relationship with god
Pending Judgment—Part I
By Linda Rex
If Jesus is indeed the exact representation of the Father, does that mean that our heavenly Father is a really nice guy who never did or does anything in anger or that might be hurtful to us as human beings? If we look at the Old Testament and our Abba through the lens of Jesus Christ, does that mean that God never did any of those things such as burning up cities or killing people? What does it mean that God is love, and that he is gracious and forgiving, and yet is also just?
I have said before that if the God we see in the Old Testament is different than Jesus Christ, then we need to consider if perhaps we may have misunderstood something about Jesus Christ or God himself. However, we cannot discard or throw out scriptures just because they don’t agree with the picture of God which we believe we see in Jesus. It is entirely possible that those who wrote millennia ago saw God through the lens of the angry-must-be-appeased God, but that does not exclude their writings, for as the apostle Paul wrote, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” (1 Cor. 10:11 NASB) We can learn from the failures and mistakes of others, and also learn from these events and people about the goodness and faithful love of our God.
Moses recorded a conversation he had in which God described himself. In Exodus 34:6-7, we read: “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” It’s interesting that God described himself as being very gracious and forgiving, but also as a person who does not leave the guilty unpunished. In fact, Moses wrote, whole generations experience the consequences of people’s disobedience to God.
I find this quite interesting, because during Jesus’ ministry, one of his disciples consistently sinned against the rest of the group, and was left unpunished by Jesus—sort of. The apostle John writes, “But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said, ‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?’ Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.” Judas was a thief, and Jesus allowed him to continue in his thievery up until the end of his life. He offered him rebukes, but Judas did not turn away from his sin.
Now granted, Judas was included in the twelve disciples for the very reason that he would one day betray his Lord. In the listings of the disciples Jesus chose after spending all night in prayer is this man who would be a traitor, who would betray Jesus into the hands of those who wanted to crucify him (Lk. 6:12-16; Matt. 10:2-4; Mk. 3:16-19). The apostle Peter, after Jesus’ resurrection wrote, “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was counted among us and received his share in this ministry.” (Acts 1:16-17 NASB)
Jesus was a great a scholar of the Hebrew scriptures, as the teachers in the temple indicated he was, so he would have known the prophetic word about the one who would betray him in such a way that he would be crucified and die. Every one of his disciples was capable of betraying Jesus, yet Judas is the one who did it—the one who never dealt with the truth of his thievery by repentance and faith in Jesus. If you or I were running a non-profit business and we found out someone was rifling the petty cash every chance they could, we would most probably fire them the minute we discovered the truth. But this was not Jesus’ way.
Jesus’ view of justice and judgment comes straight from the heart of the Father—to restore the one who has estranged themselves by sin to a right relationship with Abba and those they have hurt. He told Nicodemus:
“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
Often God doesn’t need to judge anyone, because we are so good at judging ourselves—hiding in the darkness rather than coming into the light of God’s love and grace in Jesus. Hiding in the darkness eventually leads to painful and difficult consequences, some of which may lead to suffering and even death. Sadly, the outcome of Judas Iscariot’s hidden sin was his betrayal of his Lord, his subsequent remorse, and his tragic end of life by suicide. If Judas had only come to the Light—to Jesus—and received the grace which was his, owning up to the truth of his unloving behavior and allowing Jesus to restore him, his life may not have ended so tragically.
Peter wasn’t much better than Judas. He quite vocally denied Jesus three times—emphatically, with curses—because he was afraid of being arrested. After all his earlier promises to the contrary, when the chips were down he refused to identify with Jesus in his moment of greatest need. What might have gone through Peter’s head when Jesus caught his eye during his final denial? I can only imagine. Whatever it was, it led to Peter’s great repentance, and his urgent desire to reconcile with his Lord on the shores of Galilee after the resurrection.
Hiding in the darkness rather than coming into the light of God’s love is evidence of our lack of participation in our covenant relationship with our heavenly Father. Refusal to face the truth of our broken ways of living and being keeps us in the place of judgment. We have been given forgiveness and acceptance in Jesus Christ, but we can refuse it and live as though it isn’t true for us, and subsequently experience all the consequences due to us for having done so.
We can hide our “dirty deeds” in the darkness and pretend all is okay—living in the “freedom” of doing our own thing—and never receive the grace God has provided for us in Jesus. God has set us free from sin and death through Christ and empowers us by his Spirit to live in the truth of this and to share this truth with others. By refusing to receive what God has given to us in Jesus Christ, refusing to trust in God’s love and grace, we are judging ourselves.
We are placing ourselves outside the door to God’s kingdom which Jesus opened up for us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and are saying to him that we can’t or won’t go in. The door is unlocked and even standing wide open—but we have no interest in entering. If Jesus is our true humanity, and he is the door through which we enter, the only exclusion which occurs is that which we choose for ourselves. God doesn’t have to stand with a big book of deeds either good or bad, deciding who goes in and who stays out. We do a pretty good job of doing that on our own.
Our entering in of the kingdom of God does not just happen at the end of our physical life. We live even now in the already-not-yet of God’s kingdom. This means we participate, or don’t participate, in Christ’s perfect relationship with his Abba right now, in this life today, as well in the world to come. We experience only glimpses of eternity right now, but we can begin to experience the blessings of the world to come in the midst of the struggles and difficulties in the world which is our today.
There are many things we need to learn about who Jesus is, and in learning about Jesus, come to understand about who Abba is. This will help us in our understanding of what was written in the Old Testament scriptures. I would like to talk more about this in next week’s blog. In the meantime, I encourage us all to find anything in our lives which we are trying to hide away from the view of Abba, and to bring it into the Light, so that through Jesus we may receive the reconciliation which is ours in him.
Thank you, Abba, for your perfect love and grace. Thank you that we can come to know you and your great love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Give us understanding of what it means to live and walk in the Light, exposed fully to your loving gaze, hiding nothing. No matter how broken we may be, you have redeemed us and set us free in Jesus. May we receive this gift with open hands. In your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.
