renewal
Wash and Be Clean
By Linda Rex
PROPER 9—This morning the thought came to me that perhaps we as human beings expend way too much energy trying to fix ourselves or even other people. It’s interesting how many books can be found under the self-help and psychology signs at a big bookstore. So many ways to straighten ourselves out!
Indeed, as Christians we can easily be tempted to turn our walk of faith into a self-help program or a means by which we make ourselves good enough that we will be fit for heaven. So often, people speak of their eternal future in question marks, wondering if they will qualify or overcome enough that God will let them in when the time comes.
And even when it comes to our relationship with God, we often believe, consciously or unconsciously, that we can only approach God in prayer if we are on his good side, having behaved properly and not having anything in our lives which might be cause for criticism or condemnation. So much of our lives may be lived by the rule book and living by the rules makes it easy for us to discern whether or not we are on God’s good side or bad side, so we know whether or not it is safe to approach him when we are in trouble. The only problem is, if we are honest with ourselves, no matter how hard we try to keep all the rules, we fail.
The struggle with guilt and shame is real. Some therapists and counselors teach methods of getting rid of guilt and shame as though it weren’t real, while others realize that these are symptoms of something deeper which needs healing and renewal. The truth is, God never meant for us to live oppressed by guilt or shame or any other negative, destructive emotion. God meant for us to live at peace with him and the other people in our lives, and at peace within ourselves. This is why he sent Jesus.
As the Word of God in human flesh, Jesus was full of grace and truth. In Jesus, we see God’s very Word written into our humanity—our way of being lived out in a tangible way here on earth, in a way which we could hear, see, touch, and experience. If we want rules to live by, we need only the Person of Jesus Christ, the law expressed in his very being written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit. In Christ, the truth of our being was accompanied by grace though, and was expressed fully as Jesus took our humanity with him through the crucifixion into the grave and out the other side in glory.
The problem we have with Jesus is often the reality that trusting in him and in his completed work means we lose control over the final outcome for ourselves and for others. In other words, it becomes a work of faith rather than a work of our flesh. Our acceptance by God is not won by our merit or our efforts, but solely by the Son of God who stood and stands in our place and on our behalf. We cannot boast about anything, as the apostle Paul points out, except “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14).
You may remember the story of Naaman, the captain of the army of the king of Aram who was afflicted with leprosy. A captive Israelite girl told his wife he should go to the prophet in Samaria so he could be healed. Eventually Naaman made his way to Elisha’s house. The prophet didn’t talk with him face to face, but rather sent a messenger to tell him if he went and washed seven times in the Jordan River, he would be restored and made clean.
This made Naaman furious. He assumed Elisha would do some great miracle-working action or would speak some fancy words over him. He knew in his mind what it was going to take to get well. Feeling insulted, he reminded himself that his nation’s rivers were better than the Jordan River. It seems he thought his healing should be on his terms—he believed this Israelite prophet was insulting and demeaning him by asking this simple request of him. So he began to head for home.
Thankfully, he listened to his servants when they reminded him that if he had been asked to do something big, he would have done it—why not do this little thing? So Naaman humbled himself and went to the Jordan River and washed himself seven times. In the end he was healed, but only because of this simple act of trusting obedience.
So often we refuse God’s simple instruction to us—wash and be cleansed. We want to follow a difficult plan or program to make ourselves better. It is good to practice spiritual disciplines, but not to make ourselves right with God and not to fix ourselves or anyone else. Spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, fasting, and worship are ways in which we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit. In other words, they are ways in which we simply come and are cleansed in Christ’s perfect work and participate in an ongoing relationship with God through Christ in the Spirit.
God calls us to renewal and says to you and me—wash and be clean. Christ’s blood and broken body are the place where we experience renewal and transformation, healing and freedom from guilt and shame. We can keep trying to free ourselves by our own efforts and in our own way, or we can simply be washed in Christ. In baptism we acknowledge that we died with Christ and rose with Christ—we are made new in him. The Spirit is at work in us bringing this reality to fruition within our beings.
Our efforts do not accomplish this. Rather, they are a participation in what Jesus has already done in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Healing, renewal, and transformation are a gift from God, as the Spirit makes the finished work of Jesus a reality in each of us individually. As we trust in Christ and respond to the indwelling Spirit of God—sowing to the Spirit, not to the flesh—we reap eternal life. We participate in Christ’s perfect relationship with Abba in the Spirit, and find we are cleansed, healed, and made new. And the only thing left for us to do is to give our gratitude and praise to God.
Abba, we thank you for the gift of new life, of healing, renewal, and transformation in Jesus. Thank you for your Spirit, your presence and power at work in us, with us, and for us. We praise you, for you are worthy. Finish what you have begun, even as you have promised. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
“Then his servants came near and spoke to him and said, ‘My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, “Wash, and be clean”?’” 2 Kings 5:13 NASB
Living in the Newness
By Linda Rex
5th SUNDAY OF EASTER—As many of my friends and family know, I will be getting remarried next Saturday. I was sharing our story of repentance and renewal when a friend asked whether someone could really change that much. Perhaps one of the greatest struggles in our relationships with one another is this very question—is it really possible for people to change for the better?
We are still in the season of Easter, the time of renewal and redemption in the story of Jesus Christ. We have talked about how the Word of God set aside for a time the privileges of his divinity in order to join us in our humanity and was willing to go to the cross on our behalf so that we would be brought up into the divine circle of love and grace, the perichoresis of the Trinity.
As broken human beings, we muddle our way through life doing the best we can in every situation, often following the leadings of our heart and mind even when they lead us down some very difficult and painful paths. Years ago, as two broken people caught up in the legalistic religious mentality we were brought up in and drawing upon the broken template of our parents’ relationships as an example, my ex-husband, Ray, and I tried to piece together a happy marriage. We were good at the image of happiness, but in reality, we did not know the first thing about how to resolve our differences and we certainly didn’t know what it meant to love with the self-sacrificial and redemptive love of Jesus.
