The Way of Sacrifice

credit: www.soulshepherding.org

It's almost impossible to approach Easter without remembering that this is a season of sacrifice. And sacrifice is almost always harder than we think it will be. Our fasts leave us hungrier. Our good deeds leave us more tired. Our almsgiving digs deeper into our pockets than we expected. Sacrifice, we find, hurts.

But the degree of pain that a sacrifice inflicts is not a good measure of its efficacy. Our sacrifice can hurt plenty, but still have little worth in the eyes of God. 

I desire mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), God tells us. In other words, sacrifice for its own sake or sacrifice with any other object or person in mind than God Himself is, in the end, futile, a chasing after wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

Our sacrifice cannot have any other object than to please God. Period.

That's what Jesus did.
I come to do the will of my Father.--John 6:38
It is a near-misnomer to say that Jesus came to save us. 
He did save us, but that was not His main aim. His aim was to obey His Father. His Father wanted us saved, so Jesus saved us. But, had His father wanted Him to do something else, He would have done the other thing.
Jesus was more obedient than He was sympathetic. And we are to follow His example.
If we don't, our sacrifices become dependent on their results.

Think about it. We naturally want our sacrifices to bear fruit. We want our children to respond to us when we do something special for them. We want the money we donate to be well spent. We want the unbeliever we befriended to come to follow Christ. We want the person we took in to amend their life.
But often, they don't. And we feel drained, betrayed, taken advantage of.
That's the clue.
If, when we have done something for someone and they have not responded in the way we hope for, making us angry or disappointed or discouraged, we have done it for the wrong reason.
It's true.

Remember Jesus. We often say that Jesus would have died for the sake of saving just one soul. That's true. but it's also true that He would have died for the salvation of no souls at all.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.--Romans 5:8
He died equally for those who repent and those who do not. He died for us all. And whether one or a thousand or a million souls or none come to Him as a result, He was successful in what He set out to do.He did His Father's will and it was enough.

When our Lord healed one sick person and not another, He was responding to what His Father asked of Him. When He raised some from the dead and not others, He did the same. When the rich young ruler asked how to be saved, He let the man walk away. He showed Himself to the Samaritan woman, but did not chase after her.
Christ did not consider the feelings of those He loved above those of His Father. He called Peter 'Satan' when Peter opposed Him. He rebuked the apostles for retaliation at Gethsemane. No one, not even those He loved, prevented His obedience. That way, He always stayed in a state of grace. That's how He never sinned.

People often get  between us and our God. They don't mean to. And we, I'm convinced, don't mean to put them there. After all, God made them, just like He made us. Loving them is a privilege and one of the wonderful parts of this life.

But we can't confuse loving people with loving God. They are not the same thing. 
Everybody's problem will not be ours to solve. We are not to bind up all wounds. We are to sacrifice ourselves to Him and only to Him. He owns us, no one else. We cannot elevate anyone's need above God's.

Sometimes, God does send us as Samaritans to bind up the wounds of someone on the Jericho road, but not always. Sometimes, that man is for someone else or for God Himself. That's why Jesus tells so emphatically to seek God. We have got to learn the difference, or we will add burdens to our lives we were never meant to have.

Any cross we pick up in this life has to be a cross God has given us. 
The cross anyone else gives us will be too heavy to carry.

My Soul Magnifies the Lord

Source: www.priestsforlife.org

Mary.
She didn't expect to end up sixteen, unmarried, and pregnant.
But she was.

Mary may have been blessed among women, but that blessing did not come with ease or confidence in her circumstances.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, turned out the way she imagined it would. 
She did not end up a common Nazareth housewife.
She did not end up safe all her years in a home that her industrious carpenter husband built for her.
She did not end up safe in her own bed surrounded by her mother and other women when her baby came.
She did not end up with a lap full of frolicking, carefree children who, in their turn, would bring her sweet smelling grandchildren.
Her firstborn son did not outlive her--at least not the way she thought they would.

But what did she have to say about it?
My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.--Luke 1:46-7
In other words,
Thank you, God, for this confusion.
Thank you for this embarrassment.
Thank you for all the derision and doubt.
Thank you, too, for all the eventual pain.

