trust.
I find myself praying, “I may not feel I can trust him at this moment, but God, I know I can trust you.” What or who we put our trust in is essential to our mental, emotional, as well as physical health. A breath prayer I have learned to pray is, “Trustworthy Father, I trust you.”
The Lord calls us to put our trust in him and in him alone. It is not the other person necessarily that we put our trust in solely, but rather, we put our trust in the One who lives in them. Our trust is in the indwelling Christ by the Holy Spirit—for he is fundamentally and wholly trustworthy. We can trust Abba and Jesus living in that person by the Spirit—we know he is at work and will not stop until he is done transforming their hearts by faith.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus knelt to wash his disciples’ feet. In humility he offered an act of service, knowing that in a few hours they would abandon him and leave him to suffer agonizing death on a cross. Jesus did not trust in his human relationship with them, but in what his Father was accomplishing in their midst by his Holy Spirit. Jesus knew that in order for them to fully trust his Father, he would need to walk this path through death to resurrection.
But Jesus still called them to faith. As he sat with them that night, he blessed and shared with them the bread and the wine. The bread, he said, was his body which would be broken for them—they were to eat it. The cup of wine he handed to them and had them drink from represented his blood which would be shed for them. In eating the bread and drinking the wine on a regular basis, they would be sharing in his death and resurrection. They would be participating in the renewal of all things which he was working to accomplish.
This communal meal means that Jesus has committed himself to us in a real way. As the bride of Christ, we eat and drink the bread and wine as an ongoing remembrance of Christ’s commitment to us and his promise to us to return and consummate our relationship with him. Sharing in the communion meal is a way in which we find renewal in our relationship with God and one another, and encourages us to continue to trust in God’s love and grace.
The one thing Israel was to do was to trust their Redeemer, but they refused to believe he loved them and wanted what was best for them. Because of their lack of trust, they broke their covenant relationship with their God over and over. Jesus, in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, removed all barriers to our trusting God. Jesus proved once and for all that God loves us, and sent his Son to save us, not to condemn us (John 3:16-17). We have every reason to trust in the love and grace of God because of who Jesus is and what he has done.
In pouring out his Spirit, God has enabled us to participate in Jesus’ perfect trust and reliance upon his Father. Jesus entrusted himself fully to his Abba as he hung on the cross, knowing death was certain and that evil would seemingly triumph for a time as he lay in the tomb. But Jesus knew his Abba well—the eternal bond between him and his heavenly Father could never be broken, no matter what attempts Satan might make to destroy it. Jesus trusted in the faithfulness and goodness of Abba, surrendering his Spirit into Abba’s care even at his last breath.
It is Christ’s complete trust in the faithfulness and goodness of Abba we share in by the Spirit. We can trust God, and in trusting God, learn to trust the indwelling Christ, the Spirit, in those we love. Trust becomes our language, our way of being, as we live and walk in the Spirit, not in our broken humanity. Christ, the One who fully trusts his Abba, lives in you and me, and is fully trustworthy—and he enables us to live in loving, trusting relationships with one another.
Dear Abba, thank you for being trustworthy and faithful. Thank you, Jesus, for including us in your trusting relationship with your Father. Spirit, grow in us a heart of trust and reliance upon our Abba, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” John 13:1 NASB
Embracing Conflict
By Linda Rex
PALM/PASSION SUNDAY—I remember years ago sitting in a church service listening to a pastor talk about conflict and how as couples, it was important to have good communication skills and be able to handling conflict in positive ways. I had learned over the years that the best way to deal with conflict was to avoid it altogether. Now, granted, approaching conflict through avoidance does seem temporarily to create a more peaceful atmosphere in the home. The reality is, though, this method of dealing with conflict exacts a pretty steep price in the end.
When we don’t engage issues as they come up between us and the significant people in our lives, we really don’t create peace. What we create is a mound of unresolved issues that may erupt later as a destructive volcano when stressful events occur in our lives. Avoidance can actually prevent the true resolution of conflict. Handling conflict in healthy ways may in fact increase intimacy and bring healing to the relationship—we may miss out on opportunities to deepen our relationship with another by avoiding conflict.
Yes, we are told “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Rom. 12:18 NASB). In the context of this passage, though, we are told not to give back to others the evil they have done to us and we are not to exact revenge on them for the harm they have done us. The point Paul was making, I believe, was that we respond to their evil with good—this is the best way to treat someone who is mistreating you.
This is nigh to impossible for us as humans to do in our own strength. It is definitely counter-intuitive and rubs against the grain of our fallen humanity. If we are honest with ourselves, our response to conflict with another person is make sure our position is defended, our opinion protected and affirmed, and that the other person understands and accepts that we are right and they are very wrong. The way we often do conflict when driven by our flesh involves opposition, condemnation or criticism, and unforgiveness. And when we feel unable to defend our position, we may choose to avoid engaging altogether.
During Lent, we are walking the journey with Jesus toward death and resurrection. What might be helpful is to remember that this journey began long before this cosmos was ever created. The Word of God could have said to Abba, “I really don’t want to have to deal with these humans. I know what they are like. They’re not going to live in relationship with us like they were created to—all they will want to do is go their own way and live in opposition to us. We’ll have conflict all the time.” And he would have been right.
But the Word of God did not avoid conflict by not coming to be with us. Rather he expressed a divine humility in embracing our humanity and taking it upon himself. He did not reject our weaknesses or failures to love, but engaged them fully, face-to-face with us in our human flesh. For him, this conflict would serve a purpose—to restore us to the relationship with God we were created for and to remake our humanity into what it was created to be, enabling us to truly reflect the image of God.
This Sunday we are reminded both of the events of Palm Sunday and those of Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, we see Jesus intentionally walking towards Jerusalem and the events which would transpire there. In the gospel accounts, we hear Jesus warning his disciples of what he was facing—his death and resurrection. Even though all his disciples didn’t fully realize what he was saying, they believed what Jesus was doing as he entered Jerusalem that day was significant enough that they participated in the celebration of hosannas and laying down palm branches.
