spirituality
Rain in the Desert
By Linda Rex
I remember a brief visit to the Arizona desert. The setting sun was painting the sky with brilliant colors. The saguaros and Joshua trees were silhouetted against it, and the air was crisp and dry. The desert was beautiful, but it was dry and parched. The only thing that would have made it even more beautiful, that would have made really it come alive, would have been rain.
Sometimes, like the desert, we may feel dry and parched. We feel an inner emptiness that nags at us that we really can’t quite put our finger on. We try to avoid dealing with it, so we cram ourselves and our lives full of all kinds of stuff, none of which truly fills that emptiness. Our life may have a stunning beauty and be full of all kinds of stuff, but nothing quite takes away that nagging feeling of thirst.
The sad thing is that we can be doing all kinds of things for God, and still feel this way. This is because we have forgotten who we are and what we were created for. We weren’t created to do things for God, but to do all things with God.
Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it and to be fruitful. And God walked with them in the garden—sharing life with them as they went along. God did not just put them in the garden and then walk away and say, “Take care of it. It’s all up to you now. You’ve got to get it right or else.”
But he did give them a choice—the same choice he gives us. A choice between life on our own—choosing for ourselves what is good and evil—or true life, life in communion with him forever, trusting him in every situation. Even when Adam and Eve made the wrong choice, God intervened and promised them that evil would not have the last word. Their failure was not the end of the story. It was redeemed in Christ.
Because Christ took on our human flesh and lived, died and rose from the grave in union with us, all of life is a participation in God’s Triune life and love. We can try to live life as though we are here on earth all by ourselves, tackling everything ourselves on our own. (Our track record with that hasn’t been the greatest.) Or we can live life in an intimate relationship with God moment by moment through Christ in the Spirit.
Through Christ God sent his Spirit so that we could share in his life. We are free to ignore the tree of life, the Spirit, if we wish and continue to hide away from God. Worse yet, we can declare ourselves aligned with God and with Christ as our Savior, and yet live as though it’s all up to us. Either way we end up making demands on other people that they cannot fill. And we live with an inner dryness that we try to stuff with all kinds of things that are never quite enough to fill the emptiness.
Instead we can choose to live our lives as a participation in Christ’s life, believing that all of life is taken up in Christ. Whatever we are doing at the moment, we are doing in union with Christ and as we are walking in the Spirit, we are doing in communion with God in Christ. This is the perichoretic life of the Father, Son and Spirit—making room for one another. God has made room for us in his life. We make room for God in ours. We make room for others in ours as well. We live gratefully in God’s true freedom based in love in a warm, loving relationship with God and each other.
This means that we live, moment by moment, with an awareness of God’s presence. We begin to tune into the presence and power of God’s Spirit. We make some effort to listen to the Word of God and the promptings of his Spirit. We begin to make room for God in our hearts, our minds and our lives.
Every act of life, no matter how trivial, is not an unusual thing for God—he is not surprised. He already knows all about us. He knows us intimately. Nothing is hidden from him, no matter how good we are at hiding it.
He wants to share all of life with us, just as we would with a best friend, a lover, a brother or sister. God wants to do all of life with us, not just the parts we get right. That’s why he gives us his unconditional love and acceptance—his grace. And he loves us so much that he’s not going to leave us where we are—he’s going to grow us up to reflect the perfect image of himself, Jesus Christ. He’s going to work to heal us and make us whole. He’s going to transform us.
When we feel that nagging inner thirst, we need to ask ourselves—am I doing life on my own again? Where’s God in all this? Who is God for me in this moment, in this situation? Am I doing life for God or for myself? Or am I doing life with God—together with him in joyful companionship and friendship?
Whenever we find ourselves in that dry spot where we’ve started going the wrong direction, all God asks of us is to turn around. He beckons to us, “Come—join me in my life and my work! Share life with me! You don’t need to do this all by yourself.” And he runs down the road to meet us and embrace us. Because he’s always expectantly looking for us to join him. Let’s not keep him waiting.
Holy God, thank you so much that we don’t have to do life all on our own. Thank you for your real, intimate presence with us and in us by your Holy Spirit. Forgive us our tendency to live life our way on our own without you. Grant us the grace to make room for you in our lives, our hearts and minds, and to live each moment in an intimate relationship with you. Fill our thirsty souls with your real presence—we long for you. We’ve lived too long in this desert place without you. We praise and thank you for your faithful love in Jesus. Amen.
