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Seeking Comfort and Relief
By Linda Rex
My officemate and I were sitting at our desks one day. The whole atmosphere of the day had been pretty gloomy, with dark, cloudy skies, and endless buckets of rain. We both agreed it was a really good day for curling up with a blanket on the couch to read a good book.
Curling up in a chair or on the couch with a book and an apple was something I used to do a lot when I was younger. I loved reading—it was the way I escaped the boredom and unpleasantness in my life. I would bring home a stack of books from the library, and within a day or two, I would have read them all completely through. The books took me to worlds I would never visit in real life, and helped me learn things I would never learn in school or at home.
Somehow dark and rainy days always remind me of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I haven’t figured out why, but I’m pretty sure it was a comfort food which my mom used to serve us when I was little. She would make homemade bread into patties, cut them open and put butter and honey on them—mmm. She had a lot of special foods she would serve us—she loved fussing over us in this way.
If we were to think about it, we could come up with a list of things we learned to do as children which give us comfort. As we’ve gotten older, the comfort measures we use can take on new, and sometimes, more dangerous forms. We have boundless opportunities around us to distract us. Nowadays, it’s much easier to escape and find relief in these things than it is to face up to and deal with the unpleasantries and responsibilities of life.
While I’m all for having enjoyable pastimes and comfort foods, I’ve noticed it is really easy to become dependent upon these things and drift away from our sole dependency upon God. Instead of being attentive to the real desires in our hearts for connection, healing, and community, we numb ourselves with distractions and pleasures.
The psalmist, King David, reminds us the only rock and salvation is God alone. He is the only thing or Person we are to place our hope in, because he is the only One who can truly be counted on in every situation. Whether it is rest, comfort, peace, or even our value as human beings—there is only one Place where we are truly and always affirmed, beloved, and held.
Too often our relationship with God is a place of anxiety and distress rather than one of life and peace. Most often, our anxiety and distress is unnecessary, for, as the apostle Paul says, “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31b) When our distress and anxiety is valid, it is only because we have not seen God for who he really is—gracious, longsuffering, and kind, but loving enough to hold us responsible for the things we say and do which destroy or break our communion with God and others. Perhaps he is calling us to humble ourselves and turn back to the direction we know in our hearts we should have been going in the first place.
It is important for us to be attentive to what is going on in our hearts and minds, and to not distract ourselves away from it. We need to wrestle with our desires and pain and anger, and to not deny it, numb it, or wish it away. It’s there for a reason. Pain and anger are signals we or our boundaries have been violated. True desire is the heart of God at work in our hearts, calling us to what is holy, pure, and a real reflection of the nature and being of the God who created us in his image.
Truth be told, we live in a society which is filled with distractions. Much as I love my smartphone, I realize it’s capacity for keeping me from dealing with the things which really matter. If I am feeling an ache in my heart regarding my need for connection with God or others, it is easier to flip on the radio in my car than it is to have that meaningful conversation. Rather than dealing with the heartache or worry which is boiling inside, it’s so much easier to flip on my computer and bury myself in a game or a social media site.
But God calls us into relationship with himself and with others. And relationships are a messy business. And relationships require space and listening to hearts.
God also calls us into silence–into quieting ourselves in his presence so we can hear what’s going on in God’s heart and ours. Silence is a spiritual discipline which has been practiced by Christians for centuries. It involves taking time away from all distractions, and opening ourselves up to the work of the Holy Spirit. Being silent and undistracted means making ourselves fully available to God for inner work he wants to do in our hearts and minds.
Since this can be uncomfortable for us, we need faith–the faith of Christ. Our hope and trust must be fully in the God who created us and holds us in his love. Everything rests on him. And that’s a good thing, for he is the only One who can carry us and sustain us in each and every situation within which we find ourselves.
Dear Abba, you are truly trustworthy and faithful. Thank you for your love and grace in your Son Jesus. By your Spirit, please enable us to wait in silence for you, and to be attentive and obedient to your heart and mind. In your Name we pray. Amen.
“My soul, await in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken. On God my salvation and my glory rest; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.” Psalm 139:5-8 NASB
Our Springs of Joy
By Linda Rex
Advent—JOY
As one who has suffered on occasion from the blight of depression, I have a sympathetic heart for anyone who experiences living in this dark place. When a person is in the midst of such sadness and grief, it can take all of his or her effort just to do the simplest tasks of life.
This is not a place other people can come to and pull the sufferer out of. It is rather a place where those near and dear can come alongside and offer support, prayer, and encouragement. The best gift a person can offer to one suffering with depression is a constant and faithful relationship—a living presence with a willingness to sit in the darkness with the one struggling.
Sometimes we choose our darkness. Sometime the darkness is a result of other people’s bad choices. And other times, the darkness just is—it exists through no fault of our own. It is merely a result of health issues or circumstances. Darkness—an inner weight of crushing sadness and grief, or just loss of joy—can happen to anyone. Being depressed is not a sin, although it may at times be a symptom of an inner struggle.
For some of us, being depressed comes easily. The negativity through which we see the world becomes a lens which darkens our view each and every moment of our lives. This causes us to miss many opportunities for joy. We can be so used to the darkness that when the light enters, we close our eyes to protect them from its brightness.
Here during Advent, as we approach Christmas and the New Year, we may find ourselves resisting the holiday spirit, and feeling overwhelmed by loss and grief for various reasons. It is hard to feel upbeat when your heart is broken and your thoughts are filled with memories of what was and what could have and should have been. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the darkness during a season which should be filled with great joy.
The Holy Spirit calls to us during Advent to remember the One who joined us in our darkness, who didn’t feel it was enough just to say he loved us, but who actually came and sat in the sadness, grief, sorrow, and death with us. For God it was not enough just to be gracious and loving—he did gracious and loving. He took on our humanity and lived shoulder-to-shoulder with each of us.
God’s judgment on sin and our proclivity to evil and our preference for the darkness was the precious gift of a baby in a manger—the Word of God in human flesh—Immanuel, God with us. God’s judgment on our darkness was a gift of joy in the Person of his Son. He judged all humanity worthy of grace and worthy of salvation, worthy of his presence in the midst of their evil, suffering, and death.
