Limitless good news

December 16, 2011

Maria Forgiveness, Gospel , , 3 Comments

“Le Hic”, (the thing) about the Gospel is that there are SO many things about the Gospel.  Who can ever be bored, when there are treasures to be discovered?  I sometimes thank God that He is both bigger & better and truer & more real than anything I can imagine.  I don’t have to fear running out of new knowledge about God.  I don’t have to fear that one day I’ll hear of proof that Christianity isn’t true after all.

Here are some recent thoughts, new to me, about God and what He has done for us:

  • Justice has been meted out in my cosmic criminal case, so I face no more penal judgment. Payment for my sins is truly behind me, a fait accompli. There is no double jeopardy in God’s kingdom.
  • I’ve already been punished when Jesus was punished
  • I’ve already died. I was crucified with Jesus at the cross.
  • Therefore, with nothing to fear, my relationship with the Father has been restored.
  • If the worse thing to fear is death, and since I’ve already died, there is nothing more to fear.   Do I lack anything?  Remember Paul’s logic.  If God the Father has given me the ultimate (Jesus), won’t He just as readily and easily provide for my lesser needs?
  • What about people’s approval?  If God is for me, what do I care what others think?  I don’t need anyone’s praise.   I’ve been declared cherished and worth dying for, so much so as to be united to Christ. (Who would want to share His nature with worms?)
  •  Not needing to please man, my time and energy is now freed from the tyranny of always having to convince others how great and unique I am.
  • If I have peace with God forever, I can graciously endure temporary hardship, drawing on the strength of the One with whom I’m united.

During this final week leading to Christmas 2011, let us savor our Savior. Let us treasure the innumerable benefits that are ours in Christ.  And let us not hesitate to explain the riches available to all those who turn to Him. The next time someone asks, “Are you ready for Christmas?” why not flip the question around to? :

“Yes, thanks for asking.  What about you?  What thrills you about the birth of Christ?”

Maybe the different response might give them pause long enough to hear some good news.

Why I’m glad Christianity is falsifiable

December 2, 2011

Maria 1 Corinthians, Colossians, Doctrine, Gospel, Hebrews , , 2 Comments

1 Cor 15: 17-19  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

 

“What if they found the body of Jesus, how would that affect your faith?” I heard this question the other day.  The man queried knew his Bible and went immediately to Paul’s gospel explanation.  The short of it is that without a risen Christ, Christianity doesn’t exist.

Reflecting on the essence of Christianity made me wonder if the Jews at the time of Jesus really understood the concept of ‘eternal life’ with God and the need to be ‘saved’ from the wrath of God in order to have a forever LOVING relationship with God.

When I sample the many texts in the OT that talk about salvation, I am left with the impression that Jews under the Old Covenant were really talking about being saved or rescued from difficult or perilous circumstances (oppression, danger, illness or poverty).  Yes, there was a moral law (the ten basic Mosaic Laws handed down TWICE by God).  Yes, real guilt or ‘asham’ in Hebrew was acknowledged (hence the Temple guilt offering). Yes, David acknowledged that when he killed Uriah he sinned against God. But many infractions were more community-based. Some were the result of inadvertently hurting a neighbor or his property.  Other deficits came about in day-to-day life, such as  giving birth, completing one’s monthly cycle, or even due to work commitments (such as burial or mold detail).

Hebrew people seem to have judged sin to be serious mainly because it separated them from the community.  OT texts talk about being unclean and thus alienated from fellowship.  Uncleanness didn’t necessarily mean breaking a moral law.  But ritualistic purification/ cleansing sacrificial acts were called for, in order to sanction a return to full communion with the group.

My premise is that 1st century Jews hearing about the New News of God had to be indoctrinated and explicitly taught this new doctrine. To fully understand the seriousness of being under God’s wrath, one needed teaching different from that of the Pharisees and Scribes.

What an extravagant and marvelous solution to the problem of God’s wrath!  We’ve lost our amazement and awe in face of not only a restoration of fellowship with God, but the whole adoption process. The gift of a loving and eventual face-to-face union with a triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) that will last forever?  How is that possible?