“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8-9 NASB
Loving the Unseen and Invisible
by Linda Rex
There are times in our lives when we may feel completely invisible. Everyone around us at work seems to receive the perks and we get nothing. All our friends have a significant other, but we don’t. Our life is falling apart and no one seems to notice or care. Perhaps we come to the holidays, like Valentine’s Day, and we wonder why we, once again, have to spend them alone and forgotten.
There are lots of opportunities in life to celebrate pity parties. It seems to be the nature of being human to have days when life just doesn’t seem to be worth living, when we feel forgotten and unnoticed by God and everyone else.
I am reminded of the story of Hagar. Hagar’s story begins with her being forcibly employed as a servant to Sarah, the wife of Abraham. When Sarah could not have a child, but Abraham had been promised to have an heir, Sarah decided to follow the customs of the time and have an heir through her maid Hagar.
Humanly, it seemed to be a great plan, but the plan quickly began to fall apart. Jealousy, anger, conceit—all the human weaknesses seemed to be involved in destroying the family unit. Sarah beat her and the frightened and pregnant Hagar fled into the wilderness. As she wept in the desert for herself and her precious son, an angel provided her with water and told her to go back to Sarah. God saw her and her son—God had an inheritance in mind for him—he saw the ones who were invisible.
This encounter with God profoundly impacted Hagar. Hagar was one of the few people in the Bible who gave God a name—‘the God who sees me’. She understood and appreciated the reality that God was not some ethereal concept or distant being in the sky. He wasn’t just some manifestation of human consciousness. The God who had intervened in her life was real, powerful, personal, and cared about her and had come to her in the midst of her suffering and isolation.
So what about you and me? It’s not every day that we see or experience manifestations of the divine. Life still falls apart around us while we do our best to hold it all together. Is there really a God who sees you and me? Or is that just another mythological story in a book? Is that just a nice fairy tale that’s designed to make us feel better about ourselves and the world we live in?
I suppose a person could give all types of explanations about why you should believe in a real and personal God. I can share the testimony of scripture, of the God who created you and me, and loved us so much that he came to be one of us, to live with us and die for us, and who rose from the grave. But it boils down to this—have you personally encountered the living God? Do you realize for yourself that you are not invisible to him? Have you experienced the reality that he sees you and loves you and wants a personal relationship with you?
Faith in the God who sees you in the midst of your invisibility begins with knowing that he is real, and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. (Heb. 11:6) God enjoys hide-and-seek, but he will not be found unless he chooses to be found. We often prefer God, if we want to believe he is real, to be a God who will show up and to do something for us, but we aren’t about to seek him out, much less let him tell us what to do.
God gave us a really big clue as to how to find him when he came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the exact representation of God’s being. (Heb. 1:3) He is God in a tangible human being—the God who sees us here among us as one of us. Jesus died and rose again, and the testimony of the church is that the Father sent through Jesus the gift of the presence of God in the Holy Spirit to those who would receive him. So you and I, as we seek God, have been offered the gift of God living in us by his Holy Spirit. The God who sees us now is the God who lives in us.
God sees you and he sees me. He became you and became me in that he took on our humanity in Jesus. And God lives in you and in me by his Holy Spirit. As we welcome his presence within us, we will begin to experience the reality of the living God as being more than just an idea or mythology. As we hear the inner voice of the Spirit guiding us, teaching us, and as we experience the Word of God in the Bible coming alive and real to us and beginning to transform us, we realize the unseen God is indeed the God who sees us, his beloved and cherished unseen ones. Life may still be hard, and we may still feel invisible, but when God abides in you and me, our lives are never the same. God may ask us to do the hard things, but we never do them alone—he is present in the midst of our invisibility—you and him, me and him, forever.
Dear God, thank you for making yourself real to us in your Son, Jesus Christ, and by your Holy Spirit. Thank you that we are not invisible to you, but really and truly treasured, cherished and understood. Make yourself real to us today—open our eyes to see you and our ears to hear you. Transform us by your grace. Holy God, may we bless and serve you forever, through Jesus’ name. Amen.
Then she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” Gen 16:13
Heart-Sharing
by Linda Rex
I was intrigued by the story of Samson when I was a little girl. Here was a man whose birth was announced by an angel to his barren parents. He was set apart for God from birth, which back then meant he could not drink any juice or wine made from grapes, nor could he cut his hair. As long as he was separated for God in this way, God gave him supernatural strength by which he helped his nation overcome their oppressors, the Philistines.
This was all well and good, and Samson began destroying the enemies of Israel. But he had a small problem. His heart was not fully devoted to God. Many times he gave his heart away to a woman and inevitably ended up in trouble because of it.