That dark, starry night as the shepherds sat with their flocks on a hill outside of Bethlehem, God entered this broken world welcomed by Joseph and Mary as the fulfillment of the word of God through an angel. This little baby may have seemed insignificant and unimpressive in his humble circumstances, but his birth was the cause of the celebration of the angels. As we read in Luke 2:
“Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’” (Luke 2:8-14 NKJV)
Here was a message from God to his people—a message of peace and good will from God toward his people—a message of joy. These shepherds were astonished and overwhelmed, but their response was to seek out this baby to welcome him.
In our personal darkness, we may feel as though God has forgotten us, or as though we are lost in a dark night, barely holding ourselves together. But the truth we need to be reminded of is that God’s heart toward us has not changed. He is faithful and he still loves and cares for us. God has come into our darkness in the Person of the Word of God, and in Jesus Christ has lived our life, died our death, and carried us from death into life in his resurrection.
And it was not enough for God to join us in our broken humanity. He also sent his Spirit—pouring out on all the gift of life in his Son. The call to faith, is the call to believe in and embrace the joy, the good will of God toward each and every person in the gift of his Son Jesus Christ. God has given us an inner source of joy in the gift of his personal presence in and with us in the Holy Spirit. As the psalmist said: “All my springs of joy are in you.” (Ps. 87:7b NASB)
The reality is, when we are in a dark place such as depression, depravity, or despair, we need a source beyond ourselves to raise us up and deliver us. We need a source of joy which is real and endless, and which will not be squelched by our stubborn desire to remain in the darkness. We need “springs of joy” to draw upon.
And God has given us this in the gift of his Son and his Spirit. We celebrate the breaking in of heaven into our darkness this time of year, and we find in the birth of Jesus Christ the hope, peace, and joy we would never have otherwise. He is the source of our true life, a life which God has lived in for all eternity, a life he is determined to share with you and me for all the eons to come. He calls us to trust—to believe in the truth: God is here. God is near. And he is with us forever. Immanuel—the most precious gift of all!
Dear Abba, thank you! Thank you for the precious gift of joy. Thank you for not leaving us in our darkness, sorrow, grief, and depravity, but giving us a way out—your own Son. Fill us by your Spirit with all your hope, peace, joy, and love—we do not find these things within ourselves. They are a gift. And so we thank you, and praise you with the angels, through Jesus our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.” Psalm 98 NASB
Message of the Ages
by Linda Rex
Advent–PEACE
This morning I was listening to Casting Crowns sing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”. In this song, the lyricist tells about how he was overwhelmed by the evil, pain, and suffering of the world around him, and how he allowed it to darken his view—until the light of grace and love dawned and he truly heard the eternal song, and it transformed his perspective.
Indeed, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the negativity in the world around us. How is it possible to continue to struggle day by day and never seem to see the light at the end of the tunnel? There are times in our lives when one bad thing happens after another, and soon we have lost hope anything will ever get better.
But God calls out to us in the midst of the midnight darkness in the cry of an infant. He proclaims the amazing news: “I am here! You are not forgotten! You are loved!” And he says to you and to me: “There is nothing which could ever come between us—nothing that could ever be so awful I will not enter into it and save you from it.”
And he is here. He is Immanuel. And in him, death, evil, and sin are defeated. We in our broken humanity, are rescued and brought into the marvelous light of the presence of Abba through Jesus.
We are included in the divine life. As we by the Spirit embrace the living Lord, we begin to realize we are not alone. The Spirit bears witness to our spirit—we are God’s adopted children, we are beloved, we belong. Abba holds us in his arms, welcomes us home to be with him forever, in his Son and by his Spirit.
Whatever struggles there may be in this life, whatever isolation we may feel, whatever suffering and abuse we may encounter—these are but a straw to be blown away by the wind of the Spirit. They are but a passing moment of pain in the midst of eternal joy and glory.
Yes, they are a real part of our human existence—something we must experience and endure. These things won’t just disappear. Rather, it’s our perspective which needs changed. We need to realize, as the apostle Paul wrote, it is in these moments of weakness we are strongest, for Christ is our strength and our redemption in the midst of our troubles, sorrows and struggles.
If there is one thing we as humans have proven over the millennia, it is we don’t know what we are doing. On our own, we are incapable of walking in the paths of peace with God and one another. Since the Garden of Eden when we chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we have been determining for ourselves a path which involves achieving some human-defined goal of perfection. And along this path, we have found suffering, evil, death, and a host of human ills.
The way of peace—a way we have not known. We have tried to create our own paths of peace. We try conformity—forcing others to our will and expectations. We try silencing any voice other than our own. We try unlimited freedom and self-indulgence. But these only create suffering, chaos, or slavery.
But God offered us a tree of life—this life which is in his Son. This is the eternal life which Jesus himself defined as the intimate knowing of our Abba and his Son Jesus Christ in the Spirit. This is a relational path—one of out-going love and care for God and others. This is the perichoretic life our heavenly Father, Son, Spirit-God has lived in for all eternity. This is the life we were created to dwell in. And this life—is the way of peace.
The way of peace is in reality a Person, not just a way of doing things. This Person lived his life in a communion of intimate relationship with our heavenly Father in the Spirit—in total freedom bounded only by outgoing love and concern, and filled with gracious compassion and purity of mind and heart. This Way of Peace, established in our humanity a way of being which defines us—it is the truth of who you and I really are. And he sent his Spirit so we could begin to live in the truth of our being as we embrace our divine life in him, in Jesus Christ.
God’s will toward you and me from the beginning has been a Spirit of good will. God wishes for you and me—peace—the same peace which he has dwelt in for all eternity in his perfect life as Father, Son, and Spirit. God so passionately desires we share in this peace with him, that he came in person, and joined with us in our broken humanity in Jesus Christ, so we could experience true peace.
And on that starry Bethlehem night, he came—a tiny, fragile human life—an infant in the arms of a young mother. And as Abba promised through the prophet Micah centuries before: “This One will be our peace.” Abba knew it would take nothing less than the gift of his Son for us to experience true peace.