The author of Hebrews succinctly articulates this new Covenant in chapter 9, verse 15:  “Christ, the Messiah is the author of an entirely new and different covenant, so that all those who are called and offered it, may received the promised eternal inheritance. For a death has taken place; Jesus has died as a ransom to save us from sins committed under the first or old covenant….”

All the above would have stayed the fantastical imaginings of wistful dreamers had there had been a body.  But thanks be to God!  Jesus’ resurrection is vindication of the false charge of blasphemy.  Technically He was put to death for claiming that He was one and the same as God.  The fact that He didn’t stay dead, that He actually supernaturally rose and appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time as well as to the major apostles is proof positive that He is God, just as He claimed.

Had there been a body, Judaism would have remained the only player.  People would have continued to do bad stuff both morally against God and His creation and technically against the community.  Animals would have continued to die to temporarily fix the problem. Precious little talk of eternal face-to-face fellowship with God as Father would have occurred.

Okay…I know, you’re thinking of how Psalm 16 ends…” in your presence is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures evermore”.  I agree:  if you look for them, there are OT references to eternal life with God.  But I don’t think that doctrine was a clear and present hope.  From everything we read in gospels, temple worship was big business, all about power and money.  The only mystery was the High Priest’s once-a-year high-profile, but hidden, almost Wizard of Oz-like performance behind the veil.

This, dear friends, is what we would be left with IF the dead body of Jesus had been produced. We would be gentile worshippers of Yahweh at best, just as lost as non-worshippers, but perhaps comforted by the ritual.  After all, man is a religious animal.

So the next time you think about what it would take for you to lose your faith, be glad that Christianity is falsifiable in such a clear way.  And then rejoice that Christianity is TRUE.  Jesus, the God-man who walked on earth 2100 years ago, was for real.  He is just as real today.  And we must study our doctrine to know the glorious riches of this mystery: “Christ in you, the assurance of glory”

 

Do versus Know

October 24, 2011

Maria 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 2 Peter, Gospel , Leave a comment

Did you know that Christianity is different from every other faith ‘expression’ in the universe?  When I was in Toronto, I dialogued a bit with the assistant wedding photographer who was a Muslim.  He echoed the same assertion as my young Muslim pharmacist at Kroger:  “Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all basically the same.”

(That’s an easy assertion to counter – just ask them who Jesus is.  Jews admit Jesus was a teacher of the law.  Muslims claim that he was a prophet.  But divine Son of God?  No way!)

But for the purposes of this blog post, I want to share what gets at the heart of the main difference.

Here’s a general statement that I believe holds true.  Most religions teach you what you have to DO in order to obtain X, Y, or Z.  Christianity is NOT focused on what we do, but what we must KNOW.  Out of correct knowledge of reality, we can then do the right things.  But these ‘right actions’ are not directed at getting anything, earning anything, manipulating anyone.

Here’s what I mean.  Both the Greek and Hebrew words for the verb ‘to know’ are pivotal.  Look at some of these texts.

Paul:  Philippians 3:8 “ ….I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of KNOWING Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Paul:  1 Cor 2:14  “For I determined to KNOW nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

Paul: 2 Cor 2:14 “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the KNOWLEDGE of Him in every place

Paul: 2 Cor 4: 6b-7 “ For God….has shone in our hearts to give the light of the KNOWLEDGE of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  For we have THIS TREASURE (what else, but the preceding KNOWLEDGE) in earthen vessels (remember? our original dad, Adam, was made of clay dustJ)

Peter: 2 Peter 3: 3-4  “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our KNOWLEDGE of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises (we have to KNOW them to derive power), so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (what we know changes our desires!)

Habbakuk 2:14 “For the earth will be filled with the KNOWLEDGE of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea”

We are all wired to want to DO and to EARN the goodies of life.  Jesus teaches that having the correct information and then resting on, banking on, savoring and  loving that information, that good news (‘gospel’) above all else is the key.  When his Jewish followers tried to pin him down (what do we have to do to get the ‘A’?) he answered in John 6:29, “This is the work of God, that you BELIEVE in Him whom He has sent”

He didn’t say, “This is the work of God, that you DO”.