“The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” Exodus 34:6-7 NASB
The Gift of Surrender
By Linda Rex
This morning I read an excellent devotional by Steve Arterburn called “Surrender or Fight”. In it, using the example of King Saul from the Old Testament, he pointed out how often we as humans are faced with the choice between surrendering our lives and wills to God or continuing to fight God’s plan for our lives.
King Saul was notorious for being a people-pleaser, who valued the opinion of the people more than he did his relationship with God. Rather than doing just as God asked, he did what would gain him the most approval from those whose opinions he valued. For this reason, King Saul failed as ruler of his people, and was eventually replaced by God with King David.
Surrendering to the will and purposes of God is one of the most difficult things for us as humans to do. At times it is really hard to accept what God permits in our world and allows to happen in our lives. This is especially true when it means the loss of something dear to us, such as a beloved family member or friend, or our reputation, or our comfortable way of life.
In many parts of America, being self-sufficient is an honored tradition. Dependency upon God is seen, not as a necessary part of our existence, but as a weakness or flaw. Acknowledging one’s dependency upon God may even be seen as unmanly or foolish. Truth is, in this country, a person could live their entire life without recognizing their need for or confessing a belief in God. Every need is fulfilled, and everything can be explained without introducing any thought of a higher power or a supreme being.
Believers in Christ can also fall prey to this way of thinking. We can go through our everyday lives with very little thought as to what God wants us to be doing or not doing. We have rules we can follow and laws we can obey. We have the expectations of our church and its members which we can work to fulfill. And we can be so busy doing all this, we miss God’s call to surrender completely to him. Instead of living in moment-by-moment humble, obedient, dependency upon God, we rely upon our own efforts and wisdom, and we work to please those around us.
This is an ongoing struggle. Relationships ebb and flow, and this is also true about our relationship with God. As human beings, we struggle to maintain any form of consistency about how we live our lives and handle our relationships. Maintaining a consistent and fruitful relationship with God, if left entirely up to us, would be an exercise in futility.
This is why we are called by Jesus to come to him and to find our rest in him. Jesus was fully surrendered to his Father, and yielded entirely to his Abba’s will even when it meant dying an ignoble, agonizing death. He wrestled with our humanity in the garden of Gethsemane, with tears and groans, begging on the one hand for another path to follow, but on the other, surrendering in humble obedience, saying, “…yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39b NASB).
The surrender God calls us to is a denial of self. As Oswald Chambers says in My Utmost for His Highest, “It is a question of being united with Jesus in His death until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.” This is a surrender of all our preconceived ideas of what it means to be a good person or even to be a Christian. Following Christ means he has the right to redefine who we are and how we live our lives.
Surrender means giving up our idols—those things we count on, or depend upon for our value and self-worth, our security and our sense of well-being. Surrender sometimes means releasing our hold on those we hold near and dear to our hearts. It can mean letting go of a toxic relationship, or setting free that loved one who is hovering near death. Surrender can also mean doing the difficult thing, like telling the truth in a difficult situation, or being willing to admit fault and ask for forgiveness.
But any surrender we attempt to do finds its roots in the wholehearted, complete surrender of Jesus Christ. We are called to rest in him, and participate fully in his communion with his Abba both now and forever. In some respects, surrender is a way of being—a frame of reference out of which we live our lives. Our decisions, day by day, are drawn out of this orientation of surrender to our Abba through Jesus in the Spirit.
In high school when talking of a particular war, one of my teachers liked to use the term “capitulation.” According to dictionary.com, to capitulate is to: 1) to surrender unconditionally or on stipulated terms, or 2) to give up resistance. God is calling each of us to capitulate, to surrender unconditionally to his perfect, loving will, and to give up our resistance to his Spirit at work in and with us and in our world.
Our capitulation, or unconditional surrender is our response to what God has done in Christ and is doing by the Spirit to bring our broken humanity into conformity with Christ’s perfected humanity. Our response, however feeble it may be, though, is swept up into Jesus’ perfect capitulation to his Father. This means we rest in Christ, in his perfect surrender or capitulation to his Abba’s will and purposes.
God brings us, at different times in our lives, to places of surrender. Circumstances in our lives, the evil Satan seeks to work in this world and in us, also create situations in which we are faced with the decision to either surrender to God’s will or to fight it. Growing in our intimate knowledge of God, learning to trust in his perfect love and grace as demonstrated to us in Jesus, enables us to capitulate. We rest in Christ and yield to the will and purposes of God, believing he will, in the end, take whatever is happening and work it for the best of all involved.
Thank you, Abba, that you are completely trustworthy and faithful. Thank you, Jesus, for fully surrendering to the will and purposes of your Father, and for including us in your perfect capitulation. Grant us, by your Spirit, a heart of surrender, and grant us the grace to rest fully in you, Jesus. Free us from our stubborn resistance to you, dear God, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but loses or forfeits himself?” Luke 9:23-25 NASB
Walking Through the Valley
By Linda Rex
Life never ceases to amaze me with it’s twists and turns, and unexpected movements. It is rare that my life has been on an even keel–there’s always something at work in it bringing disruption, or concern, or just adjustment.
Sometimes the difficulty is a long-term illness which ends in death. Its timing may or may not be predictable, but death is the only possible outcome in this life. During a long-term terminal illness the grieving process very often occurs before the death, along with some grieving after. Very often death is seen as a release from suffering, and a blessing to both the loved one and the caring family.
Death was never meant to be a part of the human condition. We were created for life, the life Jesus described by Jesus as knowing the Father and him whom he sent, his Son Jesus Christ. This is life in loving relationship, an interpenetrating oneness of equal yet distinct persons.
Separation, division, or loss of relationship was never intended to be a part our relationship with God or each other. But it is, because of our choice to turn away from the intimate relationship with God we were created for. At Adam and Eve’s decision to eat of the tree if the knowledge of good and evil, sin and death entered our human existence. We stubbornly embraced a twisted view of God and who we are, as excluded from relationship with him and in broken relationship with one another. Since then, our human existence has never been the same.
However we may feel about what is written in the Bible in regards to death, we are–no matter what we believe about the afterlife–faced with its reality at some point. Death, and the separation from one another which comes with it, brings heartache and grief. This is because something has occurred which we were not meant to have to experience.
