religion
The Battle Against Despair
FOR ADVENT: Hope
By Linda Rex
I recall a conversation I had a while back with a beautiful lady who has seen the struggles and difficulties of life. She had recently experienced the cruelty of unjustly losing her livelihood after having worked very hard to finally have her own home and to pay off all her bills. When she was finally starting to see some light in her dark life, she was knocked down again.
In the midst of this situation, the one thing she needed, she said, was to have some glimmer of hope. She needed to be able to believe that there was a good reason to go through another day, to try one more time to do things in a way that was honorable and ethical in the midst of a culture that told her to take the easy route of dependency, addiction and sloth.
To tell her to keep believing, to insist that she try one more time, was not enough. She had reached the end of her resources—there wasn’t anything left inside to carry her, and there wasn’t anything left outside in her life to lift her up. She felt all alone, forgotten, unloved, and unwanted. She felt a deep sense of despair. Nothing could help her.
Or so she thought. It was in the midst of this place that she encountered the living Lord.
How Christ comes to meet us in the midst of our despair and darkness is unique to each of us. He met his people Israel in a time when they despaired of ever hearing from God again—a time when they were held in the grip of a pagan government which disrespected their heritage and their God. And he came to them in a form they never expected—a tiny, helpless infant lain in a manger by a common carpenter and his bride.
One of the ways Christ came to this lady in despair was in the people of faith he began to place in her life. These particular people began to share life with her, expressing God’s love for her in various ways.
They did not always do what she expected. They did not pay her bills or take care of her problems the way she wanted them to. But they did provide her with love and concern and prayer. They did provide her with the means to better her life and to grow as a human being into greater Christlikeness. It turns out that through them and through the Word of God, they gave her what she needed most—hope in the midst of her despair. They introduced her to Jesus Christ.
Christ is our hope in the midst of despair. He is that divine Word from the Father of Lights who entered our humanity and joined us in the midst of our human depravity and our broken world. He even “became sin for us,” taking on that very thing that keeps us in our despair and brokenness. And he died our death and rose from the dead, giving each of us a new life, a hope in the midst of despair.
In sending the Holy Spirit, God through Christ, made a way for us to begin to experience the kingdom life even now in the midst of our broken and sinful world. We are able to interact with God in a real way through our union with God in Christ and our communion with God and one another in the Spirit. Through Christ and by the Spirit we are able to experience a living, ongoing relationship with God himself, coming to hear and understand the living Word of God personally, and having God’s way of being written on our hearts and minds.
This means that Christ becomes and is a real part of our day-to-day existence. As we respond to his nudges by the Holy Spirit, we come to experience healing, hope and change in our lives. Things don’t always get better immediately as far as our circumstances may go, but somehow that doesn’t matter so much to us anymore.
In the midst of our struggles and dark places, God begins to shed his light. We begin to have a new perspective. We begin to see and experience possibilities when there were none before. God brings us into relationships that are healing, helpful and restorative. He begins to work change in our lives.
But God doesn’t do this all by himself. He calls us to participate with him in this transformation. We can continue to wallow in despair if we wish, and deny the real grace God offers us in the midst of our suffering and grief. We can cling to our darkness if we wish—God allows us to do that. But he calls us out of it and offers us himself, through Christ and by his Spirit, as a means of lifting us up and transferring us from darkness and despair into light and life.
As participants in God’s light and life, we need to be sensitive to the work the Spirit is doing to draw others out of despair and darkness. We are called by God to share with others the Word of life we have been given. We can give them a real hope in the midst of despair when we introduce them to Jesus Christ and show them God’s real love and compassion.
We come into their lives the way God in Christ entered ours—humble, insignificant, and truly human. We share the mundane parts of our existence with them, along with the relationship we have with our heavenly Father through Christ his Son and by his Spirit. We give what we can to help them become the children of God they were created to be, so they can also be full participants in God’s love and life. This is our participation in what Jesus is doing in the world today.
Offering someone just a little bit of hope may seem trivial. We may think we have to accomplish great things in the world or become well known for our Christian faith and piety. But the simple gift of hope can be life-transforming and healing in more ways than we could ever imagine. Just ask someone who has received it.
Lord, thank you for coming into our world and joining us in our humanity and our brokenness, and for healing us from the inside out. Thank you that you offer each of us hope in the midst of our despair. Do not leave us here in our dark places, but please come to us and lift us up into your arms of love and life. Make us compassionate to others who need the gift of hope. Through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, …” Psalm 146:5 NASB
A Chance Meeting With My Sister
By Linda Rex
I was waiting in line at the post office the other day, waiting to pick up a letter I needed to sign for. The postal employee who was helping the people at the kiosks asked if anyone in line was picking up a package. I waved my little form in hopes he would help me out.
It was at this point I realized the lady behind me had waved her card too. But he told me to come first and then indicated that he would help her next. Behind me I heard her make some rather loud remarks about “rednecks”—apparently the lady was upset because he didn’t help her first.
