Holy Spirit
Walking By Faith
By Linda Rex
When my kids were little, one of their favorite Bible stories was the story of Noah and the ark. They loved the idea of this man and his family building a big boat on dry land when everyone around him probably thought he was crazy. The kids especially loved the part about Noah filling the boat up with all sorts of animals. The thought of all those different animals finding their way to the ark captivated their imaginations and mine. What was it like for Noah to come face to face with a couple of king cobras?
Over the years, I have come to see there was a lot going on in this story which we need to pay attention to which is often overshadowed by our focus on the animals and the flood of water. When we look at the comments made in the New Testament about Noah we find he was “an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” In other words, Noah was regarded by God to be righteous, not because of his perfect behavior, but because of his faith. (Heb. 11:7)
In Genesis 7:1, God tells Noah to enter the ark with his family because he alone was “seen to be righteous before Me [God] in this time.” There was a uniqueness about Noah and his relationship with the God who made him and called him to be the “savior” of the human race in this physical way. Earlier, in Genesis 6:9, we read, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless [Margin: Lit complete, perfect; or having integrity] in his time; Noah walked with God.”
Noah did what apparently many other people in his generation didn’t do—he walked with God. In God’s sight he was considered blameless or having integrity because of his faith in God, because of his trusting obedience to God’s direction in his life. He believed God was a good God, a God he could trust, a God Who meant him well, even when God asked him to do something which seemed incredible and impossible to do.
Noah’s amazing life experience was based in his relationship with God, in his walk with God. In the same way, Jesus’ unique life experience had its basis in his walk with his heavenly Father. The Son of God had existed for all eternity in a face-to-face relationship with his Abba, and knew his Father well.
In taking on our humanity, Jesus built an ark for the salvation of every creature he had made and every part of the cosmos which would be renewed through his life, death, resurrection and ascension. And he trusted his Abba would bring him through the flood of evil and death to the other side, along with every one of those who would be saved through him, because he knew Who his Abba really was.
Many times we say we believe in God or believe in Jesus, but our walk with God reflects something entirely different. We say we believe in God, but we act as if he either doesn’t exist or he doesn’t really care about us or the world we live in. We go about our lives making decisions as if it’s all up to us, or as if we are lord of the universe, or as if God were angry, harsh or indifferent, or even nonexistent.
On my way to work in the morning when the sun is just rising over the horizon, I am often caught by the beauty of the sunrise. When I am in communion with the Father, I’m am mindful to thank him for his artistic creativity. He reminds me he did it just for me, for us. How can this be that God in every moment is creating something beautiful just for you and me—for us to see, feel, experience and enjoy?
If I were to really pay attention to the reality of God creating something new in every moment to grace my life, I probably would find myself living differently in response. At least I hope I would. But what does it mean to walk with integrity in my relationship with God and with others? What does it mean to really walk by faith?
In Jesus’ human experience, walking by faith meant taking the difficult and arduous path with us and for us through death and resurrection. He joined us in our human struggles, and experienced the best and worst of us as human beings both within himself and externally. He felt our estrangement from the Father, and wept with those who felt a deep sense of loss as they grieved losing those they loved. Jesus was more than willing to allow the entire flood of our broken humanity to flow over him and immerse him completely. But in all this he never lost his trust in the faithfulness, love and goodness of his heavenly Father.
Jesus never stopped living in the truth of his being as God in human flesh. He never ceased being faithful to Who he was as the Son of God even when everything around him tempted him to do otherwise. Even when the Tempter questioned the goodness of his Abba, Jesus did not listen to him, but stood firmly on the ground of his Father’s goodness, faithfulness and love.
Jesus’ faithfulness to his Father, his overwhelming love expressed through the laying down of his life, and his perfect goodness, teach us first of all we need to face the reality of our human tendency to not live in the truth of who we are as God’s children. In Christ, we see both our brokenness and fallenness, but also the infinite value Abba places on us as those made in his image created to reflect his likeness. In turning to Jesus Christ and away from ourselves, we begin to embrace the reality of the relationship with God we were created for and begin to live in the truth of it day by day.
But this walking by faith is a journey with Jesus. We may find ourselves at times in the midst of our own flood, clinging to Jesus as the ark Who will carry us through to the other side. On other days we may find ourselves, like Noah and like Jesus, the only ones speaking truth into a situation, and so at odds with everyone else in our lives we’re not sure how we’re going to survive.
In every circumstance, though, we do not walk alone—God is in us, with us, and for us. God is a good, faithful and loving God—he is trustworthy. And so we are able to walk by faith, moment by moment, through our lives in loving relationship with him and others in and through Jesus and by his Spirit.
Abba, thank you for your faithfulness, your goodness and your love. Remind us every moment of the truth of Who you are, who we are as your beloved children, and how you are ever present, in us, with us, and for us. Enable us to walk with integrity, and to walk by faith, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;…” 2 Peter 2:5 NASB
“By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Hebrews 11:7 NASB
Sight-giving Light
By Linda Rex
It’s very interesting to me the many ways in which God works in our lives in order to get our attention and help us to learn things about ourselves we would not otherwise see. Often, we go about our daily business, dealing with life as usual, never realizing there are significant issues with the way we handle certain things. We may not want to admit it, but we each have blind spots which are obvious to others, but which we cannot see.
