I Would Spare You Regret

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I know I've written about this sort of thing before, but it's been a few years, and I need the review myself.

I would spare you my regrets.

My greatest regrets have come from the times when I've traded away love, or joy, or obedience, or humility, or hope, or trust.  And what have I usually traded them for?

Control.  The power to make something unpleasant stop, or to make something pleasant start.  

But as hard as it is for us to believe in the midst of painful, scary, or frustrating situations, the fact is that the fruits and gifts of the Spirit are worth infinitely more than control (or the illusion of control).

Love, obedience, joy and all the rest... these were purchased for us at the cost of the unimaginable agonies of Calvary. What will you and I trade those things for? How cheaply will you and I sell them off today... maybe even this hour?

God forbid!

Whenever you are reading this, please stop and pray.  Thank the Lord for His peace, love, hope, joy, and all the rest.  And prayerfully determine, by His grace, that in this hour you will not trade away so cheaply what He purchased with His blood.  Purpose not to attempt this in your own strength (that's impossible), but to be mindful of what's at stake, and to prayerfully cling to Him in whatever the hour may bring.

And then, the next hour, do it again by His grace.

The following suggestion will not apply to everyone. But in my own case I've found it helpful to install an app* on my phone that makes a little noise at the top of every hour. (I have it set not to disturb me during sleeping hours.) I use that little noise as a reminder to thank the Lord for the previous hour, and to confess any sins committed. I acknowledge His lordship over the coming hour, and my responsibility to honor and obey Him in it.  And so, when I fall into bed at the end of the day, I don't find myself struggling to orient my heart to Him, as I would if I'd ignored Him all day in favor of pursuing my own agendas.

And I come to Him without regrets.

I emphatically do NOT recommend such hourly reminders for anyone who would find them unpleasant. No one likes to be nagged. But if such a reminder would be a pleasure and a help to your heart, as it is to mine, then go for it!

But whatever you do, don't trade away priceless gifts for things which will only leave you sorry.

*There are many such apps available.  This happens to be the one I use.

I want to do chronic pain right this time

"The man with the burden", illustration from John Bunyan's dream story (based on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress) (p. 18) abridged by James Baldwin (1841-1925) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't want to do chronic pain at all. But since it looks like that's God's will for my life at this time, I don't want to mess it up. I don't want to miss the blessing God has in mind for me in it.

 I've failed to seek His best in my pain plenty of times.  My first battle with chronic pain began when I was eight years old , when spinal deformity began grinding my vertebrae down into the wedge shapes that would result eventually in permanent kyphosis. You can read more about the story here if you like.

 Pain has been a pretty constant companion ever since then, some times worse than others.  And so I learned to study, knit, crochet, and write to my heart's content...sedentary activities which I thoroughly loved and which became my focus.

Activities that caused more pain...or that I feared might cause more pain, became anathema.

In the past several years, thanks to medical interventions of various types for various problems, the pain had become a lot less … until peripheral neuropathy entered the scene. My search for the right medicine continues, as the pain invades more and more of my life.

 But I don't want this to be a depressing article, nor should it be.  You see, I've been reading Jerry Sittser's helpful book, "When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayers." In it I found this mind-blowing, paradigm-shifting quote:

"If we pray for healing, it will be to render better service to God. But if we continue to be sick, we will strive to honor God all the same, 'whether we live or die,' as the apostle Paul put it.  If we pray for a job, it will be to use our position and resources to build his kingdom and not our own. If we can’t find a job, we will use our time and struggles to glorify God. We will put God first in everything."

 That quote stopped me in my tracks. When I pray for healing, is it so that I can render better service to God? I have to admit, it's not. I pray for healing so that I can be free from pain, for no other reason than that I don't like pain. And to be honest, when I imagine my desired pain-free life, it looks like a whole lot more self-indulgence.

After all, that's what my life tends to look like anyway. I have the luxury of being allowed to indulge my appetite for study and for craft work, at the expense of (at the very least) my homemaking.  And I'd like to continue to focus on those things without pain, thank you Lord.

But... "If we pray for healing, it will be to render better service to God."

Last night I bowed out of doing AWANA because my feet and legs hurt so badly.  But I couldn't help wondering, shouldn't I have tried?  What if I had gone and served, despite my pain?  I can think of a limited number of possible outcomes:

• The pain might have increased until it was unbearable, and I might have had to give up and go home.  But I would have known that I had done my best. And, at least for a time, God and others would have been lovingly served.
• The pain might have been lessened or even removed by an act of God's grace, and I would have had a wonderful testimony of His mercy.  And both God and others would have been lovingly served.
• The pain might have stayed the same, or even gotten worse, but I might have felt God strengthening me to endure it, and I would have had joy in that gift of grace.  And yes, God and others would have been lovingly served.

Now don't worry...it's not my intent to say that no one should ever bow out of things because of pain.  Sometimes there's really no choice.  Nor do I mean to imply that God is calloused to our pain, and frowningly expects us to "buck up."  Of course our tender, loving Father cares!

But what if, in His great mercy and wisdom, He has decreed our "thorn in the flesh" to keep us humbly dependent on Him while we, by His grace, pursue Kingdom goals?  What if the "Good works which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph 2:10) include works done in pain?

What if God sees that the rewards, joys, and glories that await us in heaven are far more worthy of our pursuit than anything we try to acquire for our own fading, earthly kingdoms? 

The Apostle Paul certainly believed that!

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)

I know myself, and how I default to comfort, to ease, to pursuing my own interests in my own tiny, self-indulgent world.  Frankly, if I'm not careful, I can easily turn even "serving others" into a self-indulgent pursuit of pharisaical notches in my spiritual belt, rather than as the joyful privilege it truly is. And as soon as serving becomes inconvenient or painful, comfort takes precedence with me, almost every time . 

As a point of doctrine, I believe that the rewards of heaven are infinitely worth whatever we suffer on this earth. But when I take a painfully honest look at how I live, I am forced to conclude that that belief hasn't infiltrated my life. 

Can you relate?  God help us!

 The only way out is to be changed by the Spirit of God into people who truly seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness...and to do that for His sake, not for our own religious pride.  When His Kingdom and righteousness are our true goal and focus, we can honestly pray for healing in order to render better service to God and others … and we can more often find the strength to serve even when the pain persists.

 If you're in the same boat with me, please join me in prayer.  (And yes, this prayer DOES scare me to death...)

 Father, I repent of holding my own comfort up as the ultimate good in my life. Help me to believe all the way to my fingertips, and to the ends of my burning toes, that serving You and others in love is a far greater joy and privilege than the comforts I so doggedly seek.  Help me to have the courage to step out in faith and do as much as You enable me to do; by Your grace rather than by my grit, with joy rather than complaint, and with love rather than a martyr complex. Make me more like Jesus! In Jesus name, amen.

P.S.  Another excellent book that I can't recommend highly enough is Joni Eareckson Tada's "A Place of Healing."  Get it and soak in it if you can!