But this need not be a bad thing. Experiences such as these have been redeemed by God in and through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. God can take these experiences and use them to create stronger bonds between us and him, and between us and others.
In Christ not only are we bound to God forever in Christ’s perfected humanity (hypostatic union), but by the Spirit, as we trust in Christ, we participate in his perfect union with our Abba by the Spirit. It is in Christ that we are bound together with one another in spiritual community. It is also true that the Spirit is always at work creating community, often in forms we don’t recognize because they may not have any religious trappings.
Family is meant to be a spiritual community which reflects the nature of God as revealed in Christ. When the Spirit is at work in a family, the relationships reflect the inner relations of the Triune God, where there is harmony, humility, mutual submission, and outgoing love. There is a pouring out from and receiving from one another–an endless movement of gracious love which defines God’s very nature as love.
God has always lived in this way, and this is the way of being we were created for, which we lost, but which Christ restored to us in his saving work. This means when we lose someone dear to us through the momentary separation which is death, the best thing to offer the grieving one is loving, gracious relationship. An unconditional relationship–listening, affirming, accepting, and just being present–are critical and essential gifts to offer someone who has lost a dear one.
This means we don’t have to come up with the right thing to say or do, but rather, in the Spirit, we can just be present in Christ with them in the moment. We can remind them they are not alone in their pain, for whatever Satan or our human brokenness has done to attempt to separate us from God or one another has ultimately failed. In Christ we are forever held in the center of God’s love and life. God knows, understands, and participates with us in our loss, suffering and pain. We are not alone.
We have the assurance that there is one relationship which, having been established in Christ, and being brought into reality in individual lives by the Spirit, we will never he separated from. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ. We are loved simply because we are, and we are his.
And as we face having to redraw the plans of our lives due to a loved ones death, we can be assured that we need not do this alone. Our life is not over–God’s mercies are new every morning and he has new plans for our life which will bring us joy and fulfillment as we participate with Christ in what he has for us.
Finding a new normal is a process which may take years–but there is no set agenda to it. Part of the process may include anger, depression, and denial. The grief may ebb and flow like the ocean’s tide, taking us sometimes by storm or sneaking up on us when we least expect it.
But in the midst of it all, we can be assured we are never alone. We as friends and family of those who have lost a loved one can offer our faithful presence and understanding, with a listening ear and comforting shoulder to cry on. And we can point them to their loving and faithful God who has promised to never leave or forsake them.
Indeed, in Christ, death has been defeated. It has lost its power. And we share in this victory over sin and death as we offer one another comfort, unconditional love, and assurance of faithful relationship in the midst of death and other losses. Just as God in Christ by the Spirit ministers his love and grace to those who grieve, we also share in that ministry to those near and dear to us who grieve.
Abba, thank you for your faithful love and grace. Thank you that we can count on you to be with us and to carry us through our losses and suffering. Enable us to bear one another’s burdens when they become too great to be borne alone. Empower us to offer hope, comfort, and faithful relationship to those who have lost loved ones. We trust this is all possible through Jesus our Lord by your Spirit. Amen.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 NASB
Misguided Introspection
By Linda Rex
I remember the first time I ever participated in a sacred service which involved eating bread and drinking wine in communion with others of like faith. I had just been baptized and was new at the whole process. At that particular time, our church only observed this once a year. That particular observance stands out in my mind because it was so solemn and so serious. Hundreds of us stood in line to participate and everyone was completely silent.
Back then I heard many a sermon prior to this observance telling us that we were to examine ourselves so we would not take of the elements in an unworthy manner. Examining oneself meant comparing oneself against the law, including keeping food laws and holy days. By the time I was through with this kind of self-examination, there was no way I could ever come away believing anything positive about myself. It was a one-way trip towards discouragement, humiliation, and defeat.
Then one day, I heard a pastor bring out another verse which talked about self-examination, 2 Cor. 13:5-6: “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test? But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.” That particular passage put the whole discussion on another level.
The first type of self-examination is really easy for an introvert like myself. I can go down a million rabbit-trails in my head where I see all the things I’ve said or done wrong, and beat myself up for each one as I go. It is a lot more difficult to do the second type of self-examination, because it involves looking beyond my broken humanity to who I am in Christ.
To see Christ in oneself is to see the truth about one’s being. First, we were created in the image of God in his likeness, to be his image-bearers—adopted children who live in loving relationship with God and one another. In Christ, God redeemed our broken humanity, restoring our fellowship with him and one another—and in the gift of the Spirit, God came to work this out in us individually, enabling us to live and walk in Christ, who was and is the perfect image-bearer of God.
When we look within, not to see ourselves but to see Christ in us, we come up against the reality we indeed fall short of Christ’s perfection. But in the same moment we find Christ stands in our stead and on our behalf. Grace triumphs over judgment in that moment. Not only does Christ intercede moment by moment in every situation. He also works to heal, restore, and renew our relationship with God and each person in our lives as we turn to him in faith and respond to the Spirit’s work in our hearts and lives.
Self-examination, then, becomes not a negative thing, but an encouraging, anticipatory experience in which we begin to see what Christ did on our behalf and what he is doing right now in each moment on our behalf. And we begin to have some hope in what he will do in the future because we are learning he is trustworthy and faithful as well as loving, and he, by his Spirit, is at work within us, transforming us from the inside out.
The first type of self-examination tends to create an outlook which is self-absorbed rather than one which is outward-looking and other-centered. The life of the Trinity is other-centered and focused outward—towards God’s adopted children who are being brought into the life and love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Within the inner relations of the Trinity, there is a mutual pouring out and receiving—a movement which is unending, and which we were drawn into by Christ, and participate in through the Holy Spirit.
We were meant, not to be self-absorbed or self-conscious, but to be focused on Christ and conscious of his indwelling presence as well as aware of his work in the world around us. Attending to God in Christ and what he is doing by the Spirit in us and the world around us keeps us from being self-centered and self-absorbed. Indeed, it is best that we come to have no thought of self-at all, but rather find our self in Christ, who by his Spirit enables us to be truly ourselves.