One of the ways God brings light into these areas of blindness is by challenging our preconceived ideas regarding certain people, places, or things. By placing us through various circumstances in situations we would not have chosen for ourselves, or situations we did choose but they turned out differently than we expected, God exposes parts of our character which we are often able to hide under the glitz of performance.
Another way God pours his light into areas we are blind to is by placing people in our lives with whom we have to interact whether we like it or not. For example, an introvert such as myself may find herself forced to sit in a big circle of seventy people and have to tell how she feels about being present at that particular event at that particular moment whether she likes it or not.
Would I normally have chosen to tell such a personal feeling to that many people who are strangers to me? No. But the requirements of my situation have forced my hand—I will do it whether I want to or not. And I have to own that I would prefer to gloss over the way I really feel rather than expose myself to all those people and admit I’d just rather not be present in that situation. I’d rather be hiding somewhere else where I can just be me, away from the inspecting, critical examination of myself by people I don’t know and don’t believe are safe.
So, in just a few brief moments, I have gained insight into my own heart and mind, and into how I react in difficult and uncomfortable situations. I have learned something about my own character and my propensity to fudge the truth rather than to make other people feel bad or myself look bad. If I pay attention, then I will make note of this response and determine when faced with this situation again, I will act with boldness and integrity, and speak the truth in love.
If, however, I’m not paying attention when this happens, but ignore what is going on inside my head and my heart, I will react to the situation in a way which isn’t necessarily healthy or loving or honest. I might spend much of my life in this way, reacting to similar situations, and not realizing what is really going on. Blinded to this truth about my character, my behavior, and my responses to certain stimuli, I might go on oblivious, depriving myself and others of the opportunity to live in and experience God’s best.
But what if I took a different approach? What if I stopped in the midst of what is occurring and paused long enough to see things as they really are? What if I took the time to feel what is going on in my heart and to pay attention to what is going on in my mind, before reacting to the situation?
One of the things they told me in Christian counseling classes about bad habits is the need to place some significant distance between the stimulus or trigger and the behavior it leads into. The larger this gap is, the more distance there is between what triggers our response and the response itself, the more opportunity there is for the Holy Spirit to get in there and go to work.
I was listening to a young lady today, Kayleigh Vogel with Explore What Matters, talk about this very thing. The more they study the human brain and the psychological/physiological responses to stress stimuli, the more they realize there needs to be a proactive effort to create this distance and to enter into it in such a way we choose our response rather than just doing what comes naturally. She was saying the current studies in the neuroplasticity of the brain show over time our response can be changed as new pathways in the brain are formed and reinforced.
But there must be some effort to pay attention to what is going on inside of us. What drives our decisions? What drives our responses? Is it a gut-reaction, or is it a true expression of what we really value and believe is most important? This is worth reflecting on.
One of the things we do as we get to our adult years is to choose a career or find a job. More people are being intentional about what they choose to do for a living, while others grab what is available, just being thankful they have a job. But at some point, it would do each of us some good to consider this question: Does this job or career bring me joy? Does it really resonate with something deep inside me, with my values and what I care about most?
This is true also about what we do in our daily life, or how we respond to the stress we experience day by day. We all have choices we face. They teach us things, and we grow as we make those choices. We should not be afraid of them, but realize—these are opportunities to learn about ourselves and other people, and about this wonderful world we live in—opportunities to grow as human beings and open ourselves up to the refining, transforming work of the Holy Spirit.
As we make choices and other people make choices, and we experience the reality of life in an imperfect world, we can embrace all this as a wonderful opportunity to learn things about ourselves we would not know otherwise. And we can embrace it all as an opportunity for God to mature and refine us, and to transform us more perfectly into the nature of Jesus Christ.
And we can thank God we have new opportunities to see the blind areas of our character and lives as God’s light shines in those dark places, and opens them up to the redeeming power of God’s grace through Jesus our Lord by his Holy Spirit.
Abba, thank you for all the ways you bring us to see things about ourselves and our hearts we would not otherwise see, were it not for your love and grace. Thank you that by your Spirit, you continually shine your light in all our areas of blindness and bring us into a deeper understanding of who God are and who we are in you, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend [or overpower] it.” John 1:5 NASB
Do I Believe God Cares?
by Linda Rex
Lately this has been on my mind a lot—do I really believe God cares about that thing I’m wrestling with at the moment, whatever it may be? What do I really believe down to the core of my being about the kind of Person God is?
Intellectually I can say to myself, God is good and he loves me and he cares about the issue I’m having with my car tire, my teeth, or my finances—you name it. But when it comes down to it, how I act with regards to those things says pretty loudly what I really believe about God and his goodness towards me. The difficulties I run into in my day-to-day life and how I engage them demonstrate what’s going on in my heart and the depth of my faith and trust in the goodness of God.
As I grow older I find myself reflecting back on all the ways God has intervened in my life and circumstances to bring good out of evil and to redeem broken situations. He has protected me from certain disaster over and over again. He has provided for me when I did not deserve to be provided for. And he has placed loving, caring people in my life to demonstrate his love toward me and my family.
If I were to say God does not really care about what is going on in my life or about me personally, I would not be speaking with integrity. My experience over the years has been that he does care deeply about me and my dear ones, and is a faithful, compassionate, forgiving God. But I don’t always make decisions or live my life in the truth of that reality. Often I act as though this were not true.
In any area of life we can act as if God just doesn’t really care even though we believe he does care. We read stories in the Scriptures about people who do this very thing. They show our common humanity, our core sinful nature which Jesus came to deal with and to eradicate.
