Discipline: Punishment or Consequences?

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I love the story of the centurion in Matthew 8. Jesus has been healing as He walked along His way--those with leprosy, with demons, a paralytic, and in Capernaum, a centurion approached Him. Now, centurions were fierce dudes--not only soldiers, but commanders in the most proficient, and most deadly, army on earth. I have no doubt that the Hebrews' most common contact with these soldiers was to be ordered by them to do something--to get out of their way or to pay them respect or to carry something for them. But not this time.

This centurion's servant was dying. He was paralyzed and suffering and, whether the soldier fretted because he was losing his investment or whether he had genuine affection for the man, he nevertheless asked Jesus for a favor, the only recorded incident of a Roman soldier doing so. And, knowing what would happen next, Jesus says that He will go to the soldier's home to heal his servant.

This is where it gets good.

The soldier replies,
Lord, I am not worthy that you come under my roof. Only say the word and my servant will be healed.--Mathew 6:8

Lord, I am not worthy, he said. 
And neither am I. Not worthy that Christ forgave me. Not worthy that Christ healed me. Certainly not worthy that Christ lives in me.
I know I deserve to die. Now. A long time ago, in fact. And it hasn't happened.
I am stuck here. And I am not worthy.
I am not worthy of life, the life that God gave me, the life that belongs exclusively to Him.

So now what?

Now, like the centurion, I have to understand my position.
Yes, I deserve to die. I deserve to be cut off from God forever. So what is God going to do about it?
He will discipline me. 
Yes, He will. One way or another, I will know the result of what I have done, and that can happen in one of two ways. I will either experience the consequences of what I have done, or I will be punished.

They are not the same thing, you know. Consequences and punishment. They are different.
It's like this:
If my child starts a fight with little Joey at school, I am going to have to do something about it. He would know consequences when I march him back to school the next day, have him face Joey on the same playground in front of the same kids who watched him fight yesterday, and let them see and hear him apologize and admit to Joey that what he did was wrong. But he would know punishment if I called Family Services and told them to come and get the little violent monster and take him away, that I didn't want him for a son anymore.

See the difference? Consequences teach and preserve the relationship, keeping the love intact, but punishment ends the relationship, withdrawing the love.

God does the same thing.

Like my love for Joey, we are given God's love unconditionally. I could kick Joey to the curb for his transgressions, and God could do the same thing to me. I've earned it, after all. But, just like Joey acknowledges my place as parent in his life so that I can administer consequences rather than punish him, God allows me to stay close to Him, even when I don't deserve it, as long as I love Him back. 

Yes, you are unworthy, God says to me.
And I say the same thing to my children. They did nothing to be born and do not deserve any of the love and care we lavish on them. But they get it. They are unworthy, too.
Yes, you are unworthy, God says. 
But I love you.
Get over it.

Who Do You Love?

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I really find it helpful when God boils things down into simple principles I can easily remember. Like His principles for loving:
Love your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.--Matthew 22: 37-39

Love God. Love my neighbor. I get that.
Of course, there's the little matter of who is my neighbor.
Now, I've read the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) and pretty much get it. Love everybody, even people you don't like.
But have you ever thought about how easy it is to love people and how hard it is to love just one person--particularly if it's that one CERTAIN person? Did you ever notice that Jesus never said to love people, like bunches of them? He said to love them one at a time. One at a time.

I think about how easy it is to love a group--
Like old folks, as long as the one I'm with for a whole afternoon doesn't want me to listen to the same story for the 46th time.
Like addicts or alcoholics, as long as the one I'm with doesn't throw up on me or lie to me again and again.
Like babies, as long as the one I'm with doesn't cry all night for a week.
Like the homeless, as long as one of them doesn't move in with me.
Like the hungry, as long as their need doesn't interfere with my Monday morning latte or my Saturday night prime rib.
Like prostitutes, as long as the one I tried to help doesn't just give up and go back to the life after all.

This is why groups are easier--unfortunate and disenfranchised groups keep their distance. We don't get our hands too dirty with their lives and business or, if we do, it doesn't last too long. We can wash up afterward. We can go home and hug our clean kids. We can still enjoy warmth and security.
I don't think that's was Jesus intended.
He didn't say to love a group. He said to love a person.