This does not mean we negate ourselves or diminish ourselves, but rather that we begin to truly believe we are those people God intended us to be in the first place—his beloved, adopted children who with their own unique selves live as equals in loving fellowship and harmony. And in believing, we begin to act as if this is indeed the case. In this way we image the God we were created to reflect, and find in doing so, we experience the love, joy, and peace God meant for us to participate in from the beginning.
To examine ourselves and find Christ within is a far cry from examining ourselves and ending up discouraged, defeated, and despairing. We are reminded by the apostle Paul, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).” Our life in Christ is a journey in which we grow—it is not a static position or a place we come to and stay in. This is an existence where all of life is a participation in Christ’s life. We find our everyday tasks and experiences take on a whole new meaning as we realize we do not live alone and on our own, but share all things with Christ in the Spirit, and join in with what God is actively doing in the world around us.
Then when we come to the communion table to eat bread and drink wine, we are seeing Christ much more clearly. The body of Christ takes on a whole new meaning, including not only the human body of Jesus Christ, and the bread and the wine, but also the group of fellow believers with which we share a common faith. It also makes room for us to welcome all others to the table, since we were all taken up with Christ in his hypostatic union with God when he bore our common humanity to the cross, died, and rose again on our behalf.
Our participation in communion is a reminder, not of our failures and shortcomings, but of the gracious gift of Christ in our place and on our behalf. By the Spirit, we put on Christ, and we live in the assurance of his mediating presence with the Father, as now we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. This makes sharing communion with others a pleasant remembrance of joy and warm fellowship, rather than a silent, serious, painful experience we would rather forget.
Thank you, Abba, for the gift of your Son, and the pouring out of your Spirit. Thank you we are in Christ and by the Spirit we are able to share in your joy, peace, and loving fellowship. Free us from our self-focus and self-absorption, from our self-centeredness and self-condemnation. Enable us to see and embrace our true self—forgiven, accepted and beloved in Christ—and live in the truth of who we really are. In examining ourselves, may we discover we are in Christ and Christ is in us, and that by the Spirit, we are bound up in you, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.” 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 NASB
Just How Radical is God’s Grace?
By Linda Rex
I’m so grateful God loves every stubborn, willful child! If he didn’t, I would be in a very difficult place right now. And a lot of other people I know would be as well.
Do you know what it is like to raise a strong-willed child? I do. This is the child who, when given the choice between obedience and consequences, will choose consequences almost every time. This child is the one who may grudgingly obey, but in their heart of hearts is plotting some way of getting out of doing what they were told to do. Often, they are more inclined to do the exact opposite of what is asked of them rather than simply doing what they are told.
The neat thing about such a child is when they turn that strong will in the right direction, they become determined, decisive, and diligent adults. They accomplish things which us less strong-willed people never quite get around to finishing. They stand their ground on those issues which those of us less stalwart of heart tend to yield on. There is a hidden glory in a strong-willed child—one designed by God to reflect part of his own glory.
One thing I have learned from these precious children of mine is that often I am that strong-willed, stubborn child. I am the one who knows better and yet does it anyway. I am the one who chooses the consequences over obedience because “no one is going to tell me what to do!” As time has gone by, and the merciful Spirit has done his work, I have come to see more and more how my Abba has had all these years to “put up with” the stubborn, willful child I am.
Surely this must resonate with some of you. Every day I see or meet someone who is stuck in the consequences of the life choices they have made. Even though they know a better way, and could choose a better way of living, over and over they choose consequences over obedience. The Spirit says to them, give up your broken path and follow Christ—and they hear and turn back to the way which they freely have chosen for themselves, refusing to turn back to Abba and to his way of being.
The hardest thing we face as human beings is surrendering to the truth, to the One who is the truth of our existence—Jesus Christ. We don’t want anyone, Christ especially, to tell us what to do or how to live our lives. We want to be free—free to decide for ourselves what is good and what is evil, what we can and should do, and what we shouldn’t do. Freedom for us means we do whatever we want, whenever we want, to or with whomever we want, no matter the consequences.
But true freedom, the freedom which reflects the image of God, is a freedom bounded by the love of God, which is the very way of being of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This love makes room for others in a mutual submission and a giving and receiving which is fully reciprocal and genuine. In Christ we participate in this divine freedom, as we surrender ourselves to the truth of our beings as those made in the image of our God after his likeness.
As I drove home today and enjoyed the sight of newly mowed hay in the fields near where I live, I was reminded of the many ways in which I tend to stubbornly refuse to allow anyone to dictate to me how things should be done. So often in my life I have intentionally done the exact opposite of what I knew I should do just because someone told me I shouldn’t do it. I know I have reaped the consequences of these decisions, but I also know that this has also been a way in which God has taught me the meaning of grace and divine forbearance toward each of us.
Has God ever given me just what I deserve in these situations? More often than not, God has not given me what I deserved, but rather what I did not deserve—his unconditional love and patient, compassionate forbearance. Even when I was wallowing in the midst of my well-deserved consequences, God has heard my plea for deliverance and forgiveness and has lifted me out and let me start over again. Even when I was sitting in the wreckage of what I did wrong, God came and held me, and gave me the courage and strength to get up and start doing the next right thing.
Sometimes we need to experience the consequences of our foolhardiness and stubborn disobedience. But more often than not, God is gracious and overlooks things, enabling us to turn around and start going in the right direction. Not only does God pass over our shortcomings, he also forgives our stubborn, rebellious disobedience. He doesn’t do this so we’ll keep taking the wrong path and making bad decisions, but so that we may turn the other way, and begin living and walking in truth.
Repentance and faith are lifelong companions on our journey with Jesus. As we get to know him better, we come to see how far we fall short of his perfected humanity. And yet this does not alter our relationship with Abba or Jesus. For in Christ we are united with Abba in the Spirit, and this perfect relationship which Christ forged for us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension is ours forever. It is unchanging and our failures do not alter it on God’s side. They only blind us to the reality of God’s infinite love and grace and cause us to suffer all kinds of needless consequences.