As we moved over to the gentleman who was helping us, he asked if we were sisters. Before I could answer, the lady began a diatribe about how she was from Bristol, England, and she had lived in five states and hated Tennessee the most. She began to deride the people of Tennessee in a loud voice. I just tried to keep a friendly, calm demeanor, smiling at her when she looked at me. I wasn’t sure how to respond since she was clearly upset. The wise postal employee made himself scarce, and everyone in the line did their best to ignore the rude comments.
An older gentleman, when he finished at the counter, paused next to the lady and told her in a kind but firm voice that he took offense at her insults of the fine people of Tennessee. She grabbed her bag and scurried away around me, trying to avoid him. She repeated her criticisms, and his parting words to her as he left were in essence, “If you don’t like it here in Tennessee, you should leave.” To this she replied, “If I could afford to, I would.”
She and I returned to our waiting positions, and that inner voice we don’t always want to listen to said to me, “You know, she is your sister—in Christ.” I felt like I wanted to say something to her about this but the words stuck in my throat.
At this point the postal employee called the lady over for her letter and apologized to her for the wait. She grabbed her letter and left with whatever dignity she could muster. She was still clearly upset.
“I’m sorry,” he said to me. “I thought you two were related. You looked like you were sisters.”
“No,” I replied. “I don’t know her. I’ve never met her before.”
I signed for the letter from the funeral home, and left. As I stepped out of the rear door of the post office, I looked across the parking lot. She was sitting in her car and she was crying. The irony which struck me at that moment was that this woman who was so rude to me and to everyone else, was the same woman who I had let go first when it was clearly my right-of-way into the post office driveway.
In spite of all she had said and done, my heart went out to her. She was clearly in distress, but my presence and knowledge of that fact seemed to only be making things worse.
I left, but that whole conversation stuck in my mind. I joked about it later, telling people that I was finally a real Tennessean now—a true redneck apparently. But what kept echoing in my mind were those phrases: “She is your sister—in Christ”, and “I don’t know her.”
Later on as I pondered this experience I thought of those three conversations that Peter had when Jesus was on trial. Three times he denied Christ—“I don’t even know the man,” he said. This one, Jesus, who said Peter was his brother and his friend, Peter refused even to acknowledge.
Jesus said that when we welcome another person in love and compassion, we are welcoming him. To call this lady my sister was to acknowledge Jesus Christ and all he has done and is doing to bind all humanity to himself in his human flesh through his life, death, resurrection and ascension. She is as Christ is to me—bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh—we are one in Jesus Christ.
To deny that relationship in essence is to deny Christ. To reject her or to refuse to have compassion on her in her need is to close my heart to the Spirit’s call to love her with the love of the Father for his Son.
This was just an everyday happening in my life. Nothing to get too excited about or beat myself up about. But through the lens of eternity, it can be seen in an entirely new way.
Here, in view of the kingdom of God, is a fellow citizen—someone who may or may not know that their place of birth is in the Son—a birthplace they share with all humanity. As a sister to this person, I have the opportunity—no, the challenge—to acquaint her with the truth about her beginnings, her real family, the place where she truly belongs. Why should I be silent about so great a thing?
This is the good news we share. We are all one in Christ Jesus—God has claimed us as his own in spite of our brokenness and sin. He has said that he would not be God without us—and he made sure of that by giving us himself in the Son and in the Spirit. Each person we meet is truly and completely loved by God and forgiven whether they deserve it or not—and most of the time, if they are like me, they don’t deserve it.
More and more God is leading me to pray a simple prayer as I go about my daily life asking God to show me what he has for me to do or say in each moment. As my friend Steve calls them—I ask God for “spiritual conversations”. I ask God to set me up and to give me the words to say and the courage and wisdom to say them in the right time and in the right way.
Our confession of Christ is in our common humanity that we share with him and with one another. We cannot and must not stand aloof from one another, even though there may be a fear in our hearts that the person we are helping may harm or hurt us. We can be wise and have healthy boundaries with people, but at the same time God calls us to tear down our barriers and to truly love one another from the heart in the same way he loves us through his Son Jesus Christ. May we be faithful in so doing.
Holy Father, thank you for not rejecting us but rather calling us your very own. Thank you, Jesus, that you call us your brothers and sisters, and your friends. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for being our Paraclete—the One who comes alongside us to share in every sorrow, joy, struggle and celebration. Thank you, God, that you are faithful and true, and you have made us all to be one with you and each other, and to live together forever in love. Through Jesus and in your Spirit we pray. Amen.
“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 10:32–33 NASB
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” Matthew 25:34–40 NASB
And There Will Be Tears
by Linda Rex
Yesterday I received one of those annoying but helpful emails about an appointment my mother had with her cardiologist. I made the obligatory phone call, letting the receptionist know that my mother would not be able to keep her appointment, since she had passed away last month.
The lady who answered was very nice, telling me she was sorry for my loss. What went through my head at that moment wasn’t very nice—it was something like, “Oh, you’re just saying that because you have to.” I was surprised by the irritation I felt at such a simple expression of compassion being used in our conversation.