In other words, Mary knew.
She thanked God for the life He'd ordained for her, whatever it included.
And why? Because in it, she knew she would find Him.
Not just the baby she would someday hold in her arms.
Not just the sweet child.
Not just the man who became her Lord.
But all of it.
God the Father who made and planned for her.
God the Spirit who spoke to her.
God the Son who grew in her, was born from her, and saved her.

Mary rejoiced in God. All the time.
She saw Him in every work, every word.
She didn't have to understand.
She trusted.

That is why we hail her, as did the angel, and acknowledge that she is full of grace.
Grace--where God meets His creation, and where our rejoicing proves we see Him there.

Living in Debt

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Bills. I don't like them. You probably don't either. And I have too many.
House. Car. Heat. Lights. Food. Clothes. School. And on and on.
I owe so much, and those are just the practical debts--the ones I can pay with money.
I have others, too.

I also have debts I can't pay. These are the hardest ones to live with.
I owe my parents, who gave without expectation for my nurture and training.
I owe soldiers, who gave their lives for my freedom.
I owe teachers, who gave more than anyone asked for my education.
I owe my family, who suffered my sins and returned forgiveness.

I can never pay them back, any of them.
Worse yet, I take them for granted.
I've lived so long in the luxury of what they gave that I no longer notice it's even there.

'Thank you' is not enough. Ever.
But what else is there?

And then there's God.
What does God want for all He gives?
For life. A world to live it in. Salvation and the promise of heaven.
How can I pay Him back?

I can't.
Not God. Not my parents, my family, not anyone who sacrificed for me.
I will owe them forever.

So if I can't pay them back, what, then, do I do?
What do those I to whom I owe so much want from me if it is not recompense?
I know what God wants because He says so:
And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.--Micah 6:8

That's what God wants. Just action. Merciful love. A humble walk toward Him.
In one word, God wants appreciation.
And I imagine they all do.
They don't want repayment. They want love.

I will always be in debt.
Now, if I can only love...

The Not-So-Great Commission

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The Great Commission? Honestly, I'm not always a fan.
At least not the way I normally see it done.
Yes, Christ told us to take His gospel into the world.
Once.
In only one place in the Bible does He give us these instructions:
Go and make disciples of all nations...teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.--Matthew 28:19-20

But He didn't say HOW.
He didn't say TELL them.

Why can't we teach by showing them?
Why can't God speak up for Himself?
The Bible seems to think He can.

Are you going to plead Baal's cause? If Baal is really a god, he can defend himself...--Judges 6:31

Baal couldn't, of course, but the God of Israel can and does:
No plan of Yours can be thwarted.--Job 42:2
Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.--Psalm 115:3

God does not need us to preach.
In preaching to unbelievers we too often look and sound exactly like those with whom we disagree--with atheists, for instance. An atheist believes as fervently as I do, and he or she wants the same thing I do. He wants to convince me he's right.
"Agree with me," he says. "Admit I'm right, or you will pay the price of your folly."
That, my friend, is preaching boiled down to its simplest component.
And we, trying to fulfill what we think Christ commanded, often do exactly the same.

Better, I think, to do what Christ told us to do not once, but many times:
Believe. Obey. Follow. Love. Forgive. Serve.
In doing these, we will not only speak the Gospel. We will BECOME the Gospel.

You've GOT to be Kidding

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Teenagers.
Don't you hate it when they pout?
After all, what does pouting really say?
"You've got to be kidding."
"This isn't even close to good enough."
"What about ME?"

Teenagers. Go figure.
They are world class pouters.
And I, of course, being older and wiser, am not.

And, then I got out of bed.
"Oh, man...the cat threw up again."
"Who left their wet towels on the floor?"
"Turn on the air, will you? It's really hot out there."
"I don't want cereal for breakfast. Can't we have french toast?"