In the final scenes of Samson’s life we see the infamous Delilah show up. Delilah stole Samson’s heart, to the place that one night he told her everything that was in his heart. In other words, he told Delilah the secret to his strength. The one thing that God had said was his and his alone, Samson gave to another.
This would not have been a problem, only Delilah was not a safe person for Samson to be sharing his heart with. Delilah took that knowledge, sold it to the Philistine leaders, and cut off Samson’s hair. He became a prisoner then of the enemy. They blinded and shackled him. He could no longer do the work God created him for.
Too often in life we are not careful about to whom or what we give our hearts. Then the people or things we’ve opened our hearts to begin to wound us, destroying the beauty God meant for us to have and our usefulness for his work in this world. We find ourselves trapped in a place God never meant for us to be, bound and shackled. What begins as a moment of pleasure or a relationship of passion ends up as bondage, suffering, and maybe even destruction.
The story of King Hezekiah also tells us about the hazards of opening the heart of one nation to another. In this story the king had recovered from a fatal illness because of God’s mercy. Some Babylonian envoys came by for a visit to share the joy. Now Babylon at that time wasn’t much of a country. And Hezekiah didn’t really think he needed to restrict what they saw. So he showed them everything. He opened the heart of the country completely to them.
There was a small problem with this. What Hezekiah did not realize was that Babylon was on the way up. They were to become the next superpower of the ancient world. And Israel would be one of the nations they would squash. Opening the heart of his nation to Babylonian envoys was not a smart move.
The truth is there is only one person who can be fully trusted with your heart and mine. That is God.
You belong in this universe he created. You were meant to have a place in God’s story. He created your heart for himself and he will do and has done everything he possibly can to protect and care for your heart when you give it to him. He honors your boundaries and will not push himself on you.
If you are willing to receive the gift, he has given you his heart in place of yours. He has given you a whole heart in place of your shattered one. He has given you a strong heart in place of your weak one. Your physical heart may give out and you may die. But his heart in you will live on into eternity.
Heart-sharing. God seeks your heart and mine—he has given his fully to you and to me. The cost of opening himself up fully to us was the suffering we inflicted on Jesus Christ in his life and death. But the payment is everlasting life for us in God’s presence through his resurrection. We need to be careful to whom and what we give our hearts in the world around us. But we can freely and fully give our hearts to the One who completely shared his heart with us. He stands with open hands, his heart fully yours. Will you share?
Lord, thank you for your heart of love that is fully ours in Jesus Christ. Grant us the grace, the courage and faith to share our hearts completely with you. Amen.
“So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, ‘A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man.’
“ When Delilah saw that he had told her all that was in his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, ‘Come up once more, for he has told me all that is in his heart.’ Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. She made him sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his hair. Then she began to afflict him, and his strength left him.” Judges 16:17–19 (NASB)
“Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, ‘What did these men say, and from where have they come to you?’ And Hezekiah said, ‘They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.’’ He said, “What have they seen in your house?” So Hezekiah answered, ‘They have seen all that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasuries that I have not shown them.’” Isaiah 39:3–4 (NASB)
The Pursuit of Perfection
by Linda Rex
On my desk there is a block of wood with the word “MENTAL” engraved on it. A colleague of mine from several years ago knew I liked to write and he gave it to me for the times when I experience writer’s block. I can’t help but chuckle when I see it because right then, at that moment, I experience a “mental block.”
How often, though, do we find that we have a mental block when it comes to spiritual perfection? If we are expected to become perfect, how do we do it? For the perfectionists among us, this is important information, because perfectionists cannot settle for anything less than perfection.
There is way of looking at faith in Christ as an expectation that we become perfect people once we get done saying we are sorry for our sins. For some of us, we even think that we have to become perfect before approaching God or he will reject us. Either view is based on a misunderstanding of God’s expectations of us and confusion about who we are as his creatures.
First of all, part of the process of coming to faith in Christ is an acknowledgement of the perfection of God and his love for us, and the confession of our imperfection in the face of God’s perfection. As long as we see ourselves as acceptable, good enough, and able to take care of ourselves, there really isn’t much need for anyone else.
But there is a dignity in our confession of our imperfection. We are human, made in God’s image, to reflect his likeness. We were created for perfection. God desires to share his perfection with us. This is why Jesus came.
Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith—the one who began and will finish the process of perfecting us. Because he joined us to himself in his life, death and resurrection, God in Christ shares his perfection with us. We participate in God’s perfection in Christ by the Spirit.
