forgiven
The Life-giving Touch of Jesus
By Linda Rex
June 27, 2021, PROPER 8—In the middle of this pandemic, many of us discovered that we acutely missed the social benefits of physical touch. For our spiritual fellowship at Grace Communion Nashville, the loss of hugs and handshakes was a serious loss, not to mention the inability for a time to even be in the same location with our friends and family.
As we face the possibility of another season of separation, it is comforting to be reminded of the reality that nothing, not even the restrictions of social distancing, can separate us from the love of God in Christ, nor from one another. We are created for relationship, and healthy interactions with others are an essential part of our personhood. So we will do our best to keep our relationships strong in spite of social distancing and health restrictions.
In the gospel passage for this Sunday, Mark 5:21–43, we find two people who are faced with catastrophic health situations and who believe that the only person who can rescue them is Jesus. One of these is a woman with ongoing menstrual bleeding, a situation which, due to the restrictions of her religious beliefs meant she was excluded from any fellowship with other people. She was considered ritually unclean, and for the past twelve years had been avoided by anyone who was afraid they might be touched by her in some way, for they would have been made ritually unclean as well.
It took a lot of courage for her to enter the crowd that day, risking physical contact with those around her for the sake of being able to touch Jesus’ garment. She said to herself that if she could just touch his clothing, she would be healed. She believed that he was someone who healed people and drove out demons. At this point, she was willing to take the risk of entering the crowd and touching his clothing for just the possibility of finally being freed from her social exclusion.
While Jesus had been on the beach earlier, speaking to the crowd, Jairus had come up to him and urgently appealed that Christ would heal his twelve-year-old daughter. The synagogue official was at the point of desperation it seemed, since he was willing to humble himself to the point of kneeling before Jesus as he made his request. In compassion, Jesus had agreed and the crowd had followed the two of them to Jairus’ home, pressing in on them, making travel a bit cumbersome.
It was in the midst of this large crowd that Jesus stopped to ask quite loudly, “Who touched my garments?” The disciples thought he was crazy—he was being touched by everybody, it seemed! But here, trembling and afraid, came the woman who had touched his prayer shawl, kneeling at his feet. She had touched him, and knew that she had been healed. Fearful of rejection and condemnation, she poured out her story, the painful truth of her suffering, all the failed attempts to get well, all the useless doctor visits and treatments, and her simple desire for healing and relationship. She had hoped to slip away unseen, but Jesus had in mind a deeper healing.
Jesus called this woman “daughter”, setting her again within the context of community and family fellowship. And he gave her a benediction of shalom, true peace—of reconciliation with both God and man. This was the real healing she needed, far beyond the relief from her physical ailment. She was accepted, forgiven, and beloved. In this moment, all the barriers erected against her were wiped away and she was welcomed and restored.
It is interesting in the stories of Jesus healing people and raising people, that he did not always abide by the religious restrictions regarding what was ceremonially clean and unclean. To be touched by this woman rendered him, according to tradition, ceremonially unclean. But the Messiah was more than willing to allow himself to be made ceremonially unclean so that she could be made once and for all, clean. This points to the reality that the Word of God took on our “unclean” human flesh to make it “clean”—becoming sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Jesus was not made unclean by our sin and death—he transformed our humanity and made us like himself instead, and we participate in this new existence by faith in him and by the gift of the Spirit.
At this point in the story, while Jesus paused to minister to this woman, messengers arrived from Jairus’ home. They came to tell him that his daughter had died, that he didn’t need to bother Jesus any more. Christ pointedly ignored what they said, choosing instead to continue to Jairus’ house, in spite of the realization that religious tradition prohibited the touching of dead bodies. He was on his way to perform an acted parable, demonstrating once again that the kingdom of God, present in his person, was breaking into Satan’s stronghold of death, demons, and disease, and freeing all those held captive.
The official mourners were already wailing when Jesus and three of his disciples arrived. When Jesus told them the girl was only sleeping, they scornfully laughed, making fun of the idea that she might possibly still be alive. They had seen her dead body, and they recognized death when they saw it. But Jesus was symbolically speaking of death as merely sleep, a temporary condition over which he had all authority and power.
He, taking the lead, ushered all the mourners outside and then entered the room where the dead child lay. In the final scene of this acted parable, Jesus simply took the young woman’s hand and told her to arise, which she did. As she got up and started walking about, Jesus encouraged her stunned parents to make sure she got something to eat, demonstrating that she was completely well.