Jesus did come and demonstrated in a deeply significant way God cares about every detail in our lives, even to the point of sharing our own flesh and blood existence. Jesus did not hold himself aloof from any of our brokenness. He touched the leper to heal him. He defiled himself to call a dead man back to life. He lived our life and died our death.
When the untouchable woman touched his garments, he called her, “Daughter.” He did not reject her or condemn her. But rather, he met her in the place where she came to meet him, in her humiliation, her brokenness, her suffering and loneliness.
She must have believed something about the goodness of Jesus to get her to that place where she was willing to brave the crowds who had isolated her. Mark 5:27-28 says, “…after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, ‘If I just touch His garments, I will get well.’” She acted as though this were true, making her way through all the people so she could just touch Jesus’ cloak, and indeed found in doing so, she was healed.
What’s interesting is it appears in this story as though she was hoping to get away without being noticed, to hide again in the crowds. But Jesus would not allow that. He insisted she be a full participant in his life and in her healing.
He cared about her healing, but also about the relational aspect of her life which was missing. Her rejection by others, her isolation, her loneliness, and her shame needed to come to an end. He made a point of connecting with her, of drawing her out, and of bringing her to the notice of those around her. And he encouraged her to be at peace—a peace which was such a far cry from what she had lived with during all the years she had sought healing from every source imaginable.
Obviously, she thought he didn’t care about those things otherwise she may have been more direct in her approach. So we find this woman acted on what she believed to be true about Jesus, but Jesus took her even farther than she expected to go. Jesus met her where she was and brought her to be where he was. He didn’t just heal her physically. He also healed her in many other ways.
We can learn from this and many other stories in the Scriptures about how we deal with our struggles with believing in the goodness and faithfulness of God. We may be questioning God’s love and faithfulness, and be unsure of God’s goodness. But we can still act as if God were a good God who loves us and wants what is best for us rather than acting as if he were not. It is our choice.
Sometimes God allows us to wrestle with this and we find ourselves having to act as if God really does care about the details of our life and our struggles when it feels as if he does not. When we continue to act as if God really does care about what is going on we may find our whole approach towards the difficulty changes. We may find Jesus meets us more than halfway, and carries us through a difficult time to the other side, while helping us to grow in faith, hope and love in the process.
We just need to remember while on the one hand God cares about what we care about, on the other hand, he is more concerned about our growth as his children into the fullness of who he created us to be. He is working to grow us up into the likeness of his Son, and struggles are a necessary part of this transformation. And he will not stop until he has accomplished what he set out to do—that is something we can count on.
Dear Abba, thank you for being a God we can trust and depend on. Thank you for your faithfulness and your tender loving care. Grant us the grace in every situation, no matter how significant or insignificant and no matter how difficult or easy it may be, to act as if you are the loving, caring, faithful God you really are, through Jesus our Lord and by your precious Spirit. Amen.
“Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt.’” Exodus 3:16 NASB
“And He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.’” Mk 5:34 NASB
God Redeems Our Children’s Past
by Linda Rex
Last weekend I not only had a house full of company, but I also attended the Converge 2017 event, which was held this year at the Scarritt-Bennett Center here in Nashville. The venue was very pleasant, with its buildings of cut stone and stained and cut glass windows. The food was excellent, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to share good times with old friends and new.
The focus of this Generations Ministries event was encouraging to me. It was good to hear and see the emphasis on interlacing the ministries of camp and mission (and internships) ministries with those of local congregations. There was also much talk about building leaders, starting with our children all the way up through the generations. We can build leaders in any area of camp or mission ministry or in our local congregations, when we are intentional about the process and are actively involved in building relationships with God and one another in every part of life, and encouraging one another towards growing up in Christ.
While on the one hand I am very excited about the direction GCI is headed, I grieve the reality my children will most likely not be participants in these new initiatives, nor benefit from them. It’s sad to think there might not be a place for them where they can really feel at home in GCI. Perhaps in time God will prove me wrong. I hope he will.
It has been very difficult for me to watch my children grow up without the benefit of a group of young people their age within the church who enjoy doing the things they enjoy doing. I’m thankful they met a few friends in school and in camp, but for the most part they have lived without the benefits of a large church social group. It might not matter to them as much as it matters to me, since they are both shy, reserved people who aren’t really social butterflies at heart.
I think what bothers me the most is the price my family paid over the years for staying with WCG/GCI. This is not the denomination’s fault by any stretch of the imagination. It was more a matter of my personal choice. Many of my friends chose to attend a neighborhood church, even though they did not fully agree with their doctrines. It was more important to them that their children have the benefits of a group of friends and activities they could participate in.
Since I felt the calling many years ago to return to WCG because God had something he wanted me to participate with him in doing, I have attended with my children in a WCG/GCI congregation. I do not regret having responded to God’s call upon my life, but I am sorry it came at such a price. And yet, over the years, God has shown me ways in which he has redeemed the years of service.
When we lived in Iowa, we traveled an hour and fifteen minutes one way to attend services in Illinois. The benefit of such lengthy travel time was a captive audience with my children at least once a week. We could talk about things of importance because they had my full attention. We found ways to turn the travel time into a positive experience. No doubt they would rather have done many other things instead, but we learned a lot about sharing life with one another, and about bearing with what we would rather not have to do.
They didn’t have friends at church they could hang out with. But my son found friends at school who would travel the long drive to church with us and go to camp with him in the summer. I don’t think he ever realized how good he was at making disciples—or at least, at bringing people along with him to encounter Jesus. But these experiences have helped him to grow in his relationship with God and with other people as he has matured.