But this is a process, a journey. It is a relationship with God in Christ by the Spirit in which we are, over time, transformed by the renewal of our minds. In light of God’s mercy in Christ, we surrender ourselves to God in obedient service and we walk in union and communion with the Father, Son and Spirit in love with God and one another.
Our spiritual perfection lies in Christ—we have the assurance that we will one day be like him in glory. For now, though, we focus on Jesus Christ and persevere in our relationship with God in him, rejecting and resisting anything that may seek to draw us away from the path of righteousness we walk in him.
When we read the history of faith in Hebrews 11, we recognize that faith does not come simply but exacts a price. Perfection is not an easy process. It is hard work. But it is not something we do on our own to perfect ourselves. And faith is not something we have to somehow come up with on our own. It is all of grace. It is a gift. Just as faith is a gift from God, so is our perfection.
So, in the midst of the messies of life and our imperfections, we can have Christ’s perfect peace, because he has given us his perfection, and he will continue to perfect us until we fully reflect him in glory. Seeking perfection isn’t a bad thing—but in the midst of all that effort, it is best to remember that there is only one who is perfect, and it is not us. But that Perfect One has graciously included us in his perfection.
Thank you, Perfect and Holy God, for including us in your perfection. Thank you that we don’t have to perfect ourselves or have perfect faith. You are the source, the author and finisher of our faith and our perfection. We trust you to finish what you have begun in us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1–3
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1–2
Walking in Shadows
by Linda Rex
In my last blog I asked the question, when a chronic sinner who deliberately chooses to live in sin faces the Son of God in glory, will they be found to be in Christ? What happens when someone willfully sins and turns away from God’s grace? This is indeed a question worth wrestling with.
Reflecting back on my days as a former legalistic lawkeeper, I recall that I often read the law of God in such a way that I believed I had to do everything in it so that I would be good enough and God would not be angry with me. I believed that when Israel didn’t keep the law, she was punished by having to make sacrifices and kill animals and do other things to appease God’s wrath. I also believed that Jesus came to take away God’s anger towards me because of the bad things I did and do. I lived in an ongoing state of guilt and shame, constantly asking God to forgive me and to accept me.
Unfortunately, this is a misunderstanding of the nature of God and his holiness and the nature of the work Jesus Christ did in his life, death and resurrection. When we read the Bible, we begin not with humanity but with God in Christ. Jesus Christ is central to understanding anything that we read in the Bible, including the chapters on the law, the prophets, and so on. This is because Jesus Christ is God who took on human flesh for our sakes. And Jesus Christ revealed the nature of God to us as Father, Son and Spirit who live in oneness of love and unity the church fathers called perichoresis. Perichoresis is best understood as ‘making room for one another’, meaning mutual indwelling. The holiness of God is a purity, beauty of oneness and equality in unity that is love.
The love of God is not like our human love of eros, which seeks its own satisfaction, or philo love of friendship and companionship. It is agape, a love which as God has demonstrated is best expressed through self-denial, laying down one’s life for another, and through the death and resurrection of oneself on behalf of another. This is true holiness and is what Jesus, in his life, death and resurrection has brought us up into—in union with God in himself, in communion with God in the Spirit.
The law was merely a shadow of these spiritual realities. The law doesn’t tell us what to do so we can be good enough to be in relationship with God. What the law does is describe what it looks like when we live in union and communion, in holy love, with God. Israel was given the law as an expression of life in harmony and communion with the God who had called her his own. The sacrifices were given to Israel as a way to restore this love relationship when she lived out of harmony with the God who loved her.
Jesus Christ came so that the law would no longer be external to humanity, but would be written on human hearts. This means that through Christ in the Spirit we receive God’s nature, his very self within, so that we desire to live in relationship with God in union and communion with him. This is a gift from God to us as human beings. In Christ, each of us as human beings has been perfected and we participate in that perfection as we live and walk in Christ. God is making us holy—bringing each of us into a deeper relationship with himself in Christ by the Spirit.
But God does not violate our free will. We are given the freedom to live in harmony with the will and nature of God or in opposition to it. We are all included, but we can live as though we are not included. We are all given this gift of life in Christ, but we can choose to live as penniless paupers. We do have that choice.
But God’s passionate love toward us will not allow anything less than our inclusion in his life and love. His wrath (the same word used for passion) is toward anything that would separate us from him—it’s not against us. He is absolutely and completely for us. It’s against all that is evil and unloving—anything that stands between us and him or holds us captive. The fire of his love will burn away anything that will mar his perfected creation. He is making us holy.