Then as I hung up the phone I was surprised by my grief, with deep, wrenching sobs wracking my body. The tears didn’t last very long, and I dried them and prepared to move on to something else. My daughter came in to see if I was all right. In an affectionate hug, we both spent a moment in shared sorrow and comfort.
I know that my mother would not want me to wallow in grief. And I really have no reason to, because I do not sorrow without hope. I have the assurance that in due time, we will be together again in glory.
But there is a gap in my life now that creates pain. And the reason it creates pain is that we were created for relationship and that joining of human lives through relationship is a reflection of the divine life and love. We were never meant for death or the separation that comes through the loss of a loved one.
Even the loss of a beloved pet or the loss of an unborn child creates this pain. We grow attached to people and animals, and when we don’t have them in our lives any more, we find there is a gaping hole that we cannot fill. And that hurts—it hurts a lot. And it should, because it is not what we were created for.
We were created for lasting relationships of love. God never meant for us to have to experience death or the loss of a loved one. We, as humans, brought and bring death into our existence. This is why God came in Jesus and died our death for us and rose from the grave. He conquered death so that death is no longer the end to our relationships. Now death is merely a stepping stone or door to an eternal life of knowing, loving, and being truly known and loved.
Even so, death happens and we have to deal with its reality. One of the things I learned in my Christian counseling training and in my short stint as a hospice chaplain is that grief and how it is experienced is unique to each individual. And it can take different shapes and forms as a person goes through the healing process—moving from loss to creating a new life without the loved one.
There can be a sense of denial—acting as though the loss hasn’t really happened. The one who grieves may experience depression. And they may find that they are angry—maybe filled with a deep anger that is much more severe than my mild irritation at the receptionist. And a person may, for a variety of reasons, get stuck in their grief—unable to move on because they have not resolved past hurts and losses.
Grief at the loss of a loved one, furry or not, is real, and needs to be treated with honor and dignity. If someone near you has experienced such a loss, please be understanding and compassionate. Try not to use platitudes or to explain why the loss happened. Only God knows the reason why our loved ones suffer and die. Explaining why or trying to fix the situation is not helpful. Offering companionship, understanding and genuine compassion is.
The grief a person feels about the loss of someone dear to them may lessen with time. But that hole in their lives will always be there. And there will be moments when a life event or a circumstance, a smell, sound or taste may bring back a flood of memories. And then there will be tears, because he or she will experience that loss all over again.
But crying can be good therapy when we remember that death is not the end. In fact, death has no power over us anymore. Death is just a temporary blip in the scheme of eternity—there may be tears in this night but we will have joy in that new morning.
And that brings back a memory—of kissing Mom good night, knowing she might not live through the night. I would tell her, “I’ll see you in the morning,” realizing it could be my last goodbye. It was a good one, because I know I will see her in that new morning when all is renewed and we can be together forever.
So there will be tears. But God has promised to keep track of each tear, and one day to dry every tear from my eyes. I have hope and that will carry me through my grief as I learn to build a life without Mom in it. It’s going to take a while, but I will, in time, move on. I am grateful that I never have to do this alone—I have God in me, with me, and for me—and I have family and friends as well. Thanks to each of you who have expressed your comfort and encouragement to me and my family in our time of loss. We deeply appreciate it.
Holy God, you are always faithful to carry us through each circumstance we face in our lives. Thank you that in Christ you share our griefs and our sorrows. Thank you that by your Spirit you are near and faithful to comfort us and give us peace in the midst of our losses. And thank you that we have hope through Christ of living forever with you and our loved ones. Grant us the grace to rest in you in the midst of our grief. In your name we pray, amen.
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried;…” Isaiah 53:4 NASB
“You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?” Psalm 56:8 NASB
“He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken.” Isaiah 25:8 NASB
“Cease striving [let go, relax] and know that I am God;” Ps 46:10 NASB
Savoring the Moments
By Linda Rex
A late night, early morning and little sleep is par for the course lately. Anxious questions and urgent concerns that have already been addressed and readdressed try my patience. A prayer wafts from my heart that I will have the grace to cherish the moments rather than ruin them with self-pity or frustration.
Another concern is raised. What can I answer other than the truth—we don’t know the day or the hour. We just know that the end is near. You will be going home to Jesus and I will be staying.
Out of my mouth, the Spirit speaks the words of comfort: “Mom, this is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” She nods with a smile and says, “Yes, we will.”
After a while it is time to take the dog out back, so I wander out, my bare feet in the cold, wet grass. I feel for a moment as though I’m walking in the Garden of Eden, with the presence of God near me, offering me his comfort and peace. I hear the echo in my mind and heart of the Spirit’s word, “This is the day the Lord has made…” and I feel a sense of gratitude for God’s comfort and encouragement.
Sitting again at her side, we talk about life and death, family and the things that really matter. We make sure there’s no unfinished business between us. These are precious moments—sacred moments, really. I choose to drink them in rather than just let them pass me by.
After an hour or so I go to my room to take care of something and pause to read today’s devotion out of a book on my desk. I smile as I read the familiar words: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” I think I know what God’s word is for me today.
