relationship
Shining With God’s Glory
By Linda Rex
Sometimes we can look at ourselves and our lives and believe that nothing will ever get any better. Like the day outside today, our lives can seem gloomy, gray, and dull, without any hope of things turning around. We can also feel that way about ourselves and wonder if we will ever be any different than we are now.
Life can get difficult at times, and for some people it is difficult all the time. This can suck the heart out of us and cause us to lose any faith we may have in God or in his goodness and love. The grayness of our lives can overwhelm any positive experience which may come our way, so much so that we may even begin to be addicted to the pursuit of pleasure and glittery things.
The truth is, we in our human flesh prefer pleasure and fun and irresponsibility. We don’t want to have to follow any rules or meet any expectations. We want to live free to do what we want as we want without there being any consequences. We don’t want tough times or hard struggles. We want our lives to be like an easy stroll through the park.
Unfortunately, the reality is that there are consequences and life is hard. And there is a way of being we were created for which we do not define or establish for ourselves. The good news is, Jesus Christ paved that way of being for us in our place and on our behalf. The good news is, God sent us his Spirit so we could begin to participate in Christ’s way of being. Now we need to come to the realization we have been changed, and we are called to live in the truth of who we are in spite of the circumstances we may find ourselves in or the experiences we may have in this life.
The truth is, we are God’s beloved forgiven and accepted children—the apple of his eye. The truth is, in Christ, we are brought near to God and held in the embrace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The reality we exist within is that we are not forsaken, not unloved, and not forgotten—but we are loved, remembered, and cherished.
The difficulty we have is seeing beyond what our vision, our senses, our desires, and our feelings tell us. We walk by faith not by sight. We walk in a relationship with God, and relationships require trust. We must believe that God is who he says he is, and that Christ is all we need for salvation. God gives us that faith to believe by his Holy Spirit—receive and embrace the truth of your existence!
God knew from before time began that we would have a proclivity or tendency towards unbelief, towards having to have everything in tangible form and under our control. He knew we would not trust him to decide what is good and evil, but would prefer to make that decision ourselves. He knew we would listen to the lies which tell us we are less than, we are not, and we are unloved.
This is why he planned from before time began that he would send his Son for our salvation. This is why the living Word chose to come to us and live among us. As God in human flesh, Jesus shone with the Father’s glory. In his humanity, Jesus expressed the perfection of the divine life human beings were created to express. Jesus made manifest the divine perichoretic love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit during his human life here on earth.
As the personification of the nation of Israel, standing in their stead and on their behalf, and in the place of all humanity and on its behalf, Jesus shone with the divine glory God meant for all of us to shine with. At one point during his story as told by the gospel writers, we see Jesus actually transfigured, shining with the divine glory he had before time began. In this event, we begin to have some hope of what kind of divine glory we as human beings were meant to share in and reflect.
One day our gloomy existence will fully radiate with the divine light and love. We will shine like precious stones set into a crown or diadem. God always meant for us to shine in this way, and Jesus came to guarantee that this would be the case for each and everyone of us as we embrace the truth of our existence and put our faith in him.
We don’t have to wait until death to begin to shine with God’s glory. As human beings, we were created to reflect God’s glory now—reflecting the very image of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As we trust in Jesus, we begin to participate in the divine life and love right now—sharing in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Abba and beginning to radiate with the nature and goodness of the One who shines forever in glory. We begin to live in the truth of our existence, as unique yet equal persons in a oneness based within the Trinity itself.
This is our glory—being adopted and beloved, forgiven children of the Triune God. We shine with God’s love and grace because of Jesus Christ and all he did in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We radiate the grace of the Spirit of God as we allow Christ to live and abide in us. We always have been and are beginning to look more and more like jewels in the diadem of Abba and in the crown which rests on our beloved Savior’s head.
Dear God, thank you for choosing us before time began in your Son, Jesus. Thank you for cutting us and polishing us in your Son Jesus in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Thank you for infusing us with your glory and light by the gift of your heavenly Spirit. May we always shine for and with your glory through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” Isaiah 62:3 NASB
The Miracle of Renewal
By Linda Rex
BAPTISM OF THE LORD—I was reflecting back this morning to a sunny summer day in southern California, June 1st of 1980, when we parked the car and walked up the hill to the Loma D. Armstrong Center on what was then the Ambassador College campus. My mom and I found our way to the downstairs pool—I had never realized there was one in the basement of the building. It was on this day that I went under the water and rose again to my new life in Jesus Christ, having been baptized into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
My baptism was not after some significant epiphany in my life, like it is for many people. It was more a realization that it was the next appropriate step in my walk with God—one that I hadn’t really given much thought to until a friend asked me why I hadn’t been baptized yet. My response was—I didn’t know. I just hadn’t given it a thought. When I seriously thought about it, I realized that years before I had committed myself to Christ and this life, had been living in repentance, but was not permitted to be baptized because of my age. Now, as an adult, it needed to be done, so I did it.
This is one reason I believe that baptizing children can be appropriate. The other is the understanding I have come to that our baptism, at whatever age, is a participation in Jesus’ fully sufficient baptism. It was for our sakes that Jesus was baptized for the remission of sins, since he had no sins to be baptized for.
The Holy Spirit brings us to the place where we begin to see the reality of who we are—Christ’s, and that in his death and resurrection he has washed our sins away and given us new life. So we participate in his death and resurrection through baptism, understanding and believing Jesus died our death and rose again, bearing all humanity with him in his new life, and in his ascension into the presence of the Father.
There is something about the sacrament of baptism which made a difference in my life. After the baptism, the minister laid his hands on me and anointed me, praying for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Truth be told, the Spirit must have already been at work with me to have brought me to this place, but back then we believed that the Spirit was with us, but not in us until after this prayer.
Since then we have seen that the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh. It isn’t whether or not he is present but rather our participation in what God is doing in us and with us by his Spirit that is at stake here. What I do know is that after my baptism and the laying on of hands, the Word of God began to make sense to me in a way it never did before. I began to understand things I hadn’t understood before. And my relationship with God became deeper than it ever was before. I found myself on a journey with Jesus, who became more and more real to me as time went on.
My simple obedience to the command “repent and be baptized” brought me into a new place in my relationship with God. I began to recognize the power of God at work in my life beginning to transform me. My relationships began to be healthier. I began to see ways in which I needed to change—and miracle of miracles, God changed me!
This was no magic bullet, though. The act of baptism doesn’t make everything in life wonderful and perfect. Rather, it is more likely to bring us to a place of crisis—what was before has ended and God is at work making all things new. We begin to experience the fire of God’s love, the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. We begin to experience the reality of our renewal into the image of the resurrected Christ. There, by necessity, is a change in one’s life and in one’s being. There is death which comes before resurrection. Some things just need to die and be buried.