Someone who chooses to live as though he or she is not included in the life and love of God will experience the passionate love of God as “fearful expectation of judgment.” In our hearts we know when we are living in opposition to our true selves.
We can be blinded by the evil one to the true reality of God’s love and live as though God were someone he is not. Sadly, we often do this and suffer the consequences of living out of ourselves instead of living and walking in the Spirit. How often I have met people who see God as being someone he is not! And so they live in fear and in condemnation instead of in the love and blessing God created them for and called them to in Jesus Christ.
So a new question arises. Will we live as enemies of God or as his children? If we choose to live as enemies of God, what will be the consequences of our decision? For nothing can stand against God and not be consumed by the fire of his love.
Holy God, thank you for your love for us that is so complete and so glorious. Thank you for not leaving us in our rotten sinfulness, but for giving us yourself, perfecting us in Christ. Thank you for your faithful love, that you will not give up until all are included in your life and love. Grant us the grace to live in gratitude all our lives for your gift of life in your Son Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Heb 10:1
But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. Heb 10:12–14
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Heb 10:26–27
Where the Road Begins
by Linda Rex
Several years ago I worked caring for dependent adults at a mental health center. I was an Adult Basic Education teacher and one of my responsibilities was to provide activities for my students that were fun, challenging and educational.
One of my students’ favorite activities was to climb into the van and take a “mystery drive.” This meant that we would just start driving down the road without a particular destination in mind. The challenge would be for them to be able to figure out where we were at any given time during the trip. And the fun for them was getting out of their restricted environment and seeing something new and different.
Knowing the back roads like I did, I could point us in a particular direction and know that eventually we would end up back where we started even though we took quite a few detours along the way. I particularly enjoyed taking the students on these trips because of the joy and excitement it gave to them. The exciting chatter from the students when we came upon some eagles nesting in trees along the river or suddenly emerging into a small town through a small gravel road was worth the drive.
I often think about this whenever starting a new project or a new direction in my life. Here at the beginning of 2014, I’m expectantly looking to see what is coming. I don’t know what the year will bring, but I do know who is driving the van. I’m not sure what to expect, but I do know that Jesus in the Spirit is traveling the road with me. I’m anxious to hear his view on all that has happened in my life and will happen. For it is in Christ that it all will make sense and fulfill God’s purpose for my life. He is the one who will see that I end up wherever it is he has in mind.
I hope that you will trust God as well to lead and guide your life as we move into the New Year. I know that he has great plans for you—a hope and a future. And he promises to stay with you as you invite him to travel the road with you. It may get rough for a while but he will carry you through the tough times. And he will make it worth the trip in the end. So hang in there.
May God bless you abundantly in all your travels and may you have a blessed and joyful New Year!
Lord, I am so grateful that it is you who are driving and not me. I trust you with my life and my future. Grant me the grace to follow your Spirit wherever he leads in faith that you know what is best for me in every situation and every road my life takes. Thank you, God, for your faithful love, in Jesus. Amen.
“While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them.” Luke 24:15
The Flip Side of Ministry
by Linda Rex
I anticipated another note of encouragement as I opened a friend’s letter last week. She had been like a spiritual mentor to me as God prepared me for ministry. Her ongoing support and prayers have been a real blessing to me in so many ways.
Sadly, though, this letter did not contain any positive news. Rather, it was to let me know that she had been rejected as a volunteer in the ministry she had helped to start and had faithfully served in for seven years. Her heart was broken, obviously, for her work there was instrumental in building and maintaining that ministry from nothing to serving hundreds of poor and needy people each month.
When someone pours their heart, their finances, their prayers, their whole life into ministry to others, they often become deeply attached to those they help care for. This friend’s heart was broken because she was called by God to care for those she had grown to love in this way and now she could not do it.
This is the flip side to ministry—when you give your heart to others in service to them it very well might get broken. When you lay your life on the line for others, you may very well lose it. When you give freely to others, they may take everything you own.
When God calls us to do ministry of any kind (and for many people their vocation is their ministry) he doesn’t promise a smooth road or a long-term commitment. Often our service has ups and downs, joys and deep disappointments. And at some point it will come to an end and God will begin a new thing. Incarnating the life of Jesus in our everyday life is no different than when the God of heaven took on human flesh and was born in a manger. God didn’t pick the easy way of life, but the humble, difficult path of being the Suffering Servant. And this is what he calls us to as well.
