relationship with god
Ascension to Glory
By Linda Rex
ASCENSION SUNDAY—Today I have on my mind one of those tragic circumstances in which people whom I care for and love are bound by either habit or choice to things which hold them captive. Their relationships aren’t all based on love but rather on convenience or need, or even on whether or not they can get what they want or need from the people they profess to care for. This breaks my heart.
How do you love such a person? Love in their minds seems to mean getting what they want or believe they need even when it is at the expense of the people they get it from. Love, for them, seems to have to do merely with the fleshly passions of the human soul rather than the aspects of our being which reflect the divine glory.
To tell such a person no, or to limit their ability to have the things which give them pleasure, doesn’t feel loving to them. Rather it feels restrictive and uncomfortable. It feels like the person who is setting limits on them doesn’t care about their feelings or needs, when in reality there is deep love and compassion behind all and any efforts to help by setting limits or restricting behaviors.
We as human beings can become very confused about the difference between love and lust, concern and condemnation. To tell someone their behavior is self-destructive and/or hurtful and that it needs to stop is perceived as interference or being judgmental and condemning, when in reality the person trying to intervene wants to help save them from their self-harm before it is too late. People can lose all ability to recognize the glory inherent within their being unless someone else points it out to them, but even then, they may refuse to recognize it or live in the truth of who God meant for them to be.
In reality, each and every human carry within themselves a divine glory. Each of us was made in the image of God after his likeness to reflect the glory of God. We are made to manifest God’s very nature as Father, Son, and Spirit living in perichoretic oneness, purity, and holiness. It is God’s nature to be loving, gracious, compassionate, and just (Ex. 34:6-7). This is the nature we were meant to reflect as we live our daily lives. The reason Jesus came was not so we could be more self-indulgent and self-serving, but rather so that we could be more Christlike—living a life of loving humility, service, and sacrifice in healthy relationship with one another and God.
The Christian church is meant to be the place where the glory God has given us is manifest in the way in which we interact with one another. Believers are to live with one another in a way which reflects the glory and majesty of God as expressed to us in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ in his completed work on our behalf and given to us by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
When we live in ways that are self-indulgent, hedonistic, and self-serving, we are living in denial of the truth. We are missing out on the blessing and joy of living in the truth of our humanity—that we are accepted, forgiven, beloved, and healed in Christ and meant to reflect the glory of God. We are created to live in community, in outgoing concern and service to others around us, walking in grace and in truth in our relationships.
God made us his very own adopted children and has done what was needed so that we may be forgiven and freed from all the things in this world which bind us and hold us captive. As we gaze upon Jesus, we find ourselves living in him—his humanity is real. He was just as human as we are, with the same everyday need to eat, drink, and sleep. He knew what it was like to hunger, to ache with strained muscles, and to lay his head back to catch a quick nap when he had the chance. He understood the ache we feel when we have broken relationships and understood with great compassion how we feel when we lose someone dear to us.
It was not enough for the Word of God to join us in our humanity. He joined us in our human experience, but then was willing to go through the sorrow and agony of the worst of it—betrayal, shame, humiliation, abuse, torture, and crucifixion. Whatever we may perceive of as pain or grief, Jesus experienced it too, carrying within himself our very own brokenness as human beings. And having done all this, he entered into the depths of death—going through what every human must experience one day—he died and was laid in a tomb.
But bearing our humanity in this way was not the end. It was necessary that Jesus carry our humanity with him from Mary’s womb on into eternity. The Lord of all rose from the grave bearing our glorified humanity. The newness of our being as humans made in the image of God is something Jesus Christ bears even now. For forty days following his resurrection, his disciples saw, touched, and heard the reality of our resurrected glorified humanity in Jesus. He walked, talked, and ate with them—living life in ways which showed he was still very human but also very glorified.
Jesus said that the only way we could share in this divine glory was through the endowment of the Holy Spirit. He had to go to the Father so that the Spirit would come and each of us could share in this marvelous gift Jesus had forged on our behalf. In Ephesians we learn that Jesus even now bears our glorified humanity in the presence of Abba—who we are as human beings has been reestablished in the glorified risen Lord and is there for us awaiting our own transformation.
The ascension is a significant day on the Christian calendar, for our humanity ascended with Christ when he rose to be in the presence of Abba forever. We are given the gift of everlasting life in Jesus Christ, but we can continue to choose the ways of death instead of receiving this gift and living in the truth of it. Are we willing to surrender to Christ being the One who defines our humanity and how we live our lives, or will we continue to seek our own ways of living and being?
The path Jesus trod when he was on earth was the path of death and resurrection and he calls us to join him there. This path requires surrender, relinquishment, and submission to the will and purposes of the God who made us and who came to redeem us and bring us to be with him forever. Are we willing to lay it all down so that we can share in this marvelous and wonderful gift?