Jesus talked to his disciples about taking up one’s cross and following him. That’s the part no one wants to hear about. This means there are some things we have to give up or quit, some relationships which may need to end or be altered, and some changes we may need to make when we follow Christ. When Christ died his death, all of our sinful humanity died with him—that means what is of sin is dead and buried with him. The struggle we face is letting it lie there dead. We seem to prefer living like zombies rather than living as newly born children of God.
But the good news is that we do have new life in Christ, and our failures, flaws and imperfections are covered by his blood. We have Christ living his life in us by the Holy Spirit, transforming our hearts by faith. The Spirit creates in us a desire to do the right thing when faced with temptation to do what is sinful. We participate in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his heavenly Father, understanding by the Spirit we are Abba’s beloved adopted children. The Spirit in us and with us draws us into spiritual community where we participate with Christ by the Spirit in relationships with others of like mind in the body of Christ.
Baptism is our one-time entry into our participation in Christ, while our ongoing participation is through the sacrament of communion, or eucharist. At Good News Fellowship, we obey Jesus’ command to participate in Christ’s death and resurrection in an ongoing way by participating in communion on a weekly basis. As we eat the bread and drink the wine or juice, we are reminded anew of how Christ stood in our stead and on our behalf, his life for our life, and we are thankful. This is God’s great gift to us—new life in his Son Jesus Christ by the Spirit, and the first steps of repentance and faith and baptism enable us to unwrap and enjoy this precious gift.
If you are interested in being baptized, please feel free to contact me. I would love to talk with you about baptism, repentance, and faith, and how you are included in God’s love and life in and through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Thank you, Abba, for the gift of your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you, Jesus, for standing in our stead and on our behalf, even when it comes to repentance, faith, and baptism. It is in you that we place our trust. Lord, remind us anew of the reality that we died with Christ, and we rose with Christ, and we share in his glory, both now and forever. In your Name as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.
“John answered and said to them all, ‘As for me, I baptize you with water; but One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to untie the thong of His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ ” Luke 3:16-17 NASB
At Home With Jesus
By Linda Rex
I was reflecting back with a friend of mine to the time when my kids were teens and preteens. Those years of parenting can be very challenging. Growing up in this society is not simple—it is very difficult and can even be very dangerous. Youth are surrounded with the means to derail their lives and to make catastrophic decisions which could destroy any possibility of attaining their full potential in this life.
Young people today grow up watching, reading, and hearing many things which tell them they can be anything they want to be if they just work at it and try hard enough. The reality they experience as they get older often is, they can’t. There is a great chasm between possibilities and abilities caused by the way we function as adults in this culture. We grow up believing that if we get a college degree our future is secure, but then find ourselves with a wagonload of debt, and no one will hire us. The disillusionment and disappointment which comes with this creates depression and discouragement.
I’m grateful for the privileges and opportunities I was given as a young person. Even though I worked my way through college, I could not have done so if the college hadn’t provided a work program which made it possible. If I hadn’t had parents who supported me and helped me when I found myself in trouble, I would have had a very difficult road to travel on my own. I was very blessed—many others have not been so blessed.
The reality is, youth and young people are not meant to have to travel the road to maturity on their own under their own power. That may be what they prefer—we love our independence as teens and young adults. But the truth is, and I believe most understand this, youth and young adults need a safe place to come to when life falls apart—a place where they are accepted and beloved in spite of their shortcomings and failures and a place where they are called up to be the best that they can be in Christ.
Home can and should be this place. But what if there is no home for them to come to and find acceptance, comfort, and caring, to be challenged to grow and find renewal? I believe God meant the body of Christ to be this place—to be the home away from home for each and every person.
We don’t read much about Jesus’ life and experiences as he grew from childhood to adulthood. There is merely the story about his family visiting Jerusalem for a festival and Jesus staying behind to study at the temple.
Did Jesus ever disobey his parents? I don’t think he did. But in this particular instance, he did what they did not expect him to do. He was at the age of accountability—that stage in life where he was assuming responsibility for his own decisions. This is the tough stage for parents who want to tell their children what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. This where parents have to back off and let their children try it out on their own, to make mistakes as they grow.
And it can be hard to watch young people make decisions we would not agree with. Jesus’ parents had to listen to him tell them that he was responsible to God not to them—he needed to be in his Father’s house, rather than Joseph’s house. That had to hurt. But it was the truth. And it took courage and humility for Christ to confront his parents in this way.
But it is also interesting to note, that Jesus did not disrespect or disobey Mary and Joseph at all in doing this. And after this conversation, he went home to Nazareth with them, and subjected himself to their authority. He honored and obeyed his parents, even though he was his own person and knew he was the Son of the Father. Just as the Son of God is of the same essence as the Father yet submits himself to his heavenly Father, Jesus Son of Mary, submitted himself to his human parents while on this earth.
Within this family relationship Jesus grew “…wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” He went through the same process youth and young people go through today to grow up and develop into an adult. Even though the culture was much different than ours today, there were still challenges and distractions which could have kept Jesus from fulfilling his calling and purpose. But he weathered them all and gained the inner strength and capacity to face the challenges he faced.
The next time we see Jesus, we find him being baptized by John, and then being driven out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to face the most difficult challenge of his life—an encounter with evil himself. What had prepared Jesus for this? Who taught him that fasting and prayer would prepare him for this battle? Who taught him the Scriptures so he would have an arsenal for his warfare against Satan?
A lot of times we tend to have magical thinking about this—he was the Son of God, so of course he knew the Scriptures and prayed. But he was human—fully human. He wasn’t living out of his divinity, but out of his humanity as inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus must have expended serious effort in his study of the Scriptures and in prayer and fasting long before this encounter. If he knew he had to be in his heavenly Father’s house, then he must have known that, like you and me, he needed to do the things which grew his relationship with his Abba while he was on earth. No doubt, he studied the Scriptures and memorized them like every other Jewish boy his age, and learned the prayers of his people and prayed them.
We don’t know much about Joseph, and only a little about Mary, but the evidence of Jesus’ life shows the results of their parenting. And indeed, perhaps even in spite of their parenting, Jesus became all he was meant to be as the Messiah of his people. Their home was a place for Jesus to grow “… in wisdom, stature, and in favor with God and man.” We participate with God in Christ when we provide such a home for our children, and when we provide such a home away from home—the church—for youth and young people.
We can also participate with God in the well-being and development of our youth and young people by providing relationships with those God places in our lives. We share with them our journey with Jesus, modeling for them what it looks like to live in a deep, meaningful relationship with God in Christ by the Spirit, and how to deal with the difficult things of life, the disappointments, and even the successes of life. We demonstrate the grace of God at work in us in our authenticity and integrity of being as we grow up in Christ, as fail, as we succeed, and as we struggle.
We can become, or provide, a safe place for youth and young people as they go through life, enabling them to see something beyond what this culture throws at them in its media and merchandising. As we experience and live within the truth of God’s love and grace, we share it with them, and enable them to also experience and live in this truth. When youth and young people feel at home with us, they can also learn to feel at home with Jesus, and reap the benefits of such a relationship as they mature.
