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.

The Company I Keep

We know that our life is a journey and that Jesus promised to show us the way to go.  It occurs to me, though, that there are different ways to travel.

Christ wants to be my companion.  He does not want to find me lingering on the path so that He has to walk ahead and urge me to get moving.  He does not want me to be preoccupied with my other companions so that I lose focus.  He wants me to stay close so that I can hear Him.

I need to pay attention.
God will tell me where to go, but the voice I hear should come from behind me.
Whether you turn to the right or left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way.  Walk in it."--Isaiah 30:21

Every day, I choose where to go and with whom.  I look down the various paths to see on which one Christ waits for me, but I err in this.  My Jesus should be constantly near so that He gives only a gentle nudge from beside or behind, not down some far off road calling, hoping I have ears to hear.

The journey we take with our God is not supposed to involve slowing down or catching up or pulling at a lead or lingering behind.  He wants us close enough so that we can know His arm around our shoulder and expect a  sweet whisper in our ear. 

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.  I will counsel you and watch over you.  Do not be like the horse or mule which has no understanding but must be controlled by a bridle or they will not come to you.--Psalm 32: 8-9

We make this journey not as master and servant, but with Father, Brother, Friend.  We make it with the sweetest of companions.

Going Out to Fish

Like you probably do, I start each day with a fair idea of what I am going to do in it.  Even when I don't make a list, I usually know whether I will go to work or the grocery store or to lunch with a friend.

But God switches life up sometimes. 

Like a couple of weeks ago, when I started the afternoon visiting with a young mom and finished it in the emergency room.  Once the dust settles, you just kind of look around, shake your head a little, and wonder, "Now what?"

I think that Jesus' disciples  felt the same way during the weeks following the resurrection.  They'd been traveling with Jesus for years.  They knew what He wanted them to do every day.  "Follow me," He told them and they did.

But now they couldn't. Overnight, their life and mission evaporated.  They couldn't follow Jesus where He was going.  Most of the time, they didn't even know where He had gone.  The heck with it, they thought.

"I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you."  So they went our and got into the boat...--John 21:3

Why not?  They didn't have anything else constructive to do.  Jesus hadn't given them any other direction.  Might as well go back to the one thing they knew they were good at.

Jesus had told them once that He would make them fishers of men, but without Him, they didn't know how to begin.   Jesus had already accomplished salvation.  His work was done.  Was theirs done, too?

Then, just as suddenly as their work looked over, Jesus again lit their way.  Before the night was out, they had a boat full of fish and they were having breakfast with Christ again.  Even better, by the time they were done eating, He had begun to explain what they were to do.

Feed my sheep.--John 21:17

Peter and the gang were off and running again.  And it works the same way for us.

Sometimes, God shifts our gears and in the pause between, we feel at bit at a loss, somewhat out of focus.  But it won't last.  Just wait a bit.  At some point, He'll tell you what to do. 

And, in the meantime, you might as well go fishing.

Getting Close, Getting Dirty

Life's not fair.  Most of us think we have already figured that out, but I'm not so sure.

We know that strangers may not be kind, that politicians and businessmen may not act honorably, and that employers may put their own interests before ours, but we surely expect spouses to love well, friends to be there when we need them, and church people to practice what they preach.

But they don't.  And, unlike strangers, the ones we care about hurt us when they don't.  Sometimes a lot. When they do, it's important to remember something.


We are all cut from the same cloth--dirty rags.  There is no one on this earth for us to love but other sinners.

I do not like suffering for someone else's sin, but if my son is an addict, I will.  If my best friend cheats on her husband, I feel the grime of it.  If my pastor steals from the church treasury, I know the sting of his defamation.  The more we invest in a relationship, the closer we get to someone, the more we rub up on their dirt, and they on ours. 

There is an upside to  this, though.  When we bear with each other's faults, we stay together to enjoy the triumphs. 

After the suffering of His soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied.--Isaiah 53:11
God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.--2Corinthians 5:21

We, who are already dirty, further foul one another.  It's a dirty world.  But Christ, who knew no corruption, assumed all of ours and in doing so, He makes us all clean.

Sin hurts those closest to the sinner. The closer we get to one another, the more we risk. A hug transfers more mud than a handshake.  But that's OK.  We'll all get clean clothes later.