Symbolically, we see Jesus being treated as a triumphant deliverer. The Jewish leaders wanted the hosannas silenced. But Jesus acknowledged this was his day—this was his time. Creation knew its Maker and would honor him even if these people did not.
Jesus wasn’t interested in being acknowledged as a hero, though. He knew the path he walked was a path of conflict and betrayal. Even the one who promised he would never walk away or deny him did. And the one he knew would betray him did so, offering him up to the Jews for a few coins. Jesus did not try to defend himself, but allowed himself to be misunderstood, misrepresented and humiliated. How many of us are willing to engage in a conflict with this measure of self-effacing humility?
The journey of Holy Week takes us from triumph to ignominy. In engaging humanity on its own ground, Jesus experienced crucifixion and death. He was willing to go to these lengths in order for him and his Father in the Spirit to be reconciled with humanity once and for all. What price are we willing to pay in order to make things right in our relationships with others?
Needless to say, it has been impressed on my heart once again that there is no place for avoidance in our significant relationships. Walking in the Spirit rather than in the flesh means walking in the reality of Jesus’ complete offering of himself in spite of what he knew we would do to him on the cross.
It also means that there will be times when on our side, there is no conflict—we are fully accepting, forgiving, and loving toward the other. These can be times where all the other wants to do is live in opposition to us, pouring out on us whatever venom or destruction they can muster up. This is when we don’t avoid the conflict, but rather respond as Jesus did, in offering love and grace—God’s goodness—in place of the evil being offered us. We don’t act in our flesh and take revenge, but walk in the Spirit and with healthy boundaries in place we offer God’s grace and love. The ground of Jesus’ death and resurrection is where we take our stand, and in Christ by the Spirit we find the power and heart to love and serve the one who opposes us.
Conflict then becomes not a ground for hostility or relational destruction, but a sacred offering of openness to the power of the Spirit to deepen and heal the relationship. We don’t need to fear conflict, for in Christ it becomes a way in which Jesus’ can work to bind us together with God and with one another in deeper and healthier ways. The beauty of Jesus’ wilderness journey is that it ends up in an eternal loving relationship of God and humanity bound together forever, not at conflict with one another but in perfect unity. The humility of the cross ends in glory!
Dear Jesus, thank you that you did not refuse to engage us in face-to-face conflict but chose to embrace conflict as a means by which we would be forever united with you and Abba in the Spirit. Thank you, Abba, for participating with Jesus in this mighty work of redemption and renewal. And thank you, Holy Spirit, for working into our being and our relationships that grace and love which Jesus lived out in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Amen.
“Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:8 NASB
“I gave My back to those who strike Me, / And My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; / I did not cover My face from humiliation and spitting. For the Lord GOD helps Me, / Therefore, I am not disgraced; / Therefore, I have set My face like flint, / And I know that I will not be ashamed. He who vindicates Me is near; / Who will contend with Me? / Let us stand up to each other; / Who has a case against Me? / Let him draw near to Me. Behold, the Lord GOD helps Me; / Who is he who condemns Me? / Behold, they will all wear out like a garment; / The moth will eat them.” Isaiah 50:6-9 NASB
Rivers in the Desert
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—As we continue our Lenten journey, it is possible that the Spirit may be bringing to our attention areas of our lives which need transformation or healing. We may be recognizing our failures to love or our self-centered ways of being and living. We may experience grief and pain in knowing we fall short of what God meant for us to be, or we may be overcome with feelings of guilt, shame, or remorse.
The path we walk this time of year is the path Jesus walked as he headed towards death and resurrection. Jesus purposefully walked this path, knowing full well the suffering and betrayal he would experience in Jerusalem. This did not deter him from his goal. He had something he needed to accomplish and not even the gates of hell would prevent him from fulfilling the promises of his heavenly Father.
Jesus knew the heart of man and the reality that we were broken and desperately in need of being saved. His love for you and me and every other human being who has ever lived or will one day walk this earth was so great, he determined that whatever was necessary would be done so we would be with him forever. Nothing would stand in his way. He would finish what he began.
The wilderness journey we take with Jesus is an opportunity to embrace the reality that apart from him we are powerless over evil, sin, and death. When we look into the true mirror of our humanity, Jesus Christ, we find ourselves on the one hand as sorry, pathetic prodigals, and on the other as beloved, forgiven, and accepted children of God. That which was is gone and that which Jesus made us to be is here—this is what we learn during Holy Week.
Jesus walked the path of our human existence in order to create for us a new way of being and a new life in himself in which we would be included in his union and communion with his heavenly Father in the Spirit. Jesus Christ lived a sinless life in his humanity as the God/man and on our behalf was willing to experience death by crucifixion at the hands of some of the very people he was working to save. The betrayal of those he loved and the evil which laid him in the tomb did not keep him from achieving his objective. Rather, Jesus’ death on the cross set the stage for the redemption of all humanity. This is the glory of the crucifixion.
When we face our brokenness and our failures to love, we need to, in that moment, turn to the one who stood and stands in our place on our behalf. We are not lost—we are found. We are not rejected and forsaken—no, we are embraced and welcomed home. We turn to Jesus Christ, in his broken body and shed blood, and receive the gift of forgiveness and acceptance the Father, Son, and Spirit determined to give before the creation of the cosmos and accomplished on the cross.
Christ’s death for our death. Christ’s life for our life. His perfect relationship with his Abba given freely to us in place of our broken turning away from God. The apostle Paul says, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21 NASB). Jesus became what we are so that we might now and forever share in his glory as God’s beloved adopted children.
In Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension our humanity is made new and our relationship with our heavenly Father is brought back into what God always meant it to be and even more. In rising from the grave in his glorified humanity, Jesus brought us all home to the Father—we find that our new life, what God means for us to have and be, is present even now, “hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:3-4 NASB).
