participation
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
The Miracle of Renewal
By Linda Rex
BAPTISM OF THE LORD—I was reflecting back this morning to a sunny summer day in southern California, June 1st of 1980, when we parked the car and walked up the hill to the Loma D. Armstrong Center on what was then the Ambassador College campus. My mom and I found our way to the downstairs pool—I had never realized there was one in the basement of the building. It was on this day that I went under the water and rose again to my new life in Jesus Christ, having been baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
My baptism was not after some significant epiphany in my life, like it is for many people. It was more a realization that it was the next appropriate step in my walk with God—one that I hadn’t really given much thought to until a friend asked me why I hadn’t been baptized yet. My response was—I didn’t know. I just hadn’t given it a thought. When I seriously thought about it, I realized that years before I had committed myself to Christ and this life, had been living in repentance, but was not permitted to be baptized because of my age. Now, as an adult, it needed to be done, so I did it.
This is one reason I believe that baptizing children can be appropriate. The other is the understanding I have come to that our baptism, at whatever age, is a participation in Jesus’ fully sufficient baptism. It was for our sakes that Jesus was baptized for the remission of sins, since he had no sins to be baptized for.
The Holy Spirit brings us to the place where we begin to see the reality of who we are—Christ’s, and that in his death and resurrection he has washed our sins away and given us new life. So we participate in his death and resurrection through baptism, understanding and believing Jesus died our death and rose again, bearing all humanity with him in his new life, and in his ascension into the presence of the Father.
There is something about the sacrament of baptism which made a difference in my life. After the baptism, the minister laid his hands on me and anointed me, praying for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Truth be told, the Spirit must have already been at work with me to have brought me to this place, but back then we believed that the Spirit was with us, but not in us until after this prayer.
Since then we have seen that the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh. It isn’t whether or not he is present but rather our participation in what God is doing in us and with us by his Spirit that is at stake here. What I do know is that after my baptism and the laying on of hands, the Word of God began to make sense to me in a way it never did before. I began to understand things I hadn’t understood before. And my relationship with God became deeper than it ever was before. I found myself on a journey with Jesus, who became more and more real to me as time went on.
My simple obedience to the command “repent and be baptized” brought me into a new place in my relationship with God. I began to recognize the power of God at work in my life beginning to transform me. My relationships began to be healthier. I began to see ways in which I needed to change—and miracle of miracles, God changed me!
This was no magic bullet, though. The act of baptism doesn’t make everything in life wonderful and perfect. Rather, it is more likely to bring us to a place of crisis—what was before has ended and God is at work making all things new. We begin to experience the fire of God’s love, the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. We begin to experience the reality of our renewal into the image of the resurrected Christ. There, by necessity, is a change in one’s life and in one’s being. There is death which comes before resurrection. Some things just need to die and be buried.
Jesus talked to his disciples about taking up one’s cross and following him. That’s the part no one wants to hear about. This means there are some things we have to give up or quit, some relationships which may need to end or be altered, and some changes we may need to make when we follow Christ. When Christ died his death, all of our sinful humanity died with him—that means what is of sin is dead and buried with him. The struggle we face is letting it lie there dead. We seem to prefer living like zombies rather than living as newly born children of God.
But the good news is that we do have new life in Christ, and our failures, flaws and imperfections are covered by his blood. We have Christ living his life in us by the Holy Spirit, transforming our hearts by faith. The Spirit creates in us a desire to do the right thing when faced with temptation to do what is sinful. We participate in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his heavenly Father, understanding by the Spirit we are Abba’s beloved adopted children. The Spirit in us and with us draws us into spiritual community where we participate with Christ by the Spirit in relationships with others of like mind in the body of Christ.
Baptism is our one-time entry into our participation in Christ, while our ongoing participation is through the sacrament of communion, or eucharist. At Good News Fellowship, we obey Jesus’ command to participate in Christ’s death and resurrection in an ongoing way by participating in communion on a weekly basis. As we eat the bread and drink the wine or juice, we are reminded anew of how Christ stood in our stead and on our behalf, his life for our life, and we are thankful. This is God’s great gift to us—new life in his Son Jesus Christ by the Spirit, and the first steps of repentance and faith and baptism enable us to unwrap and enjoy this precious gift.
If you are interested in being baptized, please feel free to contact me. I would love to talk with you about baptism, repentance, and faith, and how you are included in God’s love and life in and through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Thank you, Abba, for the gift of your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you, Jesus, for standing in our stead and on our behalf, even when it comes to repentance, faith, and baptism. It is in you that we place our trust. Lord, remind us anew of the reality that we died with Christ, and we rose with Christ, and we share in his glory, both now and forever. In your Name as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.