In this passage we see Jesus teaching the crowds, showing compassion to those in need, and touching the untouchables, bringing them back into fellowship. We see Jesus restoring community, willing to risk ceremonial uncleanness for the sake of those who could do nothing to change their situation. These all point to what God did for us in Christ in the Word of God setting aside the privileges of Godhood to join us in our human flesh, so that our fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit might be restored and we might be made new.
As we go through another chapter of the pandemic saga, it would be good to reflect upon what these stories tell us about who Jesus is and who we are in him as the Father’s beloved children. What does it mean that in Christ, God has declared us clean, when we so often choose the way which leads to evil, sin, and death? The kingdom of God has broken in on this broken world, and Jesus is actively, by the Spirit, working to make all things new.
When we feel isolated and separated from meaningful fellowship, we can be reminded that we always have a personal companion in us and with us—Jesus by the Spirit. We can practice the spiritual disciplines of solitude, silence, and stillness, and experience in a real way the indwelling presence of God, guiding us, encouraging us, comforting and strengthening us. And at any time, like this woman and like Jairus, we can run to Jesus, throwing ourselves on his mercy, knowing he will lift us up and restore us, welcoming us home to the Father in the Spirit, and restoring us to warm fellowship with him and one another.
Father, thank you for sending your Son and your Spirit, for including us in your life together as the Triune God of love. Renew in us again a sense of our inclusion, of your presence and power at work in us and in our world each and every day, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.’ While He was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue official, saying, ‘Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?’ But Jesus, overhearing what was being spoken, said to the synagogue official, ‘Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.’” Mark 5:34-36 NASB
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9 NASB
All Sins Forgiven
By Linda Rex
June 6, 2021, PROPER 5—There are times when we wrestle with the reality that we have fallen short of what it means to be image-bearers of the God who is Father, Son and Spirit. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that the way we act, the things we say and do, and especially our thoughts, are a far cry from what God intends. None of us love God or love others in the way we were originally designed to, though there are moments when we may experience a little bit of the bliss of us being in sync with the heavenly realities.
Even so, we discover in the person of Jesus Christ that God is still present. In Christ we see that God is immeasurably patient and gracious, though he does at times hold our feet to the fire so we will repent and turn back to him. The ultimate spiritual reality is that all our sins are forgiven in Jesus, and we have an incredible hope because of what he has done in our place and on our behalf. The One who is our Judge is also the One who is the perfect Lamb offered on our behalf for our sin and the High Priest or Mediator who intercedes for us with the Father.
As we move from the season where we walked with Jesus through the crucifixion into the tomb, and from there rose with Jesus in the resurrection and ascension to the Father’s side, receiving from God the promised Holy Spirit, we find ourselves in a whole new place. As those who trust in Christ, we live in God’s presence even now as we by faith are empowered by his Spirit to follow Jesus and participate in his mission in this world. In Christ, God has defeated Satan and is making all things new.
But when we look around us and within ourselves, we often see only brokenness, evil, and sin. We experience the consequences of ourselves and others living in ways which God never intended—pain, sickness, broken relationships, and death fill our world and touch our lives. Where is God in all this? It’s hard to see that Jesus is present by his Spirit and at work in this world when our tangible experience tells us otherwise. The evil one is quick to point out to us all the ways in which he is still in control and we are left abandoned, orphans in this broken world.
We need to own up to the reality that what we experience in this way is a result of human choice and the work of God’s adversary. One of the passages for this Sunday, (1 Samuel 8:4–20; 11:14–15) tells the story of the elders of ancient Israel coming to Samuel the judge and asking him to install a king in his place. Up to that point, God had been their king and he had worked through judges to provide shepherding for his people. But the people didn’t like how Samuel’s sons were leading and Samuel was getting old, so they felt it was time for a change in leadership. Samuel was very upset about this, but the Lord told him that whoever rejected him was rejecting the Lord. The reality was that even in this rejection of God and his kingship, the people of Israel would still be God’s people, and the Lord would be faithful to his covenant with them. On God’s side, the relationship was secure in spite of, on the nation’s side, their rejection of their Redeemer, and God would still accomplish through them, the coming of the Messiah.
This echoes the story of beginnings in another passage for this Sunday, Genesis 3:8–15. Here Adam and Eve hear the Lord walking in the garden of Eden in the cool of the day. This was a time when God would walk and talk with his creatures, sharing the pleasant and joyful fellowship of God with man we were created for. But on this day, because of their sin in eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve heard God coming, became afraid and hid. Instead of rejecting them because of their sin (for God already knew what they had done), God sought them out, calling them out of hiding back into relationship. Yes, they had to answer for what they had done, but God did what was needed to bring them back, covering them with skins through the shedding of blood, prophetically pointing the day when Christ would shed his blood on the behalf of all humanity to restore our relationship with our Maker.
