What is the Gospel?

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Our faith tells us that we are taught to preach the Gospel, but I have often wondered exactly what that Gospel is. Its direct translation from Greek put simply means the Good News. OK, but what good news?

From a personal standpoint, I know well the good news Christ brought to my own life--the renewal, the hope, the transformation, and the strength. But how did He do this? Well, through His suffering, death, resurrection, you say. That's right. He has done all this through His Holy Redemption.

But that's not quite it. I think there's more.

I know what Christ did--born of a virgin; lived and taught the New Covenant principles of love, humility, and sacrifice; performed miracles; died an undeserved and public death, then rose first from it and then from the earth itself. But the key to all this isn't His activity, it's Him.  

Everything Christ did only mattered because He did it. Other people performed miracles. Other people have died, then come alive again. Other people have died sacrificially for someone else. Other people live exemplary lives. But they do not carry the same weight.  Christ does not call us to preach what He did, but the One who did it--the Son of God, Son of Man, Creator-Redeemer, Jesus Christ. The Gospel, the Good News, is not what Christ did because, had anyone else done it, it would be no news at all.

Christ didn't enact the Gospel. He is the Gospel.

So, this is how I preach--deferring attention from the act to Him, lifting Him up. I know we all love to tell our stories of redemption, and we should. Believe me, I do too, but my story doesn't begin to come close to explaining the miracle and wonder of God. Nobody's does. My story, I think, is mostly for me--to remind me who God is--how intimate and mighty and, well, involved.  It helps me stay on the road toward Him.

So how do I preach? Well, if the Gospel is not what He did, then it's not what I do either. If the Gospel is who He is, then as I am called to follow Him and resemble Him, the Gospel is me. Myself. My very person. If you are saying, 'Whoa, there--we are not like God,' well then, I say that if we are not like God, if people can't see God in us, we are not equipped to preach. If people cannot see God in us, then we have no real knowledge of the Gospel at all. 

My very presence should say, 'Here He is, friend--Jesus Christ--Savior, Redeemer, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God. He's in me and in you, too.' My life should make people long for God. I have to live the new life Christ has put in me, living primarily before the Lord, but all the while in the company of everyone He has put in my path. I can live so that when people see me, they see Christ. I can do this because God says I can.

Is this hard? Of course it is. At least until it becomes very, very easy. In the end, I don't have the responsibility for anyone else's salvation. I just have to look out for Christ as He shows the way. And that is very Good News, indeed.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified--1Corinthians 2:2
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory.--Colossians 1:27

This Very Day

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I keep forgetting that I can live my life in only one way--one day at a time.
God knows this, but I often don't.
Sure, I know all the repetitive tasks that need to be done every day--making beds, dishes, going to work, caring for children, preparing meals--as well as the ones I sneak in from my to-do list--clean the hall closet, take a meal to Mary. But one thing never appears on my list: consecrate my life to God.
I need to intentionally give my life to Christ the same way I carefully plan everything else--every day.

I don't decide to follow Christ once for all. I do it every day, every hour, with every breath. 
I know this is true whenever I open my mouth and decide to lie or speak an unkind word. I decided for myself in that moment, not for God.
I know this is true whenever I raise my hand for a third piece of cake or to push away annoyance or embrace frustration. I decided for myself, not for God.

God intends for us to live like this--to be constantly aware of the need to choose Him with every thought, every action, every word.
I have to live every day aware that I live it before the Lord.

Decide this day who you will serve--Joshua 24:15

This day is important to God. I looked it up. My concordance has nearly 1500 instances where it uses the word 'day', and many of them have numbers. They're all over the place.

At dawn the first day of the week--Matthew 28:1
On the first day, hold a sacred assembly--Exodus 12:16 
The second day of the month he did not eat--1Samuel 20:34
On the third day, He will rise again--Luke 18:33
On the fourth day, they assembled in the valley--2Chronicles 20:26
On the fifth day, prepare nine  bulls--Numbers 29:26
On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much--Exodus 16:22
On the seventh day, hold a festival--Exodus 13:6
The seventh day will be your holy day--Exodus 35:2
On the eighth day, when it was time--Luke 2:21
The evening of the ninth day of the month--Leviticus 23:32
On the tenth day of the seventh month--Leviticus 23:27
On the twelfth day of the first month, we set out--Ezra 8:31
On a single day, the thirteenth day--Esther 3:13
On the fourteenth day of the first month--Leviticus 23:5
On the fifteenth day of that month--Leviticus 23:6
On the seventeenth day of the second month--Exodus 16:1
On the twentieth day of the second month--Numbers 10:1
On the twenty-fourth day of the first month--Daniel 10:4
On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month--2Kings 25:27
The day after Passover, that very day--Joshua 5:11
By this time the day after tomorrow--1Samuel 20:5
I will raise him up on the last day--John 6:40

The Bible is a book of single days--not all of them rolled up together and put before us as eternity, but individual days, written one at a time, exactly as we live them. Its stories have not happened in a hazy, non-specific past, but with detailed what, who, where, and when, just like ours.