Listening to Brad Evangelista (Crosspointe Church, Columbus, GA) and reading a John Piper essay (Desiring God ministries) today left me with the same message.  What we DO, the works we perform, our behavior all come out of WHO we are.  Brad was talking about coaching youth football and challenging the youngsters to play like who they are, Broncos!  John Piper was doing the same.  Since we are recipients (undeserving) of God’s glorious mercy, live like an amazed child of God who has untold treasures awaiting her.

To close, I want to share with you an anecdote expressing the same point that first we have to KNOW who we are, before we can ACT correctly or DO the right thing as fragrant ambassadors of Christ.  I was listening to the story of a woman who had escaped the lies of Mormonism.  When asked what was attractive about the Mormon life, she said it was the knowledge that she would one day be a goddess on her own planet.  She wore a necklace or bracelet with a pendant that was a promise of that, given to her when she was baptized as a Mormon convert. That knowledge made her feel special every day.  (Then came the day when she learned how false the teachings of Mormonism were and she left.)

Shouldn’t knowing the truth make the difference in our day-to-day life?  The best antidote to blah-ness is to feast on Christ. Then we can sincerely exclaim with Paul (Romans 11:33) – “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and KNOWLEDGE of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”

The Power of an Ecclesiastes Moment

July 10, 2011

Maria Ecclesiastes, Gospel , 3 Comments

Two posts ago I described the objective news that is very good, hence ‘gospel’. I spelled out what God did to make a way for us to be in right relationship with Him. Yes, every single human being has a relationship with God, the Almighty Father.  As one British man put it, we all have a personal relationship with God.  Some are enemies of God and will be judged worthy of eternal separation and punishment; some are friends of God and will be graced with the gift of pardon and joyful eternal fellowship with the Holy family.

Today I want to describe the subjective changes that can occur when one’s status shifts from “Enemy of God” to “Beloved Child and Friend of God”.

Context and frameworks are important to me.  I grew up learning lots of data via education, reading and ‘attending’ church.  But I had no system in which to file, store or make sense of the information.   (As an aside, having been ‘educated’ in public schools to include my four years at “The University” aka University of Virginia and then having taught for 12 years at an elite ‘independent’ school, I was hungry for a better way to educate students.  Hence my delight upon discovering the classical method; subsequently I have found a HOME teaching logic and French at a classical Christian school in Yorktown, VA.  The classical method gives students a structure on which to hang the data they absorb.  Then students are drawn into making connections, learning to reason and ultimately expressing themselves with eloquence.)

The spiritual side of my life paralleled my educational experiences. The seemingly random chunks of unanchored God-knowledge I was collecting came from years of attending church. God had been calling me for a time into a deeper relationship with Him. But no matter what I learned, it had minimal impact on my life, for without a proper worldview or system, I had no idea what to do with the information.  Until my mid-forties, I was busy being a wife and a working mom with two sons.  I didn’t have much time to think.  You know what it’s like coordinating sports schedules and keeping up with the social lives of teens.

The year I turned 40, my life changed. I started studying and learning biblical truth via Bible Study Fellowship.  The concept and importance of having a Biblical worldview also began to percolate somewhere in my mind as I read books recommended by mentors.  But one day (I must have had a pocket of time to think), I was sitting at a traffic light waiting to turn left into our neighborhood when I was caught up in the meaninglessness of life.  It was an Ecclesiastes Meltdown Moment.

Have you ever had one of those?  It’s when you can somehow stand outside of yourself and observe both yourself and those around you.  Everything seemed meaningless, an entry right out of Solomon’s diary:  Chapter 1, verse 8:  All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it.  The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing.

I FELT the futility of everything and I was depressed.  It was rush hour; people were in that tired/no think/ rat-race zone, just doing the next thing on the list and stressing because they had not allowed enough time to GET there, wherever THERE is.  There seemed to be no purpose to anything in my life.  And I was very scared.  I can see why men have mid-life affairs or buy a big toy or why women want a new house and throw themselves into decorating it.  Humans crave purpose, meaning, and drama!  And if they don’t find it where God intended them to (in HIM!), they will imbue something created with that kind of transcendent meaning.