Love Poured Out (A bit of free verse)

Lord, my soul brims.
Your Word, Your beautiful Self-portrait
Ripples in my heart,
Makes it tremble with love for You.

Fullness overflows.
My words cascade.
Though they can't express the loveliness I see,
Nor vibrate in perfect sympathy with my heart's strings
As You draw out their music.

You accept my humble gift with humbler joy.
You smile.
You love.

Should I write my heart here,
Where none but a handful will ever read it?

Like Mary, I will break my alabaster box,
I will pour out my fragrance of love
Though only a few around Your table will breathe their aroma,
And some may not approve.

Judas thought the anointing wasteful,
Too much for Your poor body.
I sorrow that it's not enough
For Him who reigns in Glory.

You accept my humble gift with humbler joy.
You smile.
You love.

I have no eyes for those who frown.
But I feel the warmth of tearful smiles
From those who've also given You
Their paltry best
And felt Your blessing on it.

Our Bridegroom,
We rejoice to have no further need
To anoint You for Your burial.
With great anticipation we pour our hearts out to You
For our wedding day.

Prayers For Daydreamers (And Other Mental Escapists)

Photo by Vera Kratochvil        

I confess, I'm a daydreamer.

Okay, to be more honest, I'm an extreme daydreamer.  Or perhaps "pathological" would be a more honest word.

Perhaps you don't daydream...but you DO fill up your mind with other people's imaginations in the form of novels, TV shows, and movies.  Or perhaps you feast your mind on endless video games.  Whatever your mental escape may be, it's probably fine in small doses.

The problem with me was, daydreaming became a drug.  It became Escape.  I never had to "be there" mentally, even if I was there physically.

Do you have a problem with mental escapism?  Perhaps, like me, one of the reasons you find it easy to slip into "escape mode" is that it's hard to see what's wrong with it.  If that describes you, and you really don't feel like you're missing out on anything by excessive escaping, you'll definitely want to prayerfully consider the requests I've written below.

Or, perhaps your form(s) of escapism have become an addiction...as I'm ashamed to admit they have with me. Especially my imagination; my skill at weaving compelling dramas in my head.  It's so much a part of me that I hardly feel like it's optional.  The stories are always there, always waiting, always beckoning, always entertaining, always seeming to fulfill a need.

In fact, our mental escapes are far more responsive than God is.  We've got to wait on the Lord, but entertaining screens are never far away.  We never have to wait for our imagination either.  And how do you walk away from a drug that literally resides inside your head?  There's no passing by the fantasy counter, the way people can choose to pass by the cigarette counter.

But after a while, as Christians, we have to come to terms with the fact that we love and trust our oh-so-available escapes more than we love and trust the God we can't control.

Then what do we do?

Scripture tells us that conquering bad habits by mere force of will doesn't make us righteous before God.  That's the Pharisaical approach, and it only trades the original sin for the greater sin of religious pride.

Romans 8 tells us that we must put sinful deeds to death "by the Spirit."

And how does the Spirit work?  He works by drawing us to read the Scriptures, illuminating it to our minds, helping us love and revere God as revealed in His Word (and to love His word for revealing Him to us), recalling the truth to our minds (especially if we memorized it), teaching us to love what God loves and hate what God hates, and changing our hearts to want to obey Him.  In this way, He turns our hearts onto the right paths.

So I decided to attack the problem of excessive daydreaming with some specifically targeted prayers, ones which help me aim for ways to pursue a joy in Christ that's better than mental escapism.  And I thought I'd share them with you, in case I'm not the only one with this problem.  So without further ado, here are:

Prayers for Daydreamers
(and other mental escapists)

1. Father, instead of daydreaming/mentally escaping today, may I love the Lord my God with all my mind.  If love is spelled "T-I-M-E," then my mind is loving its constant escapes more than I love You.  Help my mind to be set on You and seeking you more and more of the time.

2. Instead of daydreaming/mentally escaping, by Your grace may I obey the command to "Love my neighbor as myself."  Because the fact is, I can't recognize my neighbor's needs or prioritize them in my life if I'm wrapped up in my fantasy world. 

3. Help me to "Walk as as child of light, trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord" (Eph 5:8-10).  I can't be constantly trying to discern what is pleasing to the Lord in my real circumstances if I'm daydreaming about being in different ones.

4.  Help to obey Your command that says, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men."  Forgive me, Lord, that I used to think this meant "Try not to mind the work by distracting myself with my imagination."  After all, what's heartier than my imagination?  But no, it means putting my heart into the work itself in order to lovingly serve others and willingly obey You in the situation You've actually created for me.  It means "redeeming the time," in my real world.

5.  Spirit, please help me to "In everything give thanks."   Daydreaming prevents me from noticing things to be thankful for, or from even committing to noticing them.

6. Help me to remember that I can't "Behold the Lord and be changed into His image, from one degree of glory to another" (2 Co 3:18) if I'm constantly beholding the contents of my imagination instead.

7.  Help me, Spirit, to obey the command: "You shall meditate on God's Word day and night, that you may be careful to do it."  Ignoring Your Word is the same as disdaining Your commands, Your promises, and Your blessings.  It means not caring whether I obey You or not.

8. Help me to "Pray without ceasing."  I clearly can't do that while mentally escaping into fantasy or video games.

9. Help me to receive the blessings of Truth, such as sanctification (John 17:17) and freedom (John 8:32).  All commands, promises, and blessings related to Truth are blocked by an insistence on living with the mind marinating in what is not true. The blessings of Truth can only be applied to my actual reality, even in all its periodic ugliness.

10. Help me to cooperate with You as You prepare my heart to "Go to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13)  In our daydreams we feed our lust for glory, we dream of human accolades, we focus on mastery rather than dependence, and we further unfit our hearts for bearing His reproach.

Can you see how different this is from "white-knuckle fighting" with our sin?  By the Spirit we seek to love God more, to find our joy in God instead of in sin.  He alone makes that possible, because we can't change our hearts ourselves.  But we can and must choose to seek Him, to "fight the good fight" against our tendency to believe the promises of sin more than the promises of God.  We can and must pray and wrestle and repent in the fight for the greatest joy there is...the joy of believing and knowing Him.

Loving Religious Freedom, But Not Christ

English: Ruins of Laodicea engraving by William Miller after T Allom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To what shall I liken this generation, this Laodicea?

You are like men who fight for freedoms you do not care to enjoy.

When you pull your noses out of entertainment long enough to notice that your government-given rights are threatened, you get mad. You get really mad.

NOBODY STEPS ON MY RIGHTS!

You fire off angry words at whoever you think needs to be reminded of your rights.  

And then you put your face back in your screens and ignore God,
because you never really wanted God.

You just wanted your rights.

You want your pride.  You want the right to choose God if you ever get around to it.

But you never get around to it.

There's just so much else that's more important.

You know... the next level on that video game,
the next episode of that show,
that next hand of solitaire,
the next novel,
the next round of shopping for that next cute thing or cool gadget to stuff in your house.