This Advent, may you begin to experience more and more the blessing of true peace, with God and with others, through Jesus Christ our Lord by his heavenly Spirit. May God bless you with his true peace.
Abba, thank you for the gift of peace through your Son, the Prince of Peace. Thank you for being our God of Peace, who through your Spirit of Peace enables us to share in your heavenly peace. Grant us the grace to embrace the truth of who we are in Jesus, and to walk in the way of peace you have established for us, through Jesus our Lord and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. Therefore He will give them up until the time when she who is in labor has borne a child. Then the remainder of His brethren will return to the sons of Israel. And He will arise and shepherd His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they will remain, because at that time He will be great to the bends of the earth. This One will be our peace.” Micah 5:2-5a NASB
“To give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, ‘to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death’, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:77–79 NASB
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13 NASB
Embraced by Our Unlimited God
By Linda Rex
If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit our God-concepts are at their best flawed and broken. We see God through the lenses of our past experiences, the misguided teachings we have embraced, and the hurt feelings we harbor toward others. These lenses may create within us a sense of anxiety and fear toward God when we suspect our behavior doesn’t measure up with what we believe God wants it to be.
What we believe about who God is and who we are in relationship with him often impacts us more than we realize. It becomes the underlying frame by which we measure ourselves and others, and we anticipate a just God giving us or others what is deserved—punishment, damnation, and hell.
We seem to set limits on what God will and can do in this world, whether now or in the future. We believe God is limited by a person’s sin in that God must punish a person for their evil thoughts and behavior, and their depravity. For God to not punish a person in this life or in the next, seems to us to be unjust or at the least, unfair, and certainly not something God would do.
But at the same time, isn’t this the reason Jesus Christ came? Isn’t this the reason Christ took on our humanity, lived the perfected life which is to be ours, and died our death in our place? Didn’t he take upon himself the punishment we all deserve? Then why must a person bear that punishment now or in the future? Why must they get what they deserve when it is God’s heart and will they get what they don’t deserve?
Yes, we are facing the whole issue of participation—of each and every person participating in the perfected life created for them in Jesus Christ in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and given to them in the Person and power of the Holy Spirit. This brings into the picture the critical issue of faith. What does a person believe about who God is, who they are, and who Christ is for them personally? This must be answered by each and every human being.
We believe God is limited by death in that God must save a person now before they die, or they are lost for all eternity. For God to work with someone beyond death is unthinkable, because death is the end—now is the time of salvation. A person must come to Christ now, or all is lost. Death in this case, is the winner.
But even the just, fair, holy God confesses in and through his Son Jesus Christ that these limits no longer exist. Death has been conquered by life in Christ Jesus. Salvation has been worked out in him for each and every human being. What they do with that is the question we must all wrestle with. But must this wrestling be completed before death? Or can it continue beyond death into the place where this person encounters the One who stood in their stead and on their behalf, and sees the true realities for the first time in his or her existence?
Such questions may make us very uncomfortable. These questions may even anger us. But I believe that, in wrestling with them, we are brought face to face with the current state of our own heart. We need to ask ourselves, why does this make us uncomfortable? Why does this anger us? Is there someone in our life or in our past whom we believe needs to experience the just deserts of their unbelief and disobedience? Is there someone in our life we feel does not deserve to be forgiven and to be embraced by God and given eternal life?
Whether we want to admit it or not, we like to determine for God whom he can and cannot welcome into his eternal embrace. We’re the ones who feel it is so important that the damnation, and ever-burning fire be a literal reality for every person who denies Christ. Whereas God’s heart is to make sure no human being is left out of his eternal embrace. God’s will is that every human being experience the blessed and glorious life held in the life and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit—the beautiful life in the presence of the true Light which enlightens every person.
And God is free to do this. His unlimited freedom to be as he really is and to do as he really does as our loving, gracious God, is what drives his passion to see that every human being shares in and is held in his loving embrace. God’s freedom to be as he truly is and to do what he purposes in his heart of overflowing love and grace, is not only beyond our comprehension, but also beyond the ability of any of us to resist.
The majesty of God’s love, though, also allows you and me the freedom to resist all of that which God pours out for us on our behalf. The question of whether or not we trust in Christ for salvation is settled on God’s side—but is still in abeyance on our side. Christ stepped up as God in human flesh, and did it on our behalf—he stood in our place. He said “Yes” to Abba in the place of our “No”. But there is still a work God is doing in and through the Holy Spirit to make Christ’s “Yes” a reality for each and every person in their own being and doing.
And this is where the whole issue of faith becomes critical. What is your faith in? Is it in your ability to make sure you say the right words, or do the right things? Is your faith in being a member of the “only” church who believes the correct doctrine? What are you counting on when you come face to face with the living Lord?
Ultimately, it will come down to what Jesus emphasized over and over during his ministry here on earth: It is not about what you have, what you’ve done or not done, or what others believe about what you’ve done or not done. It all boils down to putting your trust outside of yourself, and outside of anything in your life, and solely trusting in the grace of God demonstrated to us and given to us in his Son Jesus Christ.
In embracing Jesus Christ, we find we are embraced by the living God himself, and filled with his very presence by his blessed Spirit. In turning from ourselves to Christ, we discover God has been turned toward us the whole time. He never did leave us or forsake us, but has been drawing us steadily into his love and life, that perfected existence we were created for from before time began.
And in surrendering our life, our future, our will, and our very significance to Jesus Christ, we find our true life, a blessed hope, and a Divine Companionship which we will enjoy for all eternity. And this is what it means when Jesus says repent and believe, be baptized, and receive the gift of God Spirit.
This is what God meant for each and every one of us from the beginning. This is the whole reason Christ came, and the whole purpose for all God has done since he first got the idea to create human creatures who could and would share his life and love. We are held in his embrace, whether we like or not, whether we want to be held or not. All he wants is for us to turn around and embrace him as he is embracing us. So why wait? Why not do it right now?
