humanity
Seeking Earnestly for God
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—As I walked through the grocery store the other day, I was struck by the amount of choices placed before me of things to drink. Moving through a large open section filled with a wide variety of bottles of wine, I came to an aisle filled with beers, ales, and other cold alcoholic drinks. Beyond that was an even larger aisle filled with flavored and unflavored bottled water. And after that was an aisle filled with cans and bottles of all different kinds of soda pop.
The irony I felt was that God has given us fresh water to drink, but if I were to go anywhere in this country, hold a cup under a flowing fountain of running water, I probably would not be able to drink it. I would have to boil it first, maybe even filter it before I could safely drink it. The risk of illness would limit my ability to enjoy what God originally provided for my health and refreshment.
We live in a “dry and weary land where there is no water” not because there is no clean natural running water, but because we are parched for the living water of God’s real presence and power. Even within our churches today we find ourselves longing for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit’s renewal, yearning to see God at work in our lives, our families, and in our world. We live in a world where the Spirit’s presence is easily ignored and where our appetite for the things of God may be conveniently filled with anything our human flesh might crave.
God has given us so many things in this world to enjoy. They are meant to give us pleasure and to brighten our existence, and to show us the love and grace of our Creator and Redeemer. Yet they can so easily become the focus of our attention instead of turning us to the One who has given them to us for our joy and renewal. Rather than being a blessing to us they can enslave us or distract us from our unity with God through Jesus in the Spirit.
During Lent we may set aside some item, food, or habit in a worshipful offering to God as a means of fasting. This spiritual discipline is not meant to change God’s mind about us, but rather to open us up to the work of the Spirit in a new way. Setting something aside for a time reminds us of our dependency upon God and all he has done for us in giving his Son and his Spirit. We are reminded that our real sustenance is not in ourselves but in Jesus Christ—he is our life, and his lovingkindness is better than life (Ps. 63:3).
It is so easy for us to replace a deep abiding relationship with God with an abundance of cheap substitutes. We wander about from day to day constantly bombarded with temptations and distractions. It is so easy to find ourselves drinking from the well of our flesh rather than the free-flowing crystal waters of the Spirit. Our pause during Lent to attend to the things of the Spirit draws us away from this and turns us back toward our Savior and Lord.
When we feel we are far from Christ, God does not want us to wallow in guilt and shame. This is not his purpose. What he wants us to see is that even though we may believe we are totally lost, Jesus has already come to us, found us and brought us home to the Father. In reality, if we were to turn around and start moving in God’s direction, we would find Abba already running down the road to meet us, longing to embrace us and welcome us home.
God’s thoughts are so far above ours when it comes to the things of love and grace. God doesn’t hold anything against us, but freely and generously forgives us, even before we ever get around to saying we’re sorry. Admitting our guilt and saying we’re sorry merely affirms the reality that God needed to forgive us and so he did. God’s purpose is not to get us to feel bad and to try to do better—it is to bring us back into right relationship with himself so once again we can live in in joyful fellowship and unity with God and one another.
During Lent, our fasting can be a means by which we can attend to our thirst or need for God. A lot of times we don’t realize what’s really going inside of us because we are so distracted by our human, secular existence. Because we are so busy or caught up with the details of everyday life, we may not even realize we have turned away from our Abba and started down the road to destruction.
Our life at work, and in our family, school, and community are full of great relationships and experiences. There are challenges which stretch us and grow us into stronger, healthier people. There are circumstances and relationships which crush us and break us, causing us to wonder how we will ever be able to move on. Our human, secular existence isn’t evil in and of itself. But there is often evil at work in the things of this world and our human flesh has a proclivity apart from God’s work in us to succumb to the pulls of sinful thoughts and desires.
The only way we rise above the downward pull of our broken humanity is to drink in deeply of the free-flowing Spirit. We allow the recognition of our need for God to turn us toward him, not away from him in guilt and shame. Acknowledging our thirst, even hunger for God is an initial step toward healing and renewal. Seeking God in earnest means crying out for his redemptive power and presence, the living Christ, to finish what he has begun in us by the Holy Spirit.
Seeing how far we have fallen is not meant to create in us a determination to try harder. Yes, we want to leave behind old, broken ways of being and doing. But this realization of our need to change is in reality a thirst for the things of God which can only be filled by drinking in of the Spirit of love and grace given to us through Jesus. It is the Spirit who transforms our hearts by faith. He is the One who empowers us to live and walk in truth by the faith of the Son of God.
The spiritual disciplines we practice open us wide to the Spirit, allowing him to penetrate new parts of our being and relationships with his presence and power. Spiritual disciplines have been practiced by Christians for millennia and include such things as prayer, meditation, study of God’s word, celebration, praise and worship, service, truth-telling, humility, simplicity, contemplation, and fasting.
By creating spaces in our everyday lives to open ourselves up to the Spirit and grow in our relationship with Jesus through the practice of spiritual disciplines, we are able to drink in deeply of the living waters of God’s love and grace. We will find ourselves empowered to live in ways which are more compassionate, loving, and in tune with the heavenly realities. We will experience a nearness with Jesus and Abba by the Spirit which will be life-transforming. This drinking in of the life-giving Spirit will quench our thirsty souls in a way nothing else can.
Dear God, you are so gracious and kind! Turn our hearts once again back to you, Lord. Enable us to see our true hunger and thirst are for you and your ways. Thank you, Abba, that you did not leave us in our broken and thirsty flesh, but you sent Jesus heal us, to bring us home to you, and you gave us your Spirit to refresh and renew us. Cause our beings to resonate with your being, Lord. We are so grateful you do not leave us as we are but ever work to make us new through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Seek the LORD while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near. / Let the wicked forsake his way / And the unrighteous man his thoughts; / And let him return to the LORD, / And He will have compassion on him, / And to our God, / For He will abundantly pardon. / For My thoughts are not your thoughts, / Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. / For as the heavens are higher than the earth, / So are My ways higher than your ways / And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:6-8 NASB
“O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; / My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1 NASB
Having an Open Heart
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—My personal Lenten wilderness wanderings are taking me through some painful memories. They are also taking me to the place of recognizing and acknowledging my failures to love. This process is humbling and calls forth in me an anguished cry to God for deliverance and renewal.