Thank you, Lord, for another moment and another day with the people who mean the most to us. Thank you for the relationships you have given us in which we know others and they know us. We are especially grateful that you know us down to the core of our beings and have brought us to this place of knowing you. There is an indescribable joy in this knowing and being known. We anticipate the time our time in eternity with you through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24 NASB
Leaving Behind the Ignorance of Prejudice
by Linda Rex
Yesterday I was watching with interest the speech given by Pope Francis to Congress. I was impressed by his finesse in taking the stories of four Americans and drawing from them positive principles by which our leaders and our people could move forward into the uncertain future.
As he was speaking, someone said to me, “Well, there’s our enemy.” It took me aback for a moment, but then I remembered how for centuries some Protestants have seen the pope and the Roman Catholic church as being exactly that—as being the anti-Christ spoken about in the Bible. Of course, this requires a misinterpretation of Scripture, but it has been assumed to be true by many and is still believed to be so by some today.
I’m a little ashamed to say today that I used to be one of those people who believed the pope and the Roman Catholic Church were the enemy of all that is truly Christian. This was born out of ignorance and false teaching I had adopted as a child. But God was not content to leave me in my ignorance.
One of the first things he did was to place me in a relationship in high school where I grew to know and respect a teen who was the daughter of Polish immigrants. She had attended Catholic school in her youth and was a devout believer. She had a crucifix on the door to her room and she would cross herself every time she passed it to go in and out. I saw a devotion to Christ that was different from mine but equally, or perhaps even more, genuine. Although I had other friends in school who were Catholic, she left an impression on me that was not easily forgotten.
As time passed, I had a family member who married someone who was Catholic. I still remember the beautiful ceremony in her church. I could feel the presence and power of God there in a way that amazed me. The song that invited the believers to communion with Christ was inspiring and captured my heart. God was slowly and surely destroying the arrogance in me that kept me believing my faith was superior to and more real than these Catholic believers.
In the years since then, God placed me in the position of coming to know more and more people of the Catholic faith. Many of them were devout, and some were actively pursuing a relationship with Jesus Christ. Sure, there were an equal number who were merely nominal Christians, whose faith was just something they adopted as part of their family heritage. But what God did over the years was to bring me to a repentance, a change in my mind and heart and in my beliefs, about the Roman Catholic Church and its followers.
The way God changed my mind and heart was by placing me in relationships with people in which I was forced to reevaluate what I believed and why I believed it. I could have been stubborn and refused to acknowledge and repent of my prejudice. But my personal integrity would not allow me to do that. The truth was—I was wrong—and I needed to admit it and change accordingly.
I have found as time has gone by that God keeps me in a continual state of needing to reevaluate, repent and change when it comes to what I believe about certain people, their beliefs and cultures.
Technology is making our world smaller by bringing together people and cultures that would probably otherwise never interact. We are being forced to build relationships with people of all faiths and political, economic backgrounds. We are being forced to reevaluate what we believe about them and how we should interact with them.
This is actually a good thing. Because one day, in our future, lies a time when all peoples of all nations and all cultures will be joined together in a world that has no political, religious, cultural boundaries. In this place, what will matter most will not be what clothes we wear, how much money we make, or what kind of foods we prefer to eat. Rather what will really matter will be our relationships with one another and with God. What will really count is how well we love and care for one another.
This is why Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” To have these heavenly values is more important than seeking the earthly values that are transitory and passing. We look beyond the human designations that separate us into the heavenly qualities that unite us. We are all one in Jesus Christ—he is our humanity—our unity, our equality, our diversity. He joins us together in such a way that all these other things we count as important become truly insignificant in the long run.
Our challenge is to remain in an attitude of a willingness to see and admit to our prejudices, and to consciously make an effort to change when we see we are wrong. When we respond to the work of the Holy Spirit as he brings us together with others we may feel uncomfortable with, we will find an amazing harmony and healing that can only be explained as divine.
God wants his children to be joined together with him in Christ, and when we respond to that, miracles happen in our relationships. We experience his divine life and love in a multitude of ways as we yield to the Spirit’s work to bind us all together as one in Christ. May we always respond in faithful obedience to him.
Thank you, God, for the amazing ways you bring healing and restoration in our broken relationships. Grant each of us the heart and mind to repent of our prejudices and to open ourselves to making room for others in the divine fellowship. We have so far to go! May we always turn to you for the love and grace we need so that we may love and forgive others. In Jesus’ name and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33 NASB
Leaving it All for Love
by Linda Rex
Many years ago I packed everything I owned in a U-Haul truck and left my southern California bungalow for the hills of rural southeast Iowa. It was quite a cultural shock for someone who had grown up in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Over the years people have often asked me what in the world made me do this.
At the time, it just seemed the logical and right thing to do. I was in love and had married an Iowa farmer. To leave my home, my family, my friends, my job, and all that was familiar to me seemed to be only a little thing in the face of building a new life based on love.
One of the stories many of us had to read in high school was Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. In this classic story of love and tragedy, we find the age-old question asked, “What would I do for love?” It is a question many of us face in our day-to-day lives as we interact with family, friends and our community. What exactly are we willing to do in the name of love?