A teenager who says she hates me.
A husband who is habitually inconsiderate.
A friend who betrayed me.
A cousin who thinks I'm a religious nut.
A neighbor whose dog poops on my lawn.
A parent who beat me.
The people we're stuck with. The people God, with intention, gave us to love. One at a time.

We aren't to get too proud of ourselves, I think, for the good deeds we do. The church work. The soup kitchens. The counseling. The donating.
In the end, those are all pretty easy and we get to go home from them.
Jesus said to love people one at a time, wherever we are, whomever He gives us to love. And we don't have to go looking for these, as a rule. That hard-to-like person is already in our life, maybe even in our house. They are the one--not the ones--we are to love.

And in one short phrase, Jesus gave us both the way and the reason to do it:
Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.--Matthew 25:40

What I Am Not Thankful For

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I know what to do on Thanksgiving.
Count my blessings.
And it's not hard at all.
Life. Faith. Health. Family. Safety...So, so much.
Thank You, God.  Thank You so much.

Wait, God says. 
You are thanking me for the wrong things. 
Try looking at blessings from my point of view.
My blessing isn't comfort and confidence.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.--Matthew 5:3
My blessing isn't happiness.
Blessed are those who mourn--Matthew 5:4
My blessing isn't ability and confidence.
Blessed are the meek.--Matthew 5:5
My blessing isn't plenty and a full belly.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.--Matthew 5:6
My blessing isn't safety and the comfort of friends.
Blessed are those who are persecuted or my sake. --Matthew 5:10

Of course, good things, things I like, come from God, too.
But those things I call good, the comfortable, happy circumstances of my life, look like goodness from my point of view, not God's.
God sees a very different view and, if I truly want to be more like Christ, I need to look at blessings that way, too.
I don't want to be thankful for poverty, hunger, or persecution, but God is. 

So tomorrow, when we bow our heads at a table groaning with plenty, I need to be thankful not only for what is before me, but for what in my life is denied, is sad, is painful.
Thank you God. Thank you for it all.

The Witness Between Us

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Why are Christians always arguing among themselves?
It's almost never necessary.
Really.
But we are so sure we are right and our brothers are wrong. 
Bah.

We should have learned long ago that we don't always see things clearly.
Way back when the Israelites first divided up the promised land, and settled on both sides of the Jordan river, they did  the same thing. The people of Reuben, Gad, and half of the people of Manasseh lived separated from the others, so they built an altar there, a copy of the tabernacle where the rest of their people worshiped, so that they would not forget God's faithfulness even though they lived separately.

And what did their brothers in faith say? Did they slap them on the back and say "Good job. So happy for your faithfulness!"  No, of course they didn't.
They said:
How could you break faith with the God of Israel? How could you turn away from the Lord and build yourselves and altar against Him now?--Joshua 22:16

They didn't get it at all.
So the Reubenites and Gadites set them straight:
The Mighty One! God! The Lord! He knows! ...It is to be a witness between us and you and the generations that follow that we will worship the Lord...--Joshua 22: 22,27

A witness between us and you.
To unite, not separate them.

More often than not, the God we worship is the same God.
Our sects and denominations are not supposed to separate us. They are incidents of upbringing and location. They are different flavors of the same Living Bread.

Some people like statues and stained glass, some a bare cross.
Some prefer loud music, some stately, some none at all.
Some dunk, some sprinkle.
It doesn't have to matter.

Though separated by differences that sometimes seem as wide as the Jordan, we need not destroy one another.
I don't always agree with my husband, but we almost always present a united front to the world.
Why can't Christians do the same?
Stop nit-picking your brother and put your arms around him.
There is one body and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all--Ephesians 4:4-5

Do you see it differently?
Do our denominational differences really matter all that much?

Deciding to Let Go

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The time has come. You have to decide whether or not you are EVER going to let go.
You have held onto them all of your life.
Mother. Father.
Husband. Wife.
Son. Daughter.
Best friend.
You have loved them and they have tried to love you back as well as they can.
But they are not enough.
There is a longing in your heart that even the ones you love best can't fill.
Are you going to continue to ask them to try?
Or are you going to give up, finally and forever and just.... let... go?

John did:
He must increase...I must decrease.--John 3:30
Peter did:
We have left everything to follow you! --Matthew 19:27
And there is no other way for us, either.