Complaints. Whines. And yes, pouting.
Nothing is good enough.
And, just like a pouting teenager insults what I have given her, I insult what God has given me.
Yes, the cat threw up, but she also calms and cuddles.
Yes, someone left wet towels on the floor, but the floor is tiled and nothing is harmed.
Yes, it's 90 degrees today, but it's not 30 below and it's not snowing again.
Yes, cereal isn't the most exciting breakfast, but it's easy and nutritious and doesn't burden anyone.

Turn back, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has been good to you; He has kept my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling. I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 116:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you, it is the gift of God.--Ephesians 2:9

What God gives me is GOOD--not because it makes me happy, but because it comes from Him.
Thinking it is anything else simply becomes pouting.

The Howling Dark of Sin and Chris Tomlin's Pale Grace

Got grace?
Well, of course I do, silly.
I am set free by it, washed in the blood of the lamb. I am saved, Saved, SAVED!
And grace is amazing.
John Newton says so.
Chris Tomlin says so.

But John knew something Chris appears to want to forget.
Grace needs sin.
Always.
Always.
The crime. The betrayal.
The howl of deep hurt forcing itself to be heard from torn heart of the person, and of the God, I said I loved, said I would never forsake.
And then did.
And I have to listen to it.
Ragged. Raw. Unrelenting.
And I am responsible. Only me.
I did it on purpose, because I wanted to, because I thought myself more important.

That is why I need grace.

Amazing Grace is not a hymn. John Newton did not sing it.
He wrote and recited it with his congregation as a statement of wretchedness.
The grace he described covered the sin because it could not make it disappear.

The minute we forget the sin, we can forget the grace, too.
We do not need it any more.

If we want to sing about grace, we'd do well to remember the sin that made it necessary.

Look into the horror.
You will need to be bold, but it's worth it, because that is the only place you will find real grace.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find help in time of need.-Hebrews 4:16

The Only Miracle

Jesus, the very Power of God, showed the world who He was in part by performing miracles.
To do this, He had to approach the filthy and festering, the poor and vile.  They were all the same to Him.
They were sinners who needed His miracle.
And so am I.
I need His miracle, too.

This is what I ask of my God--
As You made them see again, give me sight.
As You made them hear, open my ears to holy Truth.
As You made them walk, keep my steps turned toward your leading.
As You cured withered hands, keep mine devoted to your service.
As You raised them from dead, keep me in new life.

Now, Christ healed generously in kindness and compassion, but I know that part of the healing is my responsibility.  I have, in this transaction, something to do, too.
I must truly desire change.
What do you want me to do for you?--Mark 10:51
That is the hardest part.
I must want the miracle so badly that I stop being what I am, what I have nurtured and built in myself, the only 'me' I know.

Instead, I must zealously follow Him, look for Him, desire Him.
I must trust Him.
I must listen.
I must love Him with my whole heart, soul, and mind.

Then I will receive the real miracle.
There is, after all, only one.
It isn't the healed hand or the seeing eye or the sure step.
The miracle is only and always the glimpse of Himself that He brings every day.
Say only the word, and my soul shall be healed.--Matthew 8:8

The Rules of Forgiveness

I'm trying to understand the rules of forgiveness.
If the Bible doesn't contradict itself, and it doesn't, then how does this work?
God tells me to
Forgive as the Lord forgave you.--Colossians 3:13

OK. So, how does He forgive?
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins--Colossians 2:13
So, He forgave me before I repented.

But then He says,
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.-1John 1:9
In other words, I must repent to be forgiven. 

So which is it?

Well, it's both.

When Christ went to Calvary, He proclaimed forgiveness and freedom for all men, although most of them did not know Him, had not even acknowledged His godhead, much less repented.
He did it all, all He could do.
But men still have free will, the free will He gave them.
Jesus did all of his part.  Men were forgiven, but their relationship with Him was not yet repaired.
It takes repentance to do that. 
When we acknowledge and repent of sin, we restore our communion with God.

And that is how we must forgive.
We do what we can while the offender is still clueless, still dead in sin.  We forgive him as Christ forgave us.  Without recompense, without expectation.
Then, sooner or later, he may acknowledge and apologize, repenting for his sin.
That is when, as in Christ, are we restored.

Watching Our Steps

Look out! You're going to trip!  If you're not careful, you'll fall! 