My spiritual angst did not last more than a couple of days, but I won’t ever forget it.  Somehow through all that I had been learning from God’s word, books and podcasts, a framework for making sense of life as it really is was forming.  All was NOT meaningless.  There was a purpose.  Whew!  I would not want to live unanchored every day with the burden of having to make up a purpose à la existentialists. But sometimes God gives me a taste of that empty world as a reminder.  I am exceedingly thankful when I come back to my senses.

I’ve told you the above back story to show you the sad truth that without a relationship with God as one of His own, people live quiet and despairingly grey lives. Oh, they may LOOK happy and even be satisfied for a while as they busy themselves with all the entertaining options the world offers.  But with no proper framework or world view to explain the ‘teleos’ (purpose) of life, eventually the baubles of life break or satisfy no more.  Even uninformed Christians can get caught up in the snares of modern, frenzied life and not know that they have it all wrong.

I became a Christian at age 24, but did not start to study my Bible in an organized fashion until I was 40 and even then it took about 5 years for some of the truths to make a serious difference.  (Hint, hint, hint:  when you share the Gospel with someone, it’s really important that you plug them into a Bible-believing Church so they can grow and learn.)

So here are some of the SUBJECTIVE benefits to being an informed Christian.  Objectively, yes, your eternal destination and future have changed.  And that is HUGE.  But there are some very precious subjective (i.e. FEELING) blessings for this present life that come with being a growing, abiding, well-fed little lamb of Christ:

  • Purpose in life – As a believer every day that you are alive you have a mission.  You are an ambassador of Christ whose job is to make God look good in your current circumstances, among the ‘neighbors’ that God has placed around you.  God is of course incredibly good..but most people don’t know that.  To use ‘christianese’, we are to be salty and emit the fragrance of the Savior. When someone is interested in talking about God, then we can tell them the truth about their personal relationship with their Creator.
  • Explanation for evil – there is a real cosmic battle going on.  Evil exists because of the fall.  Sinful humans hurt other sinful humans.  Natural disasters happen.  Satan, as temporary ruler of this world’s systems, is at war with God and His people.  But God is still in charge.  All that happens is under His sovereign control.  I would be VERY depressed if I thought pain was random and meaningless.
  • A prepared Father who knows what is happening next – Nothing surprises God about me or life.  There is no Plan B.  God knows all that is going to happen to me and has stockpiled resources that are perfect for the circumstances.
  • Nothing wasted – Everything that is painful, tough and frustrating is used by God for my ultimate good.  If I yield it to God, the ‘bad stuff’ is not wasted.
  • Riches waiting – As a child of God, one of His family, I have access to hundreds of riches through very real promises of God as He has revealed in Scriptures.  And there is REAL power in His words.  The Bible is not just a historical account of what happened, but living words that reveal a loving God who is alive!  He has planned provisions waiting for me in the Scriptures.
  • No end – this is more important to me as I age.  I recall past 7-day cruises we have enjoyed.  Each time the week flies by.  Soon there is only one or two days left and we are sad.  All good things inevitably come to an end.  Now as I approach mid-fifties, I find comfort that the best is yet to be and it won’t ever end.

The Good News – two parts

June 29, 2011

Maria 1 Peter, Gospel , Leave a comment

How do you share the Gospel?  It’s a very intimidating subject.  Maybe I should ask, “Do you share the Gospel?” and if so, what do you say?  I’ve been obsessed with this question for a while.  I feel both a conviction and desire to be out and about giving real hope in a fragile, fleeting world, yet I am afraid of both rejection and falling on my face.

I grew up in the Episcopal Church.  Their approach to sharing the Gospel, at least during the ‘so called’ Decade of Evangelism (the 1990s) was meant to take away any fear or threat of pushback.  They taught “All you have to do is tell your story – no one can criticize you for telling your story!”

It took me years finally to realize that while one’s story might interest SOME people, that’s actually NOT the gospel.  Your story features and highlights YOU as the main character.  On the other hand, the Gospel is God’s story; His rescue operation of lost sinners unable to save themselves. That’s why it’s good news for everyone. And it’s not just wishful thinking.  We can point to a particular historical event as a basis for this saving operation.