“John answered and said to them all, ‘As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ ” Luke 3:16-17 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
Walking in a New Way
By Linda Rex
PEACE—I awoke this morning to negative news. Apparently last night the law-abiding citizens of this city were put in danger by the exploits of those who defy the law as our law officers sought to bring them to justice. Then I read that some friends of the family lost a loved one—another loss in my list of recent losses. There are times when it seems like it’s safer to be in bed than out of it.
Seeing and experiencing the evil and pain in this world can really weigh us down. Though I would never want to grow indifferent to suffering and loss, there are times when I wish I could always keep an eternal perspective about such things. It would be nice to be able to only focus on the benefits of such things rather than on the pain and grief they bring with them.
This morning my daughter called up the stairs to let me know her almost grown kitten had found a new toy. She was tossing it around and hiding it under things and playing with it. She was really having fun. But what disturbed my daughter was that it wasn’t her favorite mouse toy—it was the real thing.
There was absolutely nothing evil or bloodthirsty in what the kitten was doing. She was just enjoying her new toy—embracing the joy of play. But the poor mouse, on the other hand—it had an entirely different perspective. It had merely been doing its thing—finding a warm place to hide during the winter—when suddenly, its life was over and it had become an object of delight.
In this instance we can see two completely different perspectives as to what has happened and to what is currently going on in a situation. Perhaps this can help us to understand a little better what it means for us as human beings to live in a world where we are constantly experiencing the results of our human brokenness while at the same time we are participants in the entering of God’s kingdom into this broken world. We may only feel pain, suffering and grief, but we are actually participating in God’s joyful dance of love, grace, and peace.
Loss, separation, pain, evil—these cause suffering, anxiety, fear, and grief, and a host of other feelings and consequences we were not originally intended to experience. We were created for joy, peace, hope, and to share in the love of our heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ in the Spirit. This is the “way of peace” we were created for.
C.S. Lewis, in “The Problem of Pain,” talks about how human beings were created to live in joyful obedience to and full dependency upon God. We were meant to be and were masters of our flesh and our world, as we drew upon God for our life and our strength of will. But we decided in Adam that we would take to ourselves the prerogatives which were solely God’s. We became self-sufficient, self-centered, self-directed. And rather than walking in the garden to commune with our Creator, we walked away from the garden and began to establish for ourselves a new way of being.
The problem is, we chose a way of being which was non-sustainable. We do not have the capacity within ourselves apart from God to properly manage ourselves or our world, much less to live in harmony with one another or to continue our existence. What the incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmastime, means is that God took our plight seriously, took on our humanity, and reformed it in himself. As God in human flesh, Jesus lived a human existence which was fully dependent upon his Abba and completely and joyfully obedient to his Father’s will. He redeemed us, forging for us “a way of peace.”
The enemy of our soul has always sought to destroy us by the incessant lie that we do not need God and we most certainly do not need one another. He deceives us into believing that our human perspective about everything is the true reality—that our experience of what is occurring is what is actually at work in this world. He tells us there is no life beyond this life, or that what we do now does not affect what comes after, or that if we work hard enough and achieve a high enough standard, we’ll receive abundant rewards in the hereafter.
Notice how all these lies we are bombarded with us tell us we are sufficient within ourselves for whatever is needed in every situation. To live in full dependency upon God and in joyful obedience to his will is something contrary to our broken human way of being. We resist this, and seek a multitude of methods to avoid having to surrender to the reality God is God and we are not. And we experience suffering, grief, pain, and sorrow as a result.
Christ has come. He has reconciled all things with God and has brought humanity up into the love and life of the Trinity—by faith we participate with Jesus in his perfect relationship with his Father in the Spirit. As we participate with Jesus, we find ourselves walking in the “way of peace” he forged for us, and we find by the Spirit we have the capacity for self-control, other-centered living, and joyful obedience to God we would not otherwise have.
In Christ, we are new creatures—experiencing a new way of being—Christ in us, the hope of glory. We find as we die with Christ to ourselves and our old way of being that Christ’s new “way of peace” finds greater and greater expression in us and through us. And we begin to experience real peace—peace within ourselves, peace in our relationships and in our communities.
As we turn to God in real dependency upon him in every situation, heeding the Word which tells us to “cast all our cares upon him” (1 Pet. 5:6), we begin to experience that peace “which surpasses understanding” (Phil. 4:6-7). We find a deep joy even in the midst of our sorrow and grief. This is the blessing of the amazing gift of God in his Son Jesus Christ we celebrate during the Advent season.
Abba, thank you for not leaving us in our brokenness and our stubborn resistance to your will. Thank you, Jesus, for forging for us “a way of peace” which we have not known and which we desperately need. Holy Spirit, enable us to turn away from ourselves and to Christ, trusting in his perfect relationship with Abba, and enable us to walk in the “way of peace” we were created for through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,/For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, … To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,/Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. … To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,/To guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:68, 75, 79 NASB
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Our Life in the Trinity 