As the Lord spoke to Adam and Eve, it became evident who the real culprit was—the serpent. In the Bible, we see a progression of understanding regarding this being—this is God’s adversary, the one who is ever at work in this world in opposition to God’s will and purposes. Jesus himself called Satan the father of lies, the one who was a murderer from the beginning, who constantly works to deceive humanity and turn them away from God (John 8:44). His favorite deception of all is convincing us that God doesn’t really love us or want what is best for us—that God is holding out on us, keeping us from having everything we deserve or desire.
What we believe matters! If we believe God doesn’t exist, or that if he does, he doesn’t care, we will live in ways that demonstrate this. If we believe God doesn’t want what is best for us, then we will decide for ourselves what is best for us, and reap heavy and painful consequences which come from such choices. Since the beginning, humans have not trusted God to know what is best for them or to genuinely love them and care for them. What Israel did in rejecting God as king is not an unusual incident. This is just a manifestation of the nature of humanity throughout the ages—we turn away from God—we do things our own way. In Christ, God is calling every human being back to himself, asking, “Why are you hiding?” We have all been covered by the blood of Christ and clothed with his righteousness—why reject this gift and the Giver who went to such lengths to provide it?
As the psalmist said, “Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness… (Psalm 138:3).” We have God’s assurance that he will do and has done all that is needed to make us right with himself. The evil one is defeated by Christ, who entered the strong man’s (Satan’s) house and plundered his goods, releasing humanity from the clutches of the devil as well as evil, death, and sin (Mark 3:27). On God’s side, Satan is a defeated foe. Those of us who trust in Christ can rest in his finished work, knowing that the gates of Hades will not prevail against the Church, the body of Christ. When all is said and done, God’s kingdom will stand and Satan and his minions will be removed, unable any longer to affect or harm God’s new heavens and earth.
In the meantime, we live in the already-not yet of the kingdom of God. That means that we still experience trouble in this life. We don’t lose heart when the externals of our existence and our human flesh wear down or fall apart, because what is at work within us is eternal and will last forever (2 Corinthians 4:13–5:1). The truth is that followers of Christ will experience difficulties in this world. Added to the normal experience of the consequences of the fall, of humanity’s turning from God, we as believers also experience rejection and criticism from those who reject Christ. There will be people near and dear to us who may ridicule our faith in Christ or our efforts to live in obedience to God’s will. They may even accuse us of being out of our minds. But we can be assured that as we do the will of the Father, Christ will count us as his very own, his true family—the ones who share in the life and love of the Father and Son in the Spirit.
Life in the Spirit is what we have been given in Christ, and this is ours both now and forever. The Spirit who lives in us is forming Christ in us as we respond to Jesus in faith and obedience. The purpose of our struggles is to grow us up in Christlikeness, not to destroy or harm us, as Satan is prone to do. Now and forever, we have moment-by-moment fellowship with God in the Spirit, because God has restored the fellowship of God with man once experienced when Adam and Eve first walked with God in the garden. In Christ, all sins are forgiven and the Spirit has been given so we can participate in that new life which is ours in him right now and on into eternity.
.Dear Abba, thank you for making us your very own through the gift of your Son and your Spirit. Thank you for delivering us from Satan and his demons, for giving us new life, and enabling us to share in your life and love now and forever. Finish what you have begun, even as you have promised, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, ‘He has lost His senses.’ The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.’ And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. … Answering them, He said, ‘Who are My mother and My brothers?’ Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, ‘Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.’” Mark 3:20–35 NASB
The Boundary of Grace
By Linda Rex
September 13, 2020, Proper 19—Last night I decided to microwave some fresh green beans for dinner that I had received from one of our members in Cookeville who likes to garden. I washed them and broke them up into a microwavable bowl and cooked them. As I was eating them, my mouth began to burn. It wasn’t until I had eaten several of the green beans that I realized that I had inadvertently cooked a hot pepper with them and made the green beans inedible in the process!
As I sought something to help to relieve the intense burning in my mouth, I thought about how easy it was to go about doing what we believe is the right thing to do and find ourselves in a place where we are broken and hurting instead. This happens so often in our relationships, because we are broken people—we live as self-centered persons rather than as the other-centered persons God created us to be. This includes our understanding of what it means to be forgiving of those who wound us.