Outside the Gate

At the creation of the world, God made our bodies in His own image.  He pronounced them very good and indeed they are, but He made them good, not holy.  Our bodies require sanctification. We look like Him, but we do not bear His perfection.   

We might come eventually to wear His glory, but we must endure the fire to do so.

The High Priest carries the blood of animals to the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp--Hebrews 13:11
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God told His people to separate the useful parts of a sacrificial animal from the bad; meat, fat, and blood came into the holy parts of the temple for dedication.  They separated hair, and skin, and entrails for burning at a place away from God's presence.

The rest of the bull he must take outside the camp to a place ceremonially clean where the ashes are thrown and burn it on an a wood fire on an ash heap.--Leviticus 4:12

God's people, to honor Him, separated what belonged to God from what did not, then sacrificed the first to Him and burned the rest.

God taught us to subject ourselves to the fire, to spend our own bodies in His service.

In fact, He did this Himself.  He demonstrated how to separate what we must spend from what He will save when He walked away from the temple out of the gate, up the hill, and stepped up onto His cross.

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood.--Hebrews 13:12  

Our body houses a perfection God placed in it, a perfection He distills until it can stand beside His own.  This is why we endure the separation and intermittent burning away of what He cannot own.  This is why we bear our sufferings patiently because, as we follow His footsteps up the hill, we come to resemble Him.  And, in the process, He makes us beautiful.

Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore.--Hebrews 13:13

Walk This Way

Jesus told us to follow Him, but it occurs to me that we rarely consider the length or duration of the trip.

When we think to follow, we think to embark on missions or in good works.  Sometimes, we might remember that Christ expects us to follow Him in sacrifice and death.  In other situations, we know that we must follow Him in obedience and love and compassion.  But Jesus' footsteps went much farther.

Jesus began His walk before the creation of the world and it took Him through cool Eden, across desert and drained riverbed, into a cleansing Jordan, up Calvary, through hell's smouldering cinders, and back into His Father's throne room.

From before His declaration that all was good, He already knew the plan, the cross, and the victory.  He calls us to meet Him in all these places.

Our own trip must go as far as His. We, by the grace of creation in God's image, began in promise. Then, by general fall and by personal failure, sank into sin.  The trip is not over, however, until we triumph in reflected righteousness.

We must meet Christ at every point, sacrificed for one another because He went first, then glorified together, walking away hand in hand from the folded grave clothes.

Christ is risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.--1Corinthians 6:20-22
Likewise reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ.--Romans 6:11

Forgetting to Blush

Our pastor says that we have spiritual lockjaw.  When an opportunity comes to speak about the things of God in a non-church setting, we clam up.  I was thinking about this the other day when, predictably, the phone rang.  And I did it.  I stopped short of what I might have said had I been in church or with a believing friend.  I measured my words so that they became palatable.  When it came time to show my love for Christ, I took a step back, lowered my head, and blushed.

And I remembered...

Mary took a pint of nard and poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair.  And the house was filled with the fragrance of perfume.--John 12:3

Mary did not measure the perfume she used.  She did not stop short of extravagant love in wiping Jesus' feet.  She didn't think first of what the others present in that room might think or how they would receive her actions.  Neither did she do it to poke them, to remind them of their own failings.

She simply loved her Lord.  She could do nothing less.

We are taught how to talk to people about Christ.  We are given phrases, even whole scripts with proofs and logical argument.  We are told to prepare our testimony so that we will know what to say when we have an opportunity.

I am beginning to think that we have got it backward.  Spiritual lockjaw is not an obstacle to be overcome.  It is the result of shallow love. 

I know this because of my love for my husband.  When we walk into a room, I am proud to walk visibly beside him, to hold his hand, to praise him, even to embrace him if the opportunity presents itself.  I do not think twice about this.  It is pure joy. I never measure its cost.

When I measure the cost of my love for Christ, I do so because my love for Him love lacks depth.

I say that Jesus is my Lord, my life, my deepest love.  I really do say this.  But, in the clinch, I don't act like it.

I must come to Christ without artifice, just loving Him out of the richness of our intimacy, an intimacy even deeper than that I share with my husband.  If this love, this intimacy, exists in private, I will not measure it in public.  Its fragrance will fill every room I enter, every situation He brings.  

In the end, I lack not the courage to testify about my God.  I lack a love true enough and deep enough to banish the idea that expressing love for my God takes any courage at all.