Throughout his ministry, Jesus engaged his disciples in conversations that challenged them with this very same question. He walked up to Matthew as he collected the taxes and said to him, “Follow me.” And he dropped everything and followed him. He went to John and James and said to them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And they left it all and followed him.
Throughout this ministry, the disciples kept being faced with the question: Am I really ready and willing to leave all behind and follow Jesus? At one point they reminded Jesus of all they had given up to follow him, and asked what they were going to get out of the deal. Jesus said they would receive abundantly in the world to come as well as receive some rewards now. But the greatest gift they would receive through it all would be eternal life, in relationship with the God who loved and cared for them.
In his book “The Call to Discipleship”, Karl Barth writes about our tendency to adopt Christianity like we join a fraternal organization—it’s a nice thing to do and it fits in beautifully with our life plans. Sadly, we can tend to treat our call to faith with an indifference borne out of our jaded human experience where we’ve seen it all, done it all and this is just one more thing to do to guarantee a healthy, happy life.
But the call to discipleship is a call to leave all behind and follow Christ. It means letting go of all that has gone before in such a way that we hold loosely to the things of this world and we hold tightly to Jesus Christ, our new humanity. God calls us to let go of all of the things in our life that we identify ourselves by, for our new identity is in Jesus Christ alone.
This can be very difficult, especially when what we need to leave behind is something we have built our whole life around, thinking that it defines us and our humanity. Just what exactly are we willing to do for love? Just what are we willing to leave behind to follow Christ?
Perhaps if we were willing to look at this question from the other way around we might find some compelling reason to leave everything behind.
We need to look intently at Jesus Christ—who is he? Here is One who lived eternally in a relationship of love and companionship in which he was content, fulfilled and complete. He had no need of anyone or anything else. He did not need us, nor did God have any reason to create us other than as an expression of his overflowing, abundant love.
Yet this God, who was rich in every way, set all the privileges and dignity of his divinity aside, and joined us in our humanity. He left everything that was familiar and comfortable, and took up residence in a human body. He allowed himself to be carried about and mothered by Mary, and to be instructed in the temple by the rabbis. He walked about on earth, getting his feet dusty and dirty like every other human being. And he did it all for love.
And that wasn’t enough for him. He even allowed himself to be insulted, abused, shamed and crucified by us. He died an ignoble death with a word of forgiveness and compassion on his lips. Isn’t that the truest expression of love?
Taking all this into account then, how can there be anything we are not willing to give up for him? Love and gratitude for this amazing act of love compels us to drop everything and to do whatever it takes to follow him, even if it means leaving everything we value behind.
It will not always be easy to follow Christ. We will be faced with the decision at some point in our lives—do I cling to what is comfortable and convenient, or do I hold fast to Christ? Is this relationship I’m in more important to me than living in agreement with the One who gave it all up for me? Do I hold fast to my integrity or to the job I desperately need so I can keep my house? Will I hold on to my pride or be willing to eat humble pie and admit to my spouse that I am wrong?
What are we willing to give up for love? Jesus gave it all up for you and for me—perhaps what we need to give up really isn’t that significant after all.
Lord, thank you for leaving everything behind and joining us in our humanity. Thank you for loving us so much that you were willing to give it all up for love. Grant us the grace to give ourselves fully to you and to others in the same way you have given yourself to us. In your name, Jesus, amen.
“Peter said, ‘Behold, we have left our own homes and followed You.’ And He said to them, ‘Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.’” Luke 18:28–30 NASB
“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” John 15:12–14 NASB
Breathing God’s Love In and Out
by Linda Rex
My care of my mother during her end of life is teaching me to value simple things like taking another breath, being able to take care of my own personal needs, and being able to have coherent thoughts and express them. And I see how God is in the midst of even these mundane, yet essential, parts of life.
It’s amazing how the simple things in life have such powerful lessons for us as human beings. Take, for example, a breath of fresh air. We breathe for the most part without even knowing we are doing it.
If we were to take a moment and consciously breathe in and out, we would notice not only the sound we make while doing it, but also the movement in our body. This is an essential event that happens every moment of our lives and our body, unless it is ill, just seems to know when and how to breathe so we can continue to live. It knows when it is not getting air and reacts in a way that tries to ensure than another breath is taken before it’s too late.
When God breathed life into Adam, he set a whole stream of things into motion that scientists today are still trying to figure out. The human body, with its ability to metabolize oxygen from the air around it, is an amazing piece of architecture. And it’s so much more than that. Each human being is a soul.
As a soul, there is a life that goes beyond the life we see and experience as we take a breath in and out. This life transcends the physical. There’s a spiritual element, something that involves the heart and mind, the reason and the emotions. Something within us connects us to one another, and to a life that is other than our humanity. We find ourselves considering such things as life beyond death.
God created us for relationship—it’s built into us. We connect with others and they connect with us. We connect with God, because he made us, and he took on our humanity in Christ and intimately connected us with him. Connections between human beings and between humans and God are a natural part of our existence.