So for the past two years, having studied the content of the good news as objective historical fact – what Christ accomplished on our behalf, I have stayed away from including anything personal.  But recently I’ve been reading that it is perfectly legitimate to add a personal dimension, the details of how that ‘good’ news has changed your life.

These two aspects of the Gospel – the objective side and the affective side seem like they would make for a much more complete presentation.  Taking two weeks, I will first pick up and look at the content of the actual gospel.  And next week, God-willing, I will write about how that event has changed my life.  In doing so, I think that my readiness to share the full story will be honed.  Maybe this will prompt you to practice articulating what the Gospel is.  After all, we are charged to be ready always to give a defense, an apologia for what and why we believe (1 Pet 3:15).

The good news, the Gospel, is an account of something that took place outside of us.  It’s anchored in an historical event, the crucifixion.   God the Son came into our world as a human to reconcile us to God the Father by accomplishing two goals.  The first goal was to pay off our debt against God.  The second goal was to transfer a perfectly obedient life to our account.  By doing both, we are then counted and considered as adopted sons of the Father, having full rights of inheritance with our older brother Jesus.  It’s an incredible accomplishment given our status beforehand.

As always, in order to understand why this is GOOD news, we have to acknowledge reality before Jesus.  Yes, God did create us in His image and He was pleased with His handiwork.  But in the interests of creating us with the capacity to love as free agents, part of our nature included the ability to reject God.  And right from the beginning our Uncle Adam and Aunt Eve did that.

We all know that no man is an island unto himself and that our actions do indeed impact others.  Well Adam and Eve’s desire to be autonomous, to be their own gods and decision makers got transferred to us.  And that default has been wired into our very nature, to our harm.

Every time we decide to make much of ourselves or of something in creation, we rob God of His rightful glory.  Those actions add up to a staggering record against us.  They prevent us from having a peaceable relationship with God our Father.  We are out of sorts with Him because of all this wrongdoing lying between us.  The record is huge, because it keeps accumulating each day, day after day.  It is an insurmountable obstacle to a loving relationship with God.  In fact because of this mountain of sin, we deserve death.

Yet God…..!!! (Great words)  Because He is just and righteous, He doesn’t turn a blind eye to sin. But because His loving-kindness is beyond our imagining, He doesn’t leave us without hope. Instead, He provided a way to pay off that debt forever. He chose to die in our place.  Had WE been writing the story, never in a million years would we have imagined that ending.  But the Trinity in a Holy Plan created this very rescue mission.  God as Father, Holy Spirit and Son decided to save a group of humans to be His children forever.  Jesus, the son, left His privileged place in the family God-head to face the eventual separation when He took on our sins.

All this glorious work and inheritance gets to be ours when we face the fact that without God’s active intervention, we would have no way out. We can’t save ourselves. But oh, what a savior!  We can humbly and gratefully accept His offer of pardon and full restitution. That’s it – we open our hands and accept the gift and our status is immediately changed.  We no longer face eternal condemnation and a horrible future.

Instead we can look forward to a mind-boggling, staggering inheritance, packed with an infinity of implications.  But why do I hesitate to let others in on this amazing plan?   Why do I stall, dreaming up ‘easy’ ways to approach people?   I hold imaginary conversations

  • So, are you a spiritual person?
  • Do you ever feel guilty?
  • What are you going to do with your guilt when you die?
  • Do you ever think about life after death?
  • What do you think happens to people when they die?

I think I have the content down.  I just am afraid to open up, unless someone asks me a leading question.

What about you?  What has your experience been like?  How do you communicate God’s story?

(**Next week, I’ll post about why being rescued by God has changed my life in the here and now.)

What if we were enemies of God?

December 10, 2010

Maria Attitude, Doctrine, Gospel, Life , 2 Comments

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  1 Pet 1:3

Being a Christian is not just about having eternal life. I don’t mean to minimize that inexpressible gift, but I want to highlight how belonging to the family of God makes a difference while we are in this earthly, natural body.

Imagine for a moment what it would mean in your life and mine if our relationship with God were different.  You do realize that everyone has a relationship with God.  You are either an enemy of God or a friend of God.  This is no ‘either-or fallacy’.  Those truly are the only two choices. Friends of God enjoy significant benefits during their 80 + years.