We can feel overwhelmed by shame, guilt, or just a recognition of our failures to love. It is good to realize our powerlessness to live as we ought to live. To be truly human as God intended, we need to recognize and admit to our need for him. We are created to be fully dependent upon God and we need to walk in the truth of this. Admitting our powerlessness and our need for Someone beyond ourselves to heal us and to make us what we ought to be is an important step toward transformation and renewal.
Jesus Christ walked the path we were meant to walk. And he sent the Spirit so we could participate even now in his perfect relationship with his Abba and in our perfected humanity held within his person at God’s right hand. We walk by faith, not by sight. It’s hard right now to see the glory of our true humanity because what is evident at the moment is our brokenness and weakness and the ways we fall short of our perfection.
We must look beyond our sins and failures to the truth—we are accepted, forgiven, and beloved. God is still at work. Jesus is still making all things new. The Spirit is still at work taking all Jesus did for us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension and making it ours as we respond to him in faith.
The Spirit speaks to our hearts and reminds us we are God’s children, we are forgiven, we are included in God’s life and love. The Spirit is our seal or evidence of the truth of what God has done and is doing in us. We can trust that what God has begun in us he will complete. God has poured his River into the desert of our souls, and through Jesus and by his Spirit he is doing something new.
Pausing to be silent in God’s presence and to meditate on his goodness enables us to become aware of what God is doing, and how he is at work within us and in our lives. Attending to the things of the Spirit enables us to drink in God’s presence and power, and prepares us for greater opportunities of love and service. God has in Jesus given us a path to walk and by his Spirit the resources we need to walk in it. Let us turn to him in faith and in gratitude for all he has given.
Dear Abba, thank you for all you have done and are doing to redeem us, to save us from evil, sin, and death. Thank you, Jesus, for coming and living in our humanity, dying death at our hands, and rising again, including us in your perfect relationship with Abba. Thank you, God, for sending us your precious Spirit—may we always make the divine River at home in our hearts and may be with you both now and forever, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Do not call to mind the former things, / Or ponder things of the past. / Behold, I will do something new, / Now it will spring forth; / Will you not be aware of it? / I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, / Rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19 NASB
Seeking Earnestly for God
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—As I walked through the grocery store the other day, I was struck by the amount of choices placed before me of things to drink. Moving through a large open section filled with a wide variety of bottles of wine, I came to an aisle filled with beers, ales, and other cold alcoholic drinks. Beyond that was an even larger aisle filled with flavored and unflavored bottled water. And after that was an aisle filled with cans and bottles of all different kinds of soda pop.
The irony I felt was that God has given us fresh water to drink, but if I were to go anywhere in this country, hold a cup under a flowing fountain of running water, I probably would not be able to drink it. I would have to boil it first, maybe even filter it before I could safely drink it. The risk of illness would limit my ability to enjoy what God originally provided for my health and refreshment.
We live in a “dry and weary land where there is no water” not because there is no clean natural running water, but because we are parched for the living water of God’s real presence and power. Even within our churches today we find ourselves longing for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit’s renewal, yearning to see God at work in our lives, our families, and in our world. We live in a world where the Spirit’s presence is easily ignored and where our appetite for the things of God may be conveniently filled with anything our human flesh might crave.
God has given us so many things in this world to enjoy. They are meant to give us pleasure and to brighten our existence, and to show us the love and grace of our Creator and Redeemer. Yet they can so easily become the focus of our attention instead of turning us to the One who has given them to us for our joy and renewal. Rather than being a blessing to us they can enslave us or distract us from our unity with God through Jesus in the Spirit.
During Lent we may set aside some item, food, or habit in a worshipful offering to God as a means of fasting. This spiritual discipline is not meant to change God’s mind about us, but rather to open us up to the work of the Spirit in a new way. Setting something aside for a time reminds us of our dependency upon God and all he has done for us in giving his Son and his Spirit. We are reminded that our real sustenance is not in ourselves but in Jesus Christ—he is our life, and his lovingkindness is better than life (Ps. 63:3).
It is so easy for us to replace a deep abiding relationship with God with an abundance of cheap substitutes. We wander about from day to day constantly bombarded with temptations and distractions. It is so easy to find ourselves drinking from the well of our flesh rather than the free-flowing crystal waters of the Spirit. Our pause during Lent to attend to the things of the Spirit draws us away from this and turns us back toward our Savior and Lord.
When we feel we are far from Christ, God does not want us to wallow in guilt and shame. This is not his purpose. What he wants us to see is that even though we may believe we are totally lost, Jesus has already come to us, found us and brought us home to the Father. In reality, if we were to turn around and start moving in God’s direction, we would find Abba already running down the road to meet us, longing to embrace us and welcome us home.
God’s thoughts are so far above ours when it comes to the things of love and grace. God doesn’t hold anything against us, but freely and generously forgives us, even before we ever get around to saying we’re sorry. Admitting our guilt and saying we’re sorry merely affirms the reality that God needed to forgive us and so he did. God’s purpose is not to get us to feel bad and to try to do better—it is to bring us back into right relationship with himself so once again we can live in in joyful fellowship and unity with God and one another.
During Lent, our fasting can be a means by which we can attend to our thirst or need for God. A lot of times we don’t realize what’s really going inside of us because we are so distracted by our human, secular existence. Because we are so busy or caught up with the details of everyday life, we may not even realize we have turned away from our Abba and started down the road to destruction.
Our life at work, and in our family, school, and community are full of great relationships and experiences. There are challenges which stretch us and grow us into stronger, healthier people. There are circumstances and relationships which crush us and break us, causing us to wonder how we will ever be able to move on. Our human, secular existence isn’t evil in and of itself. But there is often evil at work in the things of this world and our human flesh has a proclivity apart from God’s work in us to succumb to the pulls of sinful thoughts and desires.
The only way we rise above the downward pull of our broken humanity is to drink in deeply of the free-flowing Spirit. We allow the recognition of our need for God to turn us toward him, not away from him in guilt and shame. Acknowledging our thirst, even hunger for God is an initial step toward healing and renewal. Seeking God in earnest means crying out for his redemptive power and presence, the living Christ, to finish what he has begun in us by the Holy Spirit.