We were meant for so much more than this broken and twisted life. We weren’t created to be slaves or captives. We were created for glory. We were meant to live with God in glory forever in the new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21-22), rejoicing in the goodness and love of God on into eternity. Will we turn away from ourselves and turn to Christ? Will we receive the gift of life God has bestowed on us through Christ in the Spirit? Will we fully participate in Christ’s ascension?
Dear Abba, thank you for the gift of your Son and your Spirit. Thank you, Jesus, for sharing in all aspects of our humanity and for freeing us from all that binds us and holds us captive. Grant us the grace to acknowledge our dependency upon you, our inability to live in the glory which you intended us to shine with, and to, this day, do the next right thing you give us to do. Holy Spirit, empower us again to bear witness to our glorified Lord in all we say and do, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
“God has ascended with a shout, / The Lord, with the sound of a trumpet.” Psalm 47:5 NASB
“These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Ephesians 1:19b-23 NASB
Ready and Waiting
By Linda Rex
Back in the late 1990’s, Y2K was a common descriptor used to describe the changeover between 2000 to 2100. I was amazed at the number of apocalyptic movies which came out around that time. It seemed that many people besides Nostradamus held strong opinions about how the world was going to end and if/or when Jesus Christ would return.
I have read many books and articles over the years which talk about how Jesus is coming to punish all the bad people on earth while rescuing his good people from the coming evil or “great tribulation.” Often the focus is on how bad this world is becoming and how desperate we will be to have Jesus rescue us from all the evil Satan is going to perpetrate in “the end times.”
Whatever God decides to do in order to fulfill the scriptures he inspired in his Word, what really matters to me in the long run is that Jesus is coming back for his own and he will once and for all make right the wrongs of this world, bringing to fruition what he completed on the cross. The symbol of the bread and wine blessed and shared at the last supper is like the promise of a groom to return one day in the future and to take his bride home to be with him forever. Meanwhile he has a dwelling place to prepare for her and spends her days preparing in anticipation of his return.
As I personally wait for my own groom to wed me, I’m seeing that we can look forward to Jesus’ return with either dread and fear or longing expectation and desire. Do we believe that even now he is present by his Spirit in every situation and loves us faithful and completely? Are we spending our days preparing for his coming and caring for those who are suffering or in need as we wait? Do we believe that our Beloved will come again and take us to be with him in glory forever?
There is a dress hanging in my room which was picked out with this special day in mind. This brings to mind the robes of righteousness Jesus has given us to wear. We are encouraged to cast off our old garments of sin and shame and to don the new outfit Jesus created for us in his incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. We know that when he comes, we will be like him (1 John 3:2), and since he shines with great glory and beauty as the eternal God/man, we will be given glorious bodies which will be dressed up in his very own righteousness.
I was so grateful to watch and help as our ladies lovingly and creatively dressed up the church for the wedding tomorrow. The candles and flowers, ribbons and paper bells tell everyone this is a very special day. A special meal is being prepared for the reception by a gifted man which will bless all those who eat it. Everything points to the celebration of the joining together of two lives into a new oneness or whole.
What Jesus did was to perfect our humanity and to include us in his perfect relationship with his heavenly Father. Our human focus is so often on our moral behavior rather than on how we are bound together with God and one another in love by the Holy Spirit. We were designed for this perichoretic oneness with God and each other—and the only way this could or would happen was through God transforming our humanity from the inside out. In Jesus, the joining together of two substantially different essences into one being made possible our new existence as adopted children of the Father.
The Word of God entered into our sphere of existence and in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, joined our humanity with his divinity. In the sending of his Spirit, he enabled each of us to participate in a real way in these spiritual realities. The point of Jesus’ return includes the reality of heaven and earth joining together forever in glory. The new heaven and new earth, with the glorious new Jerusalem as her brightest gem, is the culmination of God’s story laid out in Scripture—Eden and its glories now surpassed by and fulfilled in the new heaven and new earth where God will dwell with man.
We can look forward to the second coming of Jesus with anticipation and expectation rather than dread because God has given us these wonderful and precious promises. Jesus has blessed us with the seal of his Holy Spirit, his personal presence in us and with us from the Father. Our hearts can be filled with joy, faith, hope, and love, for Christ is faithful and will come again to take us to live with him forever in that beautiful world he is creating for us while we wait for his return.
Thank you, God, for wanting to live with us forever, and for being willing to pay the steep price for our redemption and restoration. Thank you, Jesus, for your faithful promise and precious Spirit, by whom you live in and with us even now. Thank you that you are coming soon—we love you and want to be with you even now. Amen.