Once God has reconciled us to Him through faith (that is: knowing, believing and relying on His work at the cross), the benefits kick in. To appreciate what they are, let’s look at the life of someone who does not belong to God, someone who has not been born into a living hope.

  • He has no over-arching purpose in life that is bigger than him.  Life is just what he makes it.  He creates his own meaning.  But this imaginary meaning is meaningless because it is not anchored in any reality.  It cannot be anything other than wishful thinking.
  • When troubles, violence, pain come, he has no way of making any sense of them.  He is at the mercy of all that may upset his fragile life and harm those whom he loves.
  • By the time he has launched his family and is on the other side of the career curve, he begins to ask himself, “is this it? …so now I just look forward to retirement and then death?”
  • The above point applies only to those who are honest.  Most people push those hard questions away and fill their lives with  ‘stuff’ or ‘experiences’ or a new relationship, trying to generate some ‘joie de vivre’
  • He has nothing and nobody but himself to rely on in the final analysis.  An honest enemy of God lives with existential loneliness.
  • He has no access to any supernatural power.  He is left to battle sin in his own flesh.  Psalm 16: 3-4 quotes God as saying,

“As for the godly (the saints) who are in the land, they are the excellent, the noble, and the glorious, in whom is all my delight.  Their sorrows shall be multiplied who choose another god; their drink offerings of blood will I not offer or take their names upon my lips.”

I can’t imagine anything worse than to have God deliberately choose to remove himself from my life.

 

As adopted children of God, however, we are blessed more than we realize.  Here are a few privileges of belonging to God’s family:

  • We have access to EVERY spiritual blessing in Christ  (Eph 1:3)
  • We have been given fullness in Christ  ( we don’t lack anything)  (Col 2: 19)
  • All the promises of God are a resounding “Yes!” in Christ (they are available to us)  (2 Cor 1:20)
  • We can ask for wisdom when we need it (James 1:5)
  • We have already been given GRACE, PEACE with God and everything we need for life and for godliness (2 Pet 1: 2, 3)

The list could go on and on.  But what I treasure is an understanding of the purpose of life, how to make sense of life.  Life delivers hard, painful blows (Jesus even promises this) but we know that nothing happens without God allowing it.  His Word tells us that He uses all our experiences, bringing out of them good for us (and others) and glory for Himself.  I can trust God.  I don’t have to understand why things happen, but I know WHO is in charge and that He is trustworthy.

Furthermore, the fact that average earthly life of 3 score and 10 years of is just a blip compared with the REST of unending life with God in a different dimension  both anchors me and fills me with joyful anticipation.  The best is yet to be.

Letter to a son – what we failed to teach you

September 28, 2010

Maria Faith, Gospel, Peace, Sanctification, Thinking , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dear Son –

Dad and I were so blessed by your phone call last night. Your transparent accounting of what you struggle with at age 22, both as a newly married man and a recently commissioned Infantry lieutenant, convey trust and love for us and a longing to grow.  These two changes in your life are major, in and of themselves.  Together they provide a lot of stress; even if they are circumstances you have chosen and for which you have mentally prepared.    You’ve faced difficult challenges before, since you’ve been a Christian for 6 or so years and have experienced pruning and growth. But new developments have peeled away a comfort layer and revealed more sin for your Father to address.  Your attitude and reaction to some of these feelings raised have caught you by surprise.

The way you described what God has been teaching you was well articulated.  It’s not a first-time lesson nor is it unique to you.  The choice before all Christians is to walk/abide in our human flesh or to walk/abide in Christ.  The first choice is more comfortable because we have developed personal coping mechanisms to deal with daily unpleasantness.  The second option works far better, but either doesn’t always occur to us and/or doesn’t appeal.  Our pride/stubbornness leads us to default to the shortcut, even if we can accurately predict the outcome. We are used to failure, self-condemnation, our own excuses and concomitant spewing over onto those we love.

Here are some observations from your parents who are 31 years older than you.  However, we have really only been growing as Christians for the past 10 years.  So you, your brother, Dad and I are really about the same age as God’s Kids.