Seeing how far we have fallen is not meant to create in us a determination to try harder. Yes, we want to leave behind old, broken ways of being and doing. But this realization of our need to change is in reality a thirst for the things of God which can only be filled by drinking in of the Spirit of love and grace given to us through Jesus. It is the Spirit who transforms our hearts by faith. He is the One who empowers us to live and walk in truth by the faith of the Son of God.
The spiritual disciplines we practice open us wide to the Spirit, allowing him to penetrate new parts of our being and relationships with his presence and power. Spiritual disciplines have been practiced by Christians for millennia and include such things as prayer, meditation, study of God’s word, celebration, praise and worship, service, truth-telling, humility, simplicity, contemplation, and fasting.
By creating spaces in our everyday lives to open ourselves up to the Spirit and grow in our relationship with Jesus through the practice of spiritual disciplines, we are able to drink in deeply of the living waters of God’s love and grace. We will find ourselves empowered to live in ways which are more compassionate, loving, and in tune with the heavenly realities. We will experience a nearness with Jesus and Abba by the Spirit which will be life-transforming. This drinking in of the life-giving Spirit will quench our thirsty souls in a way nothing else can.
Dear God, you are so gracious and kind! Turn our hearts once again back to you, Lord. Enable us to see our true hunger and thirst are for you and your ways. Thank you, Abba, that you did not leave us in our broken and thirsty flesh, but you sent Jesus heal us, to bring us home to you, and you gave us your Spirit to refresh and renew us. Cause our beings to resonate with your being, Lord. We are so grateful you do not leave us as we are but ever work to make us new through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Seek the LORD while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near. / Let the wicked forsake his way / And the unrighteous man his thoughts; / And let him return to the LORD, / And He will have compassion on him, / And to our God, / For He will abundantly pardon. / For My thoughts are not your thoughts, / Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. / For as the heavens are higher than the earth, / So are My ways higher than your ways / And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:6-8 NASB
“O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; / My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1 NASB
At Home With Jesus
By Linda Rex
I was reflecting back with a friend of mine to the time when my kids were teens and preteens. Those years of parenting can be very challenging. Growing up in this society is not simple—it is very difficult and can even be very dangerous. Youth are surrounded with the means to derail their lives and to make catastrophic decisions which could destroy any possibility of attaining their full potential in this life.
Young people today grow up watching, reading, and hearing many things which tell them they can be anything they want to be if they just work at it and try hard enough. The reality they experience as they get older often is, they can’t. There is a great chasm between possibilities and abilities caused by the way we function as adults in this culture. We grow up believing that if we get a college degree our future is secure, but then find ourselves with a wagonload of debt, and no one will hire us. The disillusionment and disappointment which comes with this creates depression and discouragement.
I’m grateful for the privileges and opportunities I was given as a young person. Even though I worked my way through college, I could not have done so if the college hadn’t provided a work program which made it possible. If I hadn’t had parents who supported me and helped me when I found myself in trouble, I would have had a very difficult road to travel on my own. I was very blessed—many others have not been so blessed.
The reality is, youth and young people are not meant to have to travel the road to maturity on their own under their own power. That may be what they prefer—we love our independence as teens and young adults. But the truth is, and I believe most understand this, youth and young adults need a safe place to come to when life falls apart—a place where they are accepted and beloved in spite of their shortcomings and failures and a place where they are called up to be the best that they can be in Christ.
Home can and should be this place. But what if there is no home for them to come to and find acceptance, comfort, and caring, to be challenged to grow and find renewal? I believe God meant the body of Christ to be this place—to be the home away from home for each and every person.
We don’t read much about Jesus’ life and experiences as he grew from childhood to adulthood. There is merely the story about his family visiting Jerusalem for a festival and Jesus staying behind to study at the temple.
Did Jesus ever disobey his parents? I don’t think he did. But in this particular instance, he did what they did not expect him to do. He was at the age of accountability—that stage in life where he was assuming responsibility for his own decisions. This is the tough stage for parents who want to tell their children what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. This where parents have to back off and let their children try it out on their own, to make mistakes as they grow.
And it can be hard to watch young people make decisions we would not agree with. Jesus’ parents had to listen to him tell them that he was responsible to God not to them—he needed to be in his Father’s house, rather than Joseph’s house. That had to hurt. But it was the truth. And it took courage and humility for Christ to confront his parents in this way.
But it is also interesting to note, that Jesus did not disrespect or disobey Mary and Joseph at all in doing this. And after this conversation, he went home to Nazareth with them, and subjected himself to their authority. He honored and obeyed his parents, even though he was his own person and knew he was the Son of the Father. Just as the Son of God is of the same essence as the Father yet submits himself to his heavenly Father, Jesus Son of Mary, submitted himself to his human parents while on this earth.
Within this family relationship Jesus grew “…wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” He went through the same process youth and young people go through today to grow up and develop into an adult. Even though the culture was much different than ours today, there were still challenges and distractions which could have kept Jesus from fulfilling his calling and purpose. But he weathered them all and gained the inner strength and capacity to face the challenges he faced.
The next time we see Jesus, we find him being baptized by John, and then being driven out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to face the most difficult challenge of his life—an encounter with evil himself. What had prepared Jesus for this? Who taught him that fasting and prayer would prepare him for this battle? Who taught him the Scriptures so he would have an arsenal for his warfare against Satan?
A lot of times we tend to have magical thinking about this—he was the Son of God, so of course he knew the Scriptures and prayed. But he was human—fully human. He wasn’t living out of his divinity, but out of his humanity as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus must have expended serious effort in his study of the Scriptures and in prayer and fasting long before this encounter. If he knew he had to be in his heavenly Father’s house, then he must have known that, like you and me, he needed to do the things which grew his relationship with his Abba while he was on earth. No doubt, he studied the Scriptures and memorized them like every other Jewish boy his age, and learned the prayers of his people and prayed them.