When we moved to Tennessee, the worship team graciously included my daughter, and she began to sing in the worship band. She has really grown over the years in her ability to sing and praise God through music because of this opportunity. And I don’t think she realizes how gifted she is at this. So recently, when she chose to step down from serving the church in this way on a regular basis, it surprised everyone, and they have expressed how they would like her to continue to sing in the band.
Maybe my children didn’t have a large group of peers to hang out with when they were kids and teens. But what they did have during all those years was family. This was a group of people, most of them older than me, who adopted my two as their very own, who loved them and wished them well. These members of our church family encouraged my children, sometimes irritated and offended them, but more often, remembered them on their birthdays, prayed for them, and listened to them tell their stories.
No doubt, this may not have been the kind of relationships my kids would have preferred to have, but these were the relationships through which my children learned how to be kind, loving and compassionate adults, with strength of character and strength of will. These adults modeled healthy (and unfortunately on occasion, unhealthy) relationships and behavior. They valued my children, and so taught my children to value themselves as God does.
I am grateful for each and every warm and loving person God placed in our lives through GCI over the years. He cared for us and loved us through the churches we attended whose members embraced us and held us during some very difficult and painful years. God provided many opportunities, especially with enabling my children to attend camp at Heartland Summer Educational Program in Illinois and The Rock summer camp in North Carolina. These experiences, which were both bad and good ones for my kids, were an important part of their education and growth as God’s children.
Today, in GCI and at Good News Fellowship, we long to see children come together to learn about Jesus and about themselves as God’s beloved children. We long to see them have friends they can share everyday life with, and share Jesus with. As we prayerfully seek God’s face about this desire of our hearts, we can love well those children God has already given us to care for, sharing with them both in word and in deed the good news of what Christ has done for each and every one of us in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, and in the gift of God’s precious Spirit.
And we can trust God will redeem the lost years, and the times of loneliness and struggle, turning them into opportunities, and growing our young people up in Christlikeness. God will never cease tending our lambs and doing all he can to enable us to fully participate with him in being good shepherds to our young people. And he will finish what he has begun, because he is a good God we can count on.
Abba, thank you for being faithful to watch over and care for the little ones who we participate with you in raising, teaching and loving. God, grant us the grace to love well those you put in our lives and in our congregations and in our homes. Work with and through us to grow them up into all you have in mind for them to be. We thank you that ultimately, you are the one who grows us each up into the image of your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.
“So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’ He said to him, ‘Tend My lambs.’” John 21:15 NASB
Just As You Are
by Linda Rex
Sometimes it’s hard to accept the reality God knows us much better than we know ourselves. We like to believe we are good, well-meaning people who will always do or say the right thing in every circumstance we face. We hope we would never do or say anything cruel or hateful. We think in our heart of hearts we would never betray a friend or ruin a friendship because of greed or resentment.
But indeed, God does know us better than we know ourselves. One good example which comes to mind at this time of year is the story of Peter, Jesus’ disciple. Here Jesus was facing his death by crucifixion, knowing the reality of what he would be facing in the next few hours at the hands of people like you and me. He’s giving his disciples his last words, and says, “Where I am going, you cannot come.”
Peter is a good friend of Jesus—a real pal. He says to Jesus, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” (John 13:37) Peter is in earnest. He really means it. He’s going to be the best friend Jesus ever had—he’s going to go all the way with Jesus. He’s just like you and me. We have the greatest intentions in the world to go all the way with Jesus, to go all the way with our family, our friends, our spiritual community.
But Jesus is very pragmatic about our humanity. He says to Peter, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.” (John 13:38) Jesus just calls it as it is—“Peter, you don’t really know yourself as well as you think you do. You’re going to betray me and deny me just like any other human being would.”
Indeed, Jesus knew and accepted Peter’s brokenness as a part of who he was at that point in his life. Jesus knew in a few short hours, he would be on his own, wrestling with the evil one in a spiritual, physical and emotional battle he did not humanly want to fight. He was not unfamiliar with the failures of the human race, but felt keenly the weakness and frailty of his flesh.
It is instructive that Jesus quoted from Psalm 22 during his last hours on the cross. I was reading this psalm again this morning and was struck by the way King David put down in words the way we as human beings would treat the Lord when he came in human flesh. How many times as he was growing up did Jesus hear this psalm read? Did it put him in mind of what he was going to have to endure at the hands of the human beings he came to save? This psalm certainly describes in many ways what Jesus ended up experiencing before and during his crucifixion.
Isn’t it interested how the God who inspired this psalm, knew us better than we know ourselves? In fact, he inspired the writing of this psalm, he ensured it was preserved, and he used it as an instructive tool during his last moments before he died. The Word came to earth, knowing we would do these things to him. He was not put off by our brokenness or our capacity for betrayal and animosity. He allowed none of our human capacity for evil to prevent him from keeping his word to us that he would save us from evil, sin and death.
That the Word who is God would take on our broken humanity expresses the true reality of God’s love. As God, he had the capacity to submit himself to our human experience while remaining pure of heart, soul and mind. Rather than rejecting us or turning away from us, God joined us in our darkness and brought us up and out into his Light.
It is unfortunate that often we portray God as being so offended by sin he cannot be in the presence of it. If that were the case, we all would have been annihilated millennia ago. Seriously—what makes us think God is this way?