“And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” Revelation 22:23-24 NASB
“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.’” John 14:23 NASB
A Real Reversal
By Linda Rex
3rd SUNDAY OF EASTER—As the years go by, I find myself reflecting on the journey I have been on with Jesus. The person I am today is profoundly different from the person I was as a young adult. I had lots of dreams back then, and I voiced many strong convictions about what I believed to be true about God, myself, and others, much of which I have since renounced as wrong or inaccurate.
Life seemed to be a lot less complicated back then. I believed that if I just did everything the way it should be done, my life would be blessed, I would be happy, and things would go along quite well without any difficulties or suffering. Whatever difficulty or suffering that might come would be because I sinned or because I was being persecuted for doing what was right. It seemed as though I was on God’s side so he had to be on mine, making sure everything went as it should.
I’m a little embarrassed to think about how naïve and unschooled I was, but it was merely the outgrowth of unhealthy theology and a protected yet legalistic childhood. I have, through the conditioning of God and everyday human existence, come to have a more rounded and mature view of things. There is indeed evil at work in this world, and evil affects anyone and everyone at some point. No matter who we are, we won’t escape failures, difficulties, struggles, and challenges.
A fundamental change in my life began when my view of who I believed God to be was challenged. I believed God was Father and Son, and the Spirit was their power or essence. As I grew in my understanding of who the Holy Spirit really is as the third Person of the Trinity—reading in the scriptures and believing all the examples of his personhood illustrated there and growing in my personal relationship with the Spirit through prayer and listening—my understanding of who Jesus and the Father are began to change as well.
Knowing the Father as our loving Abba and Jesus Christ as his Son the Messiah, the Word who came and took on our human flesh, dying our death, rising again, to bear our glorified humanity in the presence of the Father forever, is life-transforming. As the Spirit brought me nearer and deeper into the life of the Trinity, what I believed kept moving beyond just a religious creed into the realm of personal experience. The reality of Jesus Christ in me, with me, for me, began to take a clearer shape. Jesus was no longer some story character—he had revealed himself to me personally by the Holy Spirit. I began to hear God’s still small voice in my heart and mind, and I began to know and believe I am loved, forgiven, and accepted. The more I believed the truth about who Jesus was and why he came and the more I knew I belonged and was included in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Abba in the Spirit, the more my behavior began to change.
I was more than happy to do my part in obeying God—I had constantly been bombarded by the shoulds, oughts, and have-tos of the belief system I held and all it did was make me worse. The harder I tried, the more I found myself shackled by unhealthy ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. I struggled often with depression and self-loathing. This obviously wasn’t God’s way of doing things. Eventually, the change I noticed within myself did not come about because I tried harder, but rather because I admitted I couldn’t do it and I needed Christ to do it in me and through me by his Holy Spirit. It happened when I was honest with others about my struggles and failures, and sought help. It happened when I was transparent about my failures, became fully known and yet loved, accepted and forgiven within a healthy spiritual community.
The worst thing about toxic or legalistic religious environments is that they do not allow people to be authentic and real and so find genuine healing and renewal. It seems that when people come together to form a church, they bring with them their masquerade gear and spend copious amounts of energy hiding from one another. In this type of environment, addictions and co-dependencies thrive. Healing and renewal are often limited or are complicated by unhealthy boundaries and toxic relationships.
It is much better to be in a safe spiritual community where each person is able to be genuine and transparent, and is allowed to grow up in Christ. Growing up in healthy ways requires the freedom to make mistakes without condemnation and with the support and encouragement of those who have previously traveled those same difficult paths. A healthy spiritual community allows for falling short without condemnation, but challenges brothers and sisters to grow up into the fullness of who they are in Christ.
Saul was not a bad person. He was a zealous God-fearing Jew. He meant to do the right thing, and he was trying to live life the way he believed God wanted him to. I don’t know why he was so adamant about imprisoning and executing the believers in Christ, but perhaps his zeal for God was also inspired by a need for the approval of his Jewish peers and a need to accomplish what no one else was doing quite as well. Whatever his reasoning, it seemed to be borne out of a heart seeking to please God.
Imagine how horrifying it must have been to realize that the One Saul had been trying to impress was actually the One he had been persecuting. His efforts to earn God’s love and approval, and the adulation and approval of his peers, was actually an action in opposition to God and in persecution of Jesus. Saul needed to know who Jesus Christ really was. He needed to have his image of God reformed into something which more perfectly apprehended the Triune God of love. As Saul sat in the darkness of blindness for a few days, he must have thought at least once—now what do I do? How can I possibly make amends for this?