Yes, you want the right to God,
but you don't want God.

Jesus died to save you from sin.
You designate a huge portion of your budgets to be entertained by sin. 

Jesus died to give you the gift of enjoying God forever, instead of suffering the eternal punishment your sins deserve.
You feel you're doing God a favor by showing up at church on Sundays... because you still can do it without fear... but He's too boring, intrusive, demanding, and irrelevant for the rest of your week.

Jesus died to give you the power to become sons of God... to live under the authority of your Heavenly Father, to die to this world, to take up your cross and follow Him into glory!
You only want the right to show up at a building on Sunday without fear, and the right to keep living just like the world for the rest of the week.

"What?" you gasp. "I'm not just like the world! I don't do this sin, and I don't do that sin."
But you "don't do these things" because it pleases your religious pride not to do them, and because you believe you can throw these "proofs" in God's face to defend your utter self-absorption and contempt for Him.

Don't kid yourself. For you, persecution for Christ's sake is a moot point. The government will never take away your right to freely worship as you see fit. They'll only take away your right to freely worship Christ.

Even if you do go to prison fighting for your right to a God you don't want, and even if you give up your body to be burned for your rights, but have not love for Christ, you gain nothing.

God is not your God. And the freedoms your pride defends will come back to haunt you on that Day, because when you had the freedom, you did not use it to come to Him.

Repent and believe the Gospel. Jesus died to save you from godlessness and bring you to God.  So come to Him that He might save you!

But oh, tender words for those of you who love and trust Jesus!  Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom, a Kingdom which cannot be shaken, a salvation stored up in Heaven for you, ready to be revealed in the Last Day. If your government throws you in prison, you will not lose Him. They can NOT take you and Christ away from each other! You have nothing to fear. When (not "if") you walk through the fire, He will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.

The government did not give you this right. GOD DID.  And they can never take it away.

When God's Covenant Looks Like It Died

I'm on bedrest again. 3rd time in a decade.

Between a heart attack (2004), hysterectomy and repair of prolapses (2011), and now deteriorating disks pinching nerves and causing foot pain, my body has betrayed me often.  (Spinal surgery may be necessary. Prayers appreciated!)

I know I am a child of the Covenant of Grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I also know that this covenant has nothing to do with making my life a bed of roses.

Considering that this life is microscopic compared to eternity, I don't want my best life to be NOW!  So I have a lot of peace about this... certainly much more than I had in 2004 when I only had religion, and no relationship with Christ!

But still, it's easy for us to feel we can excuse a certain amount of spiritual wandering at times of hardship, isn't it?  God promises grace to endure, but I'd rather have escape than endurance, thank you. 

So the old familiar idol of escapism rears its many seductive heads, tempting me to forget my troubles... and to forget seeking to love God and my neighbor, too!  How easy to want everything to revolve around my quest for comfort!

Looking at Genesis today, I was struck by the bizarre-seeming covenant-cutting ritual in chapter 15. Could there be anything more foreign to modern Western eyes?

But as I think about it, I am even more struck by the image of Abram chasing away carrion birds which kept trying to pick apart the animal carcasses... those bloody, nasty carcasses which God had ordained to be signs of the covenant (Gen.15:11). 

Carrion birds are often used to represent satanic forces.  And don't the enemy's minions love to swoop down and tear up all visible evidences of God's promises to us?

How often do God's promises look like ugly, dead things to us? What beauty or hope did Abram have to look upon in those mutilated animal carcasses? And how relentless would those carrion birds have been! How frustrating and discouraging to have to keep chasing them, non stop, for who knows how long!

I would have been tempted to walk away, but Abram stayed and chased the birds away, over and over again.

If Abram had allowed the birds to pick apart the bodies, wouldn't the signs of the covenant have become hideous and loathsome in his eyes?

So, when he chased them away, he preserved the integrity of what he had to look at. 

Do I have carrion birds in my life? What do they look like?  I believe I know.  

Doubt, distraction, anger, self-rule, lusts of various kinds, discouragement, fear, irritability... these things don't merely indicate understandable human weakness. No, if unrepented of, they can distort my view of God and His covenant promises, until even the physical evidences of His truth can begin to seem like ugly, worthless corpses.  The carrion birds tear them apart.

But in Abram's story, even without carrion birds, the dead bodies would have become loathsome on their own, just through the process of decay while he waited for God. In the same way, the process of waiting for God makes the promises lose luster in our eyes, unless we continue to see them through the eyes of faith.

Lord, help us to recognize those carrion birds as they appear in our own lives, and help us to resist them tirelessly by Your Spirit (because we can never do it in our flesh).  Help us to remember that Your covenant promises are all about resurrection, so even when things seem dead, there's hope!

Help us to seek to love You with all our hearts and souls and minds, and with all our strength, no matter how long You see fit to delay, or how many carrion birds of temptation we have to fight off. In Jesus' name, amen!

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Photo by Loleia

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
                                                                     (Rom 5:1-5 ESV)

I hate to admit it, but to me the Scripture passage above always seemed to start at soaring heights, only to plop down with an ungraceful thud.

I would start out reading words that promised to make all of my life's sufferings worthwhile, promised to make sense of the pain.  Promised to make me dare to hope again...even though for many years I had hated hope with my whole being.

Yes, yes, that's what I want.  I need to know that this agony called life will be worth it all in the end!  So tell me...why won't hope put me to shame?  It always has, you know.  Hope strings you along and then drops you in the dust and grinds your face in the shards of your shattered dreams.  Hope is a cruel trickster, a sadistic torturer who preys on weaklings who are stupid enough to believe its lies.

So tell me...why doesn't hope put me to shame?  

"Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

*Thud.*

With apologies to Tina Turner, what's love got to do with it?  

Want to confuse an Olympic hopeful?  Tell him to keep sweating and agonizing because...what?  He'll get gold and glory?  No, he'll get God's love poured out in his heart.  He'll look at you like you're nuts.  Love is nice, but that's not what he's suffering for.

Romans 5:5 may be a nice sentiment, Lord, but love isn't what I'm suffering for.  You'll need to do better than that if you want to convince me to hope again.

Let those words simmer in your ears.  "Love isn't what I'm suffering for."

Are you sure?  Maybe it's not your goal for your suffering, but could it be His goal for your suffering?

Love is what Jesus suffered for.  True, He suffered for sin...ours, not His.  But He didn't have to do that.  He could have just annihilated us, or tossed us all into damnation without a backward glance.  It was His love for us that brought Him to Bethlehem, to the dusty streets of Israel, to Calvary, to the grave.

And that journey took Him back into glory, as the firstborn from the dead, followed by all those that He purchased for Himself with His own blood.

Either He was a fool, or love is worth suffering for.

Maybe...just maybe...love is the only thing worth suffering for.

As my prayer life has become increasingly focused on aligning my priorities with His, I'm finding this whole messy "love" business is becoming more central.  And because I'm such a self-centered person, love is something I mostly grieve because of its weakness or even absence in my life.  Only occasionally do I get to rejoice because of how strongly love has poured out of me.