That doesn't mean we get a divorce or that we abandon our families for a cloister, but it does mean that we completely shift our priorities.
We do have to absolutely know once and for all that God comes first.
In every circumstance, every frame of mind, every plan, every dream.
He becomes our primary motivation for everything. All the people we held, and continue to hold, most dear must take a back seat to His supremacy.
We have to tear them away from the first place they have held in our heart for so long and yield that place to God, to whom it has always belonged.

And then what?
Peter wanted to know, too:
What will there  be for us?--Matthew 19:27

And God had an answer for him, and has the same answer for us.
We will not have less, but more.
I tell you the truth, Jesus said to them, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come, eternal life.--Luke 19:29-30

The only way to find this out, though, is to do it.

Who Are You Looking At?

Do you ever wonder how God wants us to pray? I do.
I am not satisfied with most prayer. 
It seems self-serving, not God-serving.
It sometimes sounds whiny, like "This is what I want, God. Would you help me out and give it to me, please?"
Prayer can also sound like the person praying has too little faith to even know what, or more importantly, who to ask. Like "I am so overwhelmed, God. Please help me. Please bail me out. Don't let me suffer like this."

I know that God tells us to ask for things.
And I also know that He understands when we get in so deep we can't see the way out.
But when these prayers of rescue or favor-granting become our standard fare, when our daily prayers consist of fearful flailing and endless lists of I-wants, I am sure we are not in the place God wants us.

To confirm that, I look at John 17:
After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed...--John 17:1
He looked toward heaven, not toward His concerns on earth.

Glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify You.--John 17:2
He asked only for what would benefit His Father, not Himself.

I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me.--John 17:9
Jesus confined His prayers to what His Father had already indicated as concerning Him.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.--John 17:21
He prayed for the success of the plan His Father put in motion through Him.

Jesus does not once here pray for His own concerns--His coming suffering, His earthly friends and family, or His own strength. He trusts God for all of these.

If I pray for a thing, then my goal is clearly the thing, not God.
If I pray for a relationship, I am more interested in the relationship than in God.

I cannot even pray for new motivations, or emotions, or will. Those are my part.  God will not control me. I must control myself and dealing with my own will and emotion and motivation is how I do it. My obedience in emotional self-control is what I bring to the party.

And we wonder why our prayer is not answered.
God does not give His favors to relative strangers looking for a new toy.
Proper prayer, however, God always answers, and we find it in those rare moments when our will intersects with His own.

Prayer is answered from a place of union with God only.

Why Aren't We Holding Hands?

All Christians belong to the same church.
Did you know that?
Well, it's true:
In Christ, we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.--Romans 12:5

But we sure don't act like it.  This is how we sound:
"The Catholics aren't Christians. The worship Mary."
"The Baptists believe in once-saved-always-saved. I couldn't worship with them."
"Pentecostals roll around on the floor in trances. That isn't biblically orderly."
"Methodists welcome gays. I couldn't go there."
Sound familiar?

You may not like it, but this is what makes a Christian:
If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."-Romans 10:9
That's it. That and nothing else.  And, as far as I know, all of the above-named denominations would qualify.

Why don't we like that? Why are we not celebrating that we are a big, big club rather than little exclusive sects patting ourselves on the back for being smarter than the next sect?
Because people are different.
We worship the same God differently, I think, based on who God made us. 
Bobby likes liturgy. Suzie likes hymns.  Bob likes long sermons. Mary likes contemporary worship.
It Doesn't Matter.

We go to two churches in our family, his and hers, sometimes together, sometimes not. We consider both congregations an important part of our lives.  My husband and I have different personalities and upbringing.  Should I be surprised that God reaches us through different kinds of worship?
Just think of all the ways we express the principle of salvation:
Christ died for our sins.
Christ did what we couldn't do.
We are washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Christ defeated death.
They are all the same thing, but one undoubtedly appeals to us more than the others because of who we are.
It's OK.
By the way--I'm the analytical type.  I like the second one.
Can we hold hands anyway?

Spitting Images Sometimes Still Spit

Two peas in a pod...
Frick and frack...
It's reassuring to be like someone. 
More than likely, your best friends are like you in many ways. It's how we get along.