Thank you, Abba, for enabling us to see and learn what it is like to grow up in a family through your Son Jesus Christ. We thank you that by your Spirit you create true family, the body of Christ. Enable us as youth and young adults to grow up and reflect clearly your image as loving and gracious God, and enable us as adults to provide safe, caring, and challenging places for youth and young people to grow. Draw and bind us together, making a true home which will last forever, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“When they saw Him, they were astonished; and His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.’ And He said to them, ‘Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?’ But they did not understand the statement which He had made to them. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; and His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:48-52 NASB
When Christmas Gets Messy
By Linda Rex
LOVE—The Christmas celebration at my house this year hasn’t been at all what we anticipated or planned. The lovely Christmas tree with its shiny ornaments and bells was taken out by one half-grown kitten. Our other cat never showed much interest in the tree, but we knew this might be a different story with the kitten, and it was.
We didn’t mind losing the tree–it was an old artificial one and the base had been held together by hanger wire for a couple of years now. The kitten was fascinated with the the old tablecloth we used for a tree skirt. The tree skirt ended up torn in half, and carried to other parts of the house. Her obsession with the tree branches and one certain Christmas bell caused her to knock the tree over, and in the process, what was left of the tree base ended up broken.
The cat-astrophy meant all the ornaments and pretty ribbons were put away and the tree was taken down. But the loss of the décor, though sad, was not the end of Christmas. It just meant the celebration was going to be different this year. We’re already thinking about a cat-proof tree for next year.
This is a good illustration of what Christmas is about though. Our commitment to a little creature who in her innocent and fun-loving heart ruined our decorations remains unchanged. Sometimes love means disrupting our lives for the sake of another—maybe even not having things the way we prefer them to be. People and pets are messy, and they have the ability to inconvenience and irritate us. But love enables us to set such things aside or to deal with such things with grace, and to make room for people and pets in our lives anyway.
Our Christmas celebration has already ended up different than we expected this year with my son not being home with us. But we’ll still do many of the fun things we like to do—bake cookies, share with others, open gifts, and sing Christmas carols. We’ll celebrate Christmas with others at church, light candles at the Christmas Eve service, and take communion together with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we’ll rejoice in the great gift God gave us in sending his Son to us for our redemption and salvation.
Somehow the fundamentals of Christmas really have nothing to do with the trappings of Christmas and have everything to do with the reality that God has come to dwell with man, and we are forever changed because of it. God’s love for you and for me was so great that he was not willing to allow anything to come between us, and he was willing to put himself at great expense and inconvenience for our sake to ensure that we would be included in his life both now and forever.
You and I are not much different than the little kitten who is just seeking life, enjoying a moment of pleasure without realizing or assuming responsibility for the consequences of our actions. We often go about our lives indifferent to the spiritual realities, not realizing the impact we have on those around us both in bad and good ways. Many times it isn’t until the tree falls that we realize what we are doing isn’t really a blessing for those around us.
We have a gracious and loving God who is well-acquainted with our faults and failures. God did something incredible and amazing when he created human beings in his own image. And he declared from the very beginning that what he made when he created us was very good. God doesn’t make worthless items. All he made is good—even the annoying little kitties who ruin our Christmas decorations.
It wasn’t enough for God to make everything very good. He ensured the restoration of our fallen humanity, and with it this fallen creation. He came himself in the person of the Word, taking on all that was fallen, and in himself Jesus made, is making, and will make everything new. In Christ, the messiest person has new life and hope for a new day. The miracle of Christmas is light in our darkness, hope in our despair, and peace in our anxiety and distress.
If you are struggling through a difficult Christmas this year, wondering how you will ever make it through, Jesus Christ offers you his hope, peace and joy, and the most gracious gift of love anyone could give—he offers you himself, in your place, on your behalf. He offers you his Spirit, the gift of love, grace, comfort, and renewal. He offers you his perfect relationship with his Father—one which is never ending and filled with love and understanding.
Life may continue to be difficult. Christmas may continue to be messy. The struggles may not seem to get any easier. But in the silent moments as you ponder the baby in the manger, do you not feel it? Do you not hear it? For you, the heartbeat of love, of tender care, of deep unending affection, will never cease—you are loved now and forever, and held in the embrace of the holy One, while the angels sing.
Merry Christmas!
Dear Abba, you hold us as the holy mother held her Son Jesus, gazing with deep love and affection upon us, willing to do whatever it takes to keep us close to you, living in the truth of who we are as your beloved children. Comfort, heal, strengthen and help each of us—free us from our despair, loneliness, and grief. Grant us the grace to know we are beloved, held and provided for both now and forever, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Awaken your might; come and save us. Restore us, O God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.” Psalm 80:2a-3 NIV
“And he will be our peace…” Micah 2:5a NIV
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A Cry for Redemption
By Linda Rex
This morning I was browsing social media as I was finishing up my morning exercise routine. I was touched by a friend’s post which described a very painful and difficult circumstance they were going through. My heart went out to them and I wished there was some way to help. But there wasn’t.
My go-to response, of course, is to pray. This can seem such a feeble response when often people need some real tangible assistance in difficult circumstances. But for those of us who do pray and count on prayer as our go-to response, this is actually the most powerful and effective thing we can do when encountering a life tragedy, struggle, or difficulty.
This week there was another mass shooting, this time in my home state of California. No doubt, there will be more cry for effective gun laws, and, which I think is more to the point, more focus on getting veterans the help they need when they are struggling with PTSD and other post-conflict issues. But all the laws we can write do not change or heal the human heart. We live in a society which seeks to regulate human conduct from without by laws or by social pressure, and to heal broken human beings with social programs and medication.
This is the struggle we have in our world today—a society in which each feels free to do whatever they want according to their conscience and desires, but often without concern for the others who share this world with them or for the creation either. I keep being brought back to the basic fundamental description of how we are to live as human beings—of what we have been created for. As made in the image of God, we are meant to live as unique yet equal individuals in a unity which reflects that of the Father, Son, and Spirit—created for this divine relationship with God and one another. Jesus described it as loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Our struggle to exist together in this world to day is due to our refusal to acknowledge there is an ultimate Source which defines our existence and which gives us direction for our lives. We want to have control over our existence and our decisions, and not allow anyone to infringe on our preferences or our space. Somehow we think that submitting ourselves to someone, most especially to God, limits us in some way, and deprives us of our ability to be all we can be.
In reality, our greatest struggle lies within ourselves. We are broken and wounded, and all these things affect how we handle life, and how we treat one another. When Jesus said that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, I believe he was pointing out our need to be fully integrated as human beings, with all of us being fully devoted to our Abba. He knew the human proclivity to create inner silos, where the good parts of us are separated from the bad parts of us, and where our inner divisions become a space for the evil one to enter and cause destruction and despair.