I did not know this morning when I got up whether this day would be significant in the story of my life or whether my choices would be life-altering for somebody else. But I do know where the day came from--
 This is the day the Lord has made--Psalm 118:26
 and what I am supposed to do with it.
Teach us to number our days--Psalm 90:12

This is the day I am to use my free will to choose Christ.
This is the day I am to consecrate to God.
This is the day I decide to be holy, one act, one word, one thought at a time.

This day. This day. This very day.

Stuck Between Awful and Awesome

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I didn't know this would be the hard part.

It looked so straightforward at first.
I was a sinner. That was plain. The list of my ungodly behaviors was long and shameful. But God is good. He showed my sins to me one by one, as gently as was possible, and guided me out of the dark place where I lived with them. And I learned to leave them behind, step by painful step, and the horizon cleared. I learned how to live in God's light, for the most part within His commands. I changed. A lot.

And God said it was good.

So, here I am. A new person. Walking in a new light, a new life. I look around and relax into it, nodding my head in agreement with what God has done in me, saying "Yeah. Thanks, God. I'm liking this."
I go to church every week.
I'm kind to children and animals and even cranky neighbors.
I mind, for the most part, my words and thoughts.
I help the people God brings into my world.
I concentrate hard on being a good wife and mother.
I try to work to God's glory.
I've found a rhythm to this life. It's become familiar. What I used to be and do is slowing fading into a shadowy past and this version of me has become my new, redeemed normal. 

And that's the problem. It's normal.
My new life is normal and God isn't. God is awesome. He's thrilling, exciting, beyond imagination surprising.
But if something doesn't change soon, I'm going to be stuck here. Rescued from the awful, but not reaching the awesome.

This is what nobody told me when I started on this way--
God doesn't want us to look like redeemed humans.
He wants us to look like Him.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory--2 Corinthians 3:18

Darn. That's hard.
Harder than following commandments. Harder than changing behaviors. Harder than stopping habits and thought patterns.
God doesn't just want me to be the best I can be. He wants me to be like Him.
And, just for the record, I am not at all like God.

And yet.....and yet. I've nowhere else to go. It's either go back to the old me--no longer a viable alternative at this point--or it's more of the same--which is bogging me down--or it's this next thing, this glory, this transformation into something that's not only not me--it's not even human.

Not even human. That's the reason it sounds and feels so strange. God wants me to become more than I've ever seen in me or anyone else. I can never be God. I can never share all of his power or might or perfection, but He does want me to become god-like. He wants me to share His glory.

He created me to be like Him.
And God made man in his own image--Genesis 1:27
He says I can be holy.
Be ye holy as I am holy--Leviticus 19:2
He says that, as His beloved child, I am one with Him.
You are gods--you are all sons of the Most High--Psalm 82:6
He says he can make me perfect.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father.--Matthew 5:48, Nehemiah 2:48

If I am ever to get unstuck, this is where I have to go.
Up. More.
He must become greater, I must become less.--John 3:30
I have to aim for what looks impossible.
I have to go to a place I can never, never reach on my own. 
And maybe that's the point.
The further I go, the more I need His help. Until, finally, we get so close that we are never apart. So close as to be almost indistinguishable.
Yes. I would like that.

Looking for the Holy Church

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For the past few years, we've been trying to find the church. Not a church, but the church. 

It's easy to find a church--a community of believers who gather once a week to worship God, connect with one another, and work together to further His kingdom. There are lots of buildings that house communities like this and every Sunday, we are in one of them. But often, I come away unsatisfied, like I have missed something important. We have sung, we have prayed, we have listened to a good lesson, we have hugged and shook hands with friends, but something is missing and now I think I'm beginning to understand what it is.

I expect something else from God's church, something important. I expect the church, more than anything else, to be holy. Holy--as in completely dedicated to God. I expect the people who gather in that building to cling unreservedly to Him. To worship Him, to kneel humbly before Him because we know corporately as well as singly who He is. He is God and we are not.