The repentance, or metanoia, which God brings us to by his Spirit’s work in our hearts and minds, is a turning around. We turn so that we no longer stubbornly have our back towards Abba, but rather we are turned toward him in a face-to-face relationship which is our participation in Christ’s perfect relationship with his Abba.
When we get turned the correct direction, toward Abba instead of away from him, and begin living in the truth of our real being as his beloved children, we will find our hearts and minds beginning to change. The way we think, say, and do things will begin to change. We won’t lose our unique way of being, but we will begin to shine with that glory which was our all along, that glory which is a reflection of the very glory of the God who made us, redeemed us, and who loves us unconditionally and freely in and through his Son Jesus Christ both now and forever.
Abba, thank you for your faithful love and endless amazing grace. Grant us repentance and faith, in deeper and deeper ways—so we grow in our trust of you, and in our relationship with you through Christ in the Spirit. Open our eyes to see you, our ears to hear you, and our hearts to know you, as you have revealed yourself to us in your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. We thank you and praise you for your goodness and faithful love, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” Colossians 3:12-17 NASB
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Free From Accusation
By Linda Rex
The antics of my daughter’s pets are keeping me amused this morning. Earlier this week we brought home a kitten to be a companion for my daughter’s black cat. This half-grown kitten is white with gray and orange patches and has beautiful green eyes. She had surgery right before we brought her home, so my daughter has had to keep her calm and the kitten has had to wear an e-collar to keep her from tearing up her stitches.
My daughter’s dog is about 15 years old and has raised pups in her past life. She’s decided she is this new kitten’s keeper. When the kitten is placed on the floor, the dog follows her around and keeps track of where she is. She talks gently to her and tries to help her understand she just wants to be friends. Right now, they are resting together in the sun next to the sliding glass doors. She has been gentle and kind to the kitten, doing her best to make her feel safe, while at the same time not allowing her under any circumstances to come near her food dish.
The kitten, however, seems to believe the dog is a fearful creature. If the dog gets too close, the kitten snarls and aims her claws for the dog’s nose. But the dog keeps trying to be friends, hoping the kitten will get over her fear. It seems that even the creatures God has made for our pleasure and companionship struggle with understanding one another and making room for one another.
This puts me in mind of how we as human beings so often live our lives in fear of God and/or in fear of one another. Fear, as opposed to love, keeps us in the fight or flight mode and prevents us from really being at rest in our circumstances and in right relationship with one another. When we view the world around us through the eyes of fear, we see things differently than how they really are. What we believe about the people, situations, and circumstances around us affects our ability to truly know God and others and to be known. Fear puts us on the defensive, causing us to hide, self-protect, self-justify, and accuse.
Even though God has reconciled us with himself and restored us to our true humanity in Christ, we still distance ourselves from God and one another. We so often allow fear to dominate our minds and hearts rather than trusting in the truth about who God is and who we are in him. We allow fear, and a host of other false concepts, feelings, and prejudices, to come between ourselves and our loving God and those God meant for us to live with in loving relationship.
Looking with fallen human eyes, we see our differences rather than what unifies us. God is so other than we are, we don’t see how we can relate to him. Even though we as human beings are constantly coming up with new ways of trying to appease God, we cannot on our own come to an understanding of who our loving God is as Father, Son, and Spirit apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension and in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We may believe that God doesn’t want us to enjoy life. He’s always making demands on us that just aren’t realistic: do good to those who hate you and persecute you, for example. We may believe that God allows bad things to happen to us to punish us. What we’re being punished for, we’re not certain. But all hell has broken loose in our life and the only explanation must be that either God hates us or is punishing us because we have been bad. Maybe we do think we know what God is punishing us for and we believe we even deserve hell because of what we did. It never crosses our mind that maybe God isn’t holding anything against us and is not accusing us of anything whatsoever.
We may believe God is the cosmic vending machine who owes us when we have lived a good life, done lots of good deeds, and have done our best to be good people. When God doesn’t seem to understand that this is how life works (in our view), we get angry with God and angry with one another. We begin to allow fear to dominate our being rather than continuing to trust in the love and grace of God.
Can you see that the issue isn’t on God’s side, but solely on our side? God has never changed in his love and faithfulness toward us. God has never ceased to reach out and draw us deeper into loving relationship with himself. He even took on our humanity so we could come to know and understand who he really is as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He was willing to allow us to do whatever we desired to him in Jesus Christ and the cry from his lips on the cross still was, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Often, in our fear, we are very busy accusing God of being someone he is not and doing things he hasn’t done, merely because we do not really know who God is. We are only able to apprehend a little about the nature and being of God and what he is doing in this world. We cannot ever fully comprehend any of this because we are merely creatures God has made. God revealed himself to us in his Son Jesus Christ, but even so, we only see and understand a tiny bit of the truth.
In the same way, we are often very busy accusing ourselves and others of being people we are not and doing things which we may very well have not even conceived of doing. Sometimes our accusations of ourselves and one another have some substance in truth, but we tend to forget that any and all of these things have been and are forgiven and accepted in the Beloved.
I’m not saying that we as human beings can live however we please without any negative consequences. That is not the case. Living apart from our true humanity in Christ produces negative fruit and destroys relationships. That’s the reality of our existence.
But I am also saying that we have an accuser who from the beginning has accused God and us of things which were lies. He has planted so often in our hearts, via circumstances and unhealthy relationships, a lot of lies about who God is and who we are, creating in us an unhealthy fear of God and one another. He reminds us, as the prince of the power of the air, of all the things we and God have supposedly done wrong or neglected to do. And we believe him.
What we believe does have power. But God’s power is greater. What God did in Jesus Christ has conquered all that. Jesus, in his grace and truth, has poured out on us his Spirit of grace and truth, enabling us to begin to apprehend the truth about who God is and who we are as his beloved, forgiven, adopted children. Jesus gives us his faith in Abba and Abba’s faith in us as those created in his image to reflect his likeness. God never gave up on us, and he will never give up, no matter what the accuser may do or say in contradiction to this.