To be fully integrated within ourselves by necessity means that God needed to reform our humanity after his image—we had rejected our humanness as God had meant it to be. Jesus, when he walked on earth, lived in intimate relationship with his Abba. He said that he and his Father were one. Jesus lived fully focused on that relationship, seeking out his Abba in the midst of trouble and stress, and drawing upon his strength and power by the Spirit to deal with the issues he faced in his life.
In spite of how he was treated and the uniqueness of his personhood as the God/man, Jesus stayed fully integrated to the end. He, by the Spirit, held fast to the truth of who he was as the Son of God and the Son of Man. Jesus did not have a good side and a bad side, but was simply the Word of God in human flesh—the One who became sin for us so we could become the righteousness of God in him. He came to redeem our humanity and give us a new life by the Spirit which in him is fully integrated within itself and in relationship with God and others.
As I was reading the lectionary scriptures for Sunday, one of the passages from the book of Ruth popped out at me. We read in Ruth’s story that her mother-in-law Naomi, who lived for a time in Moab, had lost both her sons and her husband, and so sought to move back to her home town of Bethlehem to rebuild her life. Ruth, being a Moabitess, was considered a Gentile but she embraced Naomi and her faith, and went with her back to Bethlehem.
Ruth was in a very difficult position, but it seems that God kept his eye on her. She went to glean grain after the harvesters, which was what poor people did back then, and she ended up in the field of someone who was in her extended family, a relative named Boaz. In due time, Naomi told Ruth she should invoke the levirate law of that day and ask Boaz to redeem her property and by extension give her the children she did not have by her first husband so her property would stay in the family. So Ruth courageously did as her mother-in-law instructed, not knowing what the result would be.
Boaz’s reaction is interesting. When she appealed to him to exercise his right of redemption, he told her he couldn’t—there was someone closer who could. But he said he would see that this was done, either by himself, or by the other who was more closely related to her. Then he sent Ruth home. When Naomi heard how it went, she said, “Wait, my daughter, until you know how the matter turns out; for the man will not rest until he has settled it today.”
A lot of times we think and act as if God is indifferent to our suffering and our struggles. We may believe he shouldn’t be bothered with the little details of our lives, or that he’s not really willing to intervene in our difficult circumstances. When we lose dear ones, we often believe God doesn’t care about us any more—why else would he let them pass away? In reality, we need to see God as the One who will not rest until he has settled the matter today—immediately, as promptly as he possibly can. It may not be according to our time schedule, but in God’s time schedule, he is treating it as urgent, as needing his immediate attention.
Secondly, God is the one who has the right of redemption. He is as closely related to us as he could possibly get in the Person of Jesus Christ. He took on our humanity, reintegrated it with its Creator and within himself as God in human flesh, and took it with himself through death and resurrection, so we each could have new birth—a new life in him. God in Christ is to us a restorer of life and a sustainer in our youth and old age—no matter where we are in life, he is our Redeemer.
The cry I am hearing in the media today, social and otherwise, is for a redeemer. Humans such as political leaders often try to fill this role, and we temporarily give them our allegiance. But in reality, none can do what our Redeemer does—they cannot change or heal the human heart, nor can they transform people’s lives or give them divine redemption. There is no one like our God, who saves! We pray because we have a Redeemer who will not rest until he has healed, restored, and renewed. We pray because we know and trust he is faithful, gracious, and loving, and he will finish what he has begun in us.
Only God has the capacity and the heart to heal someone from the inside out. Only Jesus, the divine Physician, can change someone’s heart and desires into what they ought to be. Only the Spirit, our Comforter and our Peace, can work transformation in human beings, bringing them into Christlikeness.
Our participation in all of these things is to, like Ruth, place ourselves at Jesus’ feet and ask him to exercise his right of redemption on our behalf, to wait patiently for him to move in our circumstances and in our lives, and to embrace the relationship offered to us and to faithfully live within it for the remainder of our days. Our participation includes learning to live and walk in truth, to be integrated within ourselves so that we, in Jesus and by the Spirit, are loving God with all our being and loving our neighbor as ourselves. We have every reason to hope—for he is ours and we are his, and he will be faithful to the end. This is why we turn to him, believing he will not fail us. And this is why we pray.
Thank you, Abba, for your faithful love, and for giving us your Son to redeem us. Thank you for sending your Spirit to renew, restore, and heal us—transforming us by your grace and love into the very image of your Son, and so to reflect your likeness. We desperately need a move of your Spirit in our world today. We need you to heal, restore and renew all this we have broken, and to transform human hearts by faith. We trust you will not rest until this is accomplished. Show us how we can participate with you in your mission, and to passionately do so as you lead us, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed is the LORD who has not left you without a redeemer today, and may his name become famous in Israel. May he also be to you a restorer of life and a sustainer of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.’” Ruth 4:14-15 NASB
An Unexpected Special Delivery
By Linda Rex
I remember sitting in our living room as a child reading or putting together a puzzle with one eye on the screen door. From my seat I could see the metal mailbox which was attached to the white post on the front porch. I loved the sense of expectation that came with waiting for the postal employee to put something in it—there was always some hope that a letter was there for me, with my name written on it.
Letters and packages received in the mail have a unique capacity to create a feeling of relational connection. As a child I had a pen pal who lived in Germany and I waited with special anticipation for her response to my letters. I had a cousin who was kind enough to include me in her letter-writing, and since I knew very few of my cousins, it was a delight to get a letter from her as well.
For me, writing a letter to someone provides a way of sharing what I would not ordinarily take the time to say. In other words, for an introvert like myself, it provides a way of thoughtfully putting down on paper (or nowadays in digital type) what is going on in my head. Instead of this creative person struggling to get her words together, I can take the time to sort them out and put them down in an organized fashion.
Letters for millennia have brought people together. I think about the couriers in the Roman empire who carried letters across long distances. We would not have the New Testament epistles if it hadn’t been for the apostles’ efforts to connect relationally with people in other cities and to share the gospel message and spiritual encouragement and teaching with them. In America, we had many brave people who risked life and limb to carry letters in pouches on horseback across the frontier. How sweet it must have been for a mother to receive a long-awaited letter from a son or daughter who had moved clear across the country!
It takes a certain level of commitment to sit down and write a real, personal letter to another person. It’s easy for me to make a standardized letter and use MS Word mail merge to create fifty similar letters addressed to fifty different people. These are not personal in the same way as a letter created with intentional focus on one certain relationship, which attends to the particular nuances of that relational connection.
And there is nothing quite like receiving a letter written from the heart from a friend or a lover—the words on the page are like a conduit of love and grace. There is a beauty in a well-written expression of affection and concern. Unfortunately, the reverse is true as well. Sometimes the cruelest words are those written on a page, or today, in an email.