Every sin you and I commit is, at the very least, a failure to love.  Unquestionably, sin is always a failure to love the Lord with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, which is the most important commandment.  And most sins also spring from our failure to love our neighbor as ourselves, which Jesus says is the second most important thing we should do.  And each of these failures harms us and harms those around us.  Sometimes the wounds are deep and lasting.

The more I kneel to pray God's priorities, and the more I see the wounds I cause when I choose my own priorities over God's, the more I find myself pleading for God to fill me with love for Himself and for others.

And suddenly Romans 5:1-5 begins to make sense.

"Hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." 

The words of encouragement won't make any sense until your priorities line up with His.  But when they do, you'll find the encouragement runs deep.  (See Ps 37:4 for another example of this truth...that promises depend on priorities.)

"Lord, I am choosing to hope in Your love for me, and in the outpouring of Your Spirit that will change my heart into a loving one, so that I will love both You and my neighbor as I should.  And I am trusting you that this growth in love will make all of life's sufferings worthwhile."

Selfish Religion Strikes Again

Photo by SheCat

It was one of those mornings when I just didn't feel "connected" to God.  Didn't feel like I had my act together, spiritually.

Uh oh.  Warning bells should be sounding already.

"Didn't have my act together spiritually?"  Who am I kidding?  Are there ever mornings when I DO have my act together spiritually?

Well, ok, maybe it was just a poor choice of words.

Or maybe it really should have clued me in.

The usual morning battle began with its typical frustrations, and I was struggling with my usual surges of frustrated anger.  And so the self-talk began.

"I've been reading all these wonderful grace-based parenting books, but this morning I just can't seem to access all the wonderful, inspired feelings those books gave me.  I don't want to browbeat this child.  I don't want to drive him further away from God.  I don't like how angry I feel.  I don't like the kind of parent I'm being..."

I...me..my...

We often think of Pharisaism as the desire to be one's own savior via one's own righteousness, and that's true.  But Pharisees take it even further.

Pharisees (like me much of the time) don't just want to be our own saviors.  We want to be our own creators.  We like a certain religious "look," and we will orchestrate our behavior to get the "look" that pleases us.

"I don't like the kind of parent I'm being.  I need to be different."

We are determined to create ourselves in the image of what we like about religion.  If we like lots of legalism, we'll make ourselves strict legalists.  If we've decided we like grace, then we'll make ourselves gracious.

Except, of course, that grace is something we can't create.  We can only receive it and pass it along.  And we cannot receive it if we're too busy trying to create it ourselves.

So there I stood, frustrated and angry, looking at my child with my physical eyes, but looking at me-me-me with the eyes of my heart.  My feelings were quickly teetering towards the old familiar desperation, because of yet one more self-deception that we Pharisees labor under.  We stagger, crushed under the lie that we are to be our children's saviors.  We have to create ourselves into the religious image we believe is best, so that we can save our children.

No wonder we get so ugly and hateful and mean, when we're carrying such a heavy burden that we were never designed to carry, one we know we can't bear.  One that is crushing the very breath out of us.

There's only one way out of this kind of tailspin.

It's called Love.

And love, my friends, does not focus on self.  Not even with the best of intentions.

Pharisaism says, "What kind of parent do I need to be?"  It feels either arrogance, anger, or a terrified squeezing in the chest.  Because it's all about me.

Love says, "What kind of love and grace does this child need?  Father, what would you like to give him?  Savior, show Yourself to him."  Love may ask the child, "What do you need?  How can I help you?  How can I serve you?"  (Notice the "I" isn't gone...it's just not central.  It's not creator, savior, or controller.)

Love lives in a wide place, where the air flows freely and breathing is easier.  It throws off the claustrophobic self-absorption of Pharisaism, and the weight that we cannot bear.

Pharisaism seeks iron-clad control.  Love seeks to give itself away and, in the process, it hopes to influence in healthy ways.

The difference is profound.

Oh, love still hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot. But it hurts in the right ways, ways that our Lord has promised to comfort. And because love knows that God stands supreme, that Christ has poured out His love in our hearts (both for our sake and for giving away to others), love can relax.  Love knows that it acts as a conduit rather than as a self-sufficient creator.

And love has the power to transform us in ways that are far deeper and more real than any of our attempts at self-creation.  Don't you think I was a different mother this morning, the moment I stopped critiquing my performance and started simply loving my child?  Of course I was...and yet that's not the best thing that happened this morning.

The best thing that happened was that my child and I experienced some of God's love and grace, in ways that honored the Lord.  My joy is not primarily that I became something I can feel good about, but that the Lord and my "neighbor" (in this case, my child) were loved as they should have been.  True, the "benefits to me" and the "benefits to others" may be two sides of the same coin, but if I focus on the "me" side, the love quickly disappears, and ugly things arise in short order.

It all boils down to this...are we trying to love primarily for our own sakes, or for others' sakes?  If it's primarily for our own sakes, it isn't really love at all, and those on the receiving end of our hypocrisy will see that fact with painful clarity.

A. W. Tozer said it well:

"While we are looking at God 

we do not see ourselves - 

blessed riddance!  

The man who has struggled to purify himself 

and has had nothing but repeated failures 

will experience real relief 

when he stops tinkering with his soul 

and looks away to the perfect One.  

While he looks at Christ, 

the very thing he has so long been trying to do 

will be be getting done within him."

Which is, in fact, what 2 Co. 3:18 is trying to teach us.  (If you're reading the blog in a feed reader, you might want to click through to the actual blog page, where Scripture references appear as live links so you can read them.)

Remember that Jesus said that all the law and the prophets can be summed up in the command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (see Matt 22:35-40).  And that kind of love is not something we can work up in our own strength, but as we walk with the Lord, we can rest assured that He will develop that love within us, so we need not be afraid to hope for it (see Rom 5:5).

Love the Lord, abide in His love, and love your neighbor.  As you do these things, the Lord will make you what He wants you to be.

How to Handle a Good Morning

Photo by Nelso47

Um...It was a good morning.

No, seriously, I mean it!  Things went smoothly.  No significant fights over getting ready, no hatred spewed, no ugliness at all.

If you don't know me and my life, that might not sound like such a big deal.  But if you know me, you know what a rare jewel a good school morning is.

I used to handle such things horribly, and even now I usually don't handle those jewels as well as I should, but I want today to be different.  I hope you'll come along as I work my way through this, and maybe you'll be blessed, too.

What's that I said?  I don't usually handle God's good gifts well?  Why would that be?

It's simple, really.  In the past (and to a lesser extent, even now), I have tended to receive good mornings (or any rare blessing) the way a pre-linguistic Helen Keller received things from her caregivers.

Snatch.  Gnaw.  Consume.  Figure out how to make sure you get more.  Try to get control over those who give it.  Hold it tightly.  Give no thought to humble gratitude...but be prepared to dish out severe punishment if more good stuff isn't immediately forthcoming.  This good thing is a little taste of life, and you need it...you need control over it...desperately.