Yet, some of us find ourselves resisting relationships, or being unable to have healthy ones. We may shut people out, or close ourselves off from building relationships with other people for many reasons. When we do this, we are actually cutting ourselves off from God’s divine Breath—preventing our spiritual lungs from breathing full breaths of air.
It is in relationships that God moves to heal, transform and grow us as individuals. Our encounters with other people provide the means by which the Holy Spirit tends to our hearts. Our souls or inner beings grow thirsty, twisted and hard when we do not have healthy, nurturing relationships in our lives. So much mental and emotional ill health comes from having grown up in families or circumstances where relationships were unhealthy and did not reflect the divine life and love.
Spiritual community among believers should be a place where God’s love and life are seen and experienced in an ongoing way. The gathering of God’s people should be a place where the breath of God renews, refreshes and cleanses people. It should not be a place that is abusive, cold, rigid, hard and condemning. Rather, it should be clear that the Holy Spirit is breathing life into all who are gathered there for fellowship and worship.
Those who have relationships with believers ought to experience this same invigorating, life-renewing love. A real breathing in of God’s life and love ought to occur when someone encounters a follower of Christ. They should walk away encouraged, blessed, renewed and comforted.
This breathing in and breathing out of God’s love and life ought to be for each of us as natural as our breathing in and out of the air around us. In God, we live and move and have our being, Paul wrote. So not only is our breathing of air an essential part of our humanity, so is our breathing in and out of God’s love and life by the Spirit.
We are connected at such a deep level with God and each person around us, that sharing God’s love and life with others should be as natural as the next breath we take—we shouldn’t have to struggle with being able to do it—it’s a part of who we are in Christ.
So as we ask God’s Spirit to awaken Christ within us and to make us more aware of the life and love we are already participating in through him, maybe we can begin to see that following Christ and loving others is just simply being ourselves. Caring for one another’s needs, comforting one another in the midst of our hurts, and having compassion for the hurting are just a natural part of our being—it’s who we really are. Really, it’s just as simple as breathing in and breathing out.
Dear God, thank you for each breath I take today. May I live with you and others in such a way that your Spirit breathes life and love moment by moment into all my relationships. Through Jesus our Lord, amen.
“And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” John 20:22 NASB
Offering Connection
by Linda Rex
Several years ago I facilitated a divorce support group in a small community. The group was small and we spent our time walking through the healing process together. The members of the group shared their stories and we talked about ways to begin to build new relationships.
One of the ladies had been in a difficult and at times, dangerous, relationship, and it was important for her to begin to make some significant changes in her life. She needed to end old, unhealthy relationships with people who were drawing her into destructive habits, and to begin to build strong bonds with people who would lift her up and help her to grow in positive ways.
I wanted to invite her to attend church with me, but it was rather awkward, since it was an hour and a half one way to where I was attending at the time. I did offer to bring her with me to services, but then I suggested that perhaps she could attend one of the churches in the community. I knew several of the pastors, and was sure that they would help her to grow in her relationship with Jesus Christ.
But the problem was that she had no friends who attended church. All her near and dear friends were only found at the local bar—because that was her social life. That bar was the hub of the local community and whatever was going to happen would happen there, or she would hear about it there from her friends. It wasn’t that the bar was necessarily a bad place for her to go—it’s just that her good friends hung out there along with her abusive spouse and some other people who were not good for her to be around.
Her past experience with church told her that church was not a safe place to go. In fact, in her view the bar where she went for fun and fellowship was a safer place relationally (in spite of the negative influences) than any of the churches were. She really didn’t know any church people with whom she felt loved and accepted. So she had no reason to go to church. Church scared her, especially now that she had the stigma of being divorced.
As time passed I could see the hunger in her for a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, but my efforts to connect her with some type of Christian relationships were rejected. I continued to offer her support after the group ended, but I found that she went on struggling with the pattern of unhealthy relationships and behaviors. She was not willing to risk attending a church she knew nothing about and could not relate to, and did not want to give up the friends and familiar surroundings of the neighborhood bar. Eventually she moved away, and in the process her circumstances changed. But she did not, to my knowledge, ever begin attending church anywhere.
What was it about that neighborhood bar that made it so attractive to her that she would not give it up? She really didn’t go there to drink—she went there for the relationships. She went there because it was fun to dance, to play pool, and to talk with her buddies. When she had a rough day at work, she was able to talk with someone about it. If she was having relational problems, her pals would commiserate and give her helpful advice. She didn’t have to worry about feeling lonely, because she could go there and find someone to hang out with. If she wanted someone to celebrate with her or cry with her, there they were.
It almost sounds like church, doesn’t it?
Actually, I think it should. Because isn’t that what the body of Christ is supposed to be like? A group of people gathered together in Christ to share life—to lift each other up, share each other’s joys and sorrows, and to offer one another support, encouragement and advice?
I don’t really think the whole problem with getting people to church is bad publicity or misinformation. I think it also boils down to the reality that church today is no longer the Christian fellowship it was meant to be. Bonhoeffer’s description in his book Life in Community is a far cry from what many of us within the church community experience. It is hard to find this life-on-life way of living out the Christian faith.