We don’t know much about Joseph, and only a little about Mary, but the evidence of Jesus’ life shows the results of their parenting. And indeed, perhaps even in spite of their parenting, Jesus became all he was meant to be as the Messiah of his people. Their home was a place for Jesus to grow “… in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and man.” We participate with God in Christ when we provide such a home for our children, and when we provide such a home away from home—the church—for youth and young people.
We can also participate with God in the well-being and development of our youth and young people by providing relationships with those God places in our lives. We share with them our journey with Jesus, modeling for them what it looks like to live in a deep, meaningful relationship with God in Christ by the Spirit, and how to deal with the difficult things of life, the disappointments, and even the successes of life. We demonstrate the grace of God at work in us in our authenticity and integrity of being as we grow up in Christ, as fail, as we succeed, and as we struggle.
We can become, or provide, a safe place for youth and young people as they go through life, enabling them to see something beyond what this culture throws at them in its media and merchandising. As we experience and live within the truth of God’s love and grace, we share it with them, and enable them to also experience and live in this truth. When youth and young people feel at home with us, they can also learn to feel at home with Jesus, and reap the benefits of such a relationship as they mature.
Thank you, Abba, for enabling us to see and learn what it is like to grow up in a family through your Son Jesus Christ. We thank you that by your Spirit you create true family, the body of Christ. Enable us as youth and young adults to grow up and reflect clearly your image as loving and gracious God, and enable us as adults to provide safe, caring, and challenging places for youth and young people to grow. Draw and bind us together, making a true home which will last forever, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.’ And He said to them, ‘Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?’ But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:48-52 NASB
Reason for Joy
By Linda Rex
JOY—Who is Jesus to you? At this time of year, we often focus on an infant, born in Bethlehem, who was placed in a manger. The Christmas story can seem like a sentimental fairy tale which really has no application to real life. How is does any of this apply to those of us who are struggling to find the strength to go through another day, to keep from drowning in sorrow and grief?
This sweet child in reality came into a world under Roman rule which was plagued by unrest and discontent. Jesus Christ was born in a Jewish culture which over the years had mixed with Greek Hellenism, and had substituted a historical religious faith with one based on political expediency, money and power, and faithfulness to a human standard and the seeking approval and applause of others.
The circumstances of this infant’s birth illustrate the difficulties which arise when a couple struggles to obey God’s call upon their lives while living in the midst of an often violent and officially pagan culture. It seems that often their obedience to God was intertwined with their necessary obedience to the government. Joseph found he had to go to Bethlehem, to the region of his forefathers, because of a Roman census. But in doing so, he fulfilled the prophetic word about the Messiah. The family was told they needed to flee the wrath of the king and go to Egypt, and it turns out this was prophetically exactly where they needed to be to fulfill Scripture.
We are often so immersed in our culture, our circumstances, and our experiences, that we can easily believe God is uninterested, uninvolved, and indifferent to our struggles and suffering. We feel as though we ourselves cannot change anything, or that we must bring about change.
In reality, God is the one who must bring about real, lasting change. We forget that whatever we do if it is not founded in God himself, has no enduring value. What this means is that all which God created from nothing was going to return to nothing apart from the entrance of God himself into creation to redeem, restore, and renew it.
God worked even from before the beginning of this cosmos to ensure that what he made would endure and fulfill the purposes for which it was created. This meant orchestrating different events, working with and through different people and patiently enduring their failures, stubborn willfulness, and disobedience. And then, when the time was exactly right, when all was prepared, when the world and the Jewish people were prepared to give birth to the Messiah, the Word took on our human flesh.
The human story is one filled with struggle, pain, suffering, and death. But it is also filled with joy—joy in the midst of sorrow, grief, and dark nights. There is great joy expressed in the Scriptures by those who experience God intervening in their difficult circumstances and saving them in impossible situations. It seems that in reality, our Lord is a victorious warrior who loves to rejoice over us as we experience his love and grace in the midst of our darkness, hopelessness, and despair.
On that dark night when Jesus was born, the shepherds saw and heard the angels share the wonder and joy of God over his Son’s birth. Our heavenly Father had waited and prepared for a long time for this special event—it was a wonderful, joyous occasion which he knew would change things forever. He knew that in giving his one unique Son, he would in time have many other adopted sons and daughters as his beloved children. And this would bring him even greater joy.
Advent is a great opportunity to reflect on our need to wait on God—to learn to wait as God waits. We wait, not apathetically, but intentionally, working to prepare the ground for the planting of the Word of God. John the Baptist came to prepare the Jewish people for the coming of the Messiah. He had a significant role, for he was to testify that this person who he baptized and who received the Holy Spirit in a special way was indeed the Messiah.
His words seem harsh to us—he was critical of the religious and civic leaders, and called people to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. But he never pointed to himself—he always pointed away—to the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Jesus would transform our humanity in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and would send the Spirit so that each and every person could participate in that true renewal and transformation he had forged for them.
Today we wait for the return of Christ, the second Advent, in the same way. We prepare our hearts and our lives by removing the weeds of sin, self, and Satan through repentance and allow the seed of God’s Word to penetrate into the core of our being. We receive the gift of God’s indwelling Christ, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and we walk in the Spirit day by day. We daily testify to the truth of who Jesus Christ is—our Savior and Messiah, the Redeemer, the One who baptizes with Holy Spirit and fire.
We testify to the reality that Jesus Christ, beyond his entrance into this world as a tiny infant, is our divine warrior who went into battle on our behalf. He left behind all the glories and privileges of divinity to join us in our humanity. And he fought in hand-to-hand combat against sin, evil, Satan, and even death. His weapons of warfare involved submission, humility, and simplicity, and the ultimate weapon—death and resurrection. And he won. He rose victorious, ascending to his Father, carrying all of humanity into his Abba’s presence.