What if Ananias had refused to listen to Jesus when the Lord told him to go lay hands on Saul so he could see again? What if he had stood in judgment of Saul and had condemned him, insisting he pay for his crimes against Ananias’ friends and fellow believers? But he didn’t. He humbly obeyed Jesus’ command and met Saul right where he was, offering him grace and love, and entrance into the body of Christ, the church.
Saul, whom we know today as the apostle Paul, never minced words when he spoke about his past and his failures in life. He was transparent and honest about the people he had harmed and the suffering he had incurred. Instead of being a reason for shame and guilt, God made his failures an essential part of his witness to the resurrection power of the risen Christ and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s proclamation of the gospel was effective often because people saw the profound reversal which had occurred in his life when he met Jesus Christ.
A church should be a spiritual community where people can be authentic and transparent, and safely transverse the changes necessary between spiritual infancy and the spiritual maturity of Christlikeness. This is a journey that takes time, and we all have ups and downs as we travel. We are bound together in Christ to offer one another both grace and truth—to enable one another to be challenged as well as upheld when things don’t go as we planned or hoped they should, or when we fall short of Christ.
The Spirit creates such a community as we respond to his work in our hearts and minds, and live and walk in him, tossing aside the old as unneeded scraps of clothing ready to be burned, and putting on Jesus Christ who is our life and the truth of our being. As we live out the truth of our real reversal in Jesus, the Spirit enables us to participate in bringing others to experience this transformation as well, creating a fellowship of care which reflects the inner life of the Triune God. Our spiritual community isn’t meant to be a closed group but rather a welcoming place where others may find healing and renewal as well.
Dear Abba, thank you that by your Spirit you bring together people to form spiritual communities where they can find healing and renewal, and share that gift with others who are broken and suffering. As believers, change our hearts and minds so that we begin to live together in ways which are transparent and authentic, and are safe for others to participate in and to come to know and grow up in Christ in a healthy way. We thank you for never ceasing to bring us to yourself through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.’ … and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’ All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, ‘Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?’ ” Acts 9:5-6, 20-21 NASB
Living the Risen Life
By Linda Rex
EASTER SEASON—Earlier this week I kept hearing a song playing in my mind which we sang together at GNF Sunday— “He’s Alive!” by Ron Kenoly. It goes like this:
Hallelujah, Jesus is alive
Death has lost its victory
And the grave has been denied
And Jesus lives forever
He’s alive! He’s alive!He’s the Alpha and Omega
The first and last is He
The curse of sin is broken
And we have perfect liberty
The lamb of God has risen
He’s alive! He’s alive!
This song is very upbeat and celebratory. It expresses a profound joy at Jesus’ resurrection. And I believe it also expresses in a more subtle way the affect Jesus’ bodily resurrection has on each of us. This is not only a song of hope that one day we will live again, but it also speaks of the power of God at work in us and our lives even today.
In a family, there is a culture which affects the way in which family members interact with one another as well as how they make decisions and how they live their lives. The culture of a family can bless or harm those who are family members. It is often influenced by its generational history of dysfunction, affluence or poverty, health or lack thereof, and many other factors.
One of the most difficult struggles I have found as a family member is to live out the transition which occurs as a result of Jesus’ resurrection. What I mean is, when Jesus’ new life begins to go to work within us by the Holy Spirit, we often find ourselves at new crossroads with our families and friends. The normal ways in which we function as a family and community were supplanted millennia ago by a new way of being which Jesus inaugurated and established in his life, death, resurrection and ascension. And Jesus is empowering us to live in this new way by the Holy Spirit.
As adults, we may have a faulty self-image created within our own family culture of shaming, abuse, and/or legalistic fault-finding which clouds how we look at ourselves and others. Or we may be obsessed with success and achievement because this was the significant value of our family of origin. We may have been so denigrated and humiliated by our peers and/or parents while growing up that seeking the approval of others became a way of finding meaning and significance in this life. Within our family culture, there may have been unspoken rules about what was allowed and what was not—and we may still follow these patterns even though we are free as adults to find healthier and happier ways of living and being.
Jesus is alive, and I have come to believe this deeply. Jesus is real and has revealed himself to me in so many ways, that for me to say he is not would be an act of complete dishonesty on my part. Going beyond Jesus is alive, then, to Jesus has risen to reign over all, puts me in a place of decision: Do I continue to live my life according to the unspoken rules of my family culture (or even culture in general), or do I live it according to the truth I have encountered in Jesus and have come to believe in?
If all we have ever known is our family’s dysfunction, we could believe that this is the only way things are done. This can be so much a part of the way we do things that we don’t even give it a second thought. If our parents always communicated at the top of their lungs in hostile, angry ways, then it is only natural that this would be the way we conduct our most intimate relationships. If dishonesty, manipulation, or controlling behavior was all we saw and experienced in our families, we may quite naturally follow this pattern in our significant relationships. But is this the risen life? It may feel normal and comfortable and it may come easy, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination an expression of the life of the risen Christ.