The benefit we have is that Jesus Christ paved the way before us. He lived the life we are to live, died our death and rose from the grave. And even better, he took us with himself into the presence of the Father. Now, when we do ministry, we never do it on our own initiative or under our own power. All that we do in ministry is only a participation in Christ’s eternal ministry. Whatever we give is sharing in his eternal giving. For Jesus Christ is both the Giver and the Gift. So whatever may happen to us in ministry, we are not alone. It is not our ministry—it is his ministry.
And so when the tough stuff happens and the disappointments come, we surrender to the leadership and purposes of Jesus as he works to fulfill his mission in the world. We allow God to determine our next steps, trusting that he has something better in mind. Unlike our Christian institutions, which tend to enclose God’s mission in the world into one way of working and serving over years and years in the midst of a changing culture, the Holy Spirit is always doing something new, meeting people where they are in their culture and personal circumstances.
Doing life and ministry with Jesus in this way means there will be ups and downs, and there will be beginnings and ends. Though the end of the baby born in a manger was death on a cross on a hill, the ministry of Jesus Christ only began there. The resurrected Christ ministers to us even today and stands as our Worship Leader, our Priest, our Mediator and Intercessor forever in our place. All that we do, we do in him. And this is the other “flip side to ministry.”
No matter how tough it gets, no matter how many losses we suffer, we always start anew. Because we know and trust that Jesus Christ is in the midst of it all, guiding and directing it according to the Father’s will by the Holy Spirit. We are reminded that it is God who serves each and every one of us and we get to share in that service. So whatever we do in life, whether a vocation or ministry of service, we do it in Christ by the Spirit to the glory of the Father. And so it has meaning and value. And in Christ it is blessed. So we serve in joy no matter which “side” of ministry we happen to be on at the moment.
Father, thank you for giving us your Son to minister to us and so that we can do ministry in him. Thank you for sending your Spirit to inspire, lead and guide us as well as comfort us as we care for others and serve you. Refresh our hearts, souls and minds so that we can freely and fully serve you and each person you bring into our lives. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
“…but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God, in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in genuine love, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left, by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report; regarded as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well-known, as dying yet behold, we live; as punished yet not put to death, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things.” 2 Cor. 6:4-10 (NASB)
Gratefully Yours
by Linda Rex
Note to self: Shop for Thanksgiving before Halloween, not after.
I was rather frustrated this year when I found that the Halloween items took precedence over the Thanksgiving items at the store. In fact, once Halloween was over, it was next to impossible to find any Thanksgiving, fall or harvest decoration and gift items to buy. I had assumed (wrongly) that they would stay on the shelf until Thanksgiving. But apparently they only stay until Halloween is over and then it’s time for Christmas.
I forget sometimes how our mercantile system drives our culture, especially when it comes to our celebration of our holidays. I’m happy to have access to so many fun things to celebrate with, but it is obvious that our culture has moved beyond the Judeo-Christian basis for its holidays.
Whether or not one is a Christian, there is always a place for gratitude in one’s life. Gratitude is a way of thinking and living that genuinely appreciates the little and big things of life as gifts. It is a way of being thankful for the people and relationships and blessings that come to us everyday unbidden and unsought—the air we breathe, a beautiful sunset, dear friends and family, a newborn baby.
When we lose our appreciation for these things that come into our life with or without our effort, we may become calloused, cold, and cynical. Nothing is ever enough for us—we will always need or want more. We can become sad, depressed and overwhelmed by all the negative stuff in life.
Gratitude in some ways is a discipline—a choice in how we approach life and the events we encounter day by day. When we make the effort to pause and be grateful for what we have and share it with others, we begin to have a more positive attitude and spirit with which to approach life.
Our gratitude and appreciation for all the good things of life, in my view, merely points to the reality that we have been given life, breathe, all the resources we need to be alive and to live blessed because of God’s grace. We can believe that God does not exist, but the truth is, we would not exist if it weren’t for his kindness and mercy in sustaining what he created.
And that wasn’t good enough for God—just giving us life and breath and food and things we could do. He wanted a relationship with us as well—so he came to our universe, to our earth to live as one of us. He forged a permanent bond with us in Jesus Christ—living a perfect life we could participate in, dying our death so we could live with him forever, bringing us into the presence of God so we could be in relationship with the Creator our Redeemer forever.
To me, that gives us every reason to celebrate not just once a year, but every day, with gratitude.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day! May God bless you abundantly each and every day throughout this holiday season!