Dear Abba, thank you for the gift of your Son and your Spirit. Today, this day, I turn away from my dependence upon anything or anyone but you, God, and I turn towards you. I embrace you, and your ways, and your blessed Spirit, and what your Son has done in my stead and on my behalf in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. I believe—Lord, please free me from my unbelief. Enable me to trust fully in you, and you alone, in every situation of life, no matter how hard things may get. Fill me afresh with your Spirit—make me new. My life is in you, through Jesus my Lord, and by your Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.” Revelation 22:12-14 NASB
“‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)” Revelation 19:6b-8 NASB
The Subtlety of Unbelief
By Linda Rex
On Wednesday evenings at our discussion group we have been addressing the topic of hell. One of the concerns which was raised this week was how we determine whether or not we are getting off track in our reading and studying. This is a really good question.
Sometimes we can be so afraid of being deceived or getting off track we become afraid of reading anything other than the Bible. We can take this fear even to the place where we restrict our reading of the Bible to only one translation, or we only use a Bible put out by our particular denomination, rejecting all others as heretical.
At other times we may believe only one particular Bible teacher has the truth about God’s Word. We read everything this person writes, listen only to this person speaking, and we believe they are the only ones who really know the truth about God’s Word. We refuse to listen to what anyone else may have to say about the Bible or what to believe because we do not trust them to be telling the truth.
Unfortunately, our approach to learning about God and about the Bible may end up being governed by fear and mistrust rather than by the faith, hope, and love God gives to us in Christ by the Spirit. Instead of resting in Jesus Christ and trusting he will keep us in the center of his will, we anxiously work to make sure we don’t accidentally wander off the path of holiness.
The Scriptures say God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind. The Holy Spirit leads us into all truth as we trust in Christ and allow him to lead us. Yes, it is important to ground ourselves in the Word of God, but only as we allow the living Word of God to take precedence in all things, and allow the Holy Spirit to convict us of where we may be getting off track.
This whole process of studying the written Word of God and seeking to know the truth which will set us free is a relational effort—a participation with Christ by the Spirit in listening to, hearing, and acting upon what the Father is saying to us in the Scriptures. The question is, do we trust God to keep us on the right track, and if we wander off somewhere, to bring us back to the Truth who is Jesus Christ?
How do we gauge if a teaching or a translation is off track? How do we know if what someone is teaching doesn’t agree with the truth presented to us in Christ? And this is the key: Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. He is our living relationship with our Abba, and he gives his Spirit to us to lead us into all truth. He is the center.
When we begin to look at difficult topics such as hell, we begin with the appropriate lens. That lens is the Lord Jesus Christ and who he is as God in human flesh, and what he teaches us about the Father, himself, and the Spirit, and what he teaches us about ourselves. This grounds us and enables us to see more clearly the difference between truth and error. Looking through this lens also involves comprehending, believing, and receiving the reality of God’s love expressed to us in the giving of his Son and his Spirit for salvation and redemption.
We need to stay centered in the incomprehensible reality God willed not to be God without us: he chose before time began to include us in his life and love, and so he ordained before time began to send his Son in human flesh to draw us up into life in himself. Understanding and believing in the truth of this reality enables us to begin to read the Scriptures with greater clarity and less confusion. We are less likely to be swept aside by false concepts of God and eschatology (any system of doctrines concerning last, or final, matters, as death, the Judgment, the future state, etc.).
What God did for us in Jesus wasn’t an afterthought or a reaction to what humanity did, but rather what he intended all along. It was not an outflow of his anger against humanity or the rejection of his Son, but rather an embracing of all of us as lost, broken, rebellious children in need of redemption. That God, in his freedom to be the God he is, would do something new—not only creating creatures to share life with, but also joining them to himself forever—is an amazing and wonderful thing.
It is equally amazing that he who lived ever and always in love, joy, and peace, was willing to reconcile suffering, sorrow, and evil with himself in such a way it would be forever nullified and transformed into the very thing which binds us to himself in love.
Jesus is God’s judgment on sin, evil, and death. This judgment (or krisis) each of us encounters is not something or Someone which we should fear, but the Person which we should embrace in faith, trusting Christ is for us all we need in the face of our sin, brokenness, and depravity. Jesus Christ, who is God in human flesh, is the perfect answer or response to God for each one of us, no matter our situation or history or failure.
For this reason, we have nothing to fear when it comes to seeking to know God more fully and completely. Christ has gone ahead of us and has sent his Spirit so we might know which direction to go.
Yes, we have the responsibility to choose our teachers wisely. They need to coincide in their teaching and life with what we know about who Jesus Christ is as the God/man, and who he reveals God to be in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and in the sending of the Spirit. Our teachers need to be willing to submit to being taught and to sit humbly under the mentorship of those with greater spiritual depth, maturity, and knowledge. The Spirit in them will resonate with the Spirit in us, and we will begin to see with greater clarity the magnitude and depth of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ in their teaching.
One of the healthiest things we can do to keep ourselves on the right track is to find other believers who are well-grounded in Christ and to study the Word of God with them. As we pray together, listen to the written Word of God together, and wrestle with our questions and thoughts about what we are learning, the Holy Spirit brings us into a deeper knowledge and understanding of the truth. As we are open to it, we have brothers and sisters who can point out when we are drifting away from our center in Christ. And at the same time, we by the Spirit are growing into a deeper fellowship with God and one another.
Are there times when we may wander off the path? No doubt. But this is why it is essential to walk by faith, not by sight. We trust in the perfect work of Christ and in the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We hold all we read, hear, and see up against the mirror of the living Word of God as revealed in the written Word of God, and we ask ourselves, does this agree with the truth revealed to us in Jesus Christ? Does this diminish Christ or magnify him? And we go from there—it’s a walk of faith.
Thank you, Abba, for the gift of your Son the living Word, and for the gift of your precious Spirit. Keep us on the narrow path of faith, and free us from fear and anxiety about missing the mark. When we wander here and there, please bring us back to our center in Christ. We thank you that you are faithful and dependable, and that you will not leave us as orphans, lost or without direction. Open your written Word to our understanding, and transform our hearts by faith, we pray, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” 1 John 4:1-6 NASB
Looking for Assurances
By Linda Rex
I was chatting with my son this morning and I was talking about how God has always taken care of us as a family. “Even when I was only making $6.50 an hour,” I said. “He’s always taken care of us. I’ve always tried to put God first in my finances…”
He interrupted me. “You’re not drifting into that health-and-wealth gospel stuff, are you?” he asked, amused. I laughed. “No, but it probably was starting to sound like it.”