Too many of us are so busy protecting our glitzy façade of ethical behavior to really form deep, meaningful relationships with others in the church. Sadly, we often create an environment that makes people feel very uncomfortable with owning up to their failures and needs. This makes it very difficult for those who are struggling to be able to freely repent and confess their faults so they can begin to find healing and hope.
I personally believe the series Cheers had such a long, successful run was because it touched a deep place in people that resonated with their need to connect in a deep way and to share life with others. What if our churches became places where people were able to be real? What if our churches made people feel like they were accepted and loved just the way they were, while encouraging them to grow into all they could be and all God wants for them? Could people get so hooked on such warm, loving fellowship that they could not do without it?
To me, that sounds a lot like participation in the divine life and love—it sounds like perichoresis. And I think we all have an inner longing for it because it is what we were created to share in. All areas of our lives provide opportunities to create and participate in such fellowship, and to share it with others. And we have all eternity to do this with one another. We can start now as we gather together for worship and prayer as God’s people, but also as we share all facets of our lives with one another the way God intended. May God bless and guide us as we grow up into true Christian fellowship.
Dear God, thank you for including us in your life and love, Grant us the grace to include others as well. May we learn to practice genuine fellowship with one another as we share life with those you bring to us to share life with. In Jesus’ name and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” Philippians 2:1–2 NASB
A Matter of Life and Death
by Linda Rex
One of the great themes of Jesus’ preaching and life was death and resurrection. Normally we think of these things in terms of having our life come to an end and then being raised to live eternally with Christ. The apostle Paul wrote about this in his epistles (1 Thess 4:13-18; 1 Cor. 15:20-58).
But Paul also emphasized the reality that we participate even today in Christ’s death and resurrection. He said “I die daily.” (1 Cor 15:31) We have a connection with Christ’s death and resurrection that impacts much more than just our future in eternity with God. It also impacts how we live each moment of each day.
There was a young man who was very wealthy. He ran up to Jesus and asked him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. He had done all the requirements the Jews understood to be in the law, and yet he was thinking there was still something else he needed to do. Jesus went to the core of the issue by addressing the one thing this young man was drawing his life and self-worth from—his wealth.
Jesus told him to sell all he owned, to give the proceeds to the poor and to begin following him. He touched him at the very core of his self-reliance, self-absorption and told him to die to what mattered most to him—himself—and to trust fully in Jesus Christ for all the essentials of his life. And the young man turned and walked away. (Mark 10:17-22)
Death and resurrection. God never stops calling each of us away from drawing our life and value and meaning from our physical existence, material substance and self-effort. He keeps drawing us away from all this into a personal relationship with himself in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.
At no time did Jesus call this young man to follow a certain list of do’s and don’t’s, although he did acknowledge his efforts to live according to the law. What he did call him into was a relationship in which the man would follow and obey Jesus, sharing life with Jesus day by day, drawing his sustenance, worth and value from outside of himself in God and pouring it out in service to others as Jesus ministered to the poor, sick and needy.
What he called the young man into was a sharing in the perichoretic life of self-giving. God created us in his image to share in the circle of self-giving between the Father, Son, and Spirit. But from the beginning, humans have been and have become self-absorbed and self-centered. The feeding and protecting of the black hole of self is the way of death not the way of eternal life.
Jesus died our death, rose again and ascended, sending the Spirit of the Father to us so that we could and would be free from our broken sinful selves. He gives us his life, the perichoretic other-centered life of God, pouring it out into us so we have a new Source and Center for our existence. We no longer depend upon our efforts, our strength, our faith, our goodness, but depend solely upon Jesus Christ. He is and becomes our life.
God gives us a new life, a new body, and a new way of thinking and being. Through the Spirit he gives us a sharing in his life. We can continue our frantic efforts to live on our own under our own power. We can continue the path that leads to death—death of relationships, death of our dreams and hopes, death of people and possibilities. Or we can turn away from all these things, put our trust in Jesus, and begin to live a new life in him, living and walking in the Spirit.
Through Jesus Christ God sets us free to be this new person. He gives us a new life. We can participate in this new life that is ours, living in fellowship or communion with God in Christ, or we can continue in our old ways of being. But our old way of being is not who we really are—it is a lie. That life, that being died when Christ died and rose when Christ rose. God calls us to give up the old and live in the new because that is who we are.
We are people who are held in the midst of God’s love and life. We are—as Jesus is—loving, giving, caring, serving people. We are—as Jesus is—humble, honest, gentle people. We are—as Jesus is—faithful, sincere, kind people. Jesus Christ lived the life we are to live, and he lives in us through the Holy Spirit. We can resist the Spirit’s work of transformation, or we can participate in Christ’s death and resurrection by responding to what the Spirit is doing to make us into the people God has declared us to be. We quit our efforts at being ethical people under our own power and allow God by his Spirit to make us into Christlike people. We participate in Christ.