We find in Jesus Christ that our humanity is rebirthed. Jesus after the resurrection manifested a transformed humanity which not only was modeled after the divine order but also bore the marks of his crucifixion and enabled him to continue to participate in mundane human activities like eating, walking, and talking. He was still completely human, though glorified, and entirely divine.
Jesus’ risen life meant that the old humanity which was destined only for death was redirected onto a path which led to eternal life. This eternal life Jesus described as intimately knowing God the Father and the Son whom he sent (John 17:3). It was a way of being that was the abundant life Jesus promised us (John 10:10). We as human beings were created to “walk in the garden” with God, sharing with him our thoughts, feelings, and experiences, no matter how intimate. From the beginning we were meant for relationships with God and one another which were other-centered, mutually submissive, loving, and serving.
The risen life is empowered by the Holy Spirit and grounded in Jesus Christ. He was and is the perfect image-bearer of God in his humanity, and we, by the Spirit, are growing up into Christlikeness. We are called to “lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and … be renewed in the spirit of [our mind], and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:22-24 NASB). The reality is that the life Jesus lived which fully reflected the Father is now ours, and we can participate in it by the Holy Spirit.
The gift of the Spirit enables us to live the risen life and participate with Jesus in his mission in this world. As we experience more and more the healing power of Jesus within us and our relationships, we share those experiences with others—bearing witness to and sharing what he is doing in and through us with others. We pray for them and care for them as the Spirit guides and Jesus leads us. All of life, then, becomes an expression of God’s love for us through Christ in the Spirit, and our response of love and gratitude in return.
Thank you, Jesus, for giving us new life. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for making real in us the life of the risen Lord. Thank you, Abba, for giving us your Son and your Spirit to enable us to experience your real life and participate with you in your mission to share your love and grace with everyone through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“I will not die, but live, and tell of the works of the LORD.” Psalm 118:17 NASB
Learning to Trust
By Linda Rex
MAUNDY THURSDAY—A few years ago I was wrestling with a command God had given me that I wanted to obey but found so very often I couldn’t. The simple command from God to me was, “Trust me.”
Often I would hear this command in my inner spirit and I would ask, “How? How are you wanting me to trust you—to do this or to not do this? What does it mean to trust you?” Trusting God probably is a very simple thing but for me, personally, it seemed to be very complicated. Just what does it mean to trust God?
In many situations we are faced with the choice of relying upon ourselves and our good judgment and wisdom, or relying upon God, his wisdom and guidance. Pausing in the midst of our everyday lives to seek the heart and wisdom of God can be counter-intuitive and may seem to be a waste of God’s time and energy—shouldn’t we be able to handle this on our own?
It wasn’t until I began to hear the still, small voice of the Spirit telling me to trust that I became aware of how often I don’t trust God. Trusting God means I will do the uncomfortable thing rather than the easy thing when it’s what he wants done. It means I will love and serve and share when I absolutely don’t in my flesh want to love, serve, and share. It means I will look for the ways God is in the midst of a circumstance rather than seeing and experiencing only the discomfort, pain, or loss.
To trust is to believe in the good and loving heart of the one we are placing our trust in. It is believing that in spite of how things appear at the moment, that person has our best interests in mind and means well, and does not mean us harm in any way. Trust relies on the goodness, integrity, and compassion of the one we are trusting in.
As part of my current work of reconciliation and restoration, I have been studying the ways in which I as a woman need to grow in having a healthy relationship with a spouse. One of the hardest things to do as a woman is often this very thing—to trust the man I love. I want to trust him, but sometimes it is hard. When I lose faith that he means well, that he has my best interests at heart, I can really struggle with being able to trust him.
Yet trust is what he needs most from me. Sometimes we don’t see obvious reasons to trust. My words, my actions, and even my thoughts can deny this trust and express to this man that I don’t trust him. And not to trust can hurt and wound him. Here relationships can get really hard—trusting when we don’t feel like trusting means drawing upon a source beyond ourselves for the ability to trust.
I find myself praying, “I may not feel I can trust him at this moment, but God, I know I can trust you.” What or who we put our trust in is essential to our mental, emotional, as well as physical health. A breath prayer I have learned to pray is, “Trustworthy Father, I trust you.”