Ironically, the snatching, grasping, desperately clawing recipient gets no real, lasting joy from the gift.  The most she can settle for is an uneasy sense of triumph with no assurance of future blessings at all.

Does any of this sound familiar?  I admit, my imagery was rather stark. No one who has seen "The Miracle Worker" can ever forget the intense, knock-down, drag-out fight scene between Helen and Anne Sullivan.  We don't want to see ourselves in Helen, and most likely we've never behaved exactly as she did (at least not since our tantruming toddler days). But look at my description again.  At its core, at least to some degree, does the above describe how you receive God's blessings?  No?  Walk a little further with me, and you may begin to recognize it a little better.  Even if, like me, the worst of these attitudes is behind you, you might still see hints of them trying to rise up again.  So please indulge the following question:

When you've received a rare blessing... something you desperately desire but have to do without most of the time... do you pray afterwards?  If so, how do you pray afterwards?

Perhaps you don't pray.  Why would that be?

•  Perhaps it's because you already got what you wanted, so what is there to pray about, right?  (Translation:  Prayer isn't about a loving relationship with God, it's about controlling God, getting what you want out of Him.  Therefore it's pointless to pray if you've got "it" already.  To go back to our example above, Helen has been handed enough cake to satisfy her sweet tooth, and once she's gobbled it, she's ready to go play.  The giver is forgotten until something else is needed.)  I've been guilty of this, for sure. 
• Or perhaps it's because you see God as an unpredictably explosive despot, who is best handled by tiptoeing around Him.  Like an abused child, you just want to make sure you keep under His radar, so that maybe He won't hurt you.  I used to see God that way.  It's far from the truth about Him, and I pray that He will lovingly remove such misconceptions from your heart if they're there.

Perhaps you pray, but with a heart that's in the wrong place.

• Perhaps you pray as if you're God's teacher, trying to use Behavior Modification techniques on Him.  "See now, God, how this went?  You finally got it right.  This is how it's supposed to go, and I expect it from now on."  You dish out what you call "praise" not from a humble heart of gratitude, but as an attempt to manipulate and control God.  You see Him as a praise-hungry, grasping soul Himself.  He needs strokes from you, and you need (whatever it is) from Him.  So you work out a trade.  There's nothing even approximating love or respect here.  I know, because I've been there.
• Perhaps you pray fearfully, as one who thinks the gift could be snatched away at any time.  Every "good morning" seems to you like a chance that things could go well from now on, and in fact, they should go well from now on...but God might just play the Grinch and take it all away.  I know this reality far too well.  Just over a week ago, I actually corresponded with a teacher who was gushing over how well things had gone in first period...and almost immediately after responding to that email, I got a call from another teacher telling me that my son had done the worst of all the awful things he's ever done in school.  Disciplinary actions would have to be stronger.  Details would have to go in his permanent record.  I would have to meet with deans and school psychologists yet again.  Medication consults would have to be scheduled.  The timing...so soon after a hopeful email that made my heart glad...it seemed cruel and capricious indeed.  If it had happened a few years ago, that's exactly how I would have seen it.  And I still find little hints of that attitude popping up now and then.

Can you see how such attitudes would completely ruin whatever we received?

So how should you and I handle God's good gifts?

• Recognize the Giver, and receive His gifts accordingly.
• He is our loving, perfect Heavenly Father who does all things well.  Everything He sends to His children is love.  Love Him in return!
• He is the Heavenly Gardener who sends both sunshine and rain, at the right times and the right quantities (even though they might not seem right to me at the time).  Trust Him.
• He's the Great Physician.  He sees how sin has broken us, and He knows how to set the bones so they'll grow straight and strong again.  If the setting process is painful, it's still done in love.  Submit to His care.

• Recognize the gift, and receive it accordingly.
• It is given as a secondary gift.  The primary gift that God gives is Himself.  He is the greatest good.  And He is always there for His children, even when His gifts are not obviously given. So receive each gift as a secondary thing.  Treasure it...but treasure Him more.
• It is given for a particular time.  It will probably not last forever, but it will last as long as God deems best. Do not fear that it will be taken away prematurely.  It may well be taken away before you'd like it to be, but His timing is perfect.  So enjoy the gift thoroughly, even as you hold it loosely.  
• It is an act of His love, not a test of His love.  The proof of His love came at Calvary, when He gave infinitely above and beyond all reasonable doubt of His love.  He gave His life to purchase eternity for you!  (Imagine if your own children doubted your love between every meal, viewed each mealtime as a test of your love, received each meal as proof.  Of course you would be terribly grieved by that kind of distrust.  And if your love should be obvious to your children, shouldn't God's love be obvious to His children? You can trust the love of the one who died for you (See Rom 8:32).

• Recognize the recipients of the gift.  Yes, I said recipients - plural.  Let's go back to my pleasant morning as an example.  It was a gift to me, of course, but it was also a gift to the child in question, his father, his siblings, his teachers, his classmates, and anyone else who could benefit from the good start we all enjoyed.  In fact, the recipients include YOU, the reader of this blog.  This entry wouldn't have happened today without the good morning that made me think these things through.  Only God is wise enough to weave together all of the threads of our lives in ways that make everything work out for the good of everyone who loves Him.  When you realize how many people are involved, it's easier to accept the fact that "The Good" is far more complex than you or I can comprehend.  Expand your view beyond yourself, and then trust God to make it all work out the way it should.

"Thank You, Lord, for this morning.  I know it came from Your loving hand, but I also know that the hard mornings also come from Your loving hand.  I trust You with all of it.  Thank You for the good that You plan to bring out of it all, not just for me, but for all those who are touched by our family, directly or indirectly.  I don't know if the phone is about to ring with bad news, or if things will seemingly "go wrong" in some other way...or if this wonderful peacefulness will last for a good long while.  Whatever you place in my hands, I willingly receive.  And whatever you take from my hands, I willingly relinquish.  In the Name of the One who died for me, Amen!"

If You're Only Going to Sing One Note, Make it the Right One!

It's not about "gay rights."

It's not about abortion.

It's not about religious liberty.

It's not about the Constitution.

Don't get me wrong.  All of those issues are very important, even extremely important.  But if we make them the focus, then we can lose the war even while winning battles.

So what is it about?

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

on earth as it is in Heaven.

Luke 6:10

He is patient with you,
not wanting anyone to perish,
but everyone to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9

That at the name of Jesus

every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth

and under the earth,

and every tongue confess 

that Jesus Christ is Lord

to the glory of God the father.

Php 2:10-11

Make no mistake about it, no matter how many arguments you can win, or how many people you can convince regarding hot-button topics, you will not lead a soul to Christ unless you take him or her to the heart of the matter.

And the heart of the matter is simply this:

Jesus Christ is Lord, and I am not. 