The disciples knew what the rabbis said about being forgiving—forgiving someone three times was being very generous and understanding, they said. So, when Peter asked Jesus how many times a person should forgive an offender, he thought he was being excessively generous in suggesting that he should forgive someone seven times.
Jesus took forgiveness to the next level by suggesting that a person should forgive someone “seventy times seven” times—in other words, a ridiculously large amount of times. We should not hold grudges, but be generous in our offering of grace. Then he told a story in which he described what forgiveness looks like within the kingdom of heaven—what it means that God forgives us.
He began with a king who brings his vassals before him to account for his portion of their tax assessments. He is a generous king, apparently, for this one particular vassal owed him the equivalent of twelve million dollars—a sum he could never repay in his lifetime. The king concludes that maybe the only way to get his money back from this man was to throw him and his family into prison (a common practice then) with the possibility that one of his friends might pay his debt.
This vassal begs and pleads for the king to have compassion on him. And the king does. He forgives this huge debt—lets the man completely off the hook. The king writes the debt off the books—he no longer expects any payment from this man. As far as the king was concerned, there was no longer any need for the man to do anything except from that point on, to do a better job at collecting the king’s share of the funds and turning them in.
Apparently, the king’s vassal totally misses the point of what his master had done. He does not admit to nor accept the reality of the immense debt of which he had been forgiven. He doesn’t receive the grace and compassion shown him. He is still, in his mind’s eye, living in the place of collecting on debts and debts needing to be repaid.
So, when the man encounters one of his debtors who owed him about twenty bucks, he grabs him by the throat and drags him off to prison until he paid him back. Do you see the vast comparison in the two debts? The vassal had just been released from a debt of about twelve million dollars, but would not release his debtor for the mere sum of twenty dollars. Jesus was using hyperbole, an exaggeration, to make a point.
This is the type of thing we do to one another in the face of what God does for us. Think about the nation of Israel, who God lived in covenant relationship with. How often had he forgiven them for idolatry, injustice, and trusting in other nations rather than trusting in him? Even when Israel justly ended up in exile, losing their temple and nationhood, God had restored them, giving them a new temple and a new space in which to live, albeit under Roman rule. Even so, they repeatedly rejected the Messiah, Jesus Christ, which he had sent them. In due time, Jesus knew they would even crucify that Messiah, at which point he would pronounce the most gracious words ever given to humanity, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
To live in the kingdom of heaven is to live in the reality of our need for grace and God’s overwhelming generosity in offering it to us. Abba offers us unfailingly the opportunity to start anew, giving us ample opportunity to change by wiping the slate clean and allowing us to begin again. The problem is that we as human beings prefer to live in the debit-credit mode. We may enjoy receiving God’s grace, but we prefer not to have to make the changes which go along with having been forgiven. By necessity, living in the truth of the immense debt we have been forgiven, we must admit our need for that grace, repent of the ways we incurred that debt, and in living out the truth of that repentance and forgiveness, we begin to be equally forgiving toward others.
So often in the gospels, Jesus offers forgiveness prior to repentance. We see the lame man lowered down through the roof in front of Jesus. Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then he tells the man to take up his mat and walk. The lame man hadn’t even asked to be forgiven—but no doubt, he felt he needed it. He probably had been told over and over during his lifetime that the reason he couldn’t walk was because he or his parents had sinned. Jesus affirmed that this was not the case, but that even those sins he had committed were removed. And that he needed to move forward in his life from then on.
In the case of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus ends the encounter by saying, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Jesus’ forgiveness was obvious, but he didn’t let anyone off the hook. The accusers needed to repent and so did she. And Jesus did not leave her at that place—he told her to go and do the next right thing, to leave her life of sin. Would Jesus have forgiven her again if she sinned? No doubt, but what he was seeking was not retribution, but repentance and faith—a life change—wholeness and healing, not punishment.
In the story about the king and the debtor, the vassal missed the whole point. He had been forgiven an incredible debt—so he needed to repent, to change the way he did business. He needed a change of heart and mind—to have a heart of compassion and forbearance like his master’s. But instead, he continued on the path of self-deliverance. He was going to work out his own salvation—paying back the debt himself by collecting what others owed him.