We had a marriage based on rules, on performance, rather than based in the love and grace of God himself. Our two wonderful children were raised in the midst of this brokenness and our greatest grief is what they had to suffer because of our failures to love. It took many years for God to work with the two of us to get us to the place where we were healed enough that we could move on. And it was a surprise to me that God wanted this renewal in our relationship to happen.
But this healing and renewal is meant to bear witness to the power of the Holy Spirit to change lives. We are both fundamentally the same and will probably struggle with many issues similar to what we struggled with in the past. But we are both in a different place due to what God has done in each of our hearts and lives by his Holy Spirit.
As Christ has been at work within us and we have responded to his leading, we have both grown and healed, and are being renewed day by day. There is a humility and a willingness to be taught new ways of relating and resolving issues. There is a grace that has come through suffering and sorrow. Our personal renewal isn’t always evident to those around us—it is often buried under the default of our old habits and ways of talking and acting. But God is making all things new and he has begun this renewal in our relationship as a witness to his glory and grace.
When there is so much hurt and pain in a relationship, it is very difficult for the adults and the children to say, “I forgive you,” and to let people start over. The wounds and the bad memories often get in the way of reconciliation. Forgiveness and reconciliation often have to begin with an intentional decision rather than a desire or feeling. The Lord Jesus reconciled all humanity with the Father—we are to participate with him in this reconciliation by choosing to forgive and to be reconciled in all the relationships in our lives which are broken.
The renewal Jesus is bringing about is something which he accomplished in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, and is working into our individual experience by the pouring out of his Holy Spirit. In our broken relationships with one another we have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to express the redemptive purpose and power of God, bearing witness to God’s ability to renew and restore in the midst of our brokenness and failures to love.
When Jesus says, “Behold I am making all things new,” he isn’t just talking about some distant future event. He is also talking about right now, in each and every moment. God’s way of being is one of renewal. His purpose is to move in our hearts and lives such a way that renewal is a continual process. What we are today, if we are willing and respond to the work of the indwelling Christ, will be different from what we will be tomorrow—Jesus is bringing us deeper and deeper into intimate relationship with the Father by the Spirit.
As we draw closer to God, we begin to change. We begin to put on more and more of the nature of God, just as children over time begin to resemble their parents. The apostle Paul told the Corinthians, “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11 NASB) Even though by all appearances, we may be just the same, God has declared in Christ that we are washed, sanctified, and justified. We are made new, and as Christ goes to work within us by the Holy Spirit, over time that newness becomes a reality for us individually.
There are no promises that the man I love or I will get it right the second time around. So our faith isn’t in ourselves, but in the God who brought us together and who lives within us. We are committed to Christ and to one another—the rest is up to our all-powerful God. Through Jesus and by his Spirit, we trust that our second marriage will reflect the mercy and glory of our Triune God of love. We rest in Christ’s ability and power, not our ability and capacity to make this work. Loving relationship is a work of the Spirit; may he create a beautiful loving relationship which gives God glory and honor for the rest of our time together.
Abba, thank you for your ministry of reconciliation which you have accomplished through your Son Jesus and are making real in this world, in our lives and in our relationships by your Holy Spirit. Please bring healing and wholeness to every broken relationship. Enable us to choose forgiveness, to choose to be reconciled to one another, just as you have reconciled us to you. Bind us together in loving, gracious, and truth-filled relationships through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.’ And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” Rev 21:3-5
A Real Reversal
By Linda Rex
3rd SUNDAY OF EASTER—As the years go by, I find myself reflecting on the journey I have been on with Jesus. The person I am today is profoundly different from the person I was as a young adult. I had lots of dreams back then, and I voiced many strong convictions about what I believed to be true about God, myself, and others, much of which I have since renounced as wrong or inaccurate.
Life seemed to be a lot less complicated back then. I believed that if I just did everything the way it should be done, my life would be blessed, I would be happy, and things would go along quite well without any difficulties or suffering. Whatever difficulty or suffering that might come would be because I sinned or because I was being persecuted for doing what was right. It seemed as though I was on God’s side so he had to be on mine, making sure everything went as it should.
I’m a little embarrassed to think about how naïve and unschooled I was, but it was merely the outgrowth of unhealthy theology and a protected yet legalistic childhood. I have, through the conditioning of God and everyday human existence, come to have a more rounded and mature view of things. There is indeed evil at work in this world, and evil affects anyone and everyone at some point. No matter who we are, we won’t escape failures, difficulties, struggles, and challenges.
A fundamental change in my life began when my view of who I believed God to be was challenged. I believed God was Father and Son, and the Spirit was their power or essence. As I grew in my understanding of who the Holy Spirit really is as the third Person of the Trinity—reading in the scriptures and believing all the examples of his personhood illustrated there and growing in my personal relationship with the Spirit through prayer and listening—my understanding of who Jesus and the Father are began to change as well.
Knowing the Father as our loving Abba and Jesus Christ as his Son the Messiah, the Word who came and took on our human flesh, dying our death, rising again, to bear our glorified humanity in the presence of the Father forever, is life-transforming. As the Spirit brought me nearer and deeper into the life of the Trinity, what I believed kept moving beyond just a religious creed into the realm of personal experience. The reality of Jesus Christ in me, with me, for me, began to take a clearer shape. Jesus was no longer some story character—he had revealed himself to me personally by the Holy Spirit. I began to hear God’s still small voice in my heart and mind, and I began to know and believe I am loved, forgiven, and accepted. The more I believed the truth about who Jesus was and why he came and the more I knew I belonged and was included in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Abba in the Spirit, the more my behavior began to change.