But it's not how we grow.
God did not make a church of identical twins. Instead, He made complementary parts.
Just as each one of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.--Romans 12:4

But we don't like that.  We want people just like us. We want the minister to preach in a way that reaches us. We want the kind of music that moves us. We want a liturgy that is meaningful to us.
And we expect it to reach, and move, and be meaningful to everybody else, too.

Well, that is not God's plan.
We are different.  And we are stuck with each other.
We do not get to change other people to be like us.
And we do not get to divide ourselves from them because they are different.

The church is meant to be more like a family, complete with weird Uncle Ralph and crazy Grandma Mabel.  Or maybe a husband who just doesn't understand us. Or a child who has broken our heart. They are an intentional gift from God. We are supposed to learn to love them exactly as they are.

Spitting images get along pretty effortlessly, but we rarely have the opportunity to find out. More often, we share our lives with people very different from ourselves and have to figure out how to share in peace. It is good. God would have us make the effort.

Works for Me...

Forty years.
Why did God make Moses and his Jews wander around in the desert for forty years?  Why not twenty? Why not fifty?

What happens in forty years. anyway?
People die, that's what.  Two generations die.
In forty years, God knew that virtually none of the people who He rescued from Egypt would still be alive.  None of the ones who worshiped the golden calf.  None of the ones who complained about not having onions.  None of them, not even the babies.

 Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness.--Numbers 14:33

After forty years, none of those Jews still living would have remembered anything about their life in Egypt.  They all would have grown up in the desert.  They would know nothing of lush harvests or emerald rivers.  They would know only sand and sun and manna and God.  And they would be grateful for the promised land.

God thinks in terms of generations. Men do not.
Even Hezekiah, who came to know God and to teach his whole kingdom about Him, didn't get that God does not just care about individuals.  He cares about legacies.

 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord Almighty: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”--Isaiah 39:5-8 

In other words, Hezehiah thought, "It may suck to be you, but it works for me..."

God doesn't agree.

What damage does generational faithlessness produce?

Examine your own heritage. 

What did your grandparents do or know that has been lost?

Did a grandparent build or sing or sew or cook something that has disappeared forever?

Did they know how to survive without car or grocery store or telephone?

Does they have a heritage of faith that has dwindled from misuse?

Two generations and it is lost.  Gone, and irretrievable.

Forfeiting what was good from prior generations steals from our children.

We keep the faith of our fathers today not just because it benefits ourselves, but so that we can build an unbroken chain of those who know and love God for the future.

And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house,
and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.--Deuteronomy 11:19

I Can't Get No...

"I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God...."  We sing it every Sunday, shoulder to shoulder with dear, familiar faces.  We know their children, their sorrows, their prayers.  We share their lives, and they ours.  The song makes a sweet confirming concert, a satisfaction of belonging.

But God does not want us satisfied.
All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.--Ecclesiastes 1:7
As the deer pants for streams of waters, so my soul pants for you, O God.--Psalm 42:1

My union with believing brothers and sisters cannot calm my yearning for God Himself.  
I cannot rest in familiar flesh and blood arms.
We can love our family, but like in the whirlwind, God is not there.
He waits for us in the quiet place of solitary devotion, in the whisper of His Word, in the pillow talk of prayer.

No matter how much we love the people around us, while we live, we can never have all that God intends for us.
Now we see as through a glass darkly; then we shall see face to face.--1Corinthians 13:12

I need to be troubled if I do not want more. 
The solace of companionship of family and friends was never intended to do more than bring a short moment's ease.  It is a shallow pool, a pause while I search for the never-ending stream.

Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.--Luke 6:21

Where His Treasure Is

When my mother passed away, she left me her pearl necklace. Heavy, creamy, and perfectly matched, it is beautiful and valuable. It's value, however, does not come from its fine quality or luxurious feel. 

Mother always intended for me to have this necklace; she saved it especially for me, but she didn't particularly want me to think of the pearls when I wear it.  She wanted me to remember her.  The necklace serves as an appropriate inheritance because it served her first as her treasured possession.

God has a treasured possession, too.  God's treasured possession is us.

They will be mine, says the Lord Almighty, on the day when I make up my treasured possession.--Malachi 3:17

In the same way that Mother wanted me to wear and make known what she most valued, God says we are what He most values, and He wants us to be known as His for all the ages.  We are what the Creator of the universe passes down through the generations.  We belong to Him, and He wants to show us off and share us.