I was reminded how easily we can slip into the cause-and-effect manner of thinking which we prefer as humans. We like to be sure God is going to do what we want in every situation, and so we come up with the perfect plan to make sure he does. We’d like to believe if we always pay our tithes off the gross and give generously to the poor and other charities, then God will always make sure we are taken care of. We hope if we always eat the right thing and drink clean water and do a good job of exercising and staying in shape, we will never develop cancer or die of a heart attack.
Doing things this way takes all the guesswork out of our relationship with God. In fact, we don’t have to even get into any of the messy stuff of dealing with our false motives or bad attitudes. As long as we’re doing the “right” thing, we’re in good with God and we have no reason to expect any issues in our life.
Of course, as we grow in our spiritual maturity in Christ, I would like to hope we get to the place we recognize this isn’t the way God works. Indeed, he seems at times to do the exact opposite of what we expect him to do in certain situations. And we can get pretty bent out of shape about it if we are not careful. It seems God likes to remind us about who is the Lord of the universe, and it’s not us. And he also likes to remind us even when it seems like everything is falling apart, he can still take it and work it all out for the best.
The real issue here is God’s real nature is relational, and all he does with us as human beings is with this relationship in mind. To live in the Triune relationship is to live in a relationship in which there is uniqueness and equality of Personhood in oneness of Being.
We are created in the image of this God, called into relationship with this God, and embraced in the midst of our turning away from this relationship in and through Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension. In the gift of the Spirit, God works to bring us fully into the Triune embrace in such a way we know we share in Christ and we begin to intentionally participate in God’s love and life.
The thing is, this is a relationship we are called into and created for. And within this relationship we have been given great freedom. God has freed us from sin and death so we may live forever in the true freedom which exists in God’s being—a freedom to truly be who God created us to be—children of God who love their Abba with all their being, and who love their neighbor as themselves. This is the true freedom Christ won for us—to live out by the Spirit our true humanity which is hidden with Christ in God.
This freedom given to us by our Creator and Sustainer is what we wrestle with as human beings. On the one hand we like being able to do what we want, when we want, and how we want. We want to call the shots in this universe, while having God take care of us and give us everything we want when we want it and how we want it.
We live, if we are honest with ourselves, too often as if we are our own little gods, not realizing that such freedom is a false freedom. It is a lie—and whatever it is we have chosen which is not in within the truth of our being as God’s children will in the end enslave us and consume us, and without God’s intervention, may even eventually destroy us.
And these things we choose are not always the vices most of us easily acknowledge as being wrong or unhealthy. The worst choices we make are the most deceiving—the choice to objectify God and one another, the choice to put our trust in money, people, and other things rather than in God alone, or the choice to try to control God, or even one another, by the things we do or say—acting as though we can change the way God or others behave if we just act correctly or speak perfectly. We do our best manipulate, use, manage, and/or control God and one another, rather than respecting each one’s personhood and honoring him or her as the person he or she is.
If I choose to honor God with my finances by tithing, for example, by giving 10% off my gross income, that is a good thing to do as an expression of my love for God. I am free to tithe or not tithe, and no doubt, if I genuinely wish to bless God by tithing, he will be pleased by my heart of gratitude and generosity. But tithing does not obligate God in any way to make sure my bills are paid or I have money for a new car. It demonstrates a heart of devotion and trust toward God but it does not cause God to do anything in return. The cause-and-effect rule does not apply.
My experience in my relationship with God, however, has been when I was making next to nothing and felt convicted of the need to continue to tithe in spite of my poverty, God honored that and somehow always made sure I had what I needed. I did not control or manipulate God by my giving—but I did express my genuine heart of devotion and commitment to God through my giving, and I found myself being blessed and helped by God in the midst of my poverty.
I remember one ongoing conversation with God expressed my anxiety about the bills which I thought I couldn’t pay. Anxiety in itself demonstrates a lack of faith in my Abba, and I have struggled with this over and over—it’s one of those subtle yet encroaching sins. But God merely would remind me to write down my needs and to ask him to take care of them. That is a relational thing, not a cause-and-effect thing. It is an act of trust. I felt compelled by the Spirit to do write down my needs and give them to God, I obeyed God and did it, and God responded by hearing and answering my prayers. It began with God and ended with God, and I got to be in the midst of it and be blessed in the process.
Looking back, I know too often in my life I thought I had to do this or do that other thing in order to be blessed by God or experience his good will towards me. In reality, God’s will toward me was already good, and he was looking out for me when I didn’t even realize it. He intervened in so many situations, and I never realized what was going on until later, if at all, and was amazed by his tender love and concern.
What I have learned is God is love and God is faithful. And we are held in his love and grace, He is always at work, no matter what is going on, bringing us to a place of redemption and healing. We are free to make choices, and God allows us to experience the joy or pain of those choices. But he is ready and willing at any time to embrace us when we come running and are ready to participate in making choices his way, in the way which best expresses our true humanity as God’s beloved children.
Dear Abba, thank you for your faithful love and gracious provision for our needs each and every day, whether we realize it or not. Thank you for holding us in your love and grace, and that your heart toward us is good and full of compassion. Grant us the grace to live in the true freedom which is ours in your Son and by your Spirit so our lives and ways of being are a true expression of your nature and Name as Father, Son, and Spirit. In your Name we pray, Amen.
“For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.” 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 NASB
Growing on the Journey
By Linda Rex
Five years ago, when I first arrived in Tennessee, I was visiting with people after services during our Community Café free meal when I noticed a lady who seemed to be in tears on the other side of the room. I remember going over to her and asking her if I could help. We had a long conversation that day about all the struggles she was having in her life. I prayed for her, and hoped in my heart she would experience God comfort and peace in the midst of her struggles.
As time passed, I and the members of Good News Fellowship began to get to know this woman better. And as we watched, she grew in her relationship with Jesus and her love for God and his ways. She still had struggles as she continued her journey of growing up in Christ, but she was learning to live and walk daily in a relationship of love and grace with God and others. It was wonderful for me and my spiritual family at Good News Fellowship to see her blossom and grow as time went by.