I was more than happy to do my part in obeying God—I had constantly been bombarded by the shoulds, oughts, and have-tos of the belief system I held and all it did was make me worse. The harder I tried, the more I found myself shackled by unhealthy ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. I struggled often with depression and self-loathing. This obviously wasn’t God’s way of doing things. Eventually, the change I noticed within myself did not come about because I tried harder, but rather because I admitted I couldn’t do it and I needed Christ to do it in me and through me by his Holy Spirit. It happened when I was honest with others about my struggles and failures, and sought help. It happened when I was transparent about my failures, became fully known and yet loved, accepted and forgiven within a healthy spiritual community.
The worst thing about toxic or legalistic religious environments is that they do not allow people to be authentic and real and so find genuine healing and renewal. It seems that when people come together to form a church, they bring with them their masquerade gear and spend copious amounts of energy hiding from one another. In this type of environment, addictions and co-dependencies thrive. Healing and renewal are often limited or are complicated by unhealthy boundaries and toxic relationships.
It is much better to be in a safe spiritual community where each person is able to be genuine and transparent, and is allowed to grow up in Christ. Growing up in healthy ways requires the freedom to make mistakes without condemnation and with the support and encouragement of those who have previously traveled those same difficult paths. A healthy spiritual community allows for falling short without condemnation, but challenges brothers and sisters to grow up into the fullness of who they are in Christ.
Saul was not a bad person. He was a zealous God-fearing Jew. He meant to do the right thing, and he was trying to live life the way he believed God wanted him to. I don’t know why he was so adamant about imprisoning and executing the believers in Christ, but perhaps his zeal for God was also inspired by a need for the approval of his Jewish peers and a need to accomplish what no one else was doing quite as well. Whatever his reasoning, it seemed to be borne out of a heart seeking to please God.
Imagine how horrifying it must have been to realize that the One Saul had been trying to impress was actually the One he had been persecuting. His efforts to earn God’s love and approval, and the adulation and approval of his peers, was actually an action in opposition to God and in persecution of Jesus. Saul needed to know who Jesus Christ really was. He needed to have his image of God reformed into something which more perfectly apprehended the Triune God of love. As Saul sat in the darkness of blindness for a few days, he must have thought at least once—now what do I do? How can I possibly make amends for this?
What if Ananias had refused to listen to Jesus when the Lord told him to go lay hands on Saul so he could see again? What if he had stood in judgment of Saul and had condemned him, insisting he pay for his crimes against Ananias’ friends and fellow believers? But he didn’t. He humbly obeyed Jesus’ command and met Saul right where he was, offering him grace and love, and entrance into the body of Christ, the church.
Saul, whom we know today as the apostle Paul, never minced words when he spoke about his past and his failures in life. He was transparent and honest about the people he had harmed and the suffering he had incurred. Instead of being a reason for shame and guilt, God made his failures an essential part of his witness to the resurrection power of the risen Christ and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Paul’s proclamation of the gospel was effective often because people saw the profound reversal which had occurred in his life when he met Jesus Christ.
A church should be a spiritual community where people can be authentic and transparent, and safely transverse the changes necessary between spiritual infancy and the spiritual maturity of Christlikeness. This is a journey that takes time, and we all have ups and downs as we travel. We are bound together in Christ to offer one another both grace and truth—to enable one another to be challenged as well as upheld when things don’t go as we planned or hoped they should, or when we fall short of Christ.
The Spirit creates such a community as we respond to his work in our hearts and minds, and live and walk in him, tossing aside the old as unneeded scraps of clothing ready to be burned, and putting on Jesus Christ who is our life and the truth of our being. As we live out the truth of our real reversal in Jesus, the Spirit enables us to participate in bringing others to experience this transformation as well, creating a fellowship of care which reflects the inner life of the Triune God. Our spiritual community isn’t meant to be a closed group but rather a welcoming place where others may find healing and renewal as well.
Dear Abba, thank you that by your Spirit you bring together people to form spiritual communities where they can find healing and renewal, and share that gift with others who are broken and suffering. As believers, change our hearts and minds so that we begin to live together in ways which are transparent and authentic, and are safe for others to participate in and to come to know and grow up in Christ in a healthy way. We thank you for never ceasing to bring us to yourself through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.’ … and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’ All those hearing him continued to be amazed, and were saying, ‘Is this not he who in Jerusalem destroyed those who called on this name, and who had come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?’ ” Acts 9:5-6, 20-21 NASB
He is Risen Indeed
By Linda Rex
RESURRECTION SUNDAY/EASTER—I’ve been noticing how often we act as though Jesus is still hanging on the cross or laying dead in the tomb. As Christians we can talk a lot about how Jesus died on the cross for us and our sins and how he rose from the grave, but do we live and speak as though this is actually true?
As I was sitting in the last session of a recent GCI women’s leadership forum, I was invited to write myself a permission slip. We had written one on the opening session, and now we were going to write one as we prepared to leave. I closed my eyes and asked the Lord what he wanted me to write on my slip. The still small voice said, “Be free.”
As I wrote this down on my yellow post-it note, I thought about this statement. Why would God ask me to give myself permission to be free when in Christ I already was free? I was struck by the reality that I could know quite well that I am made free from evil, sin, and death through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension, and yet be thinking, feeling, and living as though this were not true.
This is similar to Paul’s direction to us to be reconciled to God because we are reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:18-20). There is the spiritual reality of our reconciliation with God on his side and spiritual reality of our freedom from evil, sin, and death in Jesus. And then, on the other side, there is our personal experience of and participation in these spiritual realities through Jesus in the Spirit.