This is all God asks of us—to live in relationship with him, participating in Jesus’ perfect response to the Father of filial obedience and love. We awaken by the Spirit to the reality that God is at work in us and all around us, bringing this dead world and our dead selves into a new way of living and being—bringing in his kingdom in its fullness each and every moment. And we get to be a part of that process. What more could we ask for? For this is eternal life.
Our loving God, thank you for this precious gift of life in the midst of our death and dying. Grant each of us the grace to receive and live out this perfect gift of your Son in the Spirit, so we may reflect and participate in your perfect self-giving nature and love as you desire us to. We trust and praise you that you will not quit until this is so for all of us. Through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’” Mark 10:21 NASB
Over My Dead Body
By Linda Rex
I was reflecting the other day on some of my experiences out on the farm. When you live with and interact daily with animals of any kind, you experience the realities of life and death. Death of humans and animals is inevitable and can happen at the most inopportune times, creating the unpleasant task of finding a place for burial.
And death normally isn’t a very pleasant experience. After a day or two, the dead body will begin to bloat and stink, and the scavengers will begin to make a meal off of it. The stench of a rotting corpse, to me, is quite nauseating and disgusting, even though it is the normal process of decomposition. I prefer to get as far as I can from any dead body.
It’s interesting that the apostle Paul uses this stench of death as a way of describing how those who reject Christ see the lives of those who are living in communion with God. In one way we are seen as a fragrance—a lovely scent—of Christ rising to God. In the other, we are seen as a “dreadful smell of death and doom”. How can we be both at the same time?
Really it comes down to perception. What is real about each of us is not readily apparent to everyone all at once. Our new life in Christ—which is true for each and every person—is hidden with God in Christ. This means that it is a spiritual reality, an objective truth that may or may not be subjectively evident in each of our lives. In Jesus Christ each and every person lived, died and rose and again. God sent the Spirit to all. But what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and by sending the Spirit is not necessarily immediately obvious because not everyone believes or receives the gift of God in Christ and lives it out.
When a person meets and comes to know well someone who is actively participating in a new life in Christ, they are faced with the truth of the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus, in which we are all included, means that Jesus, and all of us in him, died. There was a time when Jesus’ body was a corpse—he died—and so we each died. And we all rose from the grave in him.
The thing is—if we died in Christ—what we used to be is now, dead. That scripture that says “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9) no longer applies. Sure, it can certainly look as though this old way of living and being is still alive. We can live and act and talk in a way that implies this is still the case. But God has declared in Jesus Christ a definite “No” to this being our nature any longer. He has given us the new heart he promised his people.
But what if we don’t want a new heart? What if we think the heart we have is just fine? What if we don’t see any problem with the way we are living now? What if we don’t believe that God has done any of this for us?
If this is the case, we will perceive this way of being—of living a new life in Christ—as something it is not. We will see it as being a lie, or as being something offensive that we want no part of, and so we will resist and reject the Spirit and his work of renewal. To us it will be a stinking, rotting mess. Because the evidence of this new life in Jesus tells us that without Jesus, a smelly, rotten corpse is just what we are.
We don’t like to be told the truth about ourselves. If we concede that in Jesus Christ we are made new, that means we have to die to our old ways of being and doing. If we agree that Jesus Christ defines our new humanity, that means we have to give up being lord of our lives and submit to his ways of being and doing. And that just stinks!
Jesus pounded out the importance of death and resurrection over and over in his ministry. We die with Christ and we rise with Christ—he is our life. Apart from him we have no hope. We are just old rotting corpses that God never meant for us to be.
God created beautiful things when he created human beings and he didn’t create humans to be the mess we are today. This is not who we are. In God’s purpose we are made to reflect and bear his image. When others look at us, God intends for them to see a reflection of his perichoretic nature of unity, diversity and equality. God’s purpose is for us to be creatures in whom and with whom he will dwell, who will participate with him in a relationship full of love and grace.
But because evil and sin and death has entered our cosmos, God sent his Son to take it all on himself and in the process create a new humanity with God’s nature hidden within. Then he sent his Spirit to awaken each of us to faith in Christ, so that we can participate in this new humanity. God has replaced all the dead corpses with vibrantly alive beloved children—but not everyone is willing to make the exchange. Some still want to hang on to their old dead bodies.
Personally, I’m more than happy to participate with God in the process of replacing the old with the new. The old me, which is dead, was not a very pleasant person to be around. She was pretty stinky and disgusting. As far as I’m concerned, this new life he has given me is what I want to be a part of and share with others, even if to them I am a reminder of the death of their old selves in Christ.
To a culture enamored with old ways of living and being I may be offensive and disturbing, like an old rotting corpse that stinks. But in the end, this old rotting corpse will dissolve into the ground from which it was made, and I will shine, like so many others who share Christ’s new life, as the stars in the heaven. To me, that seems to be the better, more satisfying choice.
Thank you, Father, for the gift you have given us of new life in your Son and by your Spirit. Awaken each of us to the new life that is ours. Grant us the grace to participate with you in your divine life and love as your beloved children, and to leave all that died with Christ buried with him in the tomb. Through Jesus, our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?” 2 Co 2:14–16 NLT
Our Life in the Trinity 