The church I yearn for does not put on a pretty face. The church I yearn for falls down in thanksgiving, not just raises its hands in praise. The church I yearn for does not just look for one another in their accustomed places. It looks for God. God first, second, and third--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything--everything--else comes after.
A feeling of togetherness comes after.
Personal development comes after.
Good sermons come after.
Jobs and committees come after.
Witnessing comes after.
Activities come after.
Ministries come after.
Good works come after.

I want holiness. I want from my church complete dedication to God's very person, all the parts of Him--incarnated Man and supernatural Spirit.

I am entirely convinced that the church is not primarily the place to work with and learn from and celebrate with one another, but to learn together to be like God. He has commanded us to perfection in Him and given us the church as the place where we strive to attain that together. Our church, like the tabernacle of Israel, needs to be a Holy of Holies, a place we must approach on our knees in reverent fear, not a place where we only sing for joy, clap, and wave our hands. The church I yearn for concentrates not primarily on our friendship with God, but on what still separates us--not on what we have, or on what God as done, but on what He has asked us to be.

I want a church that holds up God's seemingly-impossible standard of holiness and urges me forward toward it, reminding me to have courage and strain for what is still beyond my grasp. Don't tell me about your wonderful pastor or friendly congregation or uplifting programs or helpful ministries. Tell me that, together, you unswervingly desire and work to be more like God.

Be ye holy as I am holy.--Leviticus 20:7, 1Peter 1:16

Please, please give me a church who looks at her bridegroom with the same singlemindedness as a bride on her wedding day, all but blind to everything and everyone else, but promising the fruit of that devotion in everything else she does.

...prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.--Revelation 21:2

Learning from an Atheist

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"I don't need an outside source to tell me to be a good person. Seriously? How difficult is it not to be a jerk?"

Everybody should have an atheist in their life. I mean it. We take way too much for granted. Most of us have absolutely no idea how atheists think. We need to know more than how to answer them. We need to understand and respect them.

I love the atheist in my family. She pokes me. She argues with me. She challenges me. She makes me think.
"How difficult is it not to be a jerk?" she asked the other day.
It's a good question. She knows right from wrong for the most part--probably as much as most Christians I know. She knows she was born with this knowledge, a knowledge she didn't summon up for herself. She doesn't much care why she knows--she just does--and tries to live by it. She sincerely wants to be a good person and seriously can't imagine why that shouldn't be enough.

I try to imagine sometimes how God sees her. I know He loves her--that goes without saying. But how does He look on her sincerely good intentions? Are they enough? That's a harder one. Paul, in writing to the Romans, considered the same thing:

It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature what the law requires, they are a law unto themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.--Romans 2: 13-16

Atheists have no faith in Christ, but they often have an active conscience--the law is written on their hearts. They, then, can be doers of the law without knowing from Whom the law comes. They are a "law unto themselves", but that law often conforms to God's. If God justifies the doers of the law, will my atheist then also be justified?

She might. God is, after all, in charge of His own heaven. He measures each one of us by something humans can neither see nor know--our hearts.
However, Jesus also said that:
No one comes to the Father except by me.--John 14:6
and:
By faith you are saved.--Ephesians 2:8
My atheist has neither Jesus nor faith. In fact, she has summarily rejected them both but, in her defense, I know far too many professing Christians who think less than an atheist about right and wrong. We might do well to consider them more often.  

Right and wrong are not always instinctively easy to come by. I used to think, for instance, that some certain lies ("No you don't look fat in that dress" or "I don't have to report that income--they paid me cash") were OK to tell. I don't anymore. My notions of right and wrong have shifted with changing age and circumstances.

It's the same for everybody. That's why a country has laws. None of us decides for ourselves what is legal. We don't individually decide our own speed limits and, as a result, we can all share the same roads without constantly crashing into each other. It's the same for life, isn't it? We don't decide right and wrong for ourselves so that we don't destroy one another. I may think it's OK to arm myself to the teeth and use my guns to defend myself and you don't. I may believe it's OK to spank my kids and you don't. I may think I have a right to share in someone else's wealth and you don't. We both sincerely believe we are right.

I don't know about my atheist, but when it comes to deciding right from wrong, I need a place to look it up, something I didn't write--the constitution for the laws of the land and the Bible for everything else. And I take comfort that, as long as I still live, God is working in both of us--me and my atheist. And, as long as she is willing to listen to me, really listen, I am happy to try to return the favor.

In the meantime, recognizing that I don't have all the answers, I cry on both of our behalfs, "Lord, have mercy."