I think one thing which makes us think God is this way is we are this way. We get offended by a person’s problems or faults, and so we reject the person who does not meet up with our standards. We draw lines in the sand and when someone crosses them, we count them unworthy of a relationship with us.
But God doesn’t do this. He comes into our brokenness and works from within to transform and change us. He sends his Spirit into faulty human hearts so God can take up a permanent habitation there, healing us and transforming us from the inside out. He comes to the one, who like Peter, betrays him or denies him, and reconciles with him. On God’s side of the equations, there is nothing left standing between us and him.
Because God already knows us so thoroughly and completely, and loves us anyway, we can be upfront and honest about our failures and weaknesses. We can own our brokenness, telling the truth about our “messies” to God and to others. One day there won’t be any secrets—so we might as well learn how to be transparent, open and honest with ourselves and one another—living in the grace and love of God now as we will for all eternity.
Our heavenly Father has not allowed anything to come between us and his love. There is nothing which stands between us and him. This Good Friday we remember the gift of love God gave by embracing us in our broken humanity and drawing us up into life in the Father, Son and Spirit. We are beloved, cherished and held in God’s love and life, both now and for all eternity. Praise God!
Thank you, Abba, for your faithful love and grace. Thank you, Jesus, for being willing to take all our evil and broken ways upon yourself and redeeming them. Thank you, Spirit, for working all this out in Christ and in us. For your glory, God, and by your power, in your name. We thank you. Amen.
“All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations.” Psalm 22:27–28 NASB
The Gift of Trust
by Linda Rex
Last time I ended my blog by asking the questions: Will we allow God the freedom to do as he wills in our lives, believing he will make all things right in the end, and has our best interests at heart? Will we respect God’s freedom to do what he will in our situation, trusting he is a good God, a loving and faithful God, who will never leave us or forsake us?
These are tough questions to respond to because often our response to them arises out of our personal experience and our attachment issues. We may never have had an experience in our lives in which a person was trustworthy and safe in their interactions with us.
Perhaps our only experience with men has been with those who have used us and then discarded us. Maybe our only living parent has always insisted on making every decision for us our entire life, and didn’t stop when we became an adult. It’s possible that the father we adored when he was alive was great fun to be around but never took responsibility for anything with regards to his family. There are many ways in which critical relationships in our lives wound us.
Our view of God, then, becomes skewed and we begin to believe things about God which are not true. Relationships and our relational losses are so critical to our understanding of ourselves and God! The thing is, too often we plant our broken view of humanity onto the face of God rather than seeing God as he really is, and viewing broken humanity in the light of who God is. We get it flipped around.
So it is very hard to trust a God who we believe is like these images in our mind which have been created through our experiences with the people around us in our lives, especially during our formative years. When God said to Israel, “You shall have no other gods before me,” (Ex. 20:3 NIV), he was telling them to set aside all their preconceived ideas of God. They had gathered a God-concept over the centuries which included the worship of things made by human hands as well as those things created by God.
Today we may not have idols in our house we worship (though some of us may), and we may not worship the sun, moon and stars (though some of us may), we do often worship a God of our own imagination—a being who exists only in our hearts and minds, but not in reality. For if we want to know who God really is, we need to pay attention to what God says about himself, and quit focusing on what we or others might imagine God to be.
This Sunday at Good News Fellowship we will be celebrating Palm Sunday. On this day, we are reminded about the enthusiastic welcome Jesus Christ received as he entered Jerusalem before the events of Holy Week. Here he was applauded as Messiah, come to save his people—which indeed he was. Yet within a few short days, he was crucified and he died at the hands of the very human beings he came to save.
The Messiah did not show up the way the people expected him to. Jesus was not the person they wanted him to be. God in human flesh? This meant Jesus had something crucial to say about the status quo, about the ruling authorities, and what it meant to be God’s people. And they all needed to listen and to obey. Israel, and indeed all humanity, was called to see God in a new and different way, and to repent of their wrong-headed view of God. Jesus was, and is, the exact representation, or ikon, of the Father, and he would send the Spirit, who was, and is, the other Helper or Paraclete, just like Jesus.
God had revealed himself to his people through Moses not only as the “I Am”, but also as the God who is, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished;…” (Ex 34:6–7 NIV) Here we see God as a relational God, who loves his people and is gracious toward them. Yes, he deals with the nasties, but all within the context of his covenant love.
God rescued his people from slavery, provided food and water for them in the wilderness, and brought them to a new land. Throughout his history with his people, he cared for them, called them by his Spirit back to their covenant relationship with him. God was who he was. It was Israel who needed to change their view of God—to have a new heart and mind. And God told them he would work this out by sending a messiah who would usher in the age of the Spirit.
The thing is, since time began, we as human beings have resisted the Spirit’s effort to open our minds and hearts about the truth of who God really is and who we are in him. We believe we are on our own, doing everything under our own power. We believe we are in control of ourselves, each other, this earth, and the universe, and at the same time are faced with the reality we really don’t have any control whatsoever.
Fundamentally what we need at the core of our being is a realization we are creatures, who are dependent upon the God who made us and who sustains us. This is a God who wants to live in a relationship with us in which we share intimately all of life. We were meant to walk and talk with God as Adam did at the beginning, and as is described by the apostle John in his gospel and in his description of the heavenly Jerusalem. And this type of relationship requires trust.