This journey she was taking was the journey of faith, of developing a deeper relationship with the God who made each of us in his image and who is growing each of us up into the likeness of his Son Jesus Christ by the Spirit. I like to use the image of a journey because when a person comes to faith in Christ, turning away from all other idols and distractions and turning towards Jesus in face-to-face relationship, God doesn’t suddenly make that person perfect. Rather, their perfection is hidden with Christ in God and the Spirit works it out in them as they walk through life and respond to Jesus’ work by the Spirit in their hearts and lives.
Growing up in Christ takes time. And it takes experiences in which we engage in relationships with other people and in circumstances in life in which we are challenged to live out the truth of who God is and who we are in him. We sometimes do a great job of responding to the work of the Spirit, but other times it seems as if we are the same as we always have been. Even to those closest to us it may look in some ways as if nothing has changed, while in others, we are not the same at all.
This is the work of the Spirit. He seems to have his own agenda as he goes to work in our lives. And the more I learn from God’s Word, the more I see it’s a whole lot more about interacting with our Abba and Jesus on the journey than it is about reaching some impossible ideal in this life. There is a life for us, eternal life, which involves an ongoing conversation and interaction as we go through our everyday circumstances. We learn to trust and we grow in faith as we walk with God in the Spirit.
As people of faith, we have the opportunity to share our relational journey with others. We can share with them how we struggle, what we have learned, and how we have encountered the living God in our life situations and difficulties. We can learn things about ourselves and God on this journey, and then share what we have learned with the significant people in our lives. And we can include them in our journey with the Triune God through prayer for them and with them.
At different times and at the perfect moment, God puts people in our lives with whom he wants us to share our journey of faith. He creates opportunities for us to share with these people what we have learned about Abba, Jesus, and the Spirit, and what we have learned about ourselves. He puts us in situations where the only answer we can give to another person is Jesus Christ, and so we respond to this reality by praying in his name for the blessing of God upon this person in the midst of their troubles or their joy.
And so we find ourselves interconnected in relationships of compassion, grace, and love. We grow close to each other, and our differences in personalities and preferences come into play, causing us to have to wrestle with and work them out with one another. What we are doing is growing up in Christ—growing up into the type of persons who can and will live together in eternity with one another in a oneness in which each is able to be distinctly themselves, and yet in which each is found to be equal in person and being with the others. This is a true reflection of the being of the God who is Abba, Jesus, and Holy Spirit.
Yes, this life is but the beginning of a relational journey which will last for all eternity. If we insist on living independently of others, or on preying on others, or on creating division and suffering in our relationships, we will find ourselves isolated, alone, and uncomfortable in a place where God’s goodness, love and grace reign. Missing those material goods and temporal values we clung to in this life, we will feel lost and devastated—something God never meant for us to have to experience.
It’s not easy to open ourselves up to God or others, but it’s what we were created to be—relational beings. When we make room for God and others in our lives, and we acknowledge our utter dependence upon God in each moment, living in the truth of who we are in Christ, we will find ourselves not only filled with God’s peace and joy, but also held by God in the midst of the struggles and griefs of this life. And we will want to tell others about what God has done and is doing in our lives.
This is the life God created for us in Christ and is calling us to share in. This is the eternal life which is ours and we can participate in even now when we turn to Jesus Christ. My prayer is that each of us will begin to see more clearly Abba’s face in the face of his Son Jesus by his Spirit, and that our hearts and lives will be transformed in the process. There is such joy, peace, and personal blessing available to each of us, and God wants us to experience them both now and forever, and so do I.
Thank you, Abba. You are always at work revealing yourself to each of us in your Son and by your Spirit. Thank you for transforming our hearts by faith as we turn to Jesus and surrender to your ways of living and being. May you finish what you have begun in us so we may spend both now and eternity growing in our relationship with you and all those you place in our lives, through Jesus our Lord, 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.” (Revelation 21:3-4 NASB)
Plank Pulling
By Linda Rex
Do you ever have one of those days when you don’t realize the plank in your eye is getting so big you are no longer seeing what’s right in front of you? Worst of all is when suddenly the plank is pulled out and the light of the truth about your own brokenness is so strong you are overwhelmed by it.
I had this experience the other day when talking with a group of friends. We were and are concerned about someone very dear to us who is doing something self-destructive and unhealthy. My heart was breaking about this, so I mentioned my real concern about her indifference to the harm she was doing to her own body. As I said this I reached across the table for my fifth handful of chocolate-peanut candies.
Later, in the quiet of my own home, I was praying about these concerns for this person and sharing my thoughts with Abba. I quite clearly saw that picture in my mind’s eye, of me reaching for another handful of goodies. God’s love for me understood my concerns for someone else, but would not let me off the hook about the harm I was doing to myself. A taste here and there is fine—but this was more than I probably should have been eating at the time.
Here’s the point: whatever harm I am doing to myself is no different than the harm someone else is doing to themselves. Yes, I need to love them enough to not enable them to continue in self-destructive behavior. But I also need to love Abba and the others in my life as well as myself enough to not continue in my own self-destructive behavior. It goes both ways.
God often brings us to these places, if we are willing, where we are faced with the reality of how our ways of living do not reflect the truth of who we are in Christ. The apostle James says it’s like looking at ourselves in a mirror:
“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:23–25 NASB)
This perfect law of liberty—our true freedom in Christ to love God and love one another—is written in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is Jesus Christ living his life in us by the Spirit who moves us to be the doers of this law of liberty. God pours his love into our hearts and we find ourselves loving others in ways we never could or would before.
Recognizing the indwelling presence of God in our hearts gives us hope. When we are burdened by our failures to love and receive love, we are comforted by God’s grace and compassion.
We are helped in this redemptive process by healthy relationships which are full of grace and understanding. Often in order to forgive ourselves or receive God’s forgiveness, we need to experience abundant grace and mercy from those around us.
One of the biggest struggles some of us may have is with receiving love and care from others which points out our need to grow in Christlikeness. On the one hand, we may like people taking care of us, but on the other, we don’t want them challenging us to change. We may want them to do good things for us, but we don’t like them asking us to assume responsibility for what is ours to do.