The hardest thing for me to accept is the realization that if I had only listened more carefully to what the Spirit was telling me and had promptly done things his way, not in my own stubborn “righteous” way, things in my life would have been a lot better, a lot less people would have been hurt, and the lessons life had for me would have been much easier to swallow.
So often God’s love and grace stand ready to bring healing and wholeness, but we are not willing to open ourselves up to them. God’s love and grace don’t always appear the way we expect them to—case in point being the Messiah who would be a suffering servant rather than a conquering hero. We want God to conform to our ideas of how things should be rather than simply surrendering to him and his plans and ways.
Now I could wallow in guilt and shame, but it would really serve no purpose but to keep me in a place where the evil one can create even more destruction and death. No, the better thing is to receive what God is offering and be open to what he wants to change in me and in my life. Having an open heart to receive all God has for me is a better place to be.
There are many times in life when circumstances and situations are beyond our control. We struggle to do the next right thing in what seems to be an impossible situation. We seek God’s will and guidance and take another step forward. We try to live the best we know how. And still we fall short. Life takes its toll. Relationships are broken or severed. People die. Businesses fail.
We find ourselves wondering how to find the capacity to move on. Life in this broken world is tough. Becoming a Christian isn’t the solution to every little problem in this world. Sometimes becoming a Christian actually makes things even more difficult or painful. The road we walk on as we follow Christ is a path through death to resurrection. There are sacrifices and suffering which go with the Christian life, as well as many deep joys and pleasures.
God doesn’t remove the realities of our human experience. Rather he enters into them with us and walks with us through them. He carries our sorrows, lifts our burdens, and shares our struggles. Sometimes he makes things easier and gives us great redemption in an impossible situation. There are times when he allows us to go through a great trial, but he never intends us to go through it on our own—we are meant to have him present, in us, with us, and for us in every circumstance.
God has covenanted with us in Christ to be ours and has made us his. Nothing can separate us from his love (Rom. 8:38-39). He longs to gather us to himself and to express his great love and devotion. He doesn’t want us to suffer needlessly, so he gives us not only a relationship with himself, but also Christ to follow. Christ is our life (Col. 3:4) and is the substance of our existence. He is the perfected humanity we are being formed into by the Holy Spirit.
The cry of Jesus to the city of Jerusalem is the cry of Abba’s heart to you and to me. He doesn’t want us to struggle or to suffer but rather to rest in his embrace—to be at peace with him. So he has given us this rest, this peace, in Jesus. The Spirit affirms the truth that we are accepted in Christ, we are forgiven children, beloved and always welcome in our Abba’s heavenly home.
When faced with the reality of our failures to love or to be faithful to God, we need not be overwhelmed with failure. Rather we need to focus on the power and love of the God who overcame death through resurrection. Our gracious God can take a situation full of brokenness, guilt, and shame, and turn it into a means of redemption and renewal. He can turn it into opportunity to show to many the glory of his goodness, love and grace.
When we resist his grace and love, when we refuse to allow God to redeem a situation or to bring about redemption and renewal in a broken relationship, we are like Jerusalem refusing to receive and acknowledge their Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. All that’s left to us is our desolate house, our broken life, our shattered dreams.
If God’s purpose is to redeem, restore, and renew all things (which it is) then we want to have open hearts to receive God’s restoration, redemption and renewal. We want to be open to the possibilities rather than resistant to the Spirit’s work. We want to available to participate in God’s work, joining with him as he rebuilds, transforms, and heals.
This is the kingdom life we were included in through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension and in the sending of the Spirit. This is the life of the church, the Body of Christ, in this world as participants in Jesus’ priesthood, his ministry to all humanity. God is at work to heal, restore and renew, and we are included in his mission in this world. May we always be open to his possibilities in the midst of our impossibilities, to his light in our darkness, to his life in our death.
Dear Abba, thank you for the gift of life, grace and love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Give us open hearts and open hands that we may receive all you have done for us through Christ and all you desire to give us in every moment. We praise you for your faithful love and abundant grace through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! Behold, your house is left to you desolate; …” Luke 13:34b-35a NASB
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” Philippians 3:20-21 NASB
Glimpses of Hidden Glory
By Linda Rex
TRANSFIGURATION—Lately I have had to reexamine the way in which I view people in my life. I thought that I was very open to people growing and changing. But God has shown me that I’m not as gracious and open to his work in people’s hearts and lives as I thought I was.
I’m also being reminded that real love works towards the other person’s best rather than only working toward their happiness. I grew up believing it was important to keep the people in my life happy. In reality this is a very selfish approach to life because the effort to keep people happy is more about my comfort level and my convenience than it is necessarily about the well-being of those around me. It’s not wrong to want to bring joy to the people in my life, but that is significantly different in my mind than just trying to keep them happy—a task which is nigh to impossible and ultimately comes under the heading of codependency and enabling.
To bring joy to someone is more than just keeping them happy. We can feel loving toward someone but our love for them must move beyond feeling into expressions of genuine love. Real love for someone takes conscious effort and discipline. One chooses to express love to another, using one’s reason along with responding to one’s feelings. These expressions of love seek the other person’s best interests and personal growth, rather than just giving the other person what they want, when and how they want it.
When we grow up in a family in which love was not expressed in healthy ways, our efforts to love can actually be sick and maybe even destructive. In some families the parents discipline their children in the name of love, but do so in ways which are abusive and cruel. The discipline God gives us isn’t abusive and cruel but rather is laden with mercy and compassion. In fact, the curse and death we deserved because of our sinful ways and thoughts, Jesus took upon himself. He allowed us to crucify him and kill him, and did not retaliate in any way.
Love as expressed by God is self-sacrificial, humble, yielding, and gracious. And yet, God’s love always seeks our best. His purpose in taking on our humanity, living the life we were meant to live, dying our death, and rising again was so that we could fully become and be the people God intended us to be from the beginning. The apostle Paul uses the concept of having letters etched on a page, and Jesus taking our hand and writing those letters with us (and on our hearts) by the Holy Spirit. Jesus not only went before us, but by the Spirit, goes before us and with us as we grow in Christlikeness.