The apostle Peter had told Jesus he believed he was the Messiah, his Lord. He had refused to believe that he would ever betray Jesus. But standing in the courtyard trying to stay warm the night Jesus was taken and was being tried, Peter denied vehemently that he knew him. When the rooster crowed and Jesus caught his eye, Peter was devastated. He was caught between the two parts of himself—what he meant to do and what he did, what he believed and how he acted—and subsequently found himself in a place he never meant to be and experienced sorrow and deep remorse as a result.
As we read the Easter story in Luke 24:1-12, we find Peter again caught between what actually had happened, and what his human reasoning would have him believe and do—Jesus was not in his tomb. Were the women right? Had he indeed risen from the grave? How could that be? Peter saw the empty tomb and went away marveling—but apparently, not believing.
All of these experiences including his subsequent encounters with the risen Jesus, and his calling to be a shepherd to God’s people, helped to form and shape Peter. It was this Peter, the one who not only knew Jesus had died and risen again, but who had personally experienced Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, who was praying on a rooftop in Joppa when the men sent by a centurion stopped at the gate and asked for him.
In the companion scripture for this Sunday in Acts 10:34-43, Luke tells us about the sermon Peter preached to these Gentiles. He began by saying that it was obvious to him that God was not someone who showed partiality. He could say this confidently because not only had God given him a repeated vision which told him he was not to differentiate between people, but also because he had been directed to treat these Gentiles as though they were brothers. What Peter had learned at the feet of Jesus, he was now experiencing in the midst of his own ministry—Jesus had torn down those divisions held near and dear by the Jewish people and had made all people one in himself.
As Peter preached and told of his experience of the life, death, and resurrection of his Lord, the Spirit came upon these people. What was true in Jesus Christ was now true for each person there. They were included—they were God’s people not just as a spiritual reality, but now by personal experience. They were baptized, showing their participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, by participating in the baptism Jesus did on all humanity’s behalf.
But even Peter struggled with what he knew to be true and making it a reality in his life. At one point the apostle Paul took Peter to task for not acting in accordance with the truth about the Gentiles being included in table fellowship through Jesus. Peter got caught up with some Jewish members’ refusing to eat with Gentiles, and even Barnabas was led astray (Gal. 2:11-14). Didn’t he know better? Obviously, yes, he did. But in that moment, he missed the mark.
The spiritual reality is that all are included in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension. As Paul wrote: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:20-21 NASB) Because of our inclusion, Paul calls us to lay aside the old self and be renewed—put on the new self which has been through Christ created in the image of God (Eph. 4:22-24). Yes, we were dead in our sins, but God made us alive together with Christ, seating us in his presence in Christ (Eph. 2:4-7).
Our flesh calls to us to live in the old ways—to act like dead people. But we have been given new life, and God is calling us to act like the new creations we are. Paul says, keep seeking the things above, since that is where you (according to the spiritual realities) really are right now; keep thinking about the heavenly realities instead of obsessing on the fleshly realities of our old human existence.
Let all that is not of God continue hanging on the cross where Jesus hung. Leave the sin, evil, guilt and shame in the tomb with Jesus. Walk in the newness of life which is yours in Jesus. Cease living for yourself alone, for your own pleasure and personal indulgence and begin living as a member of God’s body—fulfilling that special place you were created to fill with your gifts, talents, knowledge, and experiences in love and service to God and others.
The truth is that, like Peter, we can be confident of the spiritual realities but fall far short in our personal experience of or participation in them. This is why we turn to Jesus and trust solely in him, and in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t count on our own ability or strength, but rather on the resurrection power which raised Jesus from the dead. It is God’s life at work in us which enables us to live in newness of life.
We trust, not in the empty cross, but in the risen Lord who died on the cross. He isn’t still in the tomb—the tomb is empty and his body has been glorified. Jesus is both seated at God’s right hand bearing our humanity in his presence and is present and near to us moment by moment by the Holy Spirit. We are reconciled to God, so by the Spirit we respond to God’s call to be reconciled to him and others. We are freed from sin, evil, and death—so we live through Jesus by the Spirit in the true freedom by which we love God and our neighbor as we were created to. By the Spirit, Abba’s resurrection power, we live, act and speak as though Jesus Christ is risen indeed.
Thank you, Abba, for the gift of new life given us in your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for making Jesus’ gift our very own, enabling us to participate fully in all Christ has done. Dear Abba, enable us to walk in the life which is ours in Christ, living reconciled and free, through Jesus and in the Spirit. Amen.
“While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen.’ “ Luke 24:4-6a NASB
Having an Open Heart
By Linda Rex
PREPARATION FOR EASTER OR LENT—My personal Lenten wilderness wanderings are taking me through some painful memories. They are also taking me to the place of recognizing and acknowledging my failures to love. This process is humbling and calls forth in me an anguished cry to God for deliverance and renewal.
The hardest thing for me to accept is the realization that if I had only listened more carefully to what the Spirit was telling me and had promptly done things his way, not in my own stubborn “righteous” way, things in my life would have been a lot better, a lot less people would have been hurt, and the lessons life had for me would have been much easier to swallow.
So often God’s love and grace stand ready to bring healing and wholeness, but we are not willing to open ourselves up to them. God’s love and grace don’t always appear the way we expect them to—case in point being the Messiah who would be a suffering servant rather than a conquering hero. We want God to conform to our ideas of how things should be rather than simply surrendering to him and his plans and ways.
Now I could wallow in guilt and shame, but it would really serve no purpose but to keep me in a place where the evil one can create even more destruction and death. No, the better thing is to receive what God is offering and be open to what he wants to change in me and in my life. Having an open heart to receive all God has for me is a better place to be.
There are many times in life when circumstances and situations are beyond our control. We struggle to do the next right thing in what seems to be an impossible situation. We seek God’s will and guidance and take another step forward. We try to live the best we know how. And still we fall short. Life takes its toll. Relationships are broken or severed. People die. Businesses fail.