My sin separated me from God,

but Jesus died to save me from my sin,

bring me back to God,

and begin the lifelong process

of changing me into

the image of Christ,

and bringing me into

glad submission

to His will for my life.

All of humanity 

has the same problem

of alienation.

And all of humanity

is offered salvation

only through 

repentance and faith

in Christ.

If we seek to change people's minds about issues, and not change their mind about Christ, then we are not going to win any wars for the Kingdom.  Don't get me wrong...we may accomplish wonderful things that may matter for eternity.  Seeds may be planted that will bring someone to Christ later.  An unborn child may be saved and allowed to survive to birth, and may later find new birth.

I don't want to discourage anyone from pursuing Kingdom-related purposes regarding major issues, just because they're not able to witness to everyone they encounter.  But I do beg of you to remember what the biggest issue really is, and to prayerfully seek opportunities to reach people for Christ with the spoken Gospel wherever possible.

If people repent, confess Jesus Christ as Lord, and begin by His indwelling Spirit to bring all of their lives into glad submission to Him, the controversial issues will necessarily begin to look different to them.  When they see Him as Lord over everything...

• Their sexuality (how it was created, how it may be expressed)
• Their reproductive abilities
• Their obligations to their Creator
• Their obligations to their fellow man
• Their eating
• Their drinking
• Their playing
• Their working
• Everything else

...how could their lives not be changed?

Look at that list above.  Are you starting to squirm?  Am I stepping on toes?  I hope so, because mine are a bit sore.

If Christ's Lordship over ALL of life is really the issue, then we've got a lot more repenting and submitting to do, don't we?  We can't approach our neighbor with a haughty spirit when we look at that list.

And you can be sure, Jesus Christ does intend for His Lordship to extend over all of these intimate details of life, and more (1 Co 10:31, Col 3:17).

In my last entry, I pointed out that we often misinterpret what we see as "losing," even when it's not.  But is it possible that we've also misinterpreted "winning?"

Did we think we were winning when sexual perversion, pornography, etc were in the closet and we could ignore them?  Jesus didn't.  He looked at us ignoring our lost neighbors, and He grieved angrily over the fact that we were content to see neighbors go to hell as long as they kept their lifestyle out of our faces.  Maybe one reason He has allowed the homosexual agenda to gain such power, and to be so "in our face," is because we've been such losers.  We've failed to genuinely love.  

God forgive us!  Now we can see our neighbors more clearly. 

Help us to love them to You.

What about our lost "straight" neighbors?  Are we content with their lostness because their particular brand of sinfulness doesn't offend us as much?  Do we care for our neighbors with eternity always in view?  Do we see their sin as no better or worse than our own?

Will we consider the abortion battle "won" if we get Roe v Wade repealed?  It won't be won that way.  Even if we get the law changed, the battle is still lost in every heart that insists on abusing God's good gift of procreation.  It will also be lost as long as we love "winning the war" more than we love those who oppose us in it.

Will we kid ourselves that the battles are won "out there" if they haven't been won in our hearts?  What if the morality battles, the abortion battles, and the Constitutional battles INCLUDE the battle to love our enemies in the face of these issues?  

What do we expect to hear when we stand before the One who died for sinners?  "Congratulations, you hated all the right people?"  I think not.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  

If Christ is your greatest good, then Christ is your neighbors' greatest good, too.  Love Him, and love them.  Serve Him, and serve them.  Speak the truth about Him to them.  

Let me sing my one note again.  DON'T MAJOR on the other issues, because you will never save a soul by changing a behavior.  Lead people to Christ, and the behaviors will take care of themselves.

------------------------------------------------------------

Photo by Kristina R

Triumphing Over Evil

Yesterday's blog ended on the following note:

"To triumph over evil is NOT to whitewash it, whether in our own hearts or in society.  Triumph is NOT a victory of mere legislation, or social pressure, or convincing rhetoric.  Triumph is NOT "winning God's wars for Him" by using the weapons of evil.  Triumph is NOT stockpiling enough to hunker down while the world goes to Hell around us.  Triumphing is NOT out-snarling the snarlers, out-shouting the shouters, out-hating the haters.
How does the Church triumph over evil?"

What follows is my best answer to that question.

Mark this well...there is no corporate triumph of the Church without individual triumph of its members.  And there is no triumph over sin outside the church without triumph over sin within it.  And I don't mean a pseudo-triumphant, whitewashed, Pharisaical, siege-minded, self-righteous church.  May God forgive us for pursuing such ends.

I also don't define triumph as "getting those people to treat us right."  Nowhere in Scripture do the ancient martyrs receive censure for failing to change Nero's mind, or for failing to overthrow his government, or for failing to force society to its knees, or failing to stand up for their "Christian rights".  How did they triumph, and for what were they commended by God?

They overcame him

by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony;

they did not love their lives so much

as to shrink from death.

(Rev 12:11)  

Some were tortured, refusing to accept release,

so that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mocking and flogging,

and even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn in two,

they were killed with the sword.

They went about in skins of sheep and goats,

destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 

of whom the world was not worthy— 

wandering about in deserts and mountains,

and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, though commended through their faith,

did not receive what was promised...

Heb 11:35b-39

By every worldly measure, these people were abject failures.  And some "Prosperity Preachers" might even think of them as failures because they did not see all of God's promises fulfilled in their lifetimes, despite having given Him their all.

If you and I could see those martyrs now, oh the glory we would see in them...the reflected glory of The Crucified One whom they followed to the end!  The promises are theirs, most assuredly, for death was not even close to being the end for them.

Now, please don't take me for a melodramaticist.  I'm not saying that we'll be thrown to the lions any time soon...though anything is possible.  But that's not the point, is it?  The point is NOT what they do or don't do to us.  The point is, will we remain true to Christ, individually and corporately, whether we manage to see our culture redeemed in our lifetimes or not?

How do we know if we will or not?  How do we know if we have the strength to follow in the footsteps of those He commended in Scripture?

We can know by the orientation of our hearts, our loves, our commitments.  Love is the strongest driving force we have, is it not?  No matter what, we will live for what we love most.  And for whom does God bend all things so that they "work together for good"?  For those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28).

How can we know if we love God enough?

 For this is the love of God,

that we keep his commandments.

And his commandments are not burdensome.

1 John 5:3

If we hate God's commandments, and chafe under them, and keep them only to the extent that we believe we must in order to "get by," and consider them a burden, then we do not love God, because those commandments that we hate are the revelation of His character.

If we love God's commandments, and try to keep them (albeit managing only imperfectly and inconsistently), then we love Him, because the commandments that we love are perfectly consistent with His character.

And these things are true in times of ease as well as in the hard times.  Indeed, if we don't seek to submit to Christ now, when it's still relatively easy, then we have no assurance that we'll do so when things get worse.

And what are these commandments that we are to love and strive to keep under the New Covenant He established with His blood?

 A lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And he said to him,

“You shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it: 

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments

depend all the Law and the Prophets.” 