Lord, I give you thanks for all the wonderful people and blessings you have poured into my life. I pray you will watch over each of those who are reading this and bless them in every way. Let them feel your presence and peace in a deep way so they may be able to endure whatever hardships they are facing or struggling with. Thank you for your faithful love shown to us in Jesus. Amen.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.” Psalm 136:1
Intercellular Living
by Linda Rex
One of the most difficult ministry experiences I’ve had recently has been to be with members of my congregations as they go through the process of watching a loved one die of cancer. The strength they show in fighting this awful disease, dealing with the heartbreak and loss, and rebuilding after loss has been awesome and is a testimony to the grace and power of God. Losing a loved one is devastating, but it seems even more so when a family has to watch the loved one suffer and die slowly and progressively, whether from cancer or any other long-term disease.
Cancer, specifically, is so destructive to the human body because the building blocks of the body—the cells—turn into something they were never meant to be and subsequently attack the body they are a part of and are meant to help build up and sustain.
According to Wikipedia, cancer can occur when there is a loss of cell to cell interaction. When proper contact with neighboring cells is prevented from happening, cells become stunted and begin to collect into tumors and the unhealthy cells spread into other organs and places in the body. As the cancer continues it eventually spreads into the blood stream and lymph system and is carried throughout the body. And in time, and often after much suffering, the body dies. 1
Death, of course, happens to each of us at some point in our lives. It is inevitable. But I don’t believe God ever intended any of us to have go through the suffering and horror of cancer.
Yet it happens. It happens because we are frail and flawed human beings and we live in a broken world. It happens because we attempt to step away from and live apart from the God who designed and made us and the world we live in.
Thankfully, this life is not the end—God never meant it to be. He always meant for us to live in eternity with him in glorified human bodies which are strong, beautiful and whole, and in relationships with him and one another that are healthy and intricately intertwined by love and grace through Christ in the Spirit—just like the intricately intertwined relations of the cells in a healthy human body.
Even though the apostle Paul probably did not know what a cell was, his description of human interaction in the body of Christ reflects the truth of how we have been intertwined together by the Holy Spirit into one body in Christ. When we lose healthy interaction with one another, we begin to destroy one another instead of building one another up. When we believe things that are not true about God, about ourselves and others and act on those beliefs, we begin to destroy not only ourselves, but the body of Christ as a whole. This is also just as true in our communities, our state, nation and the world.
Even though we often try to live like it isn’t true, none of us exists apart from someone else. We were created to live in loving relationship with the Creator and one another. We were designed to exist in intricately woven webs of relationships which require healthy interaction and reciprocal caring in order to function in the best way possible.
We were each created uniquely, not so that we would be separate from one another, but so that we would all fit together into a united, well-coordinated whole—a body. This body’s life was given to us in Jesus Christ and has its source in the Holy Spirit.
Because there is one Spirit manifested in many ways, we are each unique and yet one. Just as a blood cell is not the same as a brain cell or a skin cell, none of us are the same. But the human body would not be what it should be if it did not have all three and every other different type of cell it needs to be whole and well.
When a person lives in a way that is contrary to their design by God, when they are abusive, selfish, fearful, hurtful to others, then they are like a stunted cancer cell. Such a person influences, affects, harms other people around them who in turn harm, wound and corrupt others—just as cancer cells metastasize and spread.
When society, culture, cities, nations, organizations, and churches become twisted and unhealthy, it is because the individuals within have lost their center in Jesus Christ. They are living out of their human brokenness instead of in the Spirit of life as God originally created them to live—in healthy relationship with God and one another. A cancer is created that in time, if unchecked, destroys families, churches, communities, organizations, cities, and nations.
So is cancer inevitable? Will cancer always win? Where’s the hope in this?
Our only hope is what it always has been from the beginning—in the God who loves us so much that he came himself in the Word, took on our human flesh and cleansed and healed it with his own divine Presence. Jesus Christ is the answer because he is the whole, cleansed and purified human we were all meant to be. He lived the life we were meant to live, suffered our pains, died our broken death and rose from the grave. He took our human flesh into the presence of God and gave us the gift of his blessed Presence in the Holy Spirit so that we could be regenerated or made new.
In Jesus Christ, every broken, cancerous cell in the human body, both individually and collectively, has been healed, cleansed and restored. God has declared us to be whole and well. He is offering to you and to me life in Jesus Christ by the indwelling Holy Spirit. When we receive and embrace this, believing this truth and living accordingly, our hearts, minds and lives will be healed and transformed.
The corrupting cancers of sin, self and Satan have been neutralized and transformed by the healing Presence of the life-giving Spirit in Christ. Death has been defeated. Jesus triumphed over the cancers of evil, sickness and death. They can only make a big noise, bluster and try to cause pain, fear and suffering and to destroy our faith. But they have no power over us any longer. One day they will be only a forgotten memory. In the presence of the Living God they are nothing but a moment in the eternity of his Love.