The only boundary on God’s grace is the one we set by refusing to see our need for it and to receive it as an undeserved gift. We are the ones who make forgiveness something which needs to be earned instead of receiving it humbly and then offering it to others. We are the ones who ignore the reality of the huge debt to God we could never repay and focus on the petty inconveniences or miserable pains those around create in our lives. If God could forgive us for an unpayable debt, shouldn’t we do that for others?
Maybe there is some hurt or grudge that’s been festering in your heart lately. Or perhaps you are holding something against yourself that seems unforgiveable. Why don’t you bring these to Jesus right now and ask him to give you his heart of forgiveness instead. Allow him to provide you with a willingness to forgive that is grounded in him and his sacrificial offering, and to move you and the forgiven one into a new place of wholeness and restoration. May you find true freedom living in this place of forgiveness and grace through Jesus Christ our Lord in the Spirit.
Abba, thank you for your limitless forgiveness and grace which is expressed to us in the gift of your Son Jesus. Thank you for your patience with us when we are not forgiving, but are judgmental, condemning, and punitive. Grant us the grace to ever participate in Christ’s forgiving Spirit that we might forgive as you forgive us, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, | Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. | He will not always strive with us, | Nor will He keep His anger forever. | He has not dealt with us according to our sins, | Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. | For as high as the heavens are above the earth, | So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. | As far as the east is from the west, | So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:8-12 NASB
See also Matthew 18:21–35.
Revealing the Hidden Word
By Linda Rex
PROPER 10/PROPER 11—The most significant way to change a person, and therefore a society, is to change what that person believes about themselves and the people in their lives. Often our response to a given situation is habituated by our belief system. We may not even realize why we do some of the things we do, even though we may realize they are inappropriate or unhealthy. We may not be even be aware of the belief systems that are at the root of such behavior.
Reflecting back upon the garden of Eden, we may see that Adam and Eve illustrate this point in how they responded to God after they had eaten the forbidden fruit. Before then they had freely walked and talked with God in the garden. But after they ate the fruit, they began to believe things about themselves and God which manifested in shame, fear, and hiding themselves. What a change occurred when they adopted the wrong frame for their view of God and themselves!
We see this at work in the nation of Israel as well. God told them on Mount Sinai that they were his people and he was their God, and this reality would be reflected in the way they lived their lives. But when God approached near to them, they responded in fear. They didn’t want God to speak to them personally—they wanted a mediator. What they believed about God caused them to distance themselves from their covenant partner who loved them with deep devotion and commitment. Over the centuries following, the nation of Israel acted out their mixed-up belief system, turning away to other idols and then turning back to God in remorse when things got tough.
One of the things Israel believed was that God was a fearful, judgmental God who needed appeased. They had adopted the belief system of the nations around them rather than the truth that God had chosen them as his adopted nation, his beloved people. They refused to believe and live in the truth that God had committed himself to them in covenant relationship. They wanted to live as though they were independent of God and yet at the same time have all the benefits of a good relationship with him.
They also did not grasp the need to internalize the word of God. The law was something external to them, becoming a prescription of how to be a good Israelite. In actuality, it was meant to be a description of what life looked like when lived in communion with their God. Love for God was to be so written on their hearts that their lives would resemble his law, his way of being, the way of love.
At one point, God bemoaned their lack of a heart of obedience and devotion to him. He said, “Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!” (Deut. 5:29 NASB) Many centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah told the people about a day when God would make a new covenant with the people. He said that God would put his law within them and write it on their heart. He would be their God and they would be his people. God’s word would cease to be external to them and would become the core driving force of their being. But this could not happen apart from God’s intervention—our humanity on its own is lost in unhealthy belief systems and a determination to operate on its own apart from God.
The apostle John opens his gospel with the good news that God the Word joined us in our humanity, becoming flesh and living among us. Getting to know God by coming to know Jesus Christ is fundamental to changing our belief system. To know Jesus is to know the Father. To know Jesus is to know and begin to experience the reality of God’s real presence in our humanity. The Holy Spirit, God’s presence in us and with us, reveals Christ in us and brings us into union and communion with God.
Jesus, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, worked the word of God into our human flesh. He lived in complete oneness with his Father while here on earth. He forged a new humanity which would love and obey his Abba by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus, our humanity is capable of new ways of being and living. As we turn to Christ in faith, as we respond to the Spirit’s work in us, repenting of our wrong beliefs and our wrong view of God and ourselves, God’s word hidden in our hearts through Jesus by the Spirit begins to be expressed in new ways. There is a new inner drive to love God and love others.