This beautiful love of God as expressed to us in Christ and in the gift of the Holy Spirit is meant to transform us and to draw us deeper into loving relationship with God. The reality of our human brokenness doesn’t alter God’s love for us, rather it awakens his compassion and moves him to do everything possible to bring healing, renewal, and transformation. God is ever working to transform us into the image of Christ, because even now Christ bears our true humanity in his Person as he is united forever with us in hypostatic union.
When I say that we work towards another person’s best interests and personal growth, I do not mean that we work to change them. Changing people is the sole dominion of the Holy Spirit. We can participate in the Spirit’s work by allowing our own selves to be grown up in Christlikeness and by expressing genuine godly love so we are a positive influence in someone’s life. We can tell them about our own broken path which Jesus has worked to heal and transform by the Holy Spirit. But we do not and cannot change another person. Often our efforts to change someone actually cause them to become more deeply entrenched in unhealthy ways of being and living.
I learned this the hard way and never want to try to do it ever again. The human tendency is to try to fix people and situations which in reality only God can fix. It is the Spirit’s work. And sometimes he will not work his transforming work in someone’s heart and life until we get out of the way and allow him to do it. Even the twelve-step program recovering addicts follow teaches that we cannot change another person—we can only work on ourselves. And as for me, even changing myself is problematic—I need God to change me, as I really struggle to change anything about myself.
What if someone in our lives is actually changing? What if they are growing up in Christ and beginning to manifest new ways of being and doing? How supportive are we of those changes? It is much too easy hold someone to their past ways of being and doing and to their brokenness, and not allow them to move into their new life in Christ. At the first sign of struggle or failure, we say, “They’re just the same as they’ve always been” and turn away in disgust.
I’m grateful God has not done that to me. When Paul uses the Greek word we draw our modern word “metamorphosis” from, I cannot but help think of the process which turns a caterpillar into a butterfly. The change from a leaf-eating monster into a beautiful nectar drinking butterfly is a long and difficult process. It actually includes the complete destruction of the caterpillar’s body and its reconstruction into something new. And this takes time.
And in exiting the cocoon, the butterfly goes through an intense struggle. If it did not press its wings through the small opening, it would never be able to fly. So the struggle is part of the process. We, as well-meaning friends and family, often snip the hole to make it larger so the struggle is not so difficult. But that only harms the butterfly. We can participate through being present, encouraging, praying, but we don’t want to do for the butterfly what it needs to do on its own.
I’m committing myself to becoming more aware of what God is doing in another person’s life and how I can be a helper in their joy. I want to encourage, pray, and be present as the people I encounter walk the road of transformation. I want to embrace and thank God for the work he has done and is doing to grow people into the likeness of his Son Jesus. And I want to fully participate in what God is doing to transform and change me. I hope you will join me in this commitment.
We are approaching Ash Wednesday this week. It is a good time to reflect not only on our brokenness and need for God’s mercy and rescue in Jesus, but also on the deliverance God has given us through his death and resurrection, and on the power of God to heal, transform, and renew given to us in the Person and presence of the Holy Spirit. May God bless you on your own personal journey of transformation.
Thank you, Abba, that you love us so much you want us to reflect your glory, the glory which shown in the person of Jesus Christ. Enable us to see what you are doing to grow those around us in Christlikeness and what you are doing to grow us up in Christ as well. Holy Spirit, we trust you to finish your perfect work in them and in us. Thank you for never stopping, but always working for our best, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 NASB
The Loss of a Brother
By Linda Rex
We never know how our lives may be touched by another person. Sometimes it is just a momentary conversation that we never forget; other times it is sharing a traumatic event with someone. We may be connected to someone in a long-term relationship or they may be a casual acquaintance we share life with only on occasion. In whatever way a person may be connected with us, they do touch us in some way, and when they go, we often feel a sense of loss or even a deeper grief—part of us leaves with them, it seems.
This morning I was notified of the death of a pastor friend, John Novick. I grieve for his family and pray they will experience God’s near presence and comfort in their loss. I also feel sad at his passing because he touched my life in a very special way.
For a time, John and I worked together on a regional pastoral team for Paul David Kurts. We spent time going through leadership training together with the team. During our service on the regional team and as my brother in Christ, he heard my struggles as a pastor and a woman in leadership, and on more than one occasion he prayed for me and my family. He offered me his encouragement and many reminders of God’s faithful love. Even though we were co-workers in Christ and not connected in any other way, John ministered God’s love and grace to me in a way which helped bring me healing, renewal, and challenged me to grow up in Christ.
John had a special ability to articulate well the reality that we are held in God’s love. He believed that you and I were created to, and do through Christ, participate in the Triune relationship of love between the Father and the Son in the Spirit. When I was caught in my “I am not” way of thinking, he would remind of the “I am” I was in Christ—I am beloved, I am forgiven, I am accepted, I am held—the list goes on. He struggled as we all do to fully embrace the truth of who we are in Christ, but that which he did grasp he was quick to share with those around him. For this I am grateful.
It was my heart’s desire that John be able to continue to be with us a little longer. But it would have been a struggle for him, so God was gracious and took him home. The life he has now is so much better than anything he would have had here, so I accept God’s will in this and pray for comfort for his family and friends.
I am grateful for the hope we have in Jesus. What a blessing it is that we can look forward to sharing in Christ’s “life-giving spirit” because Jesus died our death, laid in the tomb, and then rose from the grave. Apart from the resurrection of Christ, the crucifixion is only a partial solution for us. In the same way, the resurrection does not have it’s fully meaning apart from the crucifixion.
Jesus was a living soul in the same way Adam and the rest of us are living souls. Jesus laid our human flesh, our living souls, our humanity, in the grave. Jesus’ flesh was a “perishable body”, “sown in dishonor” and “in weakness”. It was a “natural body” which quite naturally came to an end at some point and needed to be buried because it was going to decompose and go back to its basic elements.
The reality now is that death is nothing to be feared. Death is going to happen to each of us. It is part of the natural progression of our humanity after the fall. But it has no power over us any longer—we have been given eternal life through Jesus Christ, and in him we are new creatures. Just as Jesus rose from the grave, we now rise from the grave by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, who was sent to us by Jesus from the Father.
Jesus walked out of the tomb with a humanity which was glorified. This humanity was an “imperishable body”, “raised in glory” and “in power”. It is a “spiritual body” which shares in Christ’s “life-giving spirit.” The “seed” of our broken, spent deceased flesh is planted, the apostle Paul says, but what comes from it is a glorified, spiritual body.