To go deep with someone, anyone, in this way requires a level of trust which is very deep. We climb, and climb up our mountain of life, thinking we’ve got to hold it all together and keep moving up to the next level, when what we need to do is let go and fall, trusting in the Everlasting Arms.
We are unable to make sure everything works out as it should—but God already knows the end from the beginning. We are unable to protect ourselves from evil or disaster, but God has the capacity to turn evil and disaster into the best experience of our lives. We feel lost and alone and unloved, but the reality is, we are held, we are beloved, and God never leaves us—he is Immanuel, the God who is present, near and available at all times.
It was this God who joined us in our mess, and walked among us, and was willing to submit to our mistreatment and rejection of him. He was willing to go with us all the way to the cross and to death so we could learn to trust him. There was nothing he was not willing to put on the line, even the inner relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit, so we could not only learn to trust him, but also receive by the Spirit a new heart and mind filled with Jesus’ trust for his Abba.
This is the blessing of the gift of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension, and the gift of the Spirit. This gift is a life filled with trust and faith in God, in which we find ourselves able to know and see God for who he really is, and over time have our mistaken notions about God corrected and healed. This is a relationship which will never end but grow more precious with time, and will include others in joyful fellowship for all eternity.
Abba, thank you for the gift of your Son and your Spirit through whom we might come to know you for Who you really are. Fill our hearts with Jesus’ trust in you, so we might live in true, loving community both now and for all eternity. Through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“But I trust in you, LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. Let your face on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.” Psalm 31:14–16 NIV
For Love’s Sake—Abandoned Blessings
By Linda Rex
I think the story of St. Patrick is a fascinating one. I never knew until a few years ago I could read his writings and learn quite a bit about this man in the process (for example, go to: https://archive.org/details/writingsofsaintp00patr). In his writings, we see a man just like you and me, who struggled in his relationship with God, in his own personal life, and in coming to know what it meant to follow Christ and to live this out in a pagan culture in which his life and well-being were always at risk.
In my life, years ago, the March 17th holiday celebrating his life was lumped, along with many others, into the category of pagan holidays. I have since made the effort to learn the story behind the observation of this day, and most specifically, the story of St. Patrick’s life and service to God in spreading the Trinitarian gospel of love. I’ve come to see there is something to be said for pausing in the midst of our life to reflect on the beauty of the Trinity, and to once again embrace our calling to lay it all down so others may know God as he really is.
What struck me about St. Patrick’s life was not just the suffering he went through as a slave among the Celtic people who stole him from his home. Rather, what really hit home was the choice he made later in life when he was free and at home with his family, to leave it all behind and go back to the Celtic people who had so disrupted his life, so they could hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This resembles so much what the apostle Paul wrote when describing the ministry of God to us in his Son:
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5–8 NASB)
When we think about the Word of God, who was God and who was With God, who lived eternally in this inner relation of interpenetrating love and mutual submission, we must realize at some point, God had all he needed—he was at perfect peace, in perfect joy, in such glory and splendor there was no reason for the Word of God to come to this far country, to enter our darkness and blackness, except—love. There is no other possible motivation for doing such a thing—but this is what Jesus said he did: “For God so loved the world he gave…” The Father’s love was so great, even the Father was part of the coming of the Word into our broken, fallen cosmos.
I remember as I first read the story of St. Patrick, I was horrified by the experiences he went through in his simple effort to love God and to share the truth of God’s love for us in Jesus. Why would anyone choose to go through such experiences? Apart from the love of God placed in their hearts, they wouldn’t. It is only the love of God himself which could enable us to give so freely in the midst of such danger, hostility and abuse. The freedom to give one’s life completely in this way is a participation in the freedom of God to give himself completely to us, to humanity, even when he knew it meant he would experience suffering and death at our hands.
This has been on my mind a lot the past few weeks—just how much do we as comfortable, well-fed, well-dressed, well-employed people of any nation, creed or language, express this same willingness to set aside the benefits and comforts of our lives for the sake of sharing the love of God in Christ with those who are caught in the darkness of evil, poverty, suffering and grief? Does it break our hearts that others around us do not know who God really is, and that he loves them just as much as he loves us? Do we care enough to do as Jesus did—leave all the blessings for a time so others might experience God’s love?
And yet, this is a struggle for me. What does it mean to truly love another human being? Is it best to just give a hungry person money? Or is it better to help them find a way to feed themselves? Is it best to give someone money for a place to stay for the night? Or is it better to let them experience the consequences of refusing to get sober so they could stay at the mission at night and eventually get a job and own their own home?
Really, what does it mean to leave our comforts so others may find comfort? What does it mean to show and teach our neighbor the love of God in Christ?
We cannot fix other people, but we can sure bring them to Christ and participate with Christ in what he is doing to heal, restore, and renew them. We cannot, and should not, do for others what they should be and could be doing for themselves. Carrying other people’s loads in their place is not healthy for them or for us (Gal. 6:5). And yet, God calls us to be available to help others who are overburdened beyond their ability to bear up (Gal. 6:2), for this reflects God’s heart of love.
Loving others should not arise out of a sense of guilt or shame, but out of a genuine concern and compassion which comes straight from the heart of the Father, through Jesus in the Spirit. It is best to be discerning in our loving of others as ourselves. Loving another person doesn’t automatically mean we give them what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. Loving another person may mean saying no, or telling them the truth in love, or asking them to get the help they need so they can heal, grow or change.