The freedom, though, to send and receive private letters and packages is an important freedom for us to have. In many nations, letters and packages are opened and examined, and the privacy of such communication is not respected. We have in this country taken for granted our ability to receive and send private communication—it is a privilege and a blessing we surely would not want to live without.
So, when a news flash goes out about pipe bombs being received in the mail by certain high-profile people, I get concerned. This news brought a flash back to more than one scare involving a deadly poison being mailed to the president and others in leadership. The insidious effort by evil to create fear and suspicion and thereby destroy relational connection is obvious. What better to create mistrust between people than to ruin their methods of private communication?
And when fear breeds mistrust and suspicion, then the installation of more controls over private communication seems to be the answer. But in reality, it destroys our ability to live in community. I hope in our efforts to create a safe letter and package handling system that we don’t lose our freedom for private communication. It would be a shame to for our college students to never be able to receive a care package because someone else would see the contents first and decide to eat all the cookies and candy. This is a serious issue!
Seriously, though, there is one thing the evil one has done from the beginning and that is to cause us to question our relational connection with God and one another. He is always making this insidious effort to create mistrust and unbelief. And we listen to it and allow it to influence us. And some of us participate in the evil one’s methods and madness. This is how we can end up in a broken world where people do insane things like mailing pipe bombs.
This is not what freedom is for. Freedom is not for us to be able to do whatever we want whenever and however we want. But rather, freedom is for us to be able to live together in the midst of our differences in equality and unity. The purpose of our redemption is so that we quit questioning God and his love, and begin trusting him. We are given the freedom to love and respect one another such that we can trust one another and care for one another as we ought. And our redemption through Jesus enables us to live at peace and in harmony with one another because it brings us all to the same place—to the cross.
Our freedom is not so we can harm and injure one another, but so we can live together in harmony and love, in a world in which each person respects and loves the other, in spite of differences in relationship or personhood. We must beware of any system of government which creates separation and fear, or which sets us against one another rather than working together for the best interests of all those involved.
And we need to be reminded there is a power at work in this cosmos which is greater than any other power. This power underlies everything which is at work in our universe, even down to the minute details of each molecule. This power is beyond our comprehension, and is not intimidated by the arrogant boastful words and actions of any leader of government or industry. This power has all the wealth of the cosmos at its disposal, and can never be opposed without great damage to its opponent. We often live as though this were not the case—but this power is at work in our world in spite of our belief that we are in charge or that certain people are in control due to their financial or political prowess.
This power is a Person, and his name is Jesus Christ. He is that divine Letter sent to us from Abba, to tell us of his love and grace. This Person was not afraid of any method of delivery, but was willing to put himself completely at the mercy of us as human beings, coming in the form of an infant, born and placed in a manger. It was this Person who was willing to risk it all so we would be included in Abba’s love as his adopted children. This Person allowed us to crucify him, knowing that within three days he would walk out of the tomb, having transformed our humanity in the process. The Person sent his Spirit so we could all live together in the harmony and oneness of the Trinity here in our broken world.
Whatever may happen now or in the future, we have this certainty at the root of all things—we are held. We will make it through this, whatever this is, because we are beloved and we are graced by the presence and power of God in his Son Jesus by his Holy Spirit. The Spirit is still at work in this world creating community, tearing down walls, dissolving fear and suspicion, and drawing us together.
Our hearts resonate with the Christ within, enabling us to trust, to believe once more there is hope and there is love at work in this world. The Letter we have received by God’s divine delivery system will accomplish his perfect work in his good time. His explosion of love and grace is at work in this cosmos and will in his good time fill all things and drive out all that is dark and evil, reducing it to chaff blown away by the wind. We have nothing to fear and everything to hope for, because we are holding within ourselves the special delivery we have received from our heavenly Father—the Letter of grace, the indwelling Christ by the Spirit.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for loving us so much! We are so blessed! Do not allow the seeds of mistrust, suspicion, and fear to grow, Abba, but blow them away with your divine Breath, replacing them with seeds of kindness, compassion, and trust. Remove from this nation and others those leaders who would participate with the evil one, and replace them with men and women who embrace and live in the truth of who they are as your children. We are so often at the mercy of those more powerful and wealthy than ourselves, Lord, so show yourself to be the One who is the divine Power at work in this cosmos, the One who holds all things in his hand. Lord Jesus, fill us anew with your Spirit of harmony, grace, and love. In your Name we pray. Amen.
“I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:2 NASB
Accepting Others in Christ
By Linda Rex
This week I had to take my car to the dealer to get some work done. While I was sitting in the waiting room, I took out “Crossroads” by W. Paul Young and started to read it for the second time. I wasn’t making much progress because I kept being distracted by messages on my phone and conversations around me.
After a while, a man and his elderly father came and sat nearby. They were taking a rest after looking around at the cars. They sat and talked while they had a snack and a drink. It was interesting to watch their comfortable relationship with one another. I have not often seen a father and son living in relationship in this way.
After a while, the older man got up and walked behind me toward the other end of the room. He paused for a moment as he went by and asked whether I liked to read. I said, “Yes, I do. I always have.” We chatted for a moment about our common love of books and then he moved on. This prompted a conversation with his son about books in general which lasted until they were ready to leave.
Later I reflected on this event, and was most caught by the inner relation between the father and the son. It was not until my dad retired that I began to have this kind of relationship with my own father. I remember on several occasions standing in the woods near my dad’s house talking with him about different things—there was a quiet knowing and being between us that I am so grateful to have experienced. Our relationship was not always that pleasant, but as every relationship does, it ebbed and flowed, and over time, grew deeper and more accepting.
Whatever my relationship with my own father might have been or this man with his father, they are only a weak reflection of the inner relations between Abba and Jesus in the Spirit. In the Trinity there is a face-to-face relational oneness which has always been and always will be. Nothing can or will ever separate the Father, Son, and Spirit from one another. Satan gave it his best shot with the crucifixion, but even then, the oneness of the Father, Son, and Spirit was undivided, with the Father in Christ by the Spirit experiencing all of Jesus’ suffering and death. God was one in our salvation, and undivided.
When Jesus quoted Psalm 22, saying, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 16:34), he was not saying that his Father had left him, but was putting into his followers’ minds the rest of this psalm. If you were to read the rest of this psalm, which the disciples would have known from having heard it over and over in the synagogue, you would know that Jesus was trusting his Abba not to leave him or forsake him, no matter how he may have felt at that moment in his flesh. In fact, Jesus trusted so much that his Abba had not left him and was not separated from him, that he entrusted his Spirit to his Abba as he breathed his last breath.
The marvel of this reality, of the oneness of God in the crucifixion as well as the resurrection, is that we are included in Christ in this oneness. We are accepted in the Beloved. Our acceptance is not based on our performance, but rather in the acceptance of Jesus Christ—we are elect in the Elect One, the One chosen before the foundation of the world. He became sin for us so we would share in his right relationship with his Abba (his righteousness.)