We can get some glimpses of what this body may be like when we read about what Jesus did while on earth with his disciples after the resurrection. He appeared and disappeared at will. He caught fish and ate it; he broke bread, thanked his Father for it. He walked and talked, and spent time teaching his disciples. I can picture John sitting with Jesus and John, the son of Zebedee, on a seashore eating fish together and talking about their mutual friend Baxter Kruger’s latest book.
Even though another of my friends has “moved on”, I’m happy he is free from his suffering and is now able to do what he was really looking forward to doing. I’m looking forward to a day when I can thank him for the little, but big way in which he touched my life. Although I still don’t think I will want to eat fish for breakfast, I may be willing to try it if I can have a chance to do so with Jesus.
Dear Abba, thank you for the people you place in our lives—the ones we learn from, the ones who bless us and pray for us, even the ones we get to help. Thank you for giving us opportunities to grow in relationship with people day by day, learning more about you and about ourselves in the process. God, please offer comfort to each person who is grieving a loss today. Let them know you are near and are weeping with them, and offering them your comfort and love, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. … So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised can imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” 1 Corinthians 15:36-37, 42-45 NASB
Consequences and the Final Cure
By Linda Rex
I remember when my children were toddlers how difficult it was to help them to understand not to touch the oven door on the stove when I was baking something. I would explain that it was hot. I would tell them “No!” when they reached toward it. And I would tell them they would hurt themselves if they touched it.
Even with all the explaining, instructions, and prohibitions, invariably they would reach out and touch the door of the oven. Then I would have to deal with sore fingers and tears and all the ramifications of their disobedience. I did not want them to get their fingers burned and took every precaution so they wouldn’t, but because of their stubborn willfulness they experienced pain and suffering as a consequence of their decision to touch the hot stove.
At no point, though, did my relationship with them change. They were still my beloved children and I was still committed to their well-being and health. I still did my best to guard and protect them and provide for them in spite of their disobedience and resistance to my will. They may have felt my anger and concern regarding the danger they were facing and the harm their disobedience was causing. But on my side, my love and care and gracious compassion, were unaltered.
There is something about the human heart that leads us into trouble and causes us to do things which in the end cause pain, heartache, and suffering. I don’t believe God has to go around punishing us all the time for “being bad” because most of the time we and those around us already suffer the consequences of the unhealthy and unloving things we say and do. God can quite easily give to us “according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds” without lifting a finger. Life deals us all the blows we need and more, and if it doesn’t, we can trust in due time God will see that all is made right.
We know this because of Jesus Christ. Jesus, who stands in our place and on our behalf, experienced the consequences of our sick hearts as humans who turned away from their Creator and Lord and turned toward themselves and the works of their hands. It seems that God was willing to let us be stubborn and willful and to do things our own way even if it meant the Son he gave us died at our hands.
It’s not like God didn’t give us any guidance or instruction. God went to the effort to create a nation whom he bound himself to in a covenant relationship. He taught this people, and in them the world, how to live in loving relationship with him and with one another. We look at the law as being prescriptive—something we’re supposed to do. Rather, the law was meant to be descriptive—it describes what it looks like when people live in loving relationship with God and one another and how gracious God is when we fall short.
This means that God told us what it looks like to participate in the loving relationship he has existed within for all eternity—in perichoretic oneness, in mutual submission, in interpenetrating unity of being—three Persons in one Being. This is the image of God we were created to reflect. This is the image we were made to bear in our own relationships with God and each other.
Even Moses understood that the human heart resists living in this way. He knew that what was needed for the nation of Israel was a change of heart, because their natural human response to God was resistance, rejection, and disobedience. The human heart, our human flesh, when left to itself seeks only its own pleasure and will, not God’s. We, quite naturally, give ourselves over to the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.”
God never intended for us to live in this way. He knew we would choose this way of being, so he planned from before time began to provide us with a new heart and mind, a new way of being. Jesus voluntarily offered himself so we could one day be freed from our carnal humanity and be given a new heart and mind grounded in God himself.
Our very act of resistance toward God in crucifying Jesus was part of God’s plan of salvation. Indeed, in dying our death in our place and on our behalf and at our hands, Jesus crucified once and for all our human proclivity towards rebellion, disobedience, and stubborn willfulness. Our sick human heart was regrounded in Christ’s perfect heart of obedience, submission, and service. In Christ, we died to sin and death, and rose to new life. We have been given Christ’s new heart of love—in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit God has, through Christ, given us new hearts and minds.
So the apostle Paul says things like, “put on the new self (Eph. 4:24)”, or “since you’ve been raised with Christ, keep seeking things above (Col. 3:1)”, “put on a heart of compassion, kindness… (Col. 3:9)”. We are “being transformed … from glory to glory… (2 Cor. 3:18)”, as we turn to Christ in faith and the Spirit reforms us in the image of Christ. Who we really are—those perfected in Christ as imagebearers of God—is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). There might not be a whole lot of outward evidence of change, but God’s still at work. On his end it’s a done deal, while on ours it’s a work in progress.
In Christ, God wrote his law, his way of being, on human hearts. As we respond to the work of the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves living in the truth of who we are—God’s beloved children who reflect his likeness, who have his heart and mind. We have been given a new heart and God has written on it through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension a new way of being, which includes a desire to live in loving relationship with God and one another.
There is a new existence we participate in through Jesus in the Spirit. What we struggle with is, we believe we are still slaves to sin. We believe we are evil at our core and so God is opposed to us and against us. This is the lie we have been taught in so many ways. But the truth is, we have always been upheld by God in our human existence, and we have been rescued and redeemed by Christ. Any barrier we or the evil one may have placed between us and God has been removed by Jesus Christ. We have been made, are being made, and will be made one with God through Christ in the Spirit.
We have been given the ultimate cure for the sick human heart—Jesus Christ—and he is written there by the Holy Spirit. We are blessed as we live in the truth of this and so, as we participate in Christ’s perfect relationship with his Abba in the Spirit, we experience all the benefits of having a new heart and mind. The beauty of all this is the love God puts in our heart for him and one another. He empowers us to live in loving relationships and to do what is kind, compassionate, and truthful. He inspires heartfelt obedience and genuine humility as we turn to him in faith.