The living Word Jesus Christ, written on human hearts by the Holy Spirit, is the basis for our new belief system. In Christ we have new life. We are forgiven, accepted and beloved. What we were as broken, sinful people has been declared dead and buried with Christ, and raised into new life.
What we believe about ourselves and God, then, is critical. Do we see ourselves as included in Christ? Or are we living out a belief system that says we are evil, sinful, and broken—forsaken and rejected by God? Do we believe that the wretchedness of our life is the fault of everyone else and all they did to us over the years? Or do we admit our own guilt and shame, knowing we are freed in Christ? And what do we believe about God? Is he a fearful, judgmental overseer or did he come himself to rescue us out of our wretchedness and to make us his own? Is he present, forgiving, loving, and accepting in every situation and difficulty we have?
If we are struggling with some unhealthy behaviors or are having a lot of negative thoughts, perhaps it is time to reconstruct our inner belief system. We can participate with Christ in doing that by internalizing the written word of God. If you struggle to believe God loves you or that you are worthy of love, dig deeply into the written word to find all the passages that tell you the truth—you are forgiven, beloved, accepted, and cherished. Write them on cards and begin memorizing the passages—give the Holy Spirit some ammunition to use in this battle.
And ask God for the faith to believe—to write this word on your heart. Thank God that he has given you Jesus’ heart—a heart which fully understands and receives his Abba’s love. But understand, any spiritual discipline in itself will not change you. It is the Word written on human hearts—Jesus Christ by the Spirit poured into you—that will change you. It is God at work within you that will make the change. You start by embracing the process of participating with Christ in his work by the Spirit. And allow God to do the rest. And he will, giving you abundant reason for praise and gratitude.
Abba, thank you for writing your word on our hearts, for sending us your Son and your Spirit to do this amazing transformational work. Today, give us a hunger for your word and your ways. Give us a desire to grow in our relationship with you and to study your Word—to learn more about you and your Son Jesus Christ, and the awesome Spirit who transforms our hearts by faith. Heal, restore, renew—bring our deep inner beliefs into agreement with the truth, the One who is our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
“But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.” Deut. 30:14 NASB
“…the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Col. 1:15-28 NASB
A Real Reversal
By Linda Rex
3rd SUNDAY OF EASTER—As the years go by, I find myself reflecting on the journey I have been on with Jesus. The person I am today is profoundly different from the person I was as a young adult. I had lots of dreams back then, and I voiced many strong convictions about what I believed to be true about God, myself, and others, much of which I have since renounced as wrong or inaccurate.
Life seemed to be a lot less complicated back then. I believed that if I just did everything the way it should be done, my life would be blessed, I would be happy, and things would go along quite well without any difficulties or suffering. Whatever difficulty or suffering that might come would be because I sinned or because I was being persecuted for doing what was right. It seemed as though I was on God’s side so he had to be on mine, making sure everything went as it should.
I’m a little embarrassed to think about how naïve and unschooled I was, but it was merely the outgrowth of unhealthy theology and a protected yet legalistic childhood. I have, through the conditioning of God and everyday human existence, come to have a more rounded and mature view of things. There is indeed evil at work in this world, and evil affects anyone and everyone at some point. No matter who we are, we won’t escape failures, difficulties, struggles, and challenges.
A fundamental change in my life began when my view of who I believed God to be was challenged. I believed God was Father and Son, and the Spirit was their power or essence. As I grew in my understanding of who the Holy Spirit really is as the third Person of the Trinity—reading in the scriptures and believing all the examples of his personhood illustrated there and growing in my personal relationship with the Spirit through prayer and listening—my understanding of who Jesus and the Father are began to change as well.
Knowing the Father as our loving Abba and Jesus Christ as his Son the Messiah, the Word who came and took on our human flesh, dying our death, rising again, to bear our glorified humanity in the presence of the Father forever, is life-transforming. As the Spirit brought me nearer and deeper into the life of the Trinity, what I believed kept moving beyond just a religious creed into the realm of personal experience. The reality of Jesus Christ in me, with me, for me, began to take a clearer shape. Jesus was no longer some story character—he had revealed himself to me personally by the Holy Spirit. I began to hear God’s still small voice in my heart and mind, and I began to know and believe I am loved, forgiven, and accepted. The more I believed the truth about who Jesus was and why he came and the more I knew I belonged and was included in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Abba in the Spirit, the more my behavior began to change.