Our acceptance in Christ does not mean we are free to do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, but rather that we are free to be the people we were created to be as image-bearers of God to reflect his likeness. We are free to treat others as we wish to be treated. We are free to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before our God. We are free to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and beings, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Acceptance has to do with relationship, not with how well we meet a particular standard. I find the hardest thing to do as a child of God is to base acceptance on relationship rather than on performance. The world around me bases acceptance upon culture, religion, race, wealth, looks, success, performance, and many other things. But God bases acceptance in relationship. He bases it in his unbreakable relations between the Father, Son, and Spirit which we have been included in via the hypostatic union between God and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.
Our failures to live in the truth of our redeemed humanity do not estrange us from God, but rather cause us to believe we are estranged from God. They do not in reality separate us from God, but rather convince us that there is something we have to do to get ourselves back in God’s good graces. The truth is that Jesus already, in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, did whatever might be needed to reconcile us with his Abba. The truth is that we are reconciled, therefore we are to be reconciled—to live in the truth of our complete acceptance in Christ and in the truth of who we are as image-bearers of God, to turn back into the face-to-face relationship we have with Jesus in the Spirit.
Acceptance of one another, then, is also about relationship rather than performance. Another human being may be living apart from the truth of who they are in Christ, but we can still embrace their broken humanity in Christ, offering his forgiveness and acceptance as well as our own, while at the same time calling them up into the truth of their redeemed humanity. Our GCI (Grace Communion International) leadership will express this as “High Challenge, High Support—Grace Always.”
A husband whose wife is battling an addiction with prescription drugs can tell her, “My relationship with you is solid and secure—I love you and I accept you. But I love you enough to not allow you to continue to destroy yourself and your family.” And he can move on into the process of helping his wife face and deal with her addiction, while he keeps himself and his family safe and healthy. The commitment he made with her isn’t dissolved by her addiction—he can accept her, while at the same time not accept her destructive behavior and help her get well. Ideally, she will turn away from her addiction and toward relationship, but these are difficult and complicated situations.
It’s easy to talk about the ideal world we could live in if we were true to our being as image-bearers of God. But obviously, we are not today living out that truth. It is obvious we live in a broken world with millions of broken people, living under broken governments, in so many different broken circumstances. Our brokenness does not estrange us from God or one another, but it does affect how we experience our world and what the future will look like for ourselves and our friends and families. God is ever and always calling us back into the relationship he has secured for us in Christ—calling us to leave behind our stubborn resistance to him and turn back into that face-to-face relationship he created us for.
We have an election coming up. And we have some very difficult situations we are facing in our world. Evil is always seeking to create separation in some form or another—separation by death, separation of people and nations, separation by destroying our relationships with God and one another. God seeks by his Spirit to create community or communion, while Satan seeks to create division, hostility, suspicion, accusation, and so on. What we participate in is up to us—separation or communion. Our world will be affected by our participation—which is why we fulfill our responsibility as citizens to vote. But we also rest in the assurance that our failures in this or any area of life are taken up in Christ and redeemed. There is hope in spite of us—and we live in gratefully and humbly in response.
Thank you, Abba, for accepting us in your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for not rejecting us because of our failures to love or our stubborn resistance to your love and grace. Thank you, that in spite of all we see going on around us you are still at work in this world, accomplishing your deeper purpose, which is to make all things new in Christ. Our failures to love and to accept one another are destroying us and our world, and we desperately need your renewal. We want our world to be a better place now—so continue to transform our hearts by faith. Spirit, breathe anew your spiritual renewal and healing in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools, our churches, and most of all, in our governments. Open our eyes and our hearts to see what you are already at work doing and move us to participate in your redemption, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.” Romans 15:5-7 NASB
Losing the Inner Policeman
By Linda Rex
The apostle Paul wrote that there is now, at this moment, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We wrestle with condemning ourselves and others, and yet God has said that this is not what is true about us. So much of our perspective on others and ourselves has its basis outside of us, in what others say, think, or do—in our subjective experience—rather in what is objectively true of us—that we are all beloved, accepted, and forgiven, and redeemed.
We see our healing or becoming whole as something external to us which we must attain to and strive for, rather than realizing and believing it is something which has already been done that we participate in through the indwelling Christ by the Spirit. We have been made new, Christ is making all things new, and all things will be ultimately transformed completely when our glorified Savior ushers in the new heaven and new earth.
The key here is participation. What is objectively true does not change at all, while our subjective experience of it changes according to the seasons of our lives and the ebb and flow of our day by day existence and how much we actively participate in what the Spirit is doing in this world. The evil one, too, does his best to twist, confuse, and destroy our grasp of the spiritual realities, attempting to drain away the resources of faith, hope, and love poured into us by the Spirit.
Our external attempts at lawkeeping may give us a veneer of goodness, but real change is something which happens from the inside out. In fact, it was brought to my attention again recently that lawkeeping inevitably has only one result for us as humans—the wages of sin is death. Death is what we invariably end up experiencing because we are unable to live as we ought in perfect relationship with God and one another.
The issue is an internal one, and involves things I don’t fully understand such as our subconscious, our motivations, our memories, our passions, and all that other stuff which goes on inside of us. We can keep up a beautiful façade but in due time, the real brokenness at the root of our humanity will ooze out, often in ways which will astonish others who know us. In the book “Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership” the authors give many examples of effective, strong leaders who during a successful career experience a major moral failing, all because they did not attend to what was going on inside and deal with the brokenness which was part of what made them so successful.
When we recognize that Jesus Christ by the Spirit dwells within human hearts and seeks full expression in and through each of us, we begin to awaken to the reality that there is so much more going on in us and in others than what might at first be apparent on the outside. The Lord Jesus who has taken on our humanity and forged for us a new human existence is at work making this real in us and through us by his Spirit. He is at work in each of us bringing us into the fullness of our true identity in Christ.
Whatever obedience we may attempt is not meant to be a means by which we bring ourselves into union with God or into relationship with him—that is an external act which really achieves nothing. Rather, obedience is meant to arise out of the indwelling Christ—the Spirit making real in and through us the right relationship of Jesus with His Abba, making that perfect relationship our very own to participate in and enjoy. We pray, “Thy will be done here on earth as it is in heaven”, desiring the reality of that heavenly perfect relationship to be our own experience with Abba—and the Spirit affirms that this is so, manifesting Christ in us and through us, enabling us to share in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Father.
In the same way, our obedience with regards to those around us is not an act we do independently of God. Our obedience on our own, God says, is as filthy rags—dirty, smelly, and needing to be burned in the fire. We never do quite get our relationships right. This does not mean we do not need to be obedient. What it does mean is that Jesus has gone through the fire in our place and on our behalf, living our obedience out perfectly in his humanity, giving us his perfected obedience in the gift of the Spirit.