Dad and I DID NOT teach you the following: (we have been learning these realities ourselves in recent years, since you left for college)

  • The reason we were born is to glorify God.
  • The nature of life on earth is brokenness and  warfare
  • Because of Christ in us, we can have purpose and joy beyond measure, but they have NOTHING to do with comfort or circumstances.  They have to do with the Cross.

First – the purpose of life is to glorify God.  Relentlessly, the world tells us that life is all about us.  Hear the constant litany – “our comfort, our desires, our bodies, our accomplishments, our purposes, our stuff, and our rights.”   We have to intentionally choose to live moment by moment, breath by breath for what magnifies and makes most of God, not what exalts us.  John Piper exhorts us not to waste our lives on ourselves, no matter how much we beguile ourselves with our own self-worth.  Self, self, self!

Second – because of the Fall, life is hard.  Because of Satan, we are in a war.   John Piper calls us to adopt a warfare mentality.  That’s not bad.  You were mentioning that a good soldier always has a plan and is prepared to fight.  Our enemy is not just terrorists from another land, fellow humans.  All they can do is kill us.  Our real enemy is far worse. He can deceive us into believing that God doesn’t exist, or in inventing our own version of God, made in our image.

So even though we Christians know how the story ends, we have to be alert and on guard.  The American dream in both the active working years and in retirement is a major ploy of Satan’s.  He has lulled us into thinking that this life is all there is and we had better enjoy it.  Meanwhile, he is behind our lines as a 5th column, beguiling the ‘innocent’.   Be mad!  Get righteously angry, but not at fellow humans, but at the Father of Lies.

My 3rd point is worth more discussion than I have time right now.  But I don’t think you need convincing of the possibility of lasting joy and purpose in Christ.  We are comforted and assured by God’s Word that, even now on Earth, we have eternal life.  Furthermore, God be praised, we are blessed with brief glimpses of joy even while wearing these perishable bodies.

Yet, as your chronologically older sister and brother in Christ, KNOW that this painful lesson of choosing to abide in Christ, rather than working out of your flesh/ your dominant side is a lesson you will have to RELEARN, time and time again.  I’m sorry to tell you that.  Were it otherwise!  But that’s reality here on Earth.  I still struggle with complaining and a poor attitude. I have to be pulled up short, daily.  I’m even doing what I love, teaching French.  Still I grumble, because of lack of perceived comfort, time, and choice circumstances, all the ME- desires.  Your father is blessed to sing with a quality chorus as a hobby.  He still struggles with the insidious temptation to work alone out of his own strength, thus experiencing frustration or to be yoked with Christ and enjoy rest.  How simple the choice seems with distance.  How blind we are.

So be prepared to fall again and again. We thank God for your wife, a godly woman who loves you and will hold you accountable.  And you will do the same for her, when she fails to remember the way life is.   Repentance is a blessing and the Father’s arms are never shut.  Fly to him frequently.

Love,

Mom & Dad

What is the Gospel of God?

August 1, 2010

Maria Gospel, Mark Leave a comment

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.  Mark 1:14

How startling!  I usually think of Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf as being the good news.  But here is Jesus at the start of his preaching and healing ministry talking about the good news of the Father.  This would have been the gospel taught in the Old Testament.  So what was the message or good news that those living in OT times would have heard?

Starting in Genesis we learn something about this good news of God, that…

  • God is a personal God (unlike the pagan gods of surrounding Middle Eastern tribes back then or of today: i.e. Buddha, the myriad Hindu Gods, Mother Earth, the Force of StarWars, or any pantheistic conception) God talked to Abraham personally, dined with him and even laid out a strange covenant during a ceremony that bound God to follow through with His promises…or else!   (Genesis 15 – ………So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon”……..)

And further on we read that …

  • God is a loving God….Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments.
  • God is not someone to be ignored – we have to make a decision about Him – – Joshua 24:15 “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

We also find out that…

  • God has a plan for each person:  Psalm 139:16– Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

And what is our duty?…..

  • The Gospel of God tells us that we are to love Him….Deuteronomy 6:5 – “Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your  God with all your heart and with all your soul.

If you are like me, you might think, that sounds like just stuff I gotta do!!! And I keep failing…….