We find ourselves wondering how to find the capacity to move on. Life in this broken world is tough. Becoming a Christian isn’t the solution to every little problem in this world. Sometimes becoming a Christian actually makes things even more difficult or painful. The road we walk on as we follow Christ is a path through death to resurrection. There are sacrifices and suffering which go with the Christian life, as well as many deep joys and pleasures.
God doesn’t remove the realities of our human experience. Rather he enters into them with us and walks with us through them. He carries our sorrows, lifts our burdens, and shares our struggles. Sometimes he makes things easier and gives us great redemption in an impossible situation. There are times when he allows us to go through a great trial, but he never intends us to go through it on our own—we are meant to have him present, in us, with us, and for us in every circumstance.
God has covenanted with us in Christ to be ours and has made us his. Nothing can separate us from his love (Rom. 8:38-39). He longs to gather us to himself and to express his great love and devotion. He doesn’t want us to suffer needlessly, so he gives us not only a relationship with himself, but also Christ to follow. Christ is our life (Col. 3:4) and is the substance of our existence. He is the perfected humanity we are being formed into by the Holy Spirit.
The cry of Jesus to the city of Jerusalem is the cry of Abba’s heart to you and to me. He doesn’t want us to struggle or to suffer but rather to rest in his embrace—to be at peace with him. So he has given us this rest, this peace, in Jesus. The Spirit affirms the truth that we are accepted in Christ, we are forgiven children, beloved and always welcome in our Abba’s heavenly home.
When faced with the reality of our failures to love or to be faithful to God, we need not be overwhelmed with failure. Rather we need to focus on the power and love of the God who overcame death through resurrection. Our gracious God can take a situation full of brokenness, guilt, and shame, and turn it into a means of redemption and renewal. He can turn it into opportunity to show to many the glory of his goodness, love and grace.
When we resist his grace and love, when we refuse to allow God to redeem a situation or to bring about redemption and renewal in a broken relationship, we are like Jerusalem refusing to receive and acknowledge their Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. All that’s left to us is our desolate house, our broken life, our shattered dreams.
If God’s purpose is to redeem, restore, and renew all things (which it is) then we want to have open hearts to receive God’s restoration, redemption and renewal. We want to be open to the possibilities rather than resistant to the Spirit’s work. We want to available to participate in God’s work, joining with him as he rebuilds, transforms, and heals.
This is the kingdom life we were included in through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension and in the sending of the Spirit. This is the life of the church, the Body of Christ, in this world as participants in Jesus’ priesthood, his ministry to all humanity. God is at work to heal, restore and renew, and we are included in his mission in this world. May we always be open to his possibilities in the midst of our impossibilities, to his light in our darkness, to his life in our death.
Dear Abba, thank you for the gift of life, grace and love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Give us open hearts and open hands that we may receive all you have done for us through Christ and all you desire to give us in every moment. We praise you for your faithful love and abundant grace through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! Behold, your house is left to you desolate; …” Luke 13:34b-35a NASB
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” Philippians 3:20-21 NASB
Glimpses of Hidden Glory
By Linda Rex
TRANSFIGURATION—Lately I have had to reexamine the way in which I view people in my life. I thought that I was very open to people growing and changing. But God has shown me that I’m not as gracious and open to his work in people’s hearts and lives as I thought I was.
I’m also being reminded that real love works towards the other person’s best rather than only working toward their happiness. I grew up believing it was important to keep the people in my life happy. In reality this is a very selfish approach to life because the effort to keep people happy is more about my comfort level and my convenience than it is necessarily about the well-being of those around me. It’s not wrong to want to bring joy to the people in my life, but that is significantly different in my mind than just trying to keep them happy—a task which is nigh to impossible and ultimately comes under the heading of codependency and enabling.
To bring joy to someone is more than just keeping them happy. We can feel loving toward someone but our love for them must move beyond feeling into expressions of genuine love. Real love for someone takes conscious effort and discipline. One chooses to express love to another, using one’s reason along with responding to one’s feelings. These expressions of love seek the other person’s best interests and personal growth, rather than just giving the other person what they want, when and how they want it.
When we grow up in a family in which love was not expressed in healthy ways, our efforts to love can actually be sick and maybe even destructive. In some families the parents discipline their children in the name of love, but do so in ways which are abusive and cruel. The discipline God gives us isn’t abusive and cruel but rather is laden with mercy and compassion. In fact, the curse and death we deserved because of our sinful ways and thoughts, Jesus took upon himself. He allowed us to crucify him and kill him, and did not retaliate in any way.
Love as expressed by God is self-sacrificial, humble, yielding, and gracious. And yet, God’s love always seeks our best. His purpose in taking on our humanity, living the life we were meant to live, dying our death, and rising again was so that we could fully become and be the people God intended us to be from the beginning. The apostle Paul uses the concept of having letters etched on a page, and Jesus taking our hand and writing those letters with us (and on our hearts) by the Holy Spirit. Jesus not only went before us, but by the Spirit, goes before us and with us as we grow in Christlikeness.
This beautiful love of God as expressed to us in Christ and in the gift of the Holy Spirit is meant to transform us and to draw us deeper into loving relationship with God. The reality of our human brokenness doesn’t alter God’s love for us, rather it awakens his compassion and moves him to do everything possible to bring healing, renewal, and transformation. God is ever working to transform us into the image of Christ, because even now Christ bears our true humanity in his Person as he is united forever with us in hypostatic union.