The truth is—and we are reminded again and again in our weekly participation in communion to believe anew this is so—we are accepted and forgiven, we are healed and made whole, we are adopted and received as God’s very own. We are a part of God’s household and have a place at his table. There is no room for accusation or fear, for in Christ all is made new and restored to its original design. We can lay down all our burdens and labors and truly rest in the Son, together with all the other members of God’s household.
Abba, thank you for never giving up on us, but for doing all you could possibly do to tear down the walls of fear and accusation between us and you, and us and one another. Grant us the grace to rest in your Son Jesus Christ, in your love and grace, and to walk in your truth—the truth of who you are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who we are in you, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“21 Your indifferent mindset alienated you from God into a lifestyle of annoyances, hardships, and labors. Yet he has now fully reconciled and restored you to your original design. (The word, poneros, means annoyances, hardships, and labors, often translated as evil. [See Septuagint: tree of knowledge of good and hard labor!] To reconcile: apokatalasso, fully restored to the original value. (In Thayer Definition: to change, exchange, as coins for others of equivalent value.]) 22 He accomplished this in dying our death in a human body, he fully represented us in order to fully present us again in blameless innocence, face-to-face with God; with no sense of guilt, suspicion, regret, or accusation; all charges against us are officially cancelled. 23 Remain under the influence of what your faith knows to be true about you, firmly consolidated in the foundation of your belief so that nothing can distract you from the expectation of the Gospel, a hope that is consistent with what you have heard. Just as I, Paul, am in the ministry to proclaim the one and only message that rings true with resonance in all of creation under heaven. (The dimension of the invisible spiritual realm. “You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.”—The Message.) Colossians 1:21-23 Mirror Bible
Living Beyond the Ordinary
By Linda Rex
Ordinary Time
Last Sunday at Good News Fellowship we celebrated Trinity Sunday, with an emphasis on the way God revealed himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through our Lord Jesus Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We were reminded of the beauty of the Trinitarian perichoretic life—the divine dance—we were all created for and welcomed into by God’s grace and love.
Trinity Sunday is in some ways a highlight on the Christian calendar, as though all which has gone before has led us to this place of revelation and understanding. Rather than being just a mystery we can only gaze upon in amazed wonder, the Trinity is the place where we exist—we are held in Christ, in the midst of the love and life of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Our ordinary life is no longer just ordinary. It is a life swept up into the very Being of God.
Our lives as human beings—ordinary or not—are full of ups and downs, joys and sorrows. Sometimes we struggle just to make it through another day. Other times it seems we are on the top of the world. Life can be pleasant and easily enjoyed, or it may be excruciatingly painful and unbearable.
But whatever it is for us at the moment, we can know and believe this one thing—we are loved. We are never alone and forgotten. The psalmist wrote:
O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. (Psalm 138:1-10 NASB)
No matter where we are or what we are doing, we live every moment in God’s presence. But more than that, God brought us even closer in his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus took on our humanity and lived the very existence you and I live. He experienced life in this physical body, with all its frailty, in a world full of evil and struggle. God came near in Jesus Christ. God, in Jesus Christ, became God with us, Immanuel.
In Christ, God laid himself open for us as human beings to do with him however we wished. It is a sad commentary on us as human beings that when God came to dwell in human flesh, we crucified him. But that’s the very reason he came.
God’s purpose in Jesus Christ was to get down to the bottom of our broken humanity, down into the depths to which evil could go, and to turn evil, sin, and death on its head. He took our twisted humanity and untwisted it. He allowed us to do as we wished to him, so he could cure us of our bent toward evil and sin.
It was not enough that God in Jesus would allow us to do crucify him. He had even more in mind for us than just dying for us—that was not the end. The resurrection and ascension of Jesus was just the next step in what God had in mind for our humanity. For when Jesus ascended into the presence of the Father, he requested on our behalf that his Father would send the Holy Spirit. And Abba did send the Spirit.
The sending of the Spirit was critical. For not only is God present by the Spirit to all creation, he is also present through Jesus within you and me. By the Spirit, as we trust in Jesus Christ and what he has done in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, God comes to dwell in our very hearts. We are forever joined through Christ in union with God, and by faith, we can participate in Christ’s intimate relationship with his Father through the Holy Spirit. We are swept up into the intimate relations between the Abba and Jesus in the Spirit as we trust in Christ.
Now, by the Spirit, we live our ordinary lives in an extraordinary way—in union and communion with the God who created us and called us into life with him. We live our everyday lives in real companionship with Jesus in the Spirit, with God’s ever-present whisper to our heart telling us which direction to go, and how best to love and serve God and others. By the Spirit, the Word of God comes alive and begins to reveal Jesus the living Word to us, opening us up to the transforming work of the Spirit in new and deeper ways.
As we follow Christ and respond to the call of the Spirit upon our hearts and lives, we begin to change. And as we begin to change, the world around us begins to change. The Spirit leads us down new paths of creativity, compassion, and service. We are so grateful and joyful in our extraordinary living, we want to share it with others—and so we participate with Jesus in welcoming others into Abba’s loving embrace. This is the Trinitarian life we are included in and were created for.
The love of God is so great, he will not allow anything to stand in the way of his completion of this amazing creative work. God is sharing his life and his love with those he created. In spite of our failures, God will finish what he has begun—we have his Word on this.
Thank you, Abba, for all you have done to include us in your life and love. Thank you for the gift of your Son Jesus Christ, and for the precious outpouring of your Holy Spirit. Grant us the grace to humble ourselves to receive with gratitude your precious gifts. We give you praise and thanksgiving through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, ‘For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 9:35-39 NASB
Fully Present and Filled
By Linda Rex
Pentecost
I was sitting in a restaurant the other day with my family. Looking around the restaurant, I noticed a sight which is quite commonplace today—everyone at the table was looking at their smart phone. I was a little amused, because just a few minutes before that, I had caught myself looking at mine when I really didn’t need to.
It can be a real challenge to stay present in the moment with family, friends, and the task at hand, because there are so many distractions. Believe me—I love my smart phone. But I have had to learn to limit its use, or I will not be present to what is going on right in front of me and will miss valuable moments in my relationships and home life.