The law fulfilled in Christ said that we were worthy of death, and so we died—with him. And we rose with him. There is nothing left to condemn us. We have a new existence and a new relationship with Abba and one another which has been infused into our humanity and made ours in Christ. The Holy Spirit is now at work making this a reality for each of us individually as we respond to God in faith. Our obedience is a real participation in Christ’s obedience.
When we experience some sense of self-condemnation or the condemnation of others—and we will—we have nothing to fear. “If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things.” Our life is in him because he lives in us. Our obedience is a manifestation of the reality of God’s indwelling presence in our hearts and lives. Because of Christ being at work in us and our participating by faith in his real presence, we are free from condemnation. We are accepted, beloved and forgiven, all because of Christ. (1 John 3:18-24 NIV)
Jesus said we condemn ourselves when we hide our deeds in the darkness and do not put our faith in the Son of God. It is much better to acknowledge our dependency upon Christ than to go through life trying to hide our flaws and failures. Confession does not save us, but it does free us—telling the truth sets us free by bringing what is dark into the Light so that we may find healing and wholeness. This frees us to live in the truth of who we were created to be as image-bearers of Christ. (John 3:16-21 NIV)
Healing from many emotional, mental, and even physical ailments often begins with acknowledging and admitting to the truth. It also is aided by the most difficult of tasks—offering and receiving forgiveness. Living in the Light is living exposed and open, allowing the Spirit to transform us over time, in the midst of our broken existence in this broken world.
We want to experience the fullness of our perfection now, especially if we are perfectionists. But Jesus doesn’t promise us that. What he does promise us is that he will never leave us or forsake us. What he does promise us is a Companion, his Spirit, who will be with us and in us, to come alongside us and draw us more and more deeply into our life in the Trinity. We, like the apostle Paul, may be left with a thorn in our side of some kind, but we will still be useful, beloved children in the kingdom of our heavenly Father, free of any and all condemnation both now and forever, all because of God’s grace to us in Jesus.
Thank you, Abba, for loving us and forgiving us. Thank you for not condemning us, but for freeing us to be the children you created us to be as your image-bearers. Thank you, Jesus, for living in us by the Spirit and transforming our hearts by faith. We trust you to finish what you have begun so we can celebrate both now and forever the wonder of your Abba’s great love. Amen.
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4 NASB
Pending Judgment–Part VI
By Linda Rex
Rather than extending this series on judgment (which I could easily do), I will instead sum up all of these thoughts in one question we must ask ourselves: What do I know and believe about Abba’s heart towards me and every other human being on this earth? Our answer to this question directly impacts how we approach the topic of judgment.
Seeing our heavenly Father through the eyes of Jesus gives us a clarity we would not otherwise have. But we must be careful in doing so or we will neglect to see the entire spectrum of God’s love and grace toward us. God made us in his image after his likeness as reflections of his glory. For us to fall short of that in any way pains God’s heart because it keeps us from participating fully in his life and love as he intended. He does not want us to experience the consequences of living in opposition to our true humanity, but he does want us to experience the joy that comes with living in harmony with him and one another.
However, if we believe God is constantly examining our every action or motive to see if it measures up to some standard so he can pour out on us some predetermined punishment, I believe we are not seeing God clearly. Perhaps our eyes have been blinded by some past hurt which has never been healed or some wrong which has never been righted. Maybe we feel that no one should be let off the hook until they say the “sinner’s prayer” or a sufficient number of “Hail Mary’s”. Seeing God through the lens of past hurts or injustices rather than through Christ blinds us to the true nature of our loving and forgiving Abba.
How is it we can believe in a just Abba at the same time we believe in a loving and forgiving Abba? Thomas Torrance in his book “Incarnation” describes the nature of this God who is both. He is fully expressed and revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has entered into the blackness of our brokenness by taking on our humanity whether or not we wanted him to.
We as humans locked the door in fear just like the disciples in the upper room, thinking the issue is with those around us. But the real issue is our fear of God which is rooted in our blindness and rebellion. We hid from God and made him into the evil ogre rather than owning our sin. We needed God to come into the midst of us and to show us his participation in our darkness and death just as Jesus showed his disciples the scars in his hands and side in his resurrected body. What Jesus has done in his very person because he is both God and man is he has brought us into judgment at the same time he has redeemed us. In Jesus we find both God’s truth about our fallenness and the truth about God’s holiness joined together in such a way that darkness is overwhelmed by light and all is forgiven and made new.
In the sending of the Spirit, God enables us to experience the truth of all this, and to see our Abba through Jesus’ eyes. The Spirit helps us see and know that just as Jesus is Abba’s beloved child, so too are we. And the Spirit works to make our Lord Jesus manifest in us–bringing us into the full expression of his perfected humanity living in right relationship with our heavenly Abba, this being the glory we were meant to reflect from the beginning.
The Refining Fire goes to work, bringing us into the truth of our being, cleansing us of all those things which break our fellowship with God and one another. The Breathe of life breathes into us the very life of God forming Christ in us just as Ezekiel’s dry bones put on flesh and then came to life. The Water of Life washes away our old nature sweeping us into the river of God’s love and life, filling us with faith, hope, and love.
But God invites our participation in this process. He values and respects our personhood and our freedom. So he allows us to refuse his love and grace, and to experience the consequences of having done so. He allows us to swim upstream against the current and to resist his efforts to form in us that new life which is ours in Christ. He permits us to live in disobedience, but in due time ensures that we will reap the harvest of what we have sowed as it is necessary for us to be healed, transformed, and renewed. The pain in God’s heart, his wrath against evil and all its consequences, moves him to always and ever work for our redemption and salvation, whatever might be necessary to accomplish this–the sacrifice offered in his Son included.
Seeing as this was Abba’s purpose all along, whatever God may have done or not done in Old Testament times (and all the times since) was meant to help accomplish this. What we might see as God being cruel and unjust we need to see in the perspective of God’s divine purpose and his love and grace expressed toward all humanity in Jesus.
The truth is, even though we may have some serious questions to ask God as to why or for what purpose he did things or allowed them to happen, we may never receive an answer other than that final word given to us in Jesus Christ. As the Incarnate Son, the one who is both the Judge and the Judged, Jesus is the fullest and complete expression of Abba’s heart, and nothing else even comes close to this wonderful, and blessed Word of God.
Thank you, dear Abba, for your great love and grace. Cleanse our eyes and our hearts so we can see you for who you really are. Holy Spirit, enable us to know and believe in the truth of our Abba’s loving and forgiving heart as expressed to us in Jesus. We thank you that you won’t stop until this is true for all of us, as we respond in faith, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And he is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power.” Hebrews 1:1-3a NAS
Pending Judgment—Part V
By Linda Rex
Last weekend I was in Grove City, Ohio for a Together in Christ Summit. During my time there we visited the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati where we looked at exhibits which talked about the history of slavery here in America, as well as the reality of slavery today in countries around the world. We took some tests on implicit bias, discovering our own hidden proclivities towards prejudice. And we had some excellent discussions on what we as followers of Jesus Christ can do to open up safe spaces in which both victim and perpetrator may find healing and wholeness.