This is where the redemptive grace of God becomes a cause of offense to us rather than the sweet-smelling aroma of God’s blessing and favor. Over and over in our lives God draws near to us through people and circumstances, showing us the truth of who we are in him. The miracle of grace in the life, death, resurrection of God’s Son causes us to see our failures to love and receive love.
The gift of forgiveness in Christ Jesus says to each of us, whether we like it or not—you and I are in great need of forgiveness. But God doesn’t just leave us in that place of need. The realization of our need for forgiveness creates space in our hearts and lives for him to enter in and begin his transformation process. In opening ourselves up to receive God’s grace, we participate with Christ in the redemptive process.
One of the blessings poured out on us in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit is the realization we are Abba’s beloved child in Christ Jesus. The Spirit enables us to experience the living presence of Christ and Abba in us, and he is at work transforming our hearts by faith. We see the evidence of God’s indwelling presence by the way we love God and love others as ourselves. Over time it becomes obvious to us and to others we reflect the nature of the living Lord.
As the Spirit works, he grows us more and more into the image of Christ. This means he brings us to deeper and deeper levels of self-awareness as well as to a greater awareness of the real Being God himself. Our relationship with God develops over time, and as it grows, we are brought into a greater realization of the size of the planks in our own eyes as well as a greater compassion and concern for the well-being of others.
Drawing nearer to God means we draw nearer to others, but it also may mean we come to see ourselves and God in new ways. The Spirit gives us greater insight into the deepest parts of our person, and there are times when we find we must once again repent, or turn back to Christ, and trust him to heal and restore us. Repentance and faith are an ongoing part of our life-long journey with Christ. As we continue to participate with Christ in our salvation through repentance and faith, he by the Spirit will continually bring us into a deeper, more authentic relationship with God and others.
Dear Abba, thank you for your faithful love. Thank you for freeing us to love you and love others through your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for the gift of your Spirit who draws us deeper and deeper into intimate relationship with you. Grant us the heart and mind to turn to Christ and respond moment by moment to your Spirit’s work, so we are not offended by grace, but rather are transformed, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test? But I trust that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.” 2 Corinthians 13:5–10 NASB
Our Unifying Distinctions
By Linda Rex
Lately at Good News Fellowship we have been talking about things we believe about God which are not according to the truth revealed to us in the Person and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the lies which seems to raise its ugly head from one generation to another is the belief we are, in our uniqueness as a particular color, race or ethnicity, God’s chosen people. This lie puts us in direct opposition to those which are “not like us”, and creates division and even hostility between us.
What we don’t seem to realize is God never meant our differences to divide us, but rather to bind us closer together. What makes us distinctly unique is meant to be an important part of a complete whole which celebrates the wonder and glory of our divine God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God himself in his Being teaches us it is our uniqueness which binds us together. It is never meant to divide us. God as Father, Son, and Spirit has distinctions but these distinctions in God’s Being do not cause division. Rather they describe the interrelations in God’s Being. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father. Rather the Father is the Father of the Son—this is their oneness in the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father, nor is he the Son, but he is the One who is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.
I remember hearing and being taught as a child the belief I as someone of light complexion was part of a special group of people chosen by God, and those of darker hue were somehow part of the human race who were cursed with Cain. This teaching created a sense of cognitive dissonance in me because I had friends in school of much darker hue than me, and they did not seem to be any different than me. How is it they could be less than or inferior to me when they were actually the same as me?
Since that time God has taken me on a journey of learning and healing in which I have come to have warm and meaningful relationships with people of many different races and ethnicities. I have come to see the truth—we are all one body made up of different members. We each have a role to play in the common humanity of God’s creation.
Indeed, I believe the apostle Paul hit on something really important when he began to talk about the different parts of the body within the body of Christ. I believe this concept extends beyond the walls of the church. Our common humanity is made up of all different sorts of people, and none of us really looks exactly the same, though some of us may look similar to one another.
This morning it occurred to me again that if there were no such thing as brain cells, how would any of us think? If there were no nerve cells, how would our brains communicate with our bodies? If there were no skin cells, how would our muscles and organs stay where they belong, protected and held in place? These cells are each unique to one another, and even have variances in between them, but each is necessary to the whole—the body would not function properly if any of them were missing or were not properly fulfilling their function.
There is a reason we are the way we are. There is a beauty in the human race which is expressed in all its different hues and distinctions. These differences were meant to create joy and celebration as we share them with one another. Instead, we allow them to create fear, hate, and hostility against one another. These distinctions were meant to create a greater, more blessed whole, but we have allowed them to divide us and to cause us to destroy one another.
We forget or ignore the reality God’s Son, who was completely other than us, took on our humanity—joined himself to us permanently—so we could share in his Being. Jesus Christ became sin for us so we could become the righteousness of God in him. We share in Christ’s being because he took that very thing which has divided us and destroyed our relationship and used it to bind us to himself with cords of love.
God was not willing to be God without us. He did not allow whatever differences between us and him—which are vast and unmeasurable—to cause us to be permanently separated from him. He did not consider himself to be above us, but rather, he humbled himself, setting aside the privileges of his divinity to join us in our broken humanity (Phil. 2:5-11). He humbled himself, even to the point of allowing us to crucify him. What we did to try and permanently separate ourselves from God he used to bind us to himself forever. Such an amazing love!
In binding us all to himself with cords of love in Jesus Christ, God also bound us to one another. We all share in the common humanity of Jesus Christ and there are no longer any divisions between us. We are all one in Christ Jesus. Whatever we may artificially place between us is now caught up in Christ’s humanity and reconciled with God, and we in Christ are all reconciled with one another. There may be distinctions, but in Christ we are all one.
God is calling to each of us to respond to his Spirit as he works to bring this oneness to full expression in our individual and common humanity. The Spirit calls to you and to me to not only respond to our reconciliation to God, but also to our reconciliation to one another in Christ. There are to be no divisions between us. Whatever distinctions may exist are meant to be a cause for giving praise, glory and honor to God for his wisdom and glory, not a cause for fear, hate, and hostility between us.