What Advent and the birth of Jesus mean for us today is that in the midst of darkness, loss, sin, evil, and even death, we can have joy, real deep joy. This joy reaches beyond our human experiences into the true spiritual realities where we are held in Christ in the presence of Abba by the Spirit. There is hope, peace, joy, and love in the presence of Abba, and it is all ours—we are fully victorious in Jesus Christ. Nothing can ever come between us and the love of God in Christ. We, even on a dark and gloomy night, can gaze upon the face of the divine Son and rejoice, because he is a victorious warrior!
Thank you, Abba, for the precious gift of your Son. Thank you for not leaving us in our darkness, pain, and sorrow, but for lifting us up and giving us the victory over evil, sin, Satan, and death in Jesus. Holy Spirit, bring us close and enable us to see clearly the face of the Father in the face of his Son, so that we can fully participate in the divine love and life Jesus has created for us. Abba, fill our hearts overflowing with your joy, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“The LORD your God is in your midst,
A victorious warrior.
He will exult over you with joy,
He will be quiet in His love,
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” Zeph. 3:17 NASB
A video of this blog may be accessed here.
Walking in a New Way
By Linda Rex
PEACE—I awoke this morning to negative news. Apparently last night the law-abiding citizens of this city were put in danger by the exploits of those who defy the law as our law officers sought to bring them to justice. Then I read that some friends of the family lost a loved one—another loss in my list of recent losses. There are times when it seems like it’s safer to be in bed than out of it.
Seeing and experiencing the evil and pain in this world can really weigh us down. Though I would never want to grow indifferent to suffering and loss, there are times when I wish I could always keep an eternal perspective about such things. It would be nice to be able to only focus on the benefits of such things rather than on the pain and grief they bring with them.
This morning my daughter called up the stairs to let me know her almost grown kitten had found a new toy. She was tossing it around and hiding it under things and playing with it. She was really having fun. But what disturbed my daughter was that it wasn’t her favorite mouse toy—it was the real thing.
There was absolutely nothing evil or bloodthirsty in what the kitten was doing. She was just enjoying her new toy—embracing the joy of play. But the poor mouse, on the other hand—it had an entirely different perspective. It had merely been doing its thing—finding a warm place to hide during the winter—when suddenly, its life was over and it had become an object of delight.
In this instance we can see two completely different perspectives as to what has happened and to what is currently going on in a situation. Perhaps this can help us to understand a little better what it means for us as human beings to live in a world where we are constantly experiencing the results of our human brokenness while at the same time we are participants in the entering of God’s kingdom into this broken world. We may only feel pain, suffering and grief, but we are actually participating in God’s joyful dance of love, grace, and peace.
Loss, separation, pain, evil—these cause suffering, anxiety, fear, and grief, and a host of other feelings and consequences we were not originally intended to experience. We were created for joy, peace, hope, and to share in the love of our heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ in the Spirit. This is the “way of peace” we were created for.
C.S. Lewis, in “The Problem of Pain,” talks about how human beings were created to live in joyful obedience to and full dependency upon God. We were meant to be and were masters of our flesh and our world, as we drew upon God for our life and our strength of will. But we decided in Adam that we would take to ourselves the prerogatives which were solely God’s. We became self-sufficient, self-centered, self-directed. And rather than walking in the garden to commune with our Creator, we walked away from the garden and began to establish for ourselves a new way of being.
The problem is, we chose a way of being which was non-sustainable. We do not have the capacity within ourselves apart from God to properly manage ourselves or our world, much less to live in harmony with one another or to continue our existence. What the incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmastime, means is that God took our plight seriously, took on our humanity, and reformed it in himself. As God in human flesh, Jesus lived a human existence which was fully dependent upon his Abba and completely and joyfully obedient to his Father’s will. He redeemed us, forging for us “a way of peace.”
The enemy of our soul has always sought to destroy us by the incessant lie that we do not need God and we most certainly do not need one another. He deceives us into believing that our human perspective about everything is the true reality—that our experience of what is occurring is what is actually at work in this world. He tells us there is no life beyond this life, or that what we do now does not affect what comes after, or that if we work hard enough and achieve a high enough standard, we’ll receive abundant rewards in the hereafter.
Notice how all these lies we are bombarded with us tell us we are sufficient within ourselves for whatever is needed in every situation. To live in full dependency upon God and in joyful obedience to his will is something contrary to our broken human way of being. We resist this, and seek a multitude of methods to avoid having to surrender to the reality God is God and we are not. And we experience suffering, grief, pain, and sorrow as a result.
Christ has come. He has reconciled all things with God and has brought humanity up into the love and life of the Trinity—by faith we participate with Jesus in his perfect relationship with his Father in the Spirit. As we participate with Jesus, we find ourselves walking in the “way of peace” he forged for us, and we find by the Spirit we have the capacity for self-control, other-centered living, and joyful obedience to God we would not otherwise have.
In Christ, we are new creatures—experiencing a new way of being—Christ in us, the hope of glory. We find as we die with Christ to ourselves and our old way of being that Christ’s new “way of peace” finds greater and greater expression in us and through us. And we begin to experience real peace—peace within ourselves, peace in our relationships and in our communities.
As we turn to God in real dependency upon him in every situation, heeding the Word which tells us to “cast all our cares upon him” (1 Pet. 5:6), we begin to experience that peace “which surpasses understanding” (Phil. 4:6-7). We find a deep joy even in the midst of our sorrow and grief. This is the blessing of the amazing gift of God in his Son Jesus Christ we celebrate during the Advent season.
Abba, thank you for not leaving us in our brokenness and our stubborn resistance to your will. Thank you, Jesus, for forging for us “a way of peace” which we have not known and which we desperately need. Holy Spirit, enable us to turn away from ourselves and to Christ, trusting in his perfect relationship with Abba, and enable us to walk in the “way of peace” we were created for through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,/For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, … To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,/Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. … To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,/To guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:68, 75, 79 NASB
A video of this blog may be accessed here.
Lift Up Your Heads
By Linda Rex
HOPE—Last night I read a post on the local police precinct page which told the story of a missing person. Struggling with depression due to the loss of a loved one, this person left her life behind and disappeared into the metropolis of Nashville.