Stumbling hurts. It can give you a scraped knee or get a fat lip.  Falling, however...well, falling means big trouble.  Falling can mean destruction.

But stumbling, common to us all, does not, because God catches those who delight Him.
If the Lord delights in a man's way, He makes his steps firm.  Though he stumble, he will not fall for the Lord upholds him with His hand.--Psalm 37:23-24
A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lords delivers him from them all.--Psalm 34:19
The Lord watches over the way of the righteous.--Psalm 1:6

We can't behave well enough, we can't walk carefully enough, to stay completely out of trouble.  We will slip, and often.  But our God, because we delight Him, because He has made us righteous, will keep us safe.


Our job, then, is to delight in Him, to acknowledge His saving grace, to know that His cross made us righteous. 

When we delight God in righteousness, we become eligible for God's mercy.  Then He can bring all of His mighty power to make sure that, although we slip, we will not fall.  He watches our steps.

Trying to Kill Obi Wan

He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you..."--2 Corinthinians 12:9a
 My grace is sufficient for you, says the Lord.

No, I say, it's not.

I don't like getting free stuff.  What I get for free doesn't belong to me. I didn't earn it.  Let me DO something for this, I tell God.  I can't accept this gift.

In saying this, in listening to my heart, I know that I am ruled by pride.

Again and again, the duel between pride and grace stymies my Christian life. They thrust and parry constantly.  I just can't let grace win.

But life provides lots of good examples of why my attitude is wrong, why pride deceives, why it directs me to destruction.  Do you remember when Darth Vader tried to kill Obi Wan Kenobi?  They fought for awhile, then Obi Wan just smiled a little, lifted his light saber, crossed his arms, and stepped back and let Darth deal the killing blow.  He fell into a pile of wrinkled robes and we thought him dead. But he wasn't.  He became transcendent, even more powerful.

That's grace.  It will let pride toy with it, but it will hang around and hang around until, finally, when I finally give in, give up, grace wins.  Every time.  Like the good guys.  Like Kenobi.

He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."--2 Corinthians 12:9

Gotta love a happy ending.

Growing Up Together

I want justice and I want it now.  I can't tolerate hucksters who get rich.  I don't want criminals to go free.  I cry out against liars who gain a following.  I revolt at thieves peacefully enjoying their spoils.  Surely God can stop these people, but He doesn't always do it.  Why not?

Why do the wicked prosper?  Why do the faithless live at ease?--Jeremiah 12:1

Because I am looking at their situation from my perspective, of course.  I keep forgetting that God loves them.  Yes, He does.  He loves the thieves, the murderers, the liars, the cheaters.  He made them, after all, just the same as He made me.  Then I remember:

He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.--Matthew 5:45
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.--Exodus 33:19

While we live, we all experience God's mercy according to His perfect will, not according to our limited, prejudicial vision. 

Maybe, for those not chosen for His everlasting company in heaven, the mercy He extends is even greater. For those who will not share God's eternal pleasure, it will be the only ease they will ever know.  Perhaps God is loving them the only way He can given the circumstances.

Let both (weeds and wheat) grow together until the harvest.  At that time, I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barns.--Matthew 13:30

The world looks backwards when we consider only the world.  It makes more sense when we include the concerns of a loving and benevolent God.  He knows already who He will save.   Those who He will not, He may, when He chooses, give rest and comfort here.  They will know none later.

Already Begun, Part 4

So we are no longer carefree youths. God is growing us up.  We have come to understand that His way will not be smooth. The faith we grabbed with such exuberance has brought testing that stripped us bare.The hard news has joined hands with the good news.

  Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?--Job 2:10

This series has been about understanding that we are part of a story already begun, and a story moved forward both in heaven and on earth by the progression of our lives. Part 1  put our ongoing story into perspective in the face of a new calendar year, Part 2 reminded us that Christ borders our initial life with Him with obedience, and Part 3 brought the sometime-unwelcome news that any growth we experience brings hard times, and with them, sufficient grace.