Like Mother's pearls, God has worn us next to His very skin.  Some of Him has rubbed off on us and He shows us to the world.  "These," He says, "are mine."

 As God is our pearl of great price, so are we His.

The Ultimate Family Reunion

For many, the holidays are all about togetherness.  We go over the river and through the woods, promising to be home for Christmas where we sometimes catch a glimpse Mommy kissing Santa Claus.  Of course, rubbing up against relatives sometimes falls short of expectations, but that's OK.  We already enjoy a perfect family relationship. 

First, we are God's inheritance and He is ours:
When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided all mankind, He set up boundaries for the people according to the number of sons of Israel, for the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.--Deuteronomy 32:9

God is our foundation and we are His building:
For we are God's fellow workers.  You are God's field, God's building.--1Cor 3:9

God has sacrificed for us and we sacrifice to Him:
You, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to Christ Jesus.--1Peter 2:5

We belong on one another.
All things are yours...all are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God.--1Corinthians 3:22

God sends us His glory and we return it through Christ.
All I have is yours and all you have is Mine.  And glory is come to Me through them.--John 17:10

What we enjoy with Christ is more than a family reunion.  We share hope, hope for more than a distant heaven.  We share the realization of God's design and promise.  In fact, this relationship is heaven, and it begins now.

God assigns us fathers, mothers, spouses, and children as objects of service.  We share love and experiences with them, but we can't forget that the Creator of the universe has welcomed us into a relationship that predates and supersedes them.

Family Business

I've often marveled at how God puts us together in families with people we would never have chosen for friends. After all, we tend to choose friends like ourselves in temperament, in belief, and in interest. When siblings don't fall into those categories, however, our relations with them become more like exercises in patience and forgiveness rather than true friendship. We sometimes love them because we have to. We will, after all, be related to them forever.

God has a family, too. When He adopted us as His children, He gave us brothers and sisters according to His choosing, not ours. Some of them we like, and others we may not, but we are related to them all forever. We are joined with each other through the Lord we all love, for better or worse.

He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the one He loves.--Ephesians 1:4-6

We are all adopted children in God's family, equal before Him by virtue of our faith. The blood that joins us, the shed blood of Christ, is at least as strong a tie as shared DNA. We cannot reject one another when we have differences, but must take advantage of every opportunity to face our rough spots with honesty and overcome them.

I don't always understand my fellow siblings in God's family, but by God's grace, I love them. They, like my physically related sister and brothers, teach me to deal with dissension and criticism as well as how to enjoy agreement and affection, but they do it under the eternally binding influence of faith. I may not have to spend hereafter with everyone in my physical family, but am blessed, or stuck, with God's family forever. Thank you, Father, for the challenge of family business.

Thought for today: How do you think God's family differs from a physical family?

A Rock and a Hard Place

Therefore, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers--Matthew 22:39

I do so want to get along with everyone, to be kind and considerate, to put others' needs before my own. But, darn, why is it so HARD? I have good intentions every day. Part of my morning prayer is to find a way to bless someone else, and I rise from it with hope and a smile, and then something happens. The phone rings. The cat throws up. The first person I contact has a burr under their saddle. Either my mood erodes or theirs does. Somebody asks me to do something that I didn't plan for or, worse yet, something that I shouldn't do. I want to live in friendly communion and end up in conflict. I don't like it one bit. Then I remember the part of the Lord's Prayer I just said:

Love your neighbor as yourself.--Matthew 22:39

This helps. Whether I delight in God's assignment, or disagree, or am unprepared, or tired, or compromised, this covers everything. With this in mind, I can always act correctly. I can welcome a situation with joy and open arms or I can disagree with the kind of love that comes with plain speaking. Either way, if I handle a situation with as much care as I would like to be dealt, I am safe.

The brotherhood I share with others is a gift from God just as much as practical gifts like preaching and teaching and evangelizing. My ability to walk alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ without punching or poking them builds us all up. We will have disagreements, of course, because everybody goes off course once in a while, but I can exhort, correct, even argue in the interest of defending God's holy Word as long as I do it with the same love with which I would like to be exhorted, corrected, and argued.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.--John 4:11-12
How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.--Psalm 133:1

We can live in unity even when we do not agree as long as our differences recall our common ground, our own sins, and the hope we share.