When I say that we work towards another person’s best interests and personal growth, I do not mean that we work to change them. Changing people is the sole dominion of the Holy Spirit. We can participate in the Spirit’s work by allowing our own selves to be grown up in Christlikeness and by expressing genuine godly love so we are a positive influence in someone’s life. We can tell them about our own broken path which Jesus has worked to heal and transform by the Holy Spirit. But we do not and cannot change another person. Often our efforts to change someone actually cause them to become more deeply entrenched in unhealthy ways of being and living.
I learned this the hard way and never want to try to do it ever again. The human tendency is to try to fix people and situations which in reality only God can fix. It is the Spirit’s work. And sometimes he will not work his transforming work in someone’s heart and life until we get out of the way and allow him to do it. Even the twelve-step program recovering addicts follow teaches that we cannot change another person—we can only work on ourselves. And as for me, even changing myself is problematic—I need God to change me, as I really struggle to change anything about myself.
What if someone in our lives is actually changing? What if they are growing up in Christ and beginning to manifest new ways of being and doing? How supportive are we of those changes? It is much too easy hold someone to their past ways of being and doing and to their brokenness, and not allow them to move into their new life in Christ. At the first sign of struggle or failure, we say, “They’re just the same as they’ve always been” and turn away in disgust.
I’m grateful God has not done that to me. When Paul uses the Greek word we draw our modern word “metamorphosis” from, I cannot but help think of the process which turns a caterpillar into a butterfly. The change from a leaf-eating monster into a beautiful nectar drinking butterfly is a long and difficult process. It actually includes the complete destruction of the caterpillar’s body and its reconstruction into something new. And this takes time.
And in exiting the cocoon, the butterfly goes through an intense struggle. If it did not press its wings through the small opening, it would never be able to fly. So the struggle is part of the process. We, as well-meaning friends and family, often snip the hole to make it larger so the struggle is not so difficult. But that only harms the butterfly. We can participate through being present, encouraging, praying, but we don’t want to do for the butterfly what it needs to do on its own.
I’m committing myself to becoming more aware of what God is doing in another person’s life and how I can be a helper in their joy. I want to encourage, pray, and be present as the people I encounter walk the road of transformation. I want to embrace and thank God for the work he has done and is doing to grow people into the likeness of his Son Jesus. And I want to fully participate in what God is doing to transform and change me. I hope you will join me in this commitment.
We are approaching Ash Wednesday this week. It is a good time to reflect not only on our brokenness and need for God’s mercy and rescue in Jesus, but also on the deliverance God has given us through his death and resurrection, and on the power of God to heal, transform, and renew given to us in the Person and presence of the Holy Spirit. May God bless you on your own personal journey of transformation.
Thank you, Abba, that you love us so much you want us to reflect your glory, the glory which shown in the person of Jesus Christ. Enable us to see what you are doing to grow those around us in Christlikeness and what you are doing to grow us up in Christ as well. Holy Spirit, we trust you to finish your perfect work in them and in us. Thank you for never stopping, but always working for our best, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 NASB
The Burning Coal of Grace
By Linda Rex
In the past few years I have had to rethink previous decisions I had made about a certain relationship in my life. The biggest struggle I have found is how to reconcile reality with the possibility that a person might actually be transformed by grace. Does God truly change people? Or, as I have been told on many occasions, do people essentially stay the same and never change?
Looking at this question from the viewpoint of what I see around me, I struggle. Some people never seem to change—they are always the sandpaper in our lives, causing rashes in our emotional skin due to their abrasiveness and broken ways of being. Then I look inside and ask myself, “Has anything in me changed? Am I any different than I was years ago?” And I wonder.
The thing is, the secular viewpoint in the world around us either says, “That’s just the way I am—accept me,” or “I just need to try harder and I’ll be different—be patient with me.” The act of personal transformation or inner change is left fully up to us. We, especially us perfectionists, set impossible standards for ourselves and/or others, and then get all bent out of shape when we don’t attain them. Then again, some of us just toss all standards out the window and live free of any restrictions or inhibitions. Somehow this seems to be better than playing by the rules, struggling to become better people and failing.
The truth is—and I have seen this play out in my life and in other people’s lives—God changes people. When God goes to work in a person’s life, they are never the same as they were before. No doubt, they participated in the process, but the real heavy-lifter in the whole transformational experience is God himself.
And the key element is grace. The reality is that our transformation begins and ends with God. God meant us to be adopted children who live as unique persons in an equality and unity which mirrors the divine love and life of Abba, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The amazing Being who created us was not willing to settle for anything less than this—we were to share in his life and love, and so in the person of the Word, God ensured this would be our reality. We are meant to love God with all our being and to love one another as ourselves.
Obviously, if we are honest with ourselves, we fall short of this spiritual reality. The closer we get to God, the more we get to know him for who he is as our Lord and our Redeemer, the more we are faced with the fact that we are not what God intended from the beginning. When held to the mirror of the image of God, we are but a cracked and broken replica. There is significant work which needs to be done to bring us to the place where we reflect God’s image perfectly.
In the book of Isaiah, the prophet tells about his encounter with God, where he “saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, / The whole earth is full of His glory.’” (Isa. 6:1-3 NASB) Isaiah’s immediate reaction to this amazing sight was to be overcome with a deep sense of unworthiness. Who could possibly be worthy to stand in the presence of such divine holiness, of perfect relatedness?
What I see in this passage is that Isaiah makes no effort to make himself worthy. No, he knows he isn’t, and so he simply falls on the grace of God to make him worthy to be in his presence. God, via the seraphim, offers him grace—the burning coal on his lips, the forgiveness of sins. All Isaiah was asked to do was to receive it, and then to offer himself to God for his service in gratitude.
In the giving of the burning coal, Isaiah’s concern about being a man of “unclean lips’ was dealt with summarily and completely. Isaiah was given new lips through the burning coal—there is a picture of transformation here. He is moved to offer himself to God to carry a message to the people of Israel in spite of God’s warning of their resistance to the word he would carry. And his life, however broken it may still have been, became an offering of service to God.