The Lord calls us to put our trust in him and in him alone. It is not the other person necessarily that we put our trust in solely, but rather, we put our trust in the One who lives in them. Our trust is in the indwelling Christ by the Holy Spirit—for he is fundamentally and wholly trustworthy. We can trust Abba and Jesus living in that person by the Spirit—we know he is at work and will not stop until he is done transforming their hearts by faith.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus knelt to wash his disciples’ feet. In humility he offered an act of service, knowing that in a few hours they would abandon him and leave him to suffer agonizing death on a cross. Jesus did not trust in his human relationship with them, but in what his Father was accomplishing in their midst by his Holy Spirit. Jesus knew that in order for them to fully trust his Father, he would need to walk this path through death to resurrection.
But Jesus still called them to faith. As he sat with them that night, he blessed and shared with them the bread and the wine. The bread, he said, was his body which would be broken for them—they were to eat it. The cup of wine he handed to them and had them drink from represented his blood which would be shed for them. In eating the bread and drinking the wine on a regular basis, they would be sharing in his death and resurrection. They would be participating in the renewal of all things which he was working to accomplish.
This communal meal means that Jesus has committed himself to us in a real way. As the bride of Christ, we eat and drink the bread and wine as an ongoing remembrance of Christ’s commitment to us and his promise to us to return and consummate our relationship with him. Sharing in the communion meal is a way in which we find renewal in our relationship with God and one another, and encourages us to continue to trust in God’s love and grace.
The one thing Israel was to do was to trust their Redeemer, but they refused to believe he loved them and wanted what was best for them. Because of their lack of trust, they broke their covenant relationship with their God over and over. Jesus, in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, removed all barriers to our trusting God. Jesus proved once and for all that God loves us, and sent his Son to save us, not to condemn us (John 3:16-17). We have every reason to trust in the love and grace of God because of who Jesus is and what he has done.
In pouring out his Spirit, God has enabled us to participate in Jesus’ perfect trust and reliance upon his Father. Jesus entrusted himself fully to his Abba as he hung on the cross, knowing death was certain and that evil would seemingly triumph for a time as he lay in the tomb. But Jesus knew his Abba well—the eternal bond between him and his heavenly Father could never be broken, no matter what attempts Satan might make to destroy it. Jesus trusted in the faithfulness and goodness of Abba, surrendering his Spirit into Abba’s care even at his last breath.
It is Christ’s complete trust in the faithfulness and goodness of Abba we share in by the Spirit. We can trust God, and in trusting God, learn to trust the indwelling Christ, the Spirit, in those we love. Trust becomes our language, our way of being, as we live and walk in the Spirit, not in our broken humanity. Christ, the One who fully trusts his Abba, lives in you and me, and is fully trustworthy—and he enables us to live in loving, trusting relationships with one another.
Dear Abba, thank you for being trustworthy and faithful. Thank you, Jesus, for including us in your trusting relationship with your Father. Spirit, grow in us a heart of trust and reliance upon our Abba, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” John 13:1 NASB
Looking Through the Wrong Lens
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—In our relationships with one another, we can find ourselves at odds with someone we used to be close to. Over time, through various situations and conversations, we become more and more convinced that they are opposed to us or have negative feelings toward us, or that our relationship is broken and unrepairable. We begin to believe things about them that may or may not be true.
How we interact with one another as human beings can be largely based upon how we see ourselves and the world we live in. If we are looking through the lens of our pain and our brokenness, we are going to see ourselves and others, as well as God, as “in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12 NASB). This lens will cause us to believe lies about them, us, and even God which will create disorder, division, and distrust. These things are destructive to relationships.
The way we were raised in our family of origin impacts the way we do relationship in profound ways. What we believe about people, and about God, is often informed by our experience with the significant people in our lives as we were growing up. How we respond to certain situations can be automatic, based on unhealthy ways of relating we learned at the feet of our broken and hurting parents and grandparents. Add in factors such as post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental/emotional challenges and we find ourselves really struggling in our relationships.
The culture in which we live is also full of lies regarding relationships. We are taught by all the media we watch and listen to that romantic/sexual love is the greatest good. Advertisements tell us that if we would only purchase and use this or that product, we would have an amazing love life and would experience the ultimate bliss. Movies and stories tell us that we can have a love-filled, pleasure-oriented life, with ourselves and other people at the center, and our experience of love will always be good—and when it’s not we can and should move on.
From the time of Adam and Eve, we as human beings have sought to find such a life through the means of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We base our concept of life and of love upon our feelings, our passions, and our desires. We believe if we do or say the right things, we will produce a good relationship with God and each other. It is a human-based, human-centered existence which in the end, we find, results in death—the death of relationships, dreams, and hopes, and sometimes even our physical death.
Our true life, though, is in God himself and in his love for us. As the psalmist says, “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, / My lips will praise You” (Psa. 63:3 NASB). Jesus says he is our life, the way of our being, the truth of our existence (John 10:25-26). Real life comes from giving our life away as Jesus did—from pouring ourselves and God’s love into another and receiving that love back. This love we share in is humble, sacrificial and willing to serve. This type of love is counter-cultural and only comes about as we turn to Christ and receive it from Abba in the Spirit.