In all things, then, he receives the glory and praise. He is the divine Physician—the One who has provided and does provide the ultimate cure to our diseased human heart. If we never acknowledge our illness, it will be difficult for us to experience the cure. We may as well admit to the truth of our need for his transforming work in us. We can participate in his healing work by keeping a daily appointment with him and allowing him to do what is needed to transform our hearts by faith.
Dear Abba, thank you for doing all you can to keep us from unnecessary suffering, pain, and sorrow. We know we are so often the cause of this in our lives. Thank you for giving us your Son so we could be healed of our sick hearts and be given your own heart and mind. May your Spirit continue to transform our hearts by faith and bring us fully into the fullness of Christ. We praise and thank you for your goodness to us and your faithful love through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 NASB
The Burning Coal of Grace
By Linda Rex
In the past few years I have had to rethink previous decisions I had made about a certain relationship in my life. The biggest struggle I have found is how to reconcile reality with the possibility that a person might actually be transformed by grace. Does God truly change people? Or, as I have been told on many occasions, do people essentially stay the same and never change?
Looking at this question from the viewpoint of what I see around me, I struggle. Some people never seem to change—they are always the sandpaper in our lives, causing rashes in our emotional skin due to their abrasiveness and broken ways of being. Then I look inside and ask myself, “Has anything in me changed? Am I any different than I was years ago?” And I wonder.
The thing is, the secular viewpoint in the world around us either says, “That’s just the way I am—accept me,” or “I just need to try harder and I’ll be different—be patient with me.” The act of personal transformation or inner change is left fully up to us. We, especially us perfectionists, set impossible standards for ourselves and/or others, and then get all bent out of shape when we don’t attain them. Then again, some of us just toss all standards out the window and live free of any restrictions or inhibitions. Somehow this seems to be better than playing by the rules, struggling to become better people and failing.
The truth is—and I have seen this play out in my life and in other people’s lives—God changes people. When God goes to work in a person’s life, they are never the same as they were before. No doubt, they participated in the process, but the real heavy-lifter in the whole transformational experience is God himself.
And the key element is grace. The reality is that our transformation begins and ends with God. God meant us to be adopted children who live as unique persons in an equality and unity which mirrors the divine love and life of Abba, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The amazing Being who created us was not willing to settle for anything less than this—we were to share in his life and love, and so in the person of the Word, God ensured this would be our reality. We are meant to love God with all our being and to love one another as ourselves.
Obviously, if we are honest with ourselves, we fall short of this spiritual reality. The closer we get to God, the more we get to know him for who he is as our Lord and our Redeemer, the more we are faced with the fact that we are not what God intended from the beginning. When held to the mirror of the image of God, we are but a cracked and broken replica. There is significant work which needs to be done to bring us to the place where we reflect God’s image perfectly.
In the book of Isaiah, the prophet tells about his encounter with God, where he “saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, / The whole earth is full of His glory.’” (Isa. 6:1-3 NASB) Isaiah’s immediate reaction to this amazing sight was to be overcome with a deep sense of unworthiness. Who could possibly be worthy to stand in the presence of such divine holiness, of perfect relatedness?
What I see in this passage is that Isaiah makes no effort to make himself worthy. No, he knows he isn’t, and so he simply falls on the grace of God to make him worthy to be in his presence. God, via the seraphim, offers him grace—the burning coal on his lips, the forgiveness of sins. All Isaiah was asked to do was to receive it, and then to offer himself to God for his service in gratitude.
In the giving of the burning coal, Isaiah’s concern about being a man of “unclean lips’ was dealt with summarily and completely. Isaiah was given new lips through the burning coal—there is a picture of transformation here. He is moved to offer himself to God to carry a message to the people of Israel in spite of God’s warning of their resistance to the word he would carry. And his life, however broken it may still have been, became an offering of service to God.
So often we run from intimacy with God because drawing close to the One who loves us so completely forces us to face the truth about ourselves. God’s grace, love, and compassion aren’t meant to make us feel unworthy, dirty, and shameful. Rather, they are meant to assure us that even in our brokenness we are held in God’s perfect love—we are chosen by God for relationship with himself and he has done and will do all that is needed so that we can enjoy that relationship with him both now and forever.
Jesus brought grace and truth to us. We can at the same time we see ourselves in our brokenness, see ourselves as forgiven, accepted, and beloved. In Jesus we see the perfect humanity we were all meant to have at the same time we see our desperate need for transformation. In the acknowledgement of that need, in our surrender to the claims of Christ, grace goes to work. By the Holy Spirit, that which Christ has made true about us becomes ours in our personal experience. In the moment in which we receive God’s love and grace, our hearts are touched, our lives are changed.
It is not a magical transformation. Rather it is a journey of renewal. God, by his grace and power, begins to work to change, heal, and renew us inside. As we acknowledge and accept our belonging to God, believe in the truth of what Christ has done and is doing on our behalf, we will experience a change in our behavior. What God is working out inside by the Spirit becomes our reality in our words and actions. It is not just a momentary experience, but a journey—a movement which may go forward, backward, and in circles. Ultimately, though, the change in our hearts and lives is real.
Do people really change? Yes, I have seen it and have experienced it firsthand. Sometimes people may revert back to old behaviors or ways of being—the brokenness of our human flesh plays a role in this. But when Jesus by the Spirit gets involved, and people are walking in the truth of who they are in Christ, they change. They are healed. They are renewed. They are transformed.
This is why the gospel is so much more than just a promise for life after death. The gospel is the word of redemption—of renewal for us and for our entire cosmos. Jesus is making all things new and we want to be a part of that process. We want healing and transformation in our lives, in our relationships, and in our world, and we can join in with Jesus as he works to bring this about. We can share this good news with each person he brings into our lives while walking with them on the road of redemption, as we walk the road of renewal ourselves.
Dear Abba, thank you for loving us in our brokenness, for never leaving us but rather, bringing us near through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Do finish what you have begun—let the cleansing power of grace and truth transform, heal, and renew us. We offer ourselves to you with grateful hearts, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.’ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.’” Isaiah 6:5-7 NASB
Named By God
By Linda Rex
It’s hard for me to imagine ever walking the streets of Jerusalem in this life. It must be a powerful experience for a follower of Jesus to walk the same streets he walked, seeing and hearing similar sights and sounds. It must be very inspiring to look down upon the city from the Mount of Olives and to imagine what it must have been like on that dark night when Jesus poured his heart out to his Father in surrender.