I think there are things we can learn about our relationship with God from this. Years ago, I believed the Holy Spirit was the substance God was made up of, that the Spirit was a force or power, but definitely not a Person. To see the Spirit as an object or force meant I was always having to ask God for more of the Spirit. Even though, as I believed then, I had been given the Spirit at baptism and God wouldn’t take the Spirit away, I was still in danger of Spirit starvation.
A song I fell in love with in those days was “More Love, More Power.”(1) This is a great song which was very inspiring to sing. But I began to see that it began with a false paradigm. This paradigm said—I don’t have enough love or power from God—I am starving spiritually. I only have a little bit of God’s power, so I have got to have more or I’m in real trouble. I desperately need God to give me more or I can’t be good enough (so I will be worthy of God’s love and attention or be a good person).
When Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit, though, he did not seem to use this type of terminology. He spoke of the Holy Spirit as being a Person like himself (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13) Yes, he spoke about the Spirit as being given or poured out. Jesus said the disciples would be baptized with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. But Christ made it quite clear that the Holy Spirit was not just a power or force—he was a Person who would not speak on his own initiative but according to the Father’s will, guide them into all truth, and testify to them about Jesus.
A person such as the Holy Spirit cannot be divided up without destroying the Person in the process. The Spirit isn’t hacked up into pieces to be given a little here and a little there. At Pentecost, the apostle Peter—filled with the Spirit—explained how the events which had happened that day (the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those gathered for prayer and worship) was a fulfillment of the prophetic word of Joel 2:28-29, which said the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh.
The Scriptures indicate God has become present by the Holy Spirit to each and every person. So why did Peter say in Acts 2:38, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit?”
Apparently there is a difference in how the Holy Spirit came to the believers on Pentecost (and how he comes to us today) than when he came on the men and women of the Old Testament. Back then, it seems as if they would be overcome by the Spirit and find themselves prophesying or doing extraordinary things, apart from their decision to have the Spirit’s involvement in their lives. I don’t think Saul really wanted to go about prophesying, but Samuel told him the Spirit would make him do this as a sign he would be anointed king over Israel. God seemed to work more externally with human beings back then.
The significance of repentance and faith in Christ which precedes baptism is the key. The New Testament church was born out of the events which had occurred during Jesus’ time here on earth. Jesus, the Word of God in human flesh, had lived, died, and then been resurrected, ascending into the presence of God taking our common humanity with him. The perfected humanity of each human being lies hidden with Christ in God. Our response, what we do with these events and what we believe about who we are in Christ is critical.
Jesus told his disciples toward the end of his life here on earth, “A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me” (John 16:19 NASB). He indicated that he had to leave so that the Spirit would come to them. And when the Spirit came, Christ would be coming to them. The Spirit of Christ would indwell human beings, and in this way, Abba himself would be present.
Through Christ and in the Spirit, God is now present and available to each and every person. Notice the important details—through Christ, and in the Spirit. If you or I, or any other person, does not believe Jesus Christ was who he was, of what use is the gift of the Spirit? True, the Spirit works in mighty ways in spite of us—there is plenty of evidence of this in the Old Testament. But God always protects and honors our human dignity. He does not force himself upon us. The Spirit protects our personhood and invites us into relationship with God through Jesus, creating in us—as we are willing—the faith to believe.
The Spirit testifies to who Jesus is, and who he is for us individually. This is important, because at some point we need to repent of all our false beliefs about Abba, Jesus, and ourselves. We need to turn away from ourselves and turn to Christ. To receive the Spirit is to open ourselves up completely to the presence of God, allowing him full reign in our being.
The apostle Paul wrote, “do not get drunk with wine, … but be filled with the Spirit.” Being drunk means our bloodstream is filled with a substance which is altering our decision-making capability and reducing our inhibitions, often in unhealthy ways. Being filled with the Spirit means being filled with the Person and Presence of God himself and being governed by his heart and mind, not our broken, fleshly heart and mind. It means we are led by his will, purposes and plans, not our selfish, self-willed desires and efforts. We live undistractedly, fully attentive to and participating with Christ as he dwells in us by the Spirit.
It’s not that God has to give us more of himself, but rather that we are fully surrendered and open to him. What part of us are we holding back from God? What doors in our heart and mind are closed to God? What do we refuse to give up or surrender to him? How are we resisting or quenching the Spirit?
Coming to see this moved me to change the words to that song so we could sing it at church: “Your Love, Your Power, I give you all my life…And I will worship you with all of my heart, and I will worship you with all of my mind, and I will worship you with all of my strength, for you are my Lord.” There is a call to surrender in the preaching of the gospel. This is why each generation is so resistant. None of us want to turn over the reins of our being to someone other than ourselves—most especially not God, because he has definite views on what it means to be a human being made in his image.
What part of our lives and beings are we unwilling to surrender to the God who made us and saved us by his grace? Will we give him all, turning away from ourselves and turning to Christ? In turning to Christ, then, we are baptized—showing we agree that yes, we did die with Christ, and we rose with Christ, and one day we will be fully Christ-like, when we see him in his glory. We are agreeing with the truth of our being and are open to the indwelling Christ by the Spirit, having received the gift God has given us of his indwelling Presence.
Each moment of our lives, then, is spent in the indwelling Presence of God. Being baptized in the Spirit means we are swimming in the Triune life and love—in the midst of the Father, Son, and Spirit—participating in what they are doing in this world.
We can focus on our distractions—and there are plenty of them—or we can be present to the One who is present to us by the Spirit. Paul says to keep our hearts and minds on the things of heaven, not on the things of earth—meaning, be present to God and his Presence rather than the things of the flesh (Col. 3:1-4). This is what we were created for, and how we are meant to live—in the life and love of Abba and Jesus in the Spirit, forever.
Thank you, Abba, for the gift of your Beloved Son, and for the gift of your precious Spirit. Thank you for the gift of your indwelling Presence, and for inviting us into relationship with yourself. Grant us the grace to welcome and surrender to the gift of your Being through Jesus and by your Spirit, Amen.