As we embrace new life in Christ and live in the intimate fellowship with God and each other we were created for, the cancers of sin, self and Satan will be supplanted by spiritual, mental, emotional and social wholeness and health.
Sometimes it is a battle. Just as we battle cancer of the human body with every possible instrument we have available to us, we battle these cancers of the spirit with the divine weapons of the Holy Spirit—receiving God’s gift of salvation, trusting in Christ’s righteousness, and believing and living in the Spirit of truth and the Word of God. We use divine methods of treatment, but we do this in Christ. He is our life. He is our breath. He is the One who lives the life we seek to live.
It is the Presence of the living Word within, the Holy Spirit, who reminds us we are God’s beloved children and who guides us and teaches us how to live in healthy relationship with God and others. As we listen to him and grow up in this divine Life, we become a healthy part of the body of Christ, of our family, our community, our state, nation and world. Our true value and worth can begin to be seen and contributed to the whole. And this is what God created us to be in our own uniqueness and giftedness. This is the intercellular life God designed us to have from, with and in him forever. This is worth living and dying for.
Almighty God, Maker of heaven and earth and all that is in them, thank you. Thank you for life and breath, for all that you give us each and every day. Holy, Eternal Father, we believe in and embrace the gift of new life you have made possible for us in the life, death and resurrection of your precious Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for giving us new life even now in Christ by your Holy Spirit, your Presence within. Dear Jesus, we acknowledge you as our Lord as you are our Savior—we commit ourselves to live not in ourselves and our sin and brokenness, our guilt and shame, but in the forgiveness, healing and wholeness we have been given in you. Be our life, be our breath, our healing, health and wholeness. Almighty God, in your One Name as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.
“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:3-5
1 “Cell–cell interaction”, “Metastasis”, “Metaplasia”, “Dysplasia”, “Anaplasia”, Wikipedia.com. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell-cell_interaction (Accessed 11/22/13).
The Out Loud Word
by Linda Rex
It’s come to my mind quite often lately how much I have taken for granted the gift of being able to read, and to read quickly and with comprehension.
I go places and find that I have to be able to read the signs to know where to go and where not to go, how fast to go, what street I need to turn at, and so on. I walk into the store and find I have to be able to read the labels to make sure I’m buying the right thing.
The blessing of reading, by necessity, includes the blessing of sight, unless a person learns to read Braille. Someone was telling me the other day about a man who was more or less blind and who, because he couldn’t see to read the labels on the cans at the store, had eaten dog food for years. That seems like a stretch to me, but who am I to say any different? I just realized, though, what a blessing it was to be able to see and to read.
I have been finding also when leading worship in my congregations, that I must never take it for granted that the people who come to church have a Bible, or if they have one, that they are able to read it. We want all people to participate with us in the learning and understanding of God’s Word as they grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. So the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to Timothy to not neglect the public reading of scripture is just as relevant to us today as it was then. This is why we read the Scriptures out loud during our worship services and in our study groups.
It is easy to ignore or neglect the reading of Scripture. It can be a chore we’d rather avoid. But if we feel we’ve read the Scriptures and we know everything that’s in the Bible, then we most likely are merely reading the Scriptures for information. It is no wonder that it is meaningless, boring and empty reading to us. But if and when we have entered into a personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ, we are able to read the Scriptures in a whole new way.
We are able to read them as God’s Word to us both collectively and personally. We can begin to seek Jesus Christ in the midst of them. Before we begin to read, we say, “Lord, what do you have to say to me today?” We invite the Holy Spirit to open our minds and hearts to receive whatever it is God would like to say to us in that moment. We ask Jesus by his Spirit to live out in us what we hear in his Word.
It is often in the hearing as well as reading of the Word of God that conviction occurs and life-change begins. The Spirit of God goes to work when the Word of God is read, whether silently, or out loud. We continue in the reading of the Word of God day by day for God’s Word to us is made new to us moment by moment in our relationship with Jesus Christ in the Spirit.
Thank you, Father, for giving us the Living Word, Jesus Christ, who came for us in our place to live out our perfect life in his human flesh and who comes to us in the written Word by your Holy Spirit. Give us a holy hunger for your Word and may your Word transform us as we read and hear it each and every day. In Jesus name by your Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.
“Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.” 1 Timothy 4:13 (NLT)
Our Life in the Trinity 