This brings to mind the apostle Paul’s prayer: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:9–11 NASB) Prayer and listening to God’s Word to us via the Holy Spirit and the written Word are important parts of knowing what we need to do to love others as ourselves.
We need the grace of God, God’s wisdom, insight and discernment to know how best to share God’s love with others. God gave St. Patrick a call to go to Ireland and he did—but then God also gave him the grace to do the ministry he called him to. We walk by faith, trusting God to guide our footsteps, to give us wisdom in how we love others and tell them the truth about who God is and who they are in Christ. As we keep in tune with the Spirit, God will guide us and teach us how to love each unique person he puts in our path.
Abba, may we each be filled with your heart of love toward those who are caught in darkness, suffering and difficulty. May we be willing to leave our blessings behind as you ask us to and be willing to struggle and suffer and lay down our lives, so others may share in the Triune life and love with us, through Jesus our Lord and by your precious Spirit. Amen.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” Galatians 6:7–10 NASB
When Life is Too Much
by Linda Rex
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find God brings us right back to a place we have been with him before so we can see the same thing over again in a new way. Let me explain.
Many years ago, when God was rearranging my head and heart with regards to what I believed about him, I went on a search to learn all I could about living in relationship with the Holy Spirit. You see, I had been taught most of my life to that point that the Holy Spirit was merely the power of God or what God was made out of. The Holy Spirit was an essence, a thing, but most certainly not a Person, for that would mean I would have to believe in the Trinity, which I (misinformed as I was) believed was a pagan belief.
But coming to know the Holy Spirit as the Person he/she/it really was blew my mind, and rearranged everything I knew about God and myself. And all of a sudden, I began to see I was missing one of the most important things a person could know about life and how to live it—that I am beloved, I am never alone, and God is living within me in the Person and Presence of the Holy Spirit, transforming me from the inside out. And this Person is Someone I can (and should) interact with, follow, obey and worship.
To go through life struggling, powerless over sin, self and Satan, is not the desire of our heavenly Father. This is not what he created us for. Jesus didn’t come just to leave us as orphans. No, he sent the Paraclete, the other Helper like himself, so we could and would participate in the divine relations between the Father, Son and Spirit, and come to see and believe the truth about who God is and who we are in him.
Sometimes God allows life to get difficult and complicated. Sometimes he calls us into places of ministry and renewal which are beyond our ability to handle. And our human tendency is to either throw up our hands in defeat, or just knuckle under and do the best we can in the situation. But neither of these things are what God wants us to do in these situations, because we would be missing out on God’s best.
Our solution to life’s problems, challenges and opportunities too often is a new, well laid out plan or program, which we implement to the best of our ability in the situation we are facing. Now, I am not knocking well laid out plans or effective scaffolds we can work within. What I am pointing out, though, is this human tendency to be self-reliant rather than dependent upon God. I think being faced with more than we can handle is an opportunity to humble ourselves and acknowledge the reality we need Someone beyond ourselves to save us and help us.
Relationally, it is really difficult to live in relationship with someone who speaks and acts as though we are unimportant and unnecessary to their existence. It is really hard to parent a child or care for another person who believes they can do everything on their own when they don’t have a clue as to what they are doing—it’s so painful to watch them suffer the consequences of their stubborn willfulness and independence, and to not be allowed to guide and help them. But we put God through this all the time.
Indeed, in the wisdom of God, Abba has brought me again to the place he brought me many years ago—a place he brings me to a lot. This is the place where he brings all of us over and over again—the place where we must come to see, believe and admit, we are powerless over sin, self, Satan, and all those things in life we think we are capable of controlling or feel we are responsible for. We need to see, believe, and confess the truth—we need Someone beyond ourselves to intervene, and to empower us, to heal us, and to deliver us.
And this, I believe, is what the apostle Paul was talking about when he said it is in our weakness we are strongest. It is the place of emptiness and weakness where God pours in—not so we become a stagnant pool, but so we might again pour out into others and back into God, emptying ourselves so he might fill us again. This is the perichoretic life we were created for and redeemed to participate in. This is what some call the divine dance—the life which ever existed and exists and will exist in the inner relations of Father, Son and Spirit.
To always have everything under our control, or to always feel as though we need to save the day or to chronically attempt to do so, is to live dishonestly. This is not the truth of who we are, nor what we were created for. This is living in a dream world—where we are masters of our universe and we are in control of everything which happens in it. This is just not the way things really are.
And to live in this way is to be like the person in the square dance who decides to do a do-sa-do when everyone else is doing an allamande left—it creates havoc and pain for everyone involved. It’s like we become a tepid, salty lake rather than remaining a flowing stream. Something of God’s life flowing into us and out from us becomes quenched or stifled. And those around us no longer benefit from the overflowing spring of God’s Spirit and life, for it’s as if a quenching of the Spirit occurs in our relationships with them. When we feel we must always be in control of everything which is happening or what others are doing, or always be the strong one who has it all together—this grieves the Spirit, and strains our relationships. And it’s just not living or walking in the truth.
Can you or I, or anyone else for that matter, keep ourselves safe in every situation? Do we have to make sure everything is done perfectly, so nothing bad will happen? How many things like this do we take on, thinking somehow we are capable of controlling the outcome? How often do we play God? I’m learning I do this more often than probably I would ever want to admit.
So once again, I am moved to the place where I am grateful for God’s grace, in the gift of his Son, and the gift of his Spirit. God’s mystery at work in me and in my life reminds me the best place I can possibly be is the place where I recognize my weakness, my powerlessness, and my inability to control the outcome.