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” Eph. 5:18 NASB
(1) “Worship” album, Michael W. Smith (2001)
Tending the Cathedral
By Linda Rex
I have been blessed with the opportunity over the years of visiting churches from many denominations. I have played a grand piano in a Methodist church, a spinet in a Christian church, attended a wedding in a Catholic church, a choral concert in a Catholic cathedral, and high mass in an Episcopalian cathedral. I have attended worship services in a Bible church and in a Baptist church, and meetings in churches of other faiths. I have been exposed to many different forms of worship and celebrations of communion.
Over the years I have met followers of Jesus from all over the world as well. There is a common spirit among these believers, which I often sensed from the first moment I encountered them. The Holy Spirit, who binds us together into the Body of Christ, was present in each of these encounters, for there was a unity which harmonized our differences, creating a oneness which could not humanly be explained. Between us was an understanding, an openness, and a gracious patience which made room for others to share in the community of faith.
A few years ago, I attended a meeting at a very large and beautiful church with lots of stained glass windows and tall towers. I was introduced to the person who tended to the building and grounds. This person was responsible for maintenance and repairs, as well as seeing the gardens were weeded and the grass was mowed. He was the one who made sure the bathrooms were cleaned, the sanctuary was dusted and vacuumed, and the kitchen was kept ready to be used.
In a large church—maybe less so in a small one—all of these items need to be taken care of in a responsible way so the church building may be used on a regular basis for worship services, children’s classes, and other important events in the life of the members. Often the pastor tends to the word of God and prayer, while other people tend to the physical details of the building—unless, of course, the congregation is so small that the pastor does everything.
When the tabernacle was built and put into use by Moses, he was told by God that Aaron and his sons would tend to the holy place and the sacrifices—the worship and liturgy of the people of God (Ex. 28:1). The tabernacle itself with all its equipment would be tended by the Levites (Nu. 3:6-8). There was a responsibility to the place where God put his Presence, which in that day was the tabernacle.
We can draw upon these pictures of God’s dwelling place when we look at the way God works today. The apostle Paul told the crowd on Mars hill: “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; …” (Acts 17:24-25 NASB) Paul was explaining that the God he worshiped did not live in buildings. This God is not contained within anything physical in that way. As we read in Psalm 139, God is present everywhere in every place in and through his Spirit.
People for centuries—millennia even—have assumed God needed a place to live in so he could be close to them. In order to worship God, they thought they needed to create a place for God to be. Indeed, even King David fell prey to this sort of thinking when he decided he wanted to honor and please God by building him a temple. God called him on it, asking him whether he at any time had asked for a place to live (2 Sam. 7:4-7). It was a rhetorical question—God doesn’t need any place to live—he is present all the time in every place.
And the truth was, at that moment and even when the tabernacle was being built, God was in the process of redeeming the temple he had already created for his presence to reside in. He was in the process of working out the redemption of humanity—those vessels who were created to bear his image and his likeness, and in due time, his very Presence.
In Christ, God entered our humanity, taking on our unique being as those made in his image—those who were distinct from God and yet meant to be one with him. And in joining himself to us in hypostatic union, God brought us into a unique relationship with himself, enabling us as human beings to receive the indwelling presence of God himself through Christ in the Spirit. We became the dwelling place for God. As the Body of Christ, we are also where God dwells by his Spirit within the spiritual community of believers.
What this means then is, we need to take seriously the reality we are, personally and collectively, the dwelling place of God in Christ by the Spirit. The apostle Paul reminds us: “…do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20 NASB) He understood we are the temple in which God dwells by his Holy Spirit, and we are responsible to care for and tend that temple.
One of the biggest struggles within the Body of Christ which I see today (and it’s a common struggle for humans everywhere) is the struggle to care for the temple of the Holy Spirit, the human body. I know from my own personal battles over the years, and hearing the painful stories of others, that food and sex can be direct channels into the desecration and destruction of the temple of the Spirit.
Those who have nurturing and caring personalities and gifts are especially vulnerable to this because they can be so busy pouring themselves into others, they fail to care for and tend to themselves. When we are busy with life, have many responsibilities, and are always on the go, we can neglect the temple of the Spirit, allowing ourselves to eat, drink, view, or participate in what is convenient and culturally acceptable rather than in what is best for us. Instead of nurturing the indwelling Spirit and the real Presence of God within, it is often much easier and more tempting to numb one’s pain or distract one’s mind or resolve one’s loneliness by becoming involved in illicit and unhealthy relationships, viewing pornography, or abusing food or other substances.
But God is gracious. He may have made us tenders of the temple of his Spirit when he created us, but he knew our tendency to go the wrong way and to do what is unhealthy and unloving. This is why we are so blessed to have the real Presence of God within. Because Jesus was willing to live and care for his own flesh the way we ought to, we can have the assurance that if we fail to properly tend ourselves, he is willing to intercede on our behalf. As we turn to him in repentance and faith, he continues to infuse us with his real Presence by the Spirit so we can and will overcome our failures to nurture and care for ourselves.
Because God dwells in human hearts by his Spirit, each and every person can come to know God in a real and intimate way. Each and every person, as they turn from their false concepts of a God external to them and detached from them, to Christ who by his Spirit comes to dwell within them, can live and walk with God in real spiritual union. This was what God intended from the beginning and wants us to share in both now and forever. As we tend to the temple of the Spirit (our own persons as well as the Body of Christ) we will find ourselves growing in our relationship with God and others, and becoming healthier and more Christlike in the process. And this was God’s purpose from the beginning.
Abba, thank you for calling us into relationship with yourself through Jesus and by your Spirit. Thank you that you have created us in your image to be your dwelling place. Create in us a reverence and respect for your dwelling place, for our own persons as well as the Body of Christ. Grant us repentance so we may turn away from our false concepts of you and our unhealthy ways of living and being. We trust you to finish what you have begun in us through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But in the same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, ‘Go and say to My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord, ‘Are you the one who should build Me a house to dwell in? For I have not dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt, even to this day; but I have been moving about in a tent, even in a tabernacle. Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?”’” 2 Samuel 7:4-7 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 