God has a reason for bursting our bubble.  He strips earthly comforts to accomplish our readiness for grace.  As the discipline of trial is a gift from God, so is the grace He gives to see it through.  We cannot gain grace without accepting trial.

But the trouble that purifies has special qualities.  This trouble is not a minor annoyance.  Like fire, it is a flesh-destroying terror.

This terror, this destruction of flesh, is the gift God gives to those who follow Him. 

Grace brings relief by transferring the burden to Christ, but ease is not its purpose.  Life's shattering trials and the grace that accompanies them are the doors through which we must walk to holiness.

Now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life.--Romans 6:22


The climax of our part of this world's story nears.

God did not make men to make them happy.  He did not make us for comfort or pleasure. God made men to be like Him.


So, He gives us humanity, then hammers on  His gift until it resembles His own image. The beating leaves us torn and needy, needy enough to give up and accept the grace that relieves and thus the holiness that brings us to the place by the Lord's side for which He created us.

But God is still not done yet.
See Part 5.

Already Begun, Part 3

I remember when my youngest son realized that, when he got out of college, he would have to take his place as an adult, assume responsibility, and  in general, grow up.  He was not impressed.  He quickly decided that growing up did not live up to its advance publicity.  He would have much rather remained carefree, allow someone else to maneuver him out of difficulties, and focus on whatever pleasant circumstances that life brought his way.

Now, I can almost see you shaking your head, maybe even chuckling.  You know that my son had to man up, to grow up, or live a life barren of accomplishment or earned satisfaction.  He had to learn that work, not pleasure, frames life and, to his credit, he did.

We, however, as believers, often do not. In  Part 1 and Part 2, we explored how, though we might begin a new calendar year, the journey of our life with God  began long ago. Now, consider that, in getting a grip on our ongoing story, we don't always think about how our faith lives must change.  Like my son, we do not consider that, after our first taste of easy adulthood, God will up the ante.  He doesn't say, 'Relax, you've earned it.'  Instead, he tells us to get our still-immature behind in gear.

He wants more for us and He expects us to want it, too.
From everyone who has been given much, much more will be demanded, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.--Luke 12:48

Faith comes with a price.  It will not ease my way; it will pile it with obstruction.

As the faith is God's gift, so are life's challenges.  As one increases, so will the other. But, as trouble increases, so does grace.

Grace does not come with ease.  It is not needed there.  

As we ask for  revelation of faith, for wisdom, for a greater vision of God Himself, we have to remember that trouble and challenge will be their companions.  But so will grace, our access to your already-accomplished victory.

We should not be surprised when God pares away what we do not need in order to fully animate what we do.

And, thankfully, He has still more.
See Part4.

The Skull that Sings

My son Bryan recently gave away his bone collection. This old boxful of treasures, saved carefully for almost two decades, became the precious property of another little boy in exactly the same state of messy adventure as Bryan had been when he first accumulated it. As the new owner pondered an appropriate place to display the collection, Bryan told him that its crown, a nearly perfect cow skull, must not languish. He must hang it somewhere prominent, as Bryan had, to render its full due.

Compliantly, the young man's dad hung it high on a post in their driveway, a greeting of mixed messages to postmen and visitors alike. Then something unexpected happened. An ambitious family of wrens, looking to find a hospitable home, began carrying twigs into it. Eventually, they laid eggs and hatched little wrens there. Now, feathered parents transport food in and out of the skull, flying through the gaping eye holes, an ironic picture in their juxtaposition of old death and new life.

Today, however, I realized they also provide a metaphor for God's life in us. We are as dead in sin as that old cow skull: dry and barren of useful flesh. What pulsed constructively through us died with Adam and Eve's rebellion in Eden. As a result, we rub into eventual dust like Ezekiel's dry bones. When God breathes His Spirit into us, though, He brings life back into the husk. Like the flaps and chirps of baby wrens, He brings sound and warmth into a dead place.

Now, this is not a perfect metaphor--the skull did not rise up and speak and the wrens will eventually move out and the skull will empty again. But when I imagine how a merciful Savior filled my own sad life with a song of hope, well, the skull dwellers make the perfect picture of grace.

If Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.--Romans 8:10