As I read this story, my heart went out to her. I thought of what I might say to someone in her situation. It’s really hard to find anything meaningful to say to someone who is extremely depressed—I’ve been there, and it just doesn’t help.
My genetic makeup means my postpartum depression with both of my children turned into clinical depression, and in times of extreme crisis, I am susceptible to depression. I remember one day I forced myself to take my newborn son for a walk even though I was in a horrid blue funk. I could barely get one foot in front of the other. When I got home, I received a call from the nurse who helped with my pregnancy—she lived nearby and had seen me out walking. She asked me a few questions and then told me I was depressed. “Call the doctor,” she said.
I made the call and I’m glad I did. I learned that my mother had suffered this same difficulty with having her children and it was a natural response to what had happened to me. Depression is not something to be ashamed of or to pretend isn’t happening. It’s a real thing, and needs to be dealt with. If we need medication to help get our brain readjusted, then that is what we need. If we need counseling to change the way we respond to people or events, then we need to get it and make the changes needed to get well.
We express our love to our family and friends by getting the treatment we need, whether counseling or medication, and we keep with it, even though we may think we don’t need it any more. Some forms of mental illness require ongoing medication—we need to be humble enough to keep taking it even though we think we don’t need it any more. This is a real struggle, and I can understand when a person wishes they could live without this necessary medical intervention.
Taking into account our need for medication and counseling, though, we also need to grasp the reality to the core of our being that we are now and forever held in God’s love. We are entering the time of Advent, the time in which we contemplate and celebrate the coming of our God into our humanity in the infant Jesus, and we begin with hope.
The people of Israel and Judah had wrestled in their relationship with God for millennia. God called them into relationship with himself, explained to them what it looked like to live in relationship with him, and gave them a way of grace, of sacrifices and liturgy, through which they could draw near to him and express their love and devotion to him. As time passed, this nation turned away from God, experienced the consequences of having done so, and then turned back again, only in time to turn away again. Finally, God allowed the destruction of the temple and the captivity of both Israel and Judah.
In time God set the nation free to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple. But from that time on, Israel/Judah has always been under the control of another nation. Between then and the time of Jesus, they experienced oppression, the desecration of their temple, and the lack of prophetic leadership. Lost in the darkness of God’s silence, the nation cried out for deliverance. And where there was such darkness, gloom, and despair, God entered.
We can get so focused on our despair, on our suffering or loss or the feeling that we are left all alone, that we often miss what is right in front of us. Indeed, as Luke writes, when we see everything falling apart in our lives or our world, that is when we need to realize that our redemption is near. God’s kingdom is at the door—for the simple reason that God is present, God is near, in the person of Jesus Christ.
God indeed entered Israel’s darkness and suffering, though in a way which was different than expected. God may have had a heavenly choir blessing the event, but God’s coming or advent was the birth of a baby placed in a manger, in humble circumstances, completely dependent upon his mother and father and caught in the midst of a dangerous world which was already seeking his death.
The coming of the Word of God into human flesh sparked the death of Bethlehem’s infants—the evil king Herod could not stand the thought of anyone being king but him. And yet, in the midst of this darkness and evil, the light had dawned. God was present in the person of Jesus Christ. God was experiencing every circumstance we go through in our broken world, coming to know personally the pains and trials of our human existence. He knew laughter and sadness, joy and pain, loss and blessing—everything which makes us what we are. And he did not sin.
It was not enough that God came to us to be where we are and what we are. He gave himself over completely to us, allowing us to do to him whatever we willed. He allowed us to pour out on him all our wrath against God, all our refusal to allow God to be the God he is. Since creation we have sought to make God conform to our will, refusing to submit to his. And Jesus paid the price for it, even though he didn’t deserve it.
Darkness—in so many ways. It may have seemed, as Jesus hung on the cross, that there was only death and oblivion ahead of him. But he knew the secret of hope: When everything is falling apart, our redemption is closer than ever—it is near, right at the doors. How did Jesus know this? Because he knew his Abba intimately. He knew that even though it felt like he was abandoned and all alone, that nothing could ever separate him from his heavenly Father. Nothing, not even death or evil, could separate the heavenly oneness of the Triune God as Father, Son, and Spirit. God’s love, which binds us to him, never fails.
Because of who Jesus is—God in human flesh—and what he has done—died in our place and on our behalf, rising again from the grave—we have hope. We may lose friends and family members to death, but we are bound together in Christ both now and forever, and death no longer has power over us. In Christ we have the hope of the God’s presence in our every day lives and circumstances in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s ascension to God, bearing our humanity, and the sending of the Spirit, means we are never alone, ever. This is our hope.
In the midst of horrific loss and destruction, God is still near. When we have lost those dear to us, are caught in despair and feeling all alone, the truth is we are never alone. Immanuel—God is with us. When things look as though they are coming to a catastrophic end—God’s redemption is near. Lift up your heads—for here he comes!
Thank you, Abba, for loving us, for sending your Son to dwell in our humanity, redeeming us from all we brought upon ourselves. Holy Spirit, grant us the great hope of Jesus, that we may know with certainty that Abba loves us and will never leave us, no matter how things may look right now. Grant, loving Spirit, that we might experience the reality of Immanuel, God with us, in Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. … So you also, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near.” Luke 21:28 NASB
A Cry for Redemption
By Linda Rex
This morning I was browsing social media as I was finishing up my morning exercise routine. I was touched by a friend’s post which described a very painful and difficult circumstance they were going through. My heart went out to them and I wished there was some way to help. But there wasn’t.
My go-to response, of course, is to pray. This can seem such a feeble response when often people need some real tangible assistance in difficult circumstances. But for those of us who do pray and count on prayer as our go-to response, this is actually the most powerful and effective thing we can do when encountering a life tragedy, struggle, or difficulty.
This week there was another mass shooting, this time in my home state of California. No doubt, there will be more cry for effective gun laws, and, which I think is more to the point, more focus on getting veterans the help they need when they are struggling with PTSD and other post-conflict issues. But all the laws we can write do not change or heal the human heart. We live in a society which seeks to regulate human conduct from without by laws or by social pressure, and to heal broken human beings with social programs and medication.