The call we all felt, I believe, was to participate more fully in Christ’s ministry of reconciliation in the world with regards to these issues. We are called, as God’s redeemed children, to be reconciled to God as he has reconciled himself with us in his Son Jesus Christ in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. We participate in Jesus’ work of reconciliation as we, as forgiven and redeemed children, through repentance and forgiveness are by faith in Christ reconciled with God and one another.
Parts of the exhibits were difficult to look at, due to the awfulness of the way people over the millennia have been treated by their fellow humans. The most painful for me to see were the exhibits on the third floor which were dedicated to modern slavery. One would think that by now human beings would have learned something from all we have experienced as time has passed. But greed is still greed, and economic success and lucrative production based on the suffering of certain people groups still has the power to hold people in its grasp. And whether I like it or not, there are ways in which I participate in this suffering without even realizing it.
As I stepped into the restored building which was once used as a slave pen, I felt the presence of those who had been held against their will, and grieved. It seems that throughout history, people have preyed on other people—the lost and the least victimized, used, and discarded by others who were in reality their brothers and sisters in Christ. What is Abba’s heart about all this?
We can learn something about this in the story of his chosen people, Israel, when God heard their cry in the land of Egypt where they were enslaved. The only reason this group of people was in Egypt was because their forefather Joseph had, by God’s intervention, saved Egypt from certain disaster during a famine (Gen. 41-46). At that point, they were important people in Egypt due to Joseph’s position as the ruler second only to Pharoah himself. But as time passed and circumstances changed, they became enslaved to the Egyptians.
There is a way in which humans begin to view one another which leads to such things happening. In Exodus 1, we read how the Egyptians began to fear the Israelites, so they set harsh taskmasters over them. Ironically, the more they were oppressed, the more the Israelites grew in numbers. In response, the king of Egypt demanded that their sons be killed as they were born, while their daughters could be saved (note the gender inequality). But the midwives and mothers managed to find a way to avoid doing this, because their fear of God was greater than their fear of the king.
But when one group of people subjugates another, the oppression merely grows worse, and this is what happened in the land of Egypt. The government began legislating oppression, moving the enslavement of this people group deeper into the nation’s consciousness. One of the tragedies of slavery in America is how we, a democratic people, voted into place such things as considering a slave to only be 3/5 of a person and fleeing slaves having to be returned to their owners, no matter the state of the circumstance involved. Written into the laws of various states in this nation were statements about the status of people based upon the color of their skin, whether they were born to a white man or a white woman, or if they married someone who was a slave.
This mentality of over/under, of greater than/less than, isn’t unique to America, nor to the people of ancient Egypt. This is a way of thinking and believing which arises out of our broken humanity. We set ourselves against one another, being blinded by fear, greed, and simply the lies we believe about God and each other.
Going back to the story of the Israelites in slavery, we find that God had a purpose for this particular people. They had a unique relationship with God, not because of anything they had done, but because of what their forefather had done when he had trusted in the goodness and mercy of his God, believing the promises made to him that one day he would be the father of many nations (Gen. 17:4). God had made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and these enslaved people were the chosen ones, beloved of Abba, the ones through whom the Savior of the world would come.
What the Pharoah of Egypt and his people did not realize was that they were viewing the Israelites through a false lens. Their paradigm was inaccurate and needed to be changed. They worshipped a variety of gods, none of which had anything to do with the One who created and sustained all things. The ruler of this people, no doubt, was used to being treated as though he were divine, and expected that his word was law, with no other law being superior to his. I imagine that submission was a very foreign concept to this Pharoah and that he saw himself as being above any law or authority other than his own.
When Moses brought the word of God to Pharoah, telling him to let Abba’s people go free, this began a conflict between God and the king which affected the two nations profoundly. At first, Moses’ efforts only resulted in harder bondage and greater suffering. But God told him:
“‘I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Lord I was not known to them. I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say to the children of Israel: “I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord.’” (Gen. 6:2-8 NASB)
God’s purpose from the beginning was to bring us all into relationship with himself, to truly know him as we are known by him. He also purposed to redeem all humanity, freeing us from our slavery to sin and to death. This meant his interaction with the nation of Egypt via the Pharoah would involve a revelation of his being as the One God, the Lord, who is the Redeemer of his people. Unfortunately, Pharoah’s resistance to this revelation would mean suffering and death for many of his people, including his very own firstborn son.
God’s judgments on Egypt were not meant to harm, but were meant to free his people and to reveal his power, glory, and goodness. They were based in his covenant love and his compassion for his people who were being oppressed. When God opposed and resisted the stubborn pride and arrogance of Pharoah, there were consequences and many suffered as a result. The plagues which affected the Egyptians were a direct attack upon the false gods they trusted in and were meant to teach them the difference between idols and the true God so they could come to know God for who he really was. The resistance of Pharoah against God provided a venue in which the Lord revealed his covenant love and grace toward the nation of Israel through whom one day the Deliverer would come who would deliver all nations from evil, sin, and death.
The cost of resistance to the purposes and ways of our loving God is often a price we don’t want to pay, but we do it all the time. Slavery in America was insidious and awful. The cost of eradicating it was tremendous and included suffering and death for many people. And the sad thing is, we are still fighting this battle even today. Suffering and death are the result of resisting the love and grace of our good God, and refusing to live in the truth of who we are as those made in his image. We are meant to live in oneness in which we, though unique in our persons and relations, are equals. This is our identity—and when we don’t live in the truth of this in our relationships with one another, there are painful, awful consequences which permeate all of life.
In Christ, God has reconciled each and every person with himself, and is calling each and every one into relationship with himself by the Spirit. He calls us by his precious Spirit to live together in the oneness we were created for and redeemed by Christ to share in. Christ revealed Abba’s heart as he ministered to and embraced the lost and the least of these when he came to share in our humanity. In the sending of his Spirit, he breathes out on each of us the new spirit of unity and oneness we were created for. May we open our hearts and minds and willingly embrace our new humanity, beginning to live and walk in this truth, no matter the cost.
Abba, thank you for offering us forgiveness in your Son Jesus. Grant us repentance of all the ways in which we enslave and subjugate one another, and treat each other as if we were less than or worthless. Grant us the grace to forgive one another and to be reconciled to one another and you even as you have reconciled yourself to us in Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I make you as God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. You shall speak all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh that he let the sons of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt. When Pharaoh does not listen to you, then I will lay My hand on Egypt and bring out My hosts, My people the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt by great judgments. The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the sons of Israel from their midst.’ So Moses and Aaron did it; as the Lord commanded them, thus they did.” Exodus 7:1-6 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 