So often we run from intimacy with God because drawing close to the One who loves us so completely forces us to face the truth about ourselves. God’s grace, love, and compassion aren’t meant to make us feel unworthy, dirty, and shameful. Rather, they are meant to assure us that even in our brokenness we are held in God’s perfect love—we are chosen by God for relationship with himself and he has done and will do all that is needed so that we can enjoy that relationship with him both now and forever.
Jesus brought grace and truth to us. We can at the same time we see ourselves in our brokenness, see ourselves as forgiven, accepted, and beloved. In Jesus we see the perfect humanity we were all meant to have at the same time we see our desperate need for transformation. In the acknowledgement of that need, in our surrender to the claims of Christ, grace goes to work. By the Holy Spirit, that which Christ has made true about us becomes ours in our personal experience. In the moment in which we receive God’s love and grace, our hearts are touched, our lives are changed.
It is not a magical transformation. Rather it is a journey of renewal. God, by his grace and power, begins to work to change, heal, and renew us inside. As we acknowledge and accept our belonging to God, believe in the truth of what Christ has done and is doing on our behalf, we will experience a change in our behavior. What God is working out inside by the Spirit becomes our reality in our words and actions. It is not just a momentary experience, but a journey—a movement which may go forward, backward, and in circles. Ultimately, though, the change in our hearts and lives is real.
Do people really change? Yes, I have seen it and have experienced it firsthand. Sometimes people may revert back to old behaviors or ways of being—the brokenness of our human flesh plays a role in this. But when Jesus by the Spirit gets involved, and people are walking in the truth of who they are in Christ, they change. They are healed. They are renewed. They are transformed.
This is why the gospel is so much more than just a promise for life after death. The gospel is the word of redemption—of renewal for us and for our entire cosmos. Jesus is making all things new and we want to be a part of that process. We want healing and transformation in our lives, in our relationships, and in our world, and we can join in with Jesus as he works to bring this about. We can share this good news with each person he brings into our lives while walking with them on the road of redemption, as we walk the road of renewal ourselves.
Dear Abba, thank you for loving us in our brokenness, for never leaving us but rather, bringing us near through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Do finish what you have begun—let the cleansing power of grace and truth transform, heal, and renew us. We offer ourselves to you with grateful hearts, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Then I said, ‘Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.’ Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.’” Isaiah 6:5-7 NASB
Broken, But Beloved
By Linda Rex
For whatever reason, probably mostly due to the family dynamics and church legalism I grew up in, I struggled for years with a deep sense of being unwanted and unloved. My personal history has been filled with the struggle to fill these empty places—as many others around me have struggled as well. This journey often led me into unhealthy relationships or situations, though I will be the first to admit that God graciously kept me safe so many times when I deserved painful consequences for my choices.
I was born to two parents who cared deeply about God and wanted to live their lives according to what they understood God required of them. They were careful about what they ate, believing they needed to keep the old covenant commands regarding clean and unclean meats, and that as caregivers for the temple of the Spirit, their bodies, they needed to only eat the healthiest, organic foods and drink the cleanest water. Part of this concern about health led them to choosing to give birth to me at home with the assistance of a midwife.
The facts of my birth, though, were that I was a breech birth—a long and difficult process that the doctor had to help with. Mom really struggled and was in grave danger during the process. I was eventually born, with the umbilical cord rapped around my neck and my body blue from lack of oxygen. My dad told me years later that I was laid aside so they could tend to my mom—I was not expected to live.
I think sometimes we live our lives as though we are babies God has tossed aside and given up on. We somehow believe God has his attention elsewhere, with more important things to tend to than us. We impute to God some indifference or coldness which is not in his heart at all.
In fact, our view of God and ourselves very often reflects the important relationships in our lives. If our parents were indifferent or cold, we may believe God is indifferent and cold. If our parents were controlling and had unreasonable expectations for us, we may believe God expects more from us that we could ever give, so why even try? In our refusal to be controlled, we may give ourselves over to substances and/or relationships which eventually begin to control us.
Our experiences as children and teens impact us in greater ways than we often realize. The ridicule we experience about our clothes or poverty may drive for years our determination to never be considered less than ever again, and so we become successful, well-to-do adults. The loneliness we felt as an isolated, unloved child may drive us to be a social butterfly who never wishes to be alone or without a partner—even though many of our relationships may be shallow and transient, at least we’re not abandoned or isolated.
What we believe to be true about ourselves often works at such a deep level within our soul that unless we take the time and make the effort to examine these things, our brokenness can become something which sabotages or undermines whatever good may be happening in our lives. In Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership, the authors explain how these wounds from the past may drive us to be successful and effective adults, but if they do not find healing within the reality of our new life in Jesus Christ, they will trip us up or cause us to have a major failure later in life. (1)
Many leaders today, both secular and Christian, are reaping the consequences of not dealing with the truth of their brokenness and need for redemption. We need to accept the reality that we are broken people with flaws and wounds. We are utterly dependent upon Jesus to redeem, restore, and renew us. Every moment of every day, we need his transforming power at work in us and in our lives. We need to not be afraid to do the hard work of looking inside and allowing ourselves to be the needy, hurting, and broken people we really are, because God loves us and has already redeemed and forgiven us.
Remember that baby, laid aside so the doctor could attend my mom? A few years ago, I had a dream that was so incredibly vivid I have been unable to forget it. In the dream, the baby I was laid there alone and forgotten. But all at once, I saw this man there. He was loving, kind, and compassionate, like a heavenly Father or a gentle Savior. He walked over to the abandoned, forsaken baby, and picked it up and held it. Broken, but beloved. Set aside, but chosen. Given up on, but believed in and held.