This is the struggle we have in our world today—a society in which each feels free to do whatever they want according to their conscience and desires, but often without concern for the others who share this world with them or for the creation either. I keep being brought back to the basic fundamental description of how we are to live as human beings—of what we have been created for. As made in the image of God, we are meant to live as unique yet equal individuals in a unity which reflects that of the Father, Son, and Spirit—created for this divine relationship with God and one another. Jesus described it as loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Our struggle to exist together in this world to day is due to our refusal to acknowledge there is an ultimate Source which defines our existence and which gives us direction for our lives. We want to have control over our existence and our decisions, and not allow anyone to infringe on our preferences or our space. Somehow we think that submitting ourselves to someone, most especially to God, limits us in some way, and deprives us of our ability to be all we can be.
In reality, our greatest struggle lies within ourselves. We are broken and wounded, and all these things affect how we handle life, and how we treat one another. When Jesus said that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, I believe he was pointing out our need to be fully integrated as human beings, with all of us being fully devoted to our Abba. He knew the human proclivity to create inner silos, where the good parts of us are separated from the bad parts of us, and where our inner divisions become a space for the evil one to enter and cause destruction and despair.
To be fully integrated within ourselves by necessity means that God needed to reform our humanity after his image—we had rejected our humanness as God had meant it to be. Jesus, when he walked on earth, lived in intimate relationship with his Abba. He said that he and his Father were one. Jesus lived fully focused on that relationship, seeking out his Abba in the midst of trouble and stress, and drawing upon his strength and power by the Spirit to deal with the issues he faced in his life.
In spite of how he was treated and the uniqueness of his personhood as the God/man, Jesus stayed fully integrated to the end. He, by the Spirit, held fast to the truth of who he was as the Son of God and the Son of Man. Jesus did not have a good side and a bad side, but was simply the Word of God in human flesh—the One who became sin for us so we could become the righteousness of God in him. He came to redeem our humanity and give us a new life by the Spirit which in him is fully integrated within itself and in relationship with God and others.
As I was reading the lectionary scriptures for Sunday, one of the passages from the book of Ruth popped out at me. We read in Ruth’s story that her mother-in-law Naomi, who lived for a time in Moab, had lost both her sons and her husband, and so sought to move back to her home town of Bethlehem to rebuild her life. Ruth, being a Moabitess, was considered a Gentile but she embraced Naomi and her faith, and went with her back to Bethlehem.
Ruth was in a very difficult position, but it seems that God kept his eye on her. She went to glean grain after the harvesters, which was what poor people did back then, and she ended up in the field of someone who was in her extended family, a relative named Boaz. In due time, Naomi told Ruth she should invoke the levirate law of that day and ask Boaz to redeem her property and by extension give her the children she did not have by her first husband so her property would stay in the family. So Ruth courageously did as her mother-in-law instructed, not knowing what the result would be.
Boaz’s reaction is interesting. When she appealed to him to exercise his right of redemption, he told her he couldn’t—there was someone closer who could. But he said he would see that this was done, either by himself, or by the other who was more closely related to her. Then he sent Ruth home. When Naomi heard how it went, she said, “Wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter turns out; for the man will not rest until he has settled it today.”
A lot of times we think and act as if God is indifferent to our suffering and our struggles. We may believe he shouldn’t be bothered with the little details of our lives, or that he’s not really willing to intervene in our difficult circumstances. When we lose dear ones, we often believe God doesn’t care about us any more—why else would he let them pass away? In reality, we need to see God as the One who will not rest until he has settled the matter today—immediately, as promptly as he possibly can. It may not be according to our time schedule, but in God’s time schedule, he is treating it as urgent, as needing his immediate attention.
Secondly, God is the one who has the right of redemption. He is as closely related to us as he could possibly get in the Person of Jesus Christ. He took on our humanity, reintegrated it with its Creator and within himself as God in human flesh, and took it with himself through death and resurrection, so we each could have new birth—a new life in him. God in Christ is to us a restorer of life and a sustainer in our youth and old age—no matter where we are in life, he is our Redeemer.
The cry I am hearing in the media today, social and otherwise, is for a redeemer. Humans such as political leaders often try to fill this role, and we temporarily give them our allegiance. But in reality, none can do what our Redeemer does—they cannot change or heal the human heart, nor can they transform people’s lives or give them divine redemption. There is no one like our God, who saves! We pray because we have a Redeemer who will not rest until he has healed, restored, and renewed. We pray because we know and trust he is faithful, gracious, and loving, and he will finish what he has begun in us.
Only God has the capacity and the heart to heal someone from the inside out. Only Jesus, the divine Physician, can change someone’s heart and desires into what they ought to be. Only the Spirit, our Comforter and our Peace, can work transformation in human beings, bringing them into Christlikeness.
Our participation in all of these things is to, like Ruth, place ourselves at Jesus’ feet and ask him to exercise his right of redemption on our behalf, to wait patiently for him to move in our circumstances and in our lives, and to embrace the relationship offered to us and to faithfully live within it for the remainder of our days. Our participation includes learning to live and walk in truth, to be integrated within ourselves so that we, in Jesus and by the Spirit, are loving God with all our being and loving our neighbor as ourselves. We have every reason to hope—for he is ours and we are his, and he will be faithful to the end. This is why we turn to him, believing he will not fail us. And this is why we pray.
Thank you, Abba, for your faithful love, and for giving us your Son to redeem us. Thank you for sending your Spirit to renew, restore, and heal us—transforming us by your grace and love into the very image of your Son, and so to reflect your likeness. We desperately need a move of your Spirit in our world today. We need you to heal, restore and renew all this we have broken, and to transform human hearts by faith. We trust you will not rest until this is accomplished. Show us how we can participate with you in your mission, and to passionately do so as you lead us, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed is the LORD who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’” Ruth 4:14-15 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 