Matt 22:35-40 

If we love the Lord, and love our neighbors, and love our enemies, and are committed to growing in this love, then God's presence will be there for us to sustain us through whatever comes.  No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly (Ps. 84:11).

But if ugly situations drive us to hate our neighbors, to spurn Christ's command to love them, to mar His reflection with our snarling visages, to adopt an arrogant or cowardly "look out for Number One" mentality, then even if we die as martyrs, we gain nothing (1 Cor 13:3).

Also, if ugly situations can cause us to abandon the Truth and accept the lie in order to avoid conflict, then we are failing to love God, who is Truth.  And we are failing to love our neighbor, who needs to hear the Truth spoken in love (Eph 4:15), whether he wants to hear it or not!

How are you responding, right now, today, to the hatred and evil around you?  That will depend entirely on how you are responding to the hatred and evil within you.  And the same goes for me, both now and in the future.

If we are truly Christians, then we are banking everything on Christ's mercy and grace in shedding His own blood for us in the mightiest act of love and forgiveness ever conceived.  We are depending on His righteousness credited to our accounts through no merit of our own, and we are enormously grateful that He has placed His Spirit within us to open our sin-blinded eyes and lead us in paths of righteousness for His name's sake (Ps 23:3).  We are humbled that He would stoop to mold us into what He wants us to be.  We depend on Him to keep us, day-by-day, on the right path, because we know that we would stray if left to ourselves.

If we are counting on these things for our own sins, why would we dream of offering our neighbor anything less for his sins?  If we believe that our neighbor needs Christ, why would we be willing to act like the Devil toward him?

Since so many who hate us believe that they themselves occupy the moral high ground, why would we choose to confirm that belief by using their own sinful tactics against them?

I am quite certain that my words will not change the world.  They will not stem the tide of evil.  The time for rhetoric seems to be past.  Evil is on a rampage, not just in terms of any one side issue (such as "homosexual rights"), but in terms of THE issue (rebellion against God and rejection of Him as Lord).

By and large, the only way I expect to defeat evil is to be constantly repenting of it in my own life, and to be seeking to grow more in love toward God and my neighbor, speaking the truth in love so that his eyes might be opened towards Christ, and his heart might be changed.  And if, by God's grace, I do manage to grow in this way, I will count it as victory.  And if (Please, God!) the whole church grows in this way, I will rejoice with all my heart!

Nothing less will please the Lord.  And nothing less will offer any hope for my neighbor, my enemy, whom I am called to love.

Hating my enemy is a failure that will drag all of my other "successes" down with it.

Discovering New Enemies Lately?

I live in what is, for the most part, a very civilized country.  And I am blessed to live in a beautiful city, one that consistently hits the top of the "Best of the US" lists.  I admit that I'm spoiled.

But as someone once stated, "civilization" is a thin veneer, and under the right pressures, it can disappear instantly.  I'm not talking about the occasional madman, like the one who massacred moviegoers last week just an hour south of here.  I'm talking about "normal" people, and what they...what WE can become at a moment's notice.  And it's sobering.  Humbling.  Alarming.

We see it when people are trampled to death in a stampede to get the newest toy for the kids for Christmas.

We see it it in popular movements where tens of thousands gather to protest injustices (real or perceived) in self-righteous indignation, while treating their fellow man with utter contempt in the process.

We see it in dusty black-and-white photos in our history books, when ordinary people...former friends, neighbors, and co-workers of the dead... avert their eyes from the endless piles of corpses in the concentration camps and wonder, "How did I let this happen in my back yard?"

How indeed?

Until recently, this was an academic subject for me...but not any more.  I'm willing to bet that many Christians are feeling it hitting closer to home lately.  We see friends, neighbors, co-workers, even family members snarling, snapping, insulting, hating us for simply loving the purity and beauty of God and His ways (in this case, God's design for marriage).  We are called all manner of awful things, and are left standing in bewilderment as we wipe the flecks of froth off our faces from their spitting rage.  We see our reason and gentleness twisted by their hatred and thrown back in our faces as they curse and scream at us that we are the "haters."  We see them applauding as government leaders threaten to strip away the very pillars of our Constitution in order to unleash their hatred on us for our beliefs.

We feel shell-shocked, confused, betrayed.

Now, I know full well that there are plenty who claim to support God's pure and beautiful ways, but who fight for it with attitudes and actions so ugly that they reveal themselves to be wolves in sheep's clothing.  People who love to hate their neighbor.  I'm not speaking of them.

I'm speaking of ordinary Christians of good will having venomous hostility poured out on us, not for our real faults (of which we have many), but purely because of our belief in what God has defined as Right and Wrong.

In short, though we don't desire enemies, we're finding that we have more and more of them.

What is happening?

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. 

Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

(2 Thess 2:7)

"He who restrains lawlessness..." who is that?

I believe it is the Holy Spirit.  He holds evil back, only allowing it to express itself in the ways that conform to His ultimate plan for our good and God's glory.  God is not the author of evil, ever.  But He can, does, and MUST shape, restrain, and control our evil to make sure that it all "works together for good to those who love God," and to make sure it fulfills prophecy.  Look how He shaped and controlled the evil of Judas to bring about the greatest good that ever happened, exactly when and how the prophets said it would happen.

And I believe that there are times when He steps back a bit.  No, He won't be "out of the way" completely until the very end of the age, for He never leaves His people.  So as long as His people are here, He will be here.

And no, He never loses control.  He is God, always and ever.

But there are times when He gives evil a looser grip, just to let it show itself for what it really is.  You see, evil under a civilized veneer can fool a lot of people.  But when the veneer is stripped away, and evil gets freer rein, people may begin to recognize and loathe it more easily (though even that takes a miraculous work of the Spirit).  And those who are committed to evil are left without even the lie of "civilization" as an excuse.

So now, in this moment of American history, evil snarls in my complacent face much more than it used to.  Yours too, I'll bet.

And, in response, evil snarls in our hearts much more than it used to.  We are not purely innocent in these matters, are we?  If we think we are, we're fooling ourselves.

If you're like me, you want to triumph over evil in these days.  But I have to tell you, I don't define "triumph" the same way that I used to.

To triumph over evil is NOT to whitewash it, whether in our own hearts or in society.  Triumph is NOT a victory of mere legislation, or social pressure, or convincing rhetoric.  Triumph is NOT "winning God's wars for Him" by using the weapons of evil.  Triumph is NOT stockpiling enough to hunker down while the world goes to Hell around us.  Triumphing is NOT out-snarling the snarlers, out-shouting the shouters, out-hating the haters.

How can the Church triumph over evil in our day?

I'll post my thoughts on that question in the next entry.  But in the meantime, I'll be happy to post any comments which seek to answer that question, as long as they fall within certain guidelines.

• I will not post hateful comments
• I will not debate whether or not Scripture clearly calls homosexual activity "sin."  It does.  It also calls a lot of other things "sin."  We need to agree with God on ALL of it.
• I will not post comments which attempt to encourage worldly responses to sin.