It is when I acknowledge this and turn to Christ, and open myself to the Spirit’s presence and power, God goes to work and begins to do new things in me and in my life and ministry. It’s on his terms, in his timing, and in his way—it’s a walk of faith. But this is the only place I want to be, because I’m moving in step with the Father, Son, and Spirit in the midst of the divine dance, and it’s such an adventure!
Thank you, Abba, for including each of us in your divine dance, for sweeping us up into your life and love. We are utterly dependent upon you for all things, and confess our weakness and need, our inability to be what we ought to be and so to do what we ought apart from you. We pour ourselves out so you may fill us anew, Holy Spirit, and finish what you have begun in us, through Jesus and in his name. Amen.
“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9–10
Owning Our Stuff
By Linda Rex
Yesterday, as the sun peeked out occasionally from storm clouds and a cool breeze kept us wishing for a jacket, we sat outside the church and talked. Good News Fellowship was stepping out of our comfort zone and had invited the community to stop by for the administration of ashes on Ash Wednesday.
Although no one from the community joined us for this event, or for the Community Ash Wednesday service which followed, it was still a good opportunity for us to reflect on the reality of what Christ has done and is doing in our lives.
As a denomination, in the past we have not celebrated this particular day or tradition. But our pastoral team felt it was an opportunity for us to open our doors and begin to step outside of them, offering others an opportunity to share with us the good news of what God has done and is doing in our lives.
As I studied the common practices for the observation of Ash Wednesday, I was struck by the focus on our humanity—“from dust you came, and to dust you will return”—and by the emphasis on repentance and penitence. As we move into the Lenten season, a season of fasting, prayer and repentance, Ash Wednesday provides a good marker and way of getting us focused on and looking forward to the events of Holy Week and the resurrection of Jesus.
It is a good thing to be reminded we are made from dust and will return to dust. There is a sense of humility which comes from realizing apart from the grace of God, we would have no existence at all. In fact, we only exist because of the love and grace of a God who determined before time began we would share in his glory.
I was reminded, though, that any thought of repentance or penitence needs to be kept within the reality of who God is, who Christ is, and who we are in him. We begin not by gazing at ourselves, our faults and failures, but first at the God who created us and made us his own. This God isn’t focused on our limitations or our weaknesses, but on the relationships he created us for, and on the love he has for us.
One of the lectionary readings for Ash Wednesday this year was Joel 2:1–2, 12–17. These particular verses leapt out at me: “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, ‘Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments.’ Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil.” (Joel 2:12–13 NASB) The prophet Joel placed the call to repentance within the framework of who God is, just as God had described himself to Moses so many centuries before, a God who is compassionate, gracious and slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and truth (Exodus 34:6-7).
God indeed wants us to own our stuff, to face up to the truth of how we fall short as human beings. But he more importantly, wants us to face up to the truth of who he is—the kind of God who is loving and forgiving, not cruel, condemning and rejecting. In giving us his Son Jesus Christ, God didn’t push us away in our brokenness, but rather brought us close, joining with us in our sin and shame, washing it away, and drawing us into deeper relationship with himself.
In fact, one of the first things which occurred in Jesus’ life after his baptism, when he heard the words of blessing from his Father “this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”, was being, in effect, “cast out” into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted of the devil. This forty days of fasting and testing, this penitence, was done on our behalf, for our sake. Jesus took the road of repentance we need to take, where we own our stuff and we choose to turn to God in faith rather than make our own way to glory.
As we enter this season of penitence, this Lenten season of reflection on our need for deliverance and salvation, I feel it is essential we begin with the reality of God’s love and mercy rather than just ending with it. Start with owning what is ours—the gift of forgiveness, and love which comes from the heart of our loving Father—as well as his Spirit who works in us our transformation and healing. And in the light of that, we look at our fallenness and need for grace.
When we keep these things in that order, then repentance is not a move toward despair and despondency, but rather a move toward joyful gratitude. We are compelled to say, “Thank you, Lord, for your mercy.” This is why I could not bring myself just to tell people as I administered the ashes “You came from dust and you will return to dust.” For me, it seemed to leave them in the dust in despair—that doesn’t seem to be what God had in mind. Why else would we have Christ at all?
To me repentance is an essential part of our walk as followers of Jesus Christ. We confess our fallenness, our brokenness, our ungodly ways of living and being. But we do it all in the context of the forgiveness which is already ours and available to us in Jesus Christ. We act as if we are forgiven and act as if we are healed. This is why I felt compelled to use these words in the administration of the ashes this year, “You came from dust, and you will return to dust. So thank the Lord Jesus for joining you in your dust and lifting you up to glory.”
Perhaps I will see things differently in the future—God is always working to heal, transform and renew. But in owning our stuff, I believe we not only need to own our fallen and broken ways of living and being, but also the heart of our loving Father who in Christ and by his Spirit says to us, “You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.” Owning our stuff means owning the reality we are forgiven, accepted and cherished by the God who calls us his own, and living and acting as though it were true.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for the great love which compelled you to not only create us out of the dust of the earth and to breathe your life into us, but to also send your Son to join us in our humanity and to raise us up to live with you in the Spirit. Grant us the grace of true repentance and faith, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Psalm 32
A psalm of David.
Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.
Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.
Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment. For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.
The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”
Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the LORD. So rejoice in the LORD and be glad, all you who obey him! Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!” (NLT)
Our Life in the Trinity 