One of the most difficult things I have had to face recently is the reality that in a certain significant broken relationship we were duped, we were deceived. We had based our decisions about our relationship upon a false paradigm. The lenses we were looking through were the lenses of our pain and brokenness, our weakness, fears, and insecurities. The people in our lives were unable to help us see the truth or to deal with the difficulties we were facing because they too were working out of a false paradigm.
The lenses we were looking through were clouded and blurred. We were not seeing correctly because we were not using the glasses of God’s unconditional love and acceptance. We could not see the truth of our relationship because we believed things about ourselves and about one another which were (as we see them now) lies. We based our decisions upon partial information and unwise counsel, as well as our own pain, grief, and fear.
Today I feel a deep sense of humility and also of sorrow as I look at these things with clearer, more honest eyes. What seemed so real to me then I have found was a lie perpetrated by the evil one, the one who seeks to kill, steal, and destroy, to divide and conquer (which unfortunately he succeeded in doing). Sure, there may have been some basis in reality: there were things being done and said which were not appropriate in any relationship. But, the upshot of it all is, if we both had understood and embraced the magnitude of God’s grace and had been living in the truth of it, these difficult struggles would have been handled by both of us in entirely different ways.
I grieve most of all for the years of joy which are now lost, and most especially for the dear ones who were hurt by us. This is the human journey—we must ever live in humility and dependence upon God’s grace. And I realize now that I can never depend upon my own judgment, for I can easily be looking at things through the wrong lens.
Turn to Jesus, I remind myself. He is the lens through which we need to see all of life, even our past failures to love. The reality is that we are not going to get it right. We must trust that he will redeem, heal, and restore all that we have lost.
The prodigal son wasted his inheritance on self-indulgent decadent living. We don’t know what happened after he returned home and the celebration occurred. Did he regret all the wasted years and his lost inheritance? And what about the older son? Did he ever get beyond trying to win his father’s love by doing the right thing and being good? (Luke 15:1–3, 11b–32)
The common factor in both these people’s lives and in our lives is Jesus, the One who went into the far country of evil, sin, and death and brought us home to the Father. He teaches us of the Father’s heart of love—that he is pacing the porch and anxiously looking down the road, longing to see our form rise above the road in the distance, so he can run to meet us and welcome us home.
Whatever lens we may have looked through in the past we need to replace with the lens Jesus has given us in his life, death, resurrection and ascension. Jesus has replaced our clouded, blurry lenses with the clear lens of Abba’s love and grace. We grow in our deep knowing of God and that informs and heals our deep knowing of one another. We open ourselves up to the transforming, healing power of the Holy Spirit, grow in Christlikeness, and find healing in all our relationships, including those we discarded as spent and empty.
There is real life in Jesus—drink it in, soak it up, wallow around in it. Allow Christ’s life in the Spirit to penetrate every part of your existence. You will never be the same again.
Dear Abba, thank you for loving us in so many ways. Your love and grace are amazing, and we are such need of them. Wash us again in the pure, light-filled water of your Spirit of life. Let Jesus fill us, renew us, and transform us. Remove our blurred, broken lenses and replace them with your eyes of love and grace. May we, from this day forward, see things as you see them and live and walk in truth, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5:16–17 NASB
Seeking Earnestly for God
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—As I walked through the grocery store the other day, I was struck by the amount of choices placed before me of things to drink. Moving through a large open section filled with a wide variety of bottles of wine, I came to an aisle filled with beers, ales, and other cold alcoholic drinks. Beyond that was an even larger aisle filled with flavored and unflavored bottled water. And after that was an aisle filled with cans and bottles of all different kinds of soda pop.
The irony I felt was that God has given us fresh water to drink, but if I were to go anywhere in this country, hold a cup under a flowing fountain of running water, I probably would not be able to drink it. I would have to boil it first, maybe even filter it before I could safely drink it. The risk of illness would limit my ability to enjoy what God originally provided for my health and refreshment.
We live in a “dry and weary land where there is no water” not because there is no clean natural running water, but because we are parched for the living water of God’s real presence and power. Even within our churches today we find ourselves longing for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit’s renewal, yearning to see God at work in our lives, our families, and in our world. We live in a world where the Spirit’s presence is easily ignored and where our appetite for the things of God may be conveniently filled with anything our human flesh might crave.
God has given us so many things in this world to enjoy. They are meant to give us pleasure and to brighten our existence, and to show us the love and grace of our Creator and Redeemer. Yet they can so easily become the focus of our attention instead of turning us to the One who has given them to us for our joy and renewal. Rather than being a blessing to us they can enslave us or distract us from our unity with God through Jesus in the Spirit.