God chose the people of Israel and its city of David to fulfill his plan for the redemption of the world. Jerusalem is a good example of the reality that God does not leave us as we are, but is continually in process, moving us toward a beautiful, redemptive end.
It’s a little difficult for me to get my mind around the idea that God might single out a particular city to place his name and to call his own. Yet it was Jerusalem Jesus came to as a youth to sit at the elders’ feet in the temple. It was Jerusalem that was the center of so much of Jesus’ life and ministry, and where he was crucified, buried, and resurrected.
And it is Jerusalem that over the millennia has been the focus of strife, division, and war. It is instructive that when human beings are involved, even those who call themselves Christians, there is so much disagreement, hostility and disunity.
Thomas F. Torrance lamented that even in Jerusalem, the city of David, the place of the ultimate sacrifice by our Savior, Christians will not gather together at the table to partake of the Lord’s supper together. Their divisions over matters of doctrine and even the manner of partaking of the eucharist are so intense, there is no common ground on which to gather together, even though Jesus Christ created that common ground within himself when he was here on earth.
God never meant for us to live our lives divided from one another or separated in any way from him. We as human beings focus on what divides us rather than on what brings us together. We focus on our distinctions while God focuses on our unity within the Trinity—all made in the same image of the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit.
It is so important to us in this modern world to have a distinct name that is our very own—our own identity and personhood—a sense of individuality. It is ironic that so often we want to “be different” so we dress and act like everyone else who is trying to “be different.” Our unity, though, is not a matter of us all being the same, thinking the same thoughts, having the same aspirations and preferences. Our unity is in the One whose name we bear, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our unity is in what he has done, is doing and will do in our place and on our behalf.
Unless we are in tune with the spiritual realities, we do not realize it is in our personhood as made in the image of God in his likeness that we find not only our commonality but also our uniqueness of personhood. We do not get lost in the unity within the Trinity, but rather we become more fully our own true selves—those who are the beloved adopted children of God Most High—created in his image, to reflect his likeness.
He is the Name Above All Names. He has named us his very own in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. No one can take his name from us because he has joined himself to us in our humanity, taken it through death and resurrection, and lifted us up with him to be forever in the presence of the Father in the Spirit.
The body of Christ bears the name of Jesus Christ as she walks with him down the path through death to resurrection. She is the Bride of Christ, and when he returns to earth in all his glory, she will bear his name forever. She will dwell in the New Jerusalem, the new Zion, which will be filled with God’s beloved adopted children, all bearing a new name which God alone will give them.
God has a new name for Zion. He, in Jesus, has remade and is renewing all things, including the broken, embattled city of Jerusalem. One day this historical treasure will cease to exist as it does today, and will become what God envisions her to be. In the same way, the body of Christ—the universal body of believers, the Church—will become all that God meant for her to be.
I believe this is God’s word for Grace Communion International as well. We have been through so much as a denomination. We are much like a forsaken, and rejected spouse (Isa. 54). But God is gathering us back, building us up, and making us new. He has given us a new name, and this name is in his Son Jesus Christ. We have nothing to fear and everything to hope for.
There is much yet to be done in sharing the good news of all God has done for all humanity in and through Jesus Christ. We have a great story to tell of God’s redemptive purpose and power. We have the gifts and blessings of the Holy Spirit. We have come to see our center is in Jesus Christ. We are finding our identity, purpose and value within the Triune God as we participate in the divine love and life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We have gone with Jesus all the way through death and resurrection. God isn’t done with us yet, but is just getting started. He has given us his name, and is causing us to shine with his righteousness and his salvation so that all nations may see and turn to Jesus. May God be glorified in and through us as we share with Jesus in his mission to the world.
Heavenly Father, thank you for calling us to be a part of what you are doing in this world, and allowing us to participate with Christ in both his sufferings and his glory. Continue to write on us your Name that we might effectively bear your good news to every part of this broken and hurting world. Lord, please demonstrate your power and your great love through your people, and specifically through us as members of Grace Communion International. Give our pastors and leaders wisdom to know your will and to follow you wherever you lead. By your Spirit, bring healing, renewal, and transformation. We thank you in advance and trust you for all of this in and through the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, / And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, / Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, / And her salvation like a torch that is burning. The nations will see your righteousness, / And all kings your glory; / And you will be called by a new name / Which the mouth of the LORD will designate.” Isaiah 62:1-2 NASB
Shining With God’s Glory
By Linda Rex
Sometimes we can look at ourselves and our lives and believe that nothing will ever get any better. Like the day outside today, our lives can seem gloomy, gray, and dull, without any hope of things turning around. We can also feel that way about ourselves and wonder if we will ever be any different than we are now.
Life can get difficult at times, and for some people it is difficult all the time. This can suck the heart out of us and cause us to lose any faith we may have in God or in his goodness and love. The grayness of our lives can overwhelm any positive experience which may come our way, so much so that we may even begin to be addicted to the pursuit of pleasure and glittery things.
The truth is, we in our human flesh prefer pleasure and fun and irresponsibility. We don’t want to have to follow any rules or meet any expectations. We want to live free to do what we want as we want without there being any consequences. We don’t want tough times or hard struggles. We want our lives to be like an easy stroll through the park.
Unfortunately, the reality is that there are consequences and life is hard. And there is a way of being we were created for which we do not define or establish for ourselves. The good news is, Jesus Christ paved that way of being for us in our place and on our behalf. The good news is, God sent us his Spirit so we could begin to participate in Christ’s way of being. Now we need to come to the realization we have been changed, and we are called to live in the truth of who we are in spite of the circumstances we may find ourselves in or the experiences we may have in this life.
The truth is, we are God’s beloved forgiven and accepted children—the apple of his eye. The truth is, in Christ, we are brought near to God and held in the embrace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The reality we exist within is that we are not forsaken, not unloved, and not forgotten—but we are loved, remembered, and cherished.