Uphill Both Ways

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This week, I was thinking about what it was like to walk to school in the wintertime--wind cutting sharp edges into my cheeks, fingers and toes numb, layers of jackets and snow pants humid from effort, the scratchy red scarf across my mouth--I walked. Not ten miles uphill both ways, but a mile and a half. Every day. Rain, snow, or shine. We had no school bus. Mom didn't drive.

And it occurred to me that I will never be able to explain to my children or grandchildren what that felt like. Never. No words could describe it. Only the experience would explain, and then I would no longer need an explanation. They will never know this. They get in the car not with gratitude, but with entitlement.

They don't mean to--they just never knew anything else. They don't understand. Privilege has hardened their hearts.

Then [Jesus] climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.--Mark 6: 51-52

The apostles knew the same hardening. They watched Jesus day after day, miracle by miracle. Amazing events became their daily bread. And their hearts were hardened by them. They took them for granted. Right after He'd multiplied the loaves and fishes, fed more than 5000 people from nearly nothing, they went fishing and encountered not only a storm strong enough to threaten their safety, but see Jesus walking across the water toward them in the midst of it and they are terrified--they don't know who He is.

The miracle on the hillside did not translate for them into a miracle on water. Jesus relieving a relatively minor problem, giving a bunch of people lunch, did not teach them that He could rescue them from a major one. Why? Because their hearts were hardened. 

He could not explain His power. He had to show them.
So He brought the storm.
He used it to show them: This is what it feels like to be terrified. And this is what I can do for you when terror comes.

We are the same. God's faithfulness in hardship cannot be explained. It has to be experienced.
I will never leave you, God tells us. I will never forsake you.
But privilege has hardened our hearts. It doesn't sink in until after the storm has calmed and Jesus is standing in the boat saying, "See--I told you." Then we know.

It helps to have heard the promise--it helps us to recognize the rescue when it comes, but the promise alone will not convince us. We have been hardened by God's lifelong faithfulness and mercy. We expect it. Only when He seems to have failed do we understand the extent of His rescue.
Then we hear His gentle voice, "Remember this feeling. Believe me."

Putting It Together

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Once a year, I work a jigsaw puzzle. My son buys it for me as a Christmas gift, and we spread it out on the dining room table and lay in one piece at a time until it's done. I like laying the pieces in, watching the picture form slowly. It always seemed like a fitting activity for the dark of winter at the end of one year and the beginning of another, and now I know why.

A jigsaw puzzle is a metaphor for life.

Think about it.
A thousand pieces or more that make up a design someone else conceived. Each piece a day that I can only add one at a time. 

The edges first--a framework for everything else.  God, the law, my conscience, the place and time ordained for me above all others. I have to start there.

Then I look for big patterns--the side of a barn, a bunch of flowers, a face, a doorway--and I gather the pieces up, again one at a time, to see whether they fit. Some do. They are a job, marriage, children--the things around which all else must fit. And the easily recognizable parts begin to take shape.

These usually go together fairly quickly. Yes, I look at them one by one, but not always too closely. They come almost automatically. But then I have to join them. I have to piece together a sidewalk, a brick wall, a lake, a bookcase. This is when it gets harder and slows down. The pieces all look so much alike. Raising kids. Going to work day after day. Learning my spouse does not exist to make me happy. These are the days we learn to live with mistakes. I get frustrated when this phase starts, not liking the forced slowdown. I have to individually examine every one of these pieces for size and shape and color, in order to figure out where it fits. I find a place in the puzzle for some. Some I put aside for later. Some I try to force--surely it goes in this spot. But it doesn't. This is when I am most likely to lose or bend a piece.

But all the while, the picture builds. I see more of it every day, become familiar with each region of it. The brown pieces go in the upper right. The green ones go near the door. The ones that look like mottled eggshells are a sandy beach and go next to the water.
I dream about every detail, excited to see where the next piece will go.

And always, always, I see the end approaching. The pile of loose pieces shrinks, but I feel no panic. The empty places in between begin to disappear and I stand back occasionally to see what all those small pieces have wrought.

It is then I see what I am making. One by one, day after day, piece by piece, the overall design, made long ago by my Father in heaven, finally comes together and I can see it, and remember. This is when I did this or this is what happened on that day. This is not a painting, beautiful only for the finished product. It is gradual assimilation of detail, forever made of small things bound together into the finished whole it was always meant to be.

The puzzle only goes together one way and, eventually, I hold only one piece in my hand. The box is empty, all other places filled in. I am finished.

My last day.
And I lay my final piece into place and stand back to look. So that is what I am. That is what You planned for me all along. 
Thank you. It is beautiful.

Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom--Psalm 90:12