Within the above guidelines, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Are You Preparing for Terrorism?

Photo credit: 

Public Domain - Wikipedia 

The headline greeted me over breakfast this morning.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Al-Qaeda Calls for PA*-Style Arson in America

Al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine calls on readers to “unleash hell”

with arson attacks similar to decades of attacks targeting Israel.
(*PA = "Palestinian Authority")

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Am I ready?  Are you?  Just how does one prepare for an enemy like militant Islam?

The Web is full of advice of all sorts.

There are those who will tell you to stockpile food and weapons.

There are those who will tell you to move to a remote location to protect your family and your worldly wealth.

There are those who will tell you that you should refuse to believe anything negative about the "Religion of Peace," because it's all a bunch of propaganda.  They say you should love your neighbor by refusing to believe even their stated plans to annihilate you.

Paranoia versus rose-colored delusion.

"Hate your neighbor" versus "Ignore your real neighbor and love the imaginary neighbor you'd prefer to believe you have."

Are those the only two choices?

Are you preparing for terrorism?

You'd better be.  But how?

How did Jesus prepare for the onslaught He knew was coming?

We can ask ourselves, “Does this attitude, this approach, this action look like Jesus on the cross?” If our attitude, approach, and action cannot be reasonably compared to the image of the cruciform, we need to abandon it. Caesar may adopt it, it may be practical, it may even be “successful,” but if it’s not Christlike, then it’s not our pattern. Without a radical commitment to the shape of the cruciform, the process of deformation will continue year after year, and our beauty will be lost.

Zahnd, Brian (2012-01-03). Beauty Will Save the World: Rediscovering the allure and mystery of Christianity (pp. 18-19). Strang Communications. Kindle Edition.

What did Jesus do when He knew His own personal "terrorist" enemies would soon kill Him?

He refused to confuse His kingdom with worldly kingdoms, and therefore he rejected worldly tactics, priorities, and goals.

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered,  “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth." (Excerpted from John 18:33-37)

Jesus knew who He was, He knew His purpose, He knew how to achieve it.  And He submitted to His Father all the way to death, "even death on a cross" (Php 2:8).

How many revolutionaries from Jesus' era can you name?  How many who took up arms still have kingdoms?  Which arms changed the world most...arms of warfare, or arms outstretched to receive the nails? Which arms do you believe in? Which arms saved you (if indeed you are saved)? Which can save your neighbor?

Who reigns?  More specifically, who reigns over YOU?  In which kingdom do you live...the kingdom of Satan or the kingdom of God?

Be careful how you answer, because your choice of kingdom and King will determine what goals and priorities you pursue, and what tactics you will use to achieve them.

How did Jesus prepare?

He stayed firmly in the Kingdom of God, in total submission to His Father, in humility, in death to all that the world offers, in love for His friends, and in love for His enemies.  He prayed in agony for deliverance, but chose the Father's will over His own.

He went about doing good to all (Acts 10:38), even though He knew many would turn away from Him (John 6:66).

He washed the feet of Judas (John 13:1-19).

He healed a man in the mob who arrested Him, while rebuking the disciple who attacked the man (John 18:10-11)

He prayed for those who persecuted Him, just as He commanded us to do.

There they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  (Luke 23:34)

But His preparation didn't begin on those last agonizing days.  He'd been preparing all along. Washing Judas' feet was not a one-time, token act done for illustrative purposes.  He loved His enemies all along (though sometimes with a tough love that they probably didn't perceive as such). He lived in humble submission to His Father since before Day One.  He renounced the kingdoms of this world in a dramatic fashion when Satan offered them to Him (Luke 4:5-8), but also in an everyday fashion when He refused a life of ease and comfort (Matt 8:20).

How do we prepare for persecution?

We prepare the same way Jesus did...by trusting, obedient faith.

We love the Father with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  If we don't do it now, we won't do it when persecution comes.

We love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22:36-39), even if they're our enemies (Matt 5:44-48).  We love them in whatever small ways are available to us now, so that we'll be ready when the "big ways" are required of us.  If we don't do it now, we won't do it when persecution comes.  (If you don't believe that, ask yourself this question:  "What keeps me aloof from the people I see in Muslim garb?"  The answer that probably comes immediately to your mind is, "I don't have any way of knowing if they're the peaceful kind or the militant kind."  Well, what if they are the militant kind?  What if they are?  If you're not committed to obeying Christ in loving your enemy, then you won't be able to love the stranger who "just might be" your enemy.)

We humbly serve (Luke 10:33-37).  If we don't do it now, we won't do it when persecution comes.

We reject all tactics, priorities, and goals that belong in Satan's kingdom, and pursue "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17).  If we don't do it now, we won't do it when persecution comes.

We seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and leave the care of our earthly lives to Him (Matt 6:33).  If we don't do it now, we won't do it when persecution comes.

We take up our cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23).  If we don't do it now, we won't do it when persecution comes.

"Following Jesus means preparing to die—daily. Every day we must deny ourselves the expectation of comfort and safety, and we must courageously face whatever persecution our allegiance to Jesus stirs up, even to the point of death." Sidders, Greg (2011-04-01). The Invitation (p. 57). Baker Book Group. Kindle Edition. 

I'm going to prepare for persecution today.  How?  By settling the question of kingdom allegiance in my mind, so that I can say along with Paul, "It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Php 1:20-21).

And then, with the kingdom of Christ as my priority, I will leave the question of persecution behind.  Forget about it.  Because either way, whether that Muslim at Sam's Club is peaceful or not, I'm determined that Christ will be honored in my body. To really live for Christ is all about humbly loving, serving, and submitting to Him.

And dying for Him is all about exactly the same thing.

So I'll prepare for persecution (without even thinking about persecution) by loving and serving in whatever ways He calls me to.  

I'll prepare for it (without even thinking about it) by loving my angry teen (and repenting when I fail to love him).  

I'll prepare for it (without even thinking about it) by repenting of my anger toward the driver who cuts me off, and choosing to pray for him instead.  

I'll prepare for it (without even thinking about it) by treasuring Christ above all.  I'll do it all very imperfectly, but even that will turn to His glory as He forgives and restores me.  And a thousand daily acts of loving obedience and service will change who I am.  (And Heaven knows, “who I am” needs a lot of changing!)

I'm eager to get to know a whole multitude of Christians who are learning to love, to smile, to be fearlessly humble, to serve, to fall but repent with joyful gratitude and seek the kingdom first again.

I want to live among the people who are growing to understand what Elisabeth Elliot (widow of martyr Jim Elliot) meant when she said,

"Is the distinction between living for Christ

and dying for Him, after all, so great?"

Are you with me?

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Please note:  I am not advocating a position of complete pacifism.  I do believe that there can be such a thing as a "just war."  I will not publish any comments which seek to create a debate over the concept of "just war."  This post is about how individuals in our day-to-day civilian lives are to live in The Kingdom.  Any dissenting views MUST be civil, and MUST be based on the common ground of submission to Christ.