The difficulty we have is seeing beyond what our vision, our senses, our desires, and our feelings tell us. We walk by faith not by sight. We walk in a relationship with God, and relationships require trust. We must believe that God is who he says he is, and that Christ is all we need for salvation. God gives us that faith to believe by his Holy Spirit—receive and embrace the truth of your existence!
God knew from before time began that we would have a proclivity or tendency towards unbelief, towards having to have everything in tangible form and under our control. He knew we would not trust him to decide what is good and evil, but would prefer to make that decision ourselves. He knew we would listen to the lies which tell us we are less than, we are not, and we are unloved.
This is why he planned from before time began that he would send his Son for our salvation. This is why the living Word chose to come to us and live among us. As God in human flesh, Jesus shone with the Father’s glory. In his humanity, Jesus expressed the perfection of the divine life human beings were created to express. Jesus made manifest the divine perichoretic love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit during his human life here on earth.
As the personification of the nation of Israel, standing in their stead and on their behalf, and in the place of all humanity and on its behalf, Jesus shone with the divine glory God meant for all of us to shine with. At one point during his story as told by the gospel writers, we see Jesus actually transfigured, shining with the divine glory he had before time began. In this event, we begin to have some hope of what kind of divine glory we as human beings were meant to share in and reflect.
One day our gloomy existence will fully radiate with the divine light and love. We will shine like precious stones set into a crown or diadem. God always meant for us to shine in this way, and Jesus came to guarantee that this would be the case for each and everyone of us as we embrace the truth of our existence and put our faith in him.
We don’t have to wait until death to begin to shine with God’s glory. As human beings, we were created to reflect God’s glory now—reflecting the very image of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we trust in Jesus, we begin to participate in the divine life and love right now—sharing in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Abba and beginning to radiate with the nature and goodness of the One who shines forever in glory. We begin to live in the truth of our existence, as unique yet equal persons in a oneness based within the Trinity itself.
This is our glory—being adopted and beloved, forgiven children of the Triune God. We shine with God’s love and grace because of Jesus Christ and all he did in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We radiate the grace of the Spirit of God as we allow Christ to live and abide in us. We always have been and are beginning to look more and more like jewels in the diadem of Abba and in the crown which rests on our beloved Savior’s head.
Dear God, thank you for choosing us before time began in your Son, Jesus. Thank you for cutting us and polishing us in your Son Jesus in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Thank you for infusing us with your glory and light by the gift of your heavenly Spirit. May we always shine for and with your glory through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” Isaiah 62:3 NASB
Loving the Fear Away
By Linda Rex
Epiphany—As we enter into this season of manifestation, we begin with the story of the wise men following a star to Jerusalem. As Matthew tells the story, we read that “magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him” (Matt. 2:1b-2 NASB).
This simple statement seems to imply much. What did the magi believe about the “King of the Jews” that was so important that they would travel for miles and miles carrying precious treasures over rough terrain at the risk of attack from robbers and bandits? And what made them believe he would be a person worthy of worship when they arrived?
Perhaps they were misguided in their real understanding of who this baby was who they found living with his parents in a home in Bethlehem. Maybe they did not grasp the reality he was the Son of God in human flesh. But they believed something King Herod found frightening and offensive. Their pursuit of the star’s mystery resulted in King Herod’s destruction of the children of Bethlehem due to his fear of being supplanted by another more worthy than himself.
Like King Herod, when we are faced with the mystery and reality of Jesus Christ, do we find ourselves filled with fear rather than faith? If this is the case, it must be because we do not recognize in Jesus Christ the profound and amazing reality of God’s love expressed toward us, or made manifest, in Jesus Christ. Encountering Jesus through the Word of God, or through our relationships with those who know and follow Jesus, should not create fear, but rather enable us to come to a deeper understanding of the heart of Abba, for Jesus Christ is the exact representation of his heavenly Father.
If we find ourselves filled with fear rather than with faith, perhaps it is because we, like King Herod, have supplanted worship of the Holy One with worship of ourselves or the things and passions of this life. To worship Jesus means to acknowledge we do not call the shots—we are not in control, God is. To worship Jesus means to acknowledge that God has entered into our existence and clarified for us what it means to live in loving relationship with God and one another. Kneeling before the Christ child means submitting ourselves to the One who humbled himself so significantly, he allowed himself to be cared for by humans and ultimately crucified by them.
In the presence of the child Jesus, these magi offered their precious gifts. In their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh we can see Jesus as our prophet, priest, and king, as the One who was to suffer and die, but ultimately reign over all. These gifts are like a snapshot of the life of Christ and enable us to see a glimpse of the story we celebrate throughout the year in the Christian calendar. They bore witness to who this child was—the miracle of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, born of a virgin in Bethlehem, the fulfillment of God’s promise to his people of deliverance and salvation.
It is significant that throughout the life of Christ on this earth, he was opposed by the Jewish religious leaders who feared the loss of their position and the crushing opposition of the Roman government more than they loved God. They were filled with fear rather than recognizing and welcoming God’s love fully expressed to them in Jesus Christ. Their obsession with power, money, and position blinded them to the miracle of God’s presence in their midst in the person of Jesus. They were the blind leading the blind—preventing others from seeing the truth about God’s love for humanity due to their unwillingness to acknowledge what was right before their eyes.
In the story of the magi we also see the heart of the Father toward all humanity. It is ironic that those who were not Jews, who were not the called people of God but people of different lands and peoples, bent their knees before the Christ child. It was the Gentiles who acknowledged the Messiah, not the ones to whom the Messiah was sent. The love of God expressed to his people was rejected by his people, but sought out by and worshiped by those who were not necessarily the called-out ones.
In this story we see then, that God kept his word to his people, but his people would not acknowledge the One who was sent. It is possible to deeply love someone who rejects your love—and this was Abba’s experience through Jesus with the people he loved. God’s purpose was not to punish his people or to harm them, and his purpose for all humanity was to save them, not to condemn them (John 3:16-17). Abba was bringing all humanity into union with himself in Jesus so we could all participate in the warm fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit—to share in the divine dance both now and for all eternity.
No matter humanity’s response to the gift of God’s love, God will not remove it. God has entered our cosmos, taken on our humanity, and defined for us what it means to be humans living in loving relationship with God and one another. To truly love unselfishly and wholeheartedly is to lay down one’s life for another. God has given his very self—his heart and soul—in his Son Jesus, no matter the cost to himself. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, ever (Rom. 8:38-39). And this is the perfect antidote to fear.