I was more than happy to do my part in obeying God—I had constantly been bombarded by the shoulds, oughts, and have-tos of the belief system I held and all it did was make me worse. The harder I tried, the more I found myself shackled by unhealthy ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. I struggled often with depression and self-loathing. This obviously wasn’t God’s way of doing things. Eventually, the change I noticed within myself did not come about because I tried harder, but rather because I admitted I couldn’t do it and I needed Christ to do it in me and through me by his Holy Spirit. It happened when I was honest with others about my struggles and failures, and sought help. It happened when I was transparent about my failures, became fully known and yet loved, accepted and forgiven within a healthy spiritual community.
The worst thing about toxic or legalistic religious environments is that they do not allow people to be authentic and real and so find genuine healing and renewal. It seems that when people come together to form a church, they bring with them their masquerade gear and spend copious amounts of energy hiding from one another. In this type of environment, addictions and co-dependencies thrive. Healing and renewal are often limited or are complicated by unhealthy boundaries and toxic relationships.
It is much better to be in a safe spiritual community where each person is able to be genuine and transparent, and is allowed to grow up in Christ. Growing up in healthy ways requires the freedom to make mistakes without condemnation and with the support and encouragement of those who have previously traveled those same difficult paths. A healthy spiritual community allows for falling short without condemnation, but challenges brothers and sisters to grow up into the fullness of who they are in Christ.
Saul was not a bad person. He was a zealous God-fearing Jew. He meant to do the right thing, and he was trying to live life the way he believed God wanted him to. I don’t know why he was so adamant about imprisoning and executing the believers in Christ, but perhaps his zeal for God was also inspired by a need for the approval of his Jewish peers and a need to accomplish what no one else was doing quite as well. Whatever his reasoning, it seemed to be borne out of a heart seeking to please God.
Imagine how horrifying it must have been to realize that the One Saul had been trying to impress was actually the One he had been persecuting. His efforts to earn God’s love and approval, and the adulation and approval of his peers, was actually an action in opposition to God and in persecution of Jesus. Saul needed to know who Jesus Christ really was. He needed to have his image of God reformed into something which more perfectly apprehended the Triune God of love. As Saul sat in the darkness of blindness for a few days, he must have thought at least once—now what do I do? How can I possibly make amends for this?
What if Ananias had refused to listen to Jesus when the Lord told him to go lay hands on Saul so he could see again? What if he had stood in judgment of Saul and had condemned him, insisting he pay for his crimes against Ananias’ friends and fellow believers? But he didn’t. He humbly obeyed Jesus’ command and met Saul right where he was, offering him grace and love, and entrance into the body of Christ, the church.
Saul, whom we know today as the apostle Paul, never minced words when he spoke about his past and his failures in life. He was transparent and honest about the people he had harmed and the suffering he had incurred. Instead of being a reason for shame and guilt, God made his failures an essential part of his witness to the resurrection power of the risen Christ and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s proclamation of the gospel was effective often because people saw the profound reversal which had occurred in his life when he met Jesus Christ.
A church should be a spiritual community where people can be authentic and transparent, and safely transverse the changes necessary between spiritual infancy and the spiritual maturity of Christlikeness. This is a journey that takes time, and we all have ups and downs as we travel. We are bound together in Christ to offer one another both grace and truth—to enable one another to be challenged as well as upheld when things don’t go as we planned or hoped they should, or when we fall short of Christ.
The Spirit creates such a community as we respond to his work in our hearts and minds, and live and walk in him, tossing aside the old as unneeded scraps of clothing ready to be burned, and putting on Jesus Christ who is our life and the truth of our being. As we live out the truth of our real reversal in Jesus, the Spirit enables us to participate in bringing others to experience this transformation as well, creating a fellowship of care which reflects the inner life of the Triune God. Our spiritual community isn’t meant to be a closed group but rather a welcoming place where others may find healing and renewal as well.
Dear Abba, thank you that by your Spirit you bring together people to form spiritual communities where they can find healing and renewal, and share that gift with others who are broken and suffering. As believers, change our hearts and minds so that we begin to live together in ways which are transparent and authentic, and are safe for others to participate in and to come to know and grow up in Christ in a healthy way. We thank you for never ceasing to bring us to yourself through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.’ … and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’ All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, ‘Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?’ ” Acts 9:5-6, 20-21 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
It’s Just Not Who We Are
By Linda Rex
In the past few years it has been brought to my mind over and over how our relationship with God is very much like that of an expectant mother, and our relationships with one another are very much like the cells in a human body. These are only analogies and they have their shortcomings and flaws, but they provide windows into the human soul and our human existence.