May we turn from, or repent of, our human proclivity for racial and ethnic superiority and inferiority, and stop yielding to the evil one’s efforts to divide us and so to destroy us. Let us, rather, build one another up in love. Let us look for reasons to share and celebrate our differences and distinctions, and to make them ways in which we can come together to create a stronger, whole humanity.
Instead of allowing our distinctions and differences to cause fear, distrust, hate, and hostility, may we actively work to make them the very thing which binds us to one another. Sometimes this may require the same path Jesus trod—through death and resurrection—but the result will be something we will not experience otherwise: a taste of the kingdom of God here on earth as a reflection of the love which exists in our Triune God as Father, Son, and Spirit in heaven.
Dear Abba, forgive us for all the ways we create division and discord in our world. Forgive us for the ways we demean one another, and the arrogant and prideful ways we have of living and being. Grant us the humility and dignity of our true humanity in Christ Jesus. May we, from this day forward, always treat others with the same respect, kindness, and graciousness with which you have treated us, through Jesus our Lord, and by your Spirit. Amen.
“But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body.” 1 Corinthians 12:18–20 NASB
Celebrating God’s Glory and Power
By Linda Rex
This week as my daughter and I were experiencing the unique dimming and darkness of the total eclipse, I could not help but express how cool God is. An eclipse is one way in which the sun, moon, and stars participate in bearing witness to the glory of God—this God who set planets and heavenly bodies into motion and who holds them in their particular relationship with one another.
And God made it so we each could have this extraordinary experience of a total eclipse in which we might see our smallness in comparison with the magnitude of the cosmos in which we live. It is a blessing, though, we live in a generation which isn’t intimidated and frightened by eclipses. Not too many centuries ago this type of event would have been accompanied by great fear and distress.
I thought it was wonderful how this day actually became a holiday of sorts in America. I know it might have made us look a bit ridiculous to other nations, but to celebrate the wonders of the heavens is not in itself a bad thing. It actually is a way in which can we point out the goodness, power, and glory of our Creator and Sustainer to one another.
Unfortunately, I heard some say this eclipse would be signaling God’s judgment on America because of the error of her ways. Why create fear in the minds and hearts of people over something which is meant to point us to the power and glory of our amazing God—something in which we can celebrate his majesty, glory, and power, and his ability to do all things, including saving the human race?
Now I agree—America and her people have some very serious errors going on right now. And the consequences of those errors are pretty profound. Many unwilling souls are experiencing loss, torment, suffering, and even death because of the errors of our ways. And I say our—we are all participants in these evils to some extent.
I believe what we are experiencing as a result of our ways of living is a significant judgment in and of itself. Living in a certain manner has unhealthy and unpleasant consequences—it’s just the truth about living life apart from the reality of our created and redeemed being as image-bearers of the Triune God. We create our own living “hells” when we seek our existence apart from our true humanity in Christ.
And apart from the unifying power and presence of the Spirit of love and grace, we find ourselves divided and at war with one another. Away from the Spirit of humility, service and compassion of the living Lord, we become insensitive and indifferent to the suffering and grief of those around us. When we focus merely on good and evil, we cease to focus on life—the true life which is found in real relationship, in knowing and being known intimately by the God who created both us and the amazing cosmos in which we exist.
God’s purpose isn’t to condemn us. In fact, Jesus himself said:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17 NIV)
God was most concerned with bringing us up into communion with himself in Christ, not with condemning or judging us. God in Christ saved us from evil and the evil one by becoming sin for us—taking on any judgment or condemnation we deserve upon himself.
God in Christ judged all of humanity worthy of eternal life—of grace and forgiveness—of spending eternity within the Father, Son, and Spirit relation. God determined not to be God without us.
However, we as human beings are really good at judging ourselves and judging one another. And we actually condemn ourselves as not worthy of God’s love and grace. We reject Jesus Christ, the One who stands in our place and on our behalf. We believe more in ourselves and our way of living—making our own choices, following our own agenda—than we do the One who created everything and who sustains it by the Word of his power. Here’s how Jesus put it:
“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:18–21 NIV)
I don’t believe we as Christians need to go around condemning anyone. Yes, we can be discerning. We can tell the truth about what is being said and done which does not align with who we are as God’s children and his image-bearers in this world. We can work to bring about healing, change, and renewal so all people may live together in the unity we have in Christ.
But only God can change a person’s mind and heart, and bring them to faith. Only God can enable someone to believe the truth about who God is and who they are, and what Christ did, is doing, and will do to save them. Only God can change a person’s mind and heart in such a way their actions become different. Only God can truly heal relationships in such a way people live joyfully and at peace with one another.
And God always honors our right to choose—our freedom to say “no” to him and to reject him, and thus experience the consequences of living life in the shadows. Even though the Light has come, people do choose to turn away from the Light and live in the shadows. We can show them they need only to turn back to the Light into face-to-face relationship with the God who made them and redeemed them. But we must realize, God has granted each of us the freedom to say “no” to him.
In this way—by saying “no” to God—we pass judgment upon ourselves. God does not condemn us—we condemn ourselves as unworthy of the love and grace God has already poured out and made available to each and every human being who has ever existed. And this is what breaks my heart.
But thankfully, God is not willing that any person perish apart from his grace and mercy. And so he is patiently at work in each and every human’s life to bring them to faith—into trusting him rather than themselves for salvation—into finding their life in Jesus Christ rather than in the temporary things of this world which will one day be burned away and replaced by a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness (right relationship with God and humanity) dwells.
And I, as well as others, am able to participate with God in this ministry by sharing his life and love with each and every person I meet. This is my small way of participating, along with the amazing cosmos, in bearing witness to the glory of God.
Abba, Jesus, Holy Spirit, thank you for your amazing creation which testifies to your glory and power. You have done and will do awesome things as you work to redeem, restore, and renew all you have created from nothing. We trust you to finish your work, to bring to pass a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Grant, please, that we may participate fully with you in this new life you created for us in Christ and are creating for us and in us by your Holy Spirit. In your Name and by your power and for your glory. Amen.
“For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” 1 Peter 3:18 NIV
Our Life in the Trinity 