During Lent we may set aside some item, food, or habit in a worshipful offering to God as a means of fasting. This spiritual discipline is not meant to change God’s mind about us, but rather to open us up to the work of the Spirit in a new way. Setting something aside for a time reminds us of our dependency upon God and all he has done for us in giving his Son and his Spirit. We are reminded that our real sustenance is not in ourselves but in Jesus Christ—he is our life, and his lovingkindness is better than life (Ps. 63:3).
It is so easy for us to replace a deep abiding relationship with God with an abundance of cheap substitutes. We wander about from day to day constantly bombarded with temptations and distractions. It is so easy to find ourselves drinking from the well of our flesh rather than the free-flowing crystal waters of the Spirit. Our pause during Lent to attend to the things of the Spirit draws us away from this and turns us back toward our Savior and Lord.
When we feel we are far from Christ, God does not want us to wallow in guilt and shame. This is not his purpose. What he wants us to see is that even though we may believe we are totally lost, Jesus has already come to us, found us and brought us home to the Father. In reality, if we were to turn around and start moving in God’s direction, we would find Abba already running down the road to meet us, longing to embrace us and welcome us home.
God’s thoughts are so far above ours when it comes to the things of love and grace. God doesn’t hold anything against us, but freely and generously forgives us, even before we ever get around to saying we’re sorry. Admitting our guilt and saying we’re sorry merely affirms the reality that God needed to forgive us and so he did. God’s purpose is not to get us to feel bad and to try to do better—it is to bring us back into right relationship with himself so once again we can live in in joyful fellowship and unity with God and one another.
During Lent, our fasting can be a means by which we can attend to our thirst or need for God. A lot of times we don’t realize what’s really going inside of us because we are so distracted by our human, secular existence. Because we are so busy or caught up with the details of everyday life, we may not even realize we have turned away from our Abba and started down the road to destruction.
Our life at work, and in our family, school, and community are full of great relationships and experiences. There are challenges which stretch us and grow us into stronger, healthier people. There are circumstances and relationships which crush us and break us, causing us to wonder how we will ever be able to move on. Our human, secular existence isn’t evil in and of itself. But there is often evil at work in the things of this world and our human flesh has a proclivity apart from God’s work in us to succumb to the pulls of sinful thoughts and desires.
The only way we rise above the downward pull of our broken humanity is to drink in deeply of the free-flowing Spirit. We allow the recognition of our need for God to turn us toward him, not away from him in guilt and shame. Acknowledging our thirst, even hunger for God is an initial step toward healing and renewal. Seeking God in earnest means crying out for his redemptive power and presence, the living Christ, to finish what he has begun in us by the Holy Spirit.
Seeing how far we have fallen is not meant to create in us a determination to try harder. Yes, we want to leave behind old, broken ways of being and doing. But this realization of our need to change is in reality a thirst for the things of God which can only be filled by drinking in of the Spirit of love and grace given to us through Jesus. It is the Spirit who transforms our hearts by faith. He is the One who empowers us to live and walk in truth by the faith of the Son of God.
The spiritual disciplines we practice open us wide to the Spirit, allowing him to penetrate new parts of our being and relationships with his presence and power. Spiritual disciplines have been practiced by Christians for millennia and include such things as prayer, meditation, study of God’s word, celebration, praise and worship, service, truth-telling, humility, simplicity, contemplation, and fasting.
By creating spaces in our everyday lives to open ourselves up to the Spirit and grow in our relationship with Jesus through the practice of spiritual disciplines, we are able to drink in deeply of the living waters of God’s love and grace. We will find ourselves empowered to live in ways which are more compassionate, loving, and in tune with the heavenly realities. We will experience a nearness with Jesus and Abba by the Spirit which will be life-transforming. This drinking in of the life-giving Spirit will quench our thirsty souls in a way nothing else can.
Dear God, you are so gracious and kind! Turn our hearts once again back to you, Lord. Enable us to see our true hunger and thirst are for you and your ways. Thank you, Abba, that you did not leave us in our broken and thirsty flesh, but you sent Jesus heal us, to bring us home to you, and you gave us your Spirit to refresh and renew us. Cause our beings to resonate with your being, Lord. We are so grateful you do not leave us as we are but ever work to make us new through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Seek the LORD while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near. / Let the wicked forsake his way / And the unrighteous man his thoughts; / And let him return to the LORD, / And He will have compassion on him, / And to our God, / For He will abundantly pardon. / For My thoughts are not your thoughts, / Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. / For as the heavens are higher than the earth, / So are My ways higher than your ways / And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:6-8 NASB
“O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; / My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1 NASB
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
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
Our Life in the Trinity 