This morning I was reminded again how wonderful our bodies are. When something foreign enters our skin or enters our bodies, if we have a healthy immune system, the object or alien cell is immediately surrounded and attacked. The self-defense system within our human bodies is really amazing, but it has been known to even attack an unborn child if the antibodies are triggered by any antigens within the fetus. Obviously, this is not what antibodies were meant to do, but it can and does happen.
I pray God will help each of us to see ourselves as human beings held in the life and love of God, who upholds all things by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3). And to see ourselves as sharers in Jesus Christ who has in his life, death, resurrection and ascension has made us participants in his very being, in his perfected humanity. For then we might begin to grasp—and I myself struggle to fully grasp this—sin and evil are alien to our true being. Any way of being which brings death instead of true life—the life Jesus brought us into—the life and love which exists in the Father, Son, Spirit relations—is foreign to our true humanity.
Maybe it’s time we begin to see our human proclivity to do what is evil and unhealthy from the point of view in which it is foreign to who we are. As the apostle Paul said, “if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.” (Romans 7:20). That which is not you or me is what we find ourselves doing, even when we do not wish to do it. The desire to do what is life-giving and loving comes from God the Spirit, not our natural human flesh. When we are awakened to Christ in us, we find we want to do what creates harmony, joy, peace and communion, not division, destruction and death.
As humans, we have been joined with Christ in the hypostatic union of God and man which he took on as the Word of God in human flesh. Jesus Christ took our broken humanity with him through the process of forging out a sinless life, he hauled us with him onto the cross, and with him we died the death we deserve to die. In Christ, as he rose from the grave, our humanity has taken on a new form. We do not live anymore in our human brokenness because God in Christ by his Spirit is awakening us to a new way of being which he has created—Christ in us, the hope of glory.
This new way of being is who we really are—this is our true humanity. Persons living in union and communion with the Father, Son, and Spirit, and with one another, are who we were created to be. To live in opposition to the perfected humanity which is found in Christ is to live in opposition to who we really are. We are the beloved children of Abba, sharers in the perfect relationship which exists between the Father and the Son in the Spirit. We are created to reflect and to live in this way of being—where our personhood is bound up in these inner relations in God, and in loving relationship with one another.
So saying that, the elephant in the room is our proclivity to not live in the truth of who we are in Christ. In other words, there are a lot of things we think, say, and do which do not agree with who God has created us to be. We live with others and with God in ways which are self-centered, greedy, lustful and broken, and which bring death rather than life. We are created for life, not death. But we find so many ways to live in death and sometimes we even imagine these wrong ways of living bring about life.
We walk in darkness, not realizing the Light of God shines in us and through us. We even think following a bunch of rules, manmade or God-breathed, will give us life, forgetting that our real Life is found in a Person, Jesus Christ, and in our relationship with Abba through Jesus in the Spirit.
Our sinfulness is not our bad self, and our obedience to God and his ways is not our good self. We are not divided in two. We talk about bad people and good people, and I wonder whether we have ever considered exactly what it means to be a bad person or a good person. Exactly how much badness makes someone a bad person? And just how much goodness is needed to make someone good instead of bad?
What a revelation it can be when we realize we are all just a messy mixture of dark and light, of bad and good—we are all just very human. And as humans, made in the image of God, warts and all, we are, in Christ, God’s beloved and forgiven children. That’s who we are!
Evil and the evil one are constantly seeking to destroy this new body of Christ, as members in particular and as the corporate body. But the sins and sinful passions of our broken human flesh do not define us. Christ defines us. We are citizens of a new kingdom. And even though we don’t always live like we belong to the kingdom of light, we do indeed belong there.
We’ve been given the glorious clothing of the kingdom of light to wear, and we have the privilege of living moment by moment in a close, personal relationship with the King of the kingdom right now. We have a new humanity we are able to fully participate in because the old is rapidly passing away—in fact, in Christ it is already gone.
Maybe it’s time to quit listening to the lies and sitting in the dark, and awaken to the reality we are already a part of a kingdom of light which has been in the works since before the beginning of time—an absolutely amazing kingdom in which righteousness dwells. Maybe it’s time to embrace our true humanity.
Lord Jesus, thank you for including us in your life with the Father by the Spirit. Thank you, Father, for drawing us up into the life and love between you and your Son in the Spirit. Enable us to turn a deaf ear to evil and the evil one, and to never again fear death, knowing we are hidden with Christ in you, God. Amen.
“On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.” 1 John 2:8 NASB
“For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;…” 1 John 3:11 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 