Father, enable us to trust in your perfect love as expressed to us in your Son Jesus. May your Spirit fill our hearts with faith, and with the same love for others which you have for us. Grant us the grace to love as you have first loved us, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.” 1 John 4:18 NASB
“Fear cannot co-exist in this love realm. The perfect love union that we are talking about expels fear. Fear holds on to an expectation of crisis and judgment [which brings separation] and interprets it as due punishment [a form of karma!] It echoes torment and only registers in someone who does not realize the completeness of their love union [with the Father, Son, and Spirit and with one another.] 1 John 4:18 Mirror Bible
At Home With Jesus
By Linda Rex
I was reflecting back with a friend of mine to the time when my kids were teens and preteens. Those years of parenting can be very challenging. Growing up in this society is not simple—it is very difficult and can even be very dangerous. Youth are surrounded with the means to derail their lives and to make catastrophic decisions which could destroy any possibility of attaining their full potential in this life.
Young people today grow up watching, reading, and hearing many things which tell them they can be anything they want to be if they just work at it and try hard enough. The reality they experience as they get older often is, they can’t. There is a great chasm between possibilities and abilities caused by the way we function as adults in this culture. We grow up believing that if we get a college degree our future is secure, but then find ourselves with a wagonload of debt, and no one will hire us. The disillusionment and disappointment which comes with this creates depression and discouragement.
I’m grateful for the privileges and opportunities I was given as a young person. Even though I worked my way through college, I could not have done so if the college hadn’t provided a work program which made it possible. If I hadn’t had parents who supported me and helped me when I found myself in trouble, I would have had a very difficult road to travel on my own. I was very blessed—many others have not been so blessed.
The reality is, youth and young people are not meant to have to travel the road to maturity on their own under their own power. That may be what they prefer—we love our independence as teens and young adults. But the truth is, and I believe most understand this, youth and young adults need a safe place to come to when life falls apart—a place where they are accepted and beloved in spite of their shortcomings and failures and a place where they are called up to be the best that they can be in Christ.
Home can and should be this place. But what if there is no home for them to come to and find acceptance, comfort, and caring, to be challenged to grow and find renewal? I believe God meant the body of Christ to be this place—to be the home away from home for each and every person.
We don’t read much about Jesus’ life and experiences as he grew from childhood to adulthood. There is merely the story about his family visiting Jerusalem for a festival and Jesus staying behind to study at the temple.
Did Jesus ever disobey his parents? I don’t think he did. But in this particular instance, he did what they did not expect him to do. He was at the age of accountability—that stage in life where he was assuming responsibility for his own decisions. This is the tough stage for parents who want to tell their children what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. This where parents have to back off and let their children try it out on their own, to make mistakes as they grow.
And it can be hard to watch young people make decisions we would not agree with. Jesus’ parents had to listen to him tell them that he was responsible to God not to them—he needed to be in his Father’s house, rather than Joseph’s house. That had to hurt. But it was the truth. And it took courage and humility for Christ to confront his parents in this way.
But it is also interesting to note, that Jesus did not disrespect or disobey Mary and Joseph at all in doing this. And after this conversation, he went home to Nazareth with them, and subjected himself to their authority. He honored and obeyed his parents, even though he was his own person and knew he was the Son of the Father. Just as the Son of God is of the same essence as the Father yet submits himself to his heavenly Father, Jesus Son of Mary, submitted himself to his human parents while on this earth.
Within this family relationship Jesus grew “…wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” He went through the same process youth and young people go through today to grow up and develop into an adult. Even though the culture was much different than ours today, there were still challenges and distractions which could have kept Jesus from fulfilling his calling and purpose. But he weathered them all and gained the inner strength and capacity to face the challenges he faced.
The next time we see Jesus, we find him being baptized by John, and then being driven out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to face the most difficult challenge of his life—an encounter with evil himself. What had prepared Jesus for this? Who taught him that fasting and prayer would prepare him for this battle? Who taught him the Scriptures so he would have an arsenal for his warfare against Satan?
A lot of times we tend to have magical thinking about this—he was the Son of God, so of course he knew the Scriptures and prayed. But he was human—fully human. He wasn’t living out of his divinity, but out of his humanity as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus must have expended serious effort in his study of the Scriptures and in prayer and fasting long before this encounter. If he knew he had to be in his heavenly Father’s house, then he must have known that, like you and me, he needed to do the things which grew his relationship with his Abba while he was on earth. No doubt, he studied the Scriptures and memorized them like every other Jewish boy his age, and learned the prayers of his people and prayed them.
We don’t know much about Joseph, and only a little about Mary, but the evidence of Jesus’ life shows the results of their parenting. And indeed, perhaps even in spite of their parenting, Jesus became all he was meant to be as the Messiah of his people. Their home was a place for Jesus to grow “… in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and man.” We participate with God in Christ when we provide such a home for our children, and when we provide such a home away from home—the church—for youth and young people.
We can also participate with God in the well-being and development of our youth and young people by providing relationships with those God places in our lives. We share with them our journey with Jesus, modeling for them what it looks like to live in a deep, meaningful relationship with God in Christ by the Spirit, and how to deal with the difficult things of life, the disappointments, and even the successes of life. We demonstrate the grace of God at work in us in our authenticity and integrity of being as we grow up in Christ, as fail, as we succeed, and as we struggle.
We can become, or provide, a safe place for youth and young people as they go through life, enabling them to see something beyond what this culture throws at them in its media and merchandising. As we experience and live within the truth of God’s love and grace, we share it with them, and enable them to also experience and live in this truth. When youth and young people feel at home with us, they can also learn to feel at home with Jesus, and reap the benefits of such a relationship as they mature.
Thank you, Abba, for enabling us to see and learn what it is like to grow up in a family through your Son Jesus Christ. We thank you that by your Spirit you create true family, the body of Christ. Enable us as youth and young adults to grow up and reflect clearly your image as loving and gracious God, and enable us as adults to provide safe, caring, and challenging places for youth and young people to grow. Draw and bind us together, making a true home which will last forever, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.’ And He said to them, ‘Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?’ But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:48-52 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 