In spite of what we may believe about ourselves, and in spite of what others may believe about us or say about us, the truth is, we are loved. We are chosen. We are held. Broken we may be—but God determined before we were even born that we were his and would be his forever. And he never breaks his promises, for he is a faithful, loving Abba, a tender-hearted Dad, a loving Father. You are his, and he is yours. Both now and forever.
Thank you, Abba, that even though we may believe we are forgotten, forsaken, and unloved, we are in reality remembered, held, and beloved. Remind us again, Holy Spirit, of who we are and that we share in Jesus’ perfect relationship with our heavenly Father. Give us courage to face our brokenness and to bring it to you, Abba, that we may be healed, restored, and renewed, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Yes, you have been with me from birth; from my mother’s womb you have cared for me. No wonder I am always praising you!” Psalm 71:6
(1) McIntosh, Gary L. and Rima, Sr., Samuel D., Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership: The Paradox of Personal Dysfunction. Grand Rapids, MI (Baker Books, 1997).
Named By God
By Linda Rex
It’s hard for me to imagine ever walking the streets of Jerusalem in this life. It must be a powerful experience for a follower of Jesus to walk the same streets he walked, seeing and hearing similar sights and sounds. It must be very inspiring to look down upon the city from the Mount of Olives and to imagine what it must have been like on that dark night when Jesus poured his heart out to his Father in surrender.
God chose the people of Israel and its city of David to fulfill his plan for the redemption of the world. Jerusalem is a good example of the reality that God does not leave us as we are, but is continually in process, moving us toward a beautiful, redemptive end.
It’s a little difficult for me to get my mind around the idea that God might single out a particular city to place his name and to call his own. Yet it was Jerusalem Jesus came to as a youth to sit at the elders’ feet in the temple. It was Jerusalem that was the center of so much of Jesus’ life and ministry, and where he was crucified, buried, and resurrected.
And it is Jerusalem that over the millennia has been the focus of strife, division, and war. It is instructive that when human beings are involved, even those who call themselves Christians, there is so much disagreement, hostility and disunity.
Thomas F. Torrance lamented that even in Jerusalem, the city of David, the place of the ultimate sacrifice by our Savior, Christians will not gather together at the table to partake of the Lord’s supper together. Their divisions over matters of doctrine and even the manner of partaking of the eucharist are so intense, there is no common ground on which to gather together, even though Jesus Christ created that common ground within himself when he was here on earth.
God never meant for us to live our lives divided from one another or separated in any way from him. We as human beings focus on what divides us rather than on what brings us together. We focus on our distinctions while God focuses on our unity within the Trinity—all made in the same image of the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit.
It is so important to us in this modern world to have a distinct name that is our very own—our own identity and personhood—a sense of individuality. It is ironic that so often we want to “be different” so we dress and act like everyone else who is trying to “be different.” Our unity, though, is not a matter of us all being the same, thinking the same thoughts, having the same aspirations and preferences. Our unity is in the One whose name we bear, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our unity is in what he has done, is doing and will do in our place and on our behalf.
Unless we are in tune with the spiritual realities, we do not realize it is in our personhood as made in the image of God in his likeness that we find not only our commonality but also our uniqueness of personhood. We do not get lost in the unity within the Trinity, but rather we become more fully our own true selves—those who are the beloved adopted children of God Most High—created in his image, to reflect his likeness.
He is the Name Above All Names. He has named us his very own in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. No one can take his name from us because he has joined himself to us in our humanity, taken it through death and resurrection, and lifted us up with him to be forever in the presence of the Father in the Spirit.
The body of Christ bears the name of Jesus Christ as she walks with him down the path through death to resurrection. She is the Bride of Christ, and when he returns to earth in all his glory, she will bear his name forever. She will dwell in the New Jerusalem, the new Zion, which will be filled with God’s beloved adopted children, all bearing a new name which God alone will give them.
God has a new name for Zion. He, in Jesus, has remade and is renewing all things, including the broken, embattled city of Jerusalem. One day this historical treasure will cease to exist as it does today, and will become what God envisions her to be. In the same way, the body of Christ—the universal body of believers, the Church—will become all that God meant for her to be.
I believe this is God’s word for Grace Communion International as well. We have been through so much as a denomination. We are much like a forsaken, and rejected spouse (Isa. 54). But God is gathering us back, building us up, and making us new. He has given us a new name, and this name is in his Son Jesus Christ. We have nothing to fear and everything to hope for.
There is much yet to be done in sharing the good news of all God has done for all humanity in and through Jesus Christ. We have a great story to tell of God’s redemptive purpose and power. We have the gifts and blessings of the Holy Spirit. We have come to see our center is in Jesus Christ. We are finding our identity, purpose and value within the Triune God as we participate in the divine love and life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We have gone with Jesus all the way through death and resurrection. God isn’t done with us yet, but is just getting started. He has given us his name, and is causing us to shine with his righteousness and his salvation so that all nations may see and turn to Jesus. May God be glorified in and through us as we share with Jesus in his mission to the world.
Heavenly Father, thank you for calling us to be a part of what you are doing in this world, and allowing us to participate with Christ in both his sufferings and his glory. Continue to write on us your Name that we might effectively bear your good news to every part of this broken and hurting world. Lord, please demonstrate your power and your great love through your people, and specifically through us as members of Grace Communion International. Give our pastors and leaders wisdom to know your will and to follow you wherever you lead. By your Spirit, bring healing, renewal, and transformation. We thank you in advance and trust you for all of this in and through the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, / And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, / Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, / And her salvation like a torch that is burning. The nations will see your righteousness, / And all kings your glory; / And you will be called by a new name / Which the mouth of the LORD will designate.” Isaiah 62:1-2 NASB
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Our Life in the Trinity 