  • But listen to the best part of the news.. Isaiah 42:7 (Jesus came) to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.  Jesus provides us with the power to receive and live according to God’s good news as he opens our eyes and releases us from being bound in the darkness of our sin.

Right before Jesus starts preaching the Good News of God, ordinary people cluster around John the Baptist.  They witness the baptism of Jesus and hear an audible voice of God announcing His relationship to this Jesus.  People actually witness a voice declaring Jesus to be the pleasing Son of God.  Then Jesus, commissioned by His Father, heads off to Galilee announcing this good news.  People soon learn that what they had not been able to do in their own strength because of their sinful nature; Jesus is going to enable them to do in His strength once they repent and totally give up trusting in themselves for anything.

In sum, the good news that should make us shout for joy and wear a perpetual big grin on our faces all the time is that

  1. There is a purpose for life
  2. There is a reason why life is messed up  (an explanation for evil & suffering)
  3. Our lives have been planned for this time and location and we have a mission
  4. We are meant to have a real relationship with the personal creator & sustainer of the universe
  5. God gives us strength through the Holy Spirit to do what He calls us to do
  6. Nothing bad  that we do can separate us from the forever- love of God once we are in Christ
  7. We will live forever in a place where there is fullness of joy and pleasures every more

How to hold firmly to our faith

June 22, 2010

Maria 1 Corinthians, 2 Peter, Faith, Gospel , , Leave a comment

Now brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 1 Cor 15: 1-2

How do we hold firmly to the Word?  Before we get there, let’s look at what happens when we don’t hold on. If we don’t actively retain a grip on truths in the Bible, it’s as though we never heard any of them.  They don’t do us any good!  How can that be?  Doesn’t everything we hear/read/learn affect us?

Realistically, we retain very little of what we hear. Think about your years at university, or sermons you have listened to.  What do you recall?  Hardly anything.  So if we want to retain some information, some truth, we have to do something with it.  This is what Paul means by holding on firmly.

I teach French and know that my students will truly only acquire a phrase if 3 things happen 1) they understand what I am saying  2) they are interested and 3) they hear it at least 75 times.

What is true about learning a foreign language is true for any content.  So how do we truly digest and ‘own’ what we hear? – By repeating it to ourselves over and over again in a meaningful way to us.  Teaching others and using the content in different but related contexts are also helpful.  In short, plain ‘ole’ messing around with the material is what is required.  I think of kneading bread.  How do you get bread to rise?  You put your hands in the goopy flour, salt, yeast and water mixture and work the 4 ingredients well – for about 10 minutes.  We have to do the same thing with meaningful input – work with the material.

Here is an example.  My license plate says ‘SOLA FID’. (In Virginia, we can use up to 7 letters/digits for a personalized plate.)  Those seven letters refer to one of the doctrines of reformed theology – sola fide.  Someone once asked me what my license plate meant and I stumbled all over myself.  I knew inside, sort of, but couldn’t articulate it.  You can bet that I have practiced my explanation many times now, so that I am ready:

Sola Fide means that we are justified by God and made right with him only through our faith in what Jesus has done on the cross. What did Jesus do?  He took on himself God’s entire wrath that was due us AND gave us all the benefits and credit of his perfectly-lived life.  His sinless life and righteous deeds count for us.  These two transactions come to us by a faith that we don’t produce – the faith is even a gift from God.  So God gets all the credit and glory and we get all the benefits!

So when Paul says that we are saved by the Gospel and that we have to hold on firmly to what we heard and received for it to be effective, I take that to mean that I have to remind myself daily, hourly of the truths of the Bible, the gospel promises.  Else I forget and they have no effect on me.  Peter warns his readers that if we don’t make every effort to develop qualities based on the promises God gives us, we will be like a man who looks in the mirror and then forgets what he looks like.

2  Peter 1: beginning with verse 2 – “Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. 3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.  5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.  10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  12So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. 13I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

This then is what Paul means by holding firm to the Word, to the truth.  We don’t work at this in order to be justified, but we certainly work at it to continue to possess our inheritance, yet…..God’s grace is such that he won’t let us go.  Nonetheless, if I don’t remind myself continually, then my joy drains away and the world becomes more real.  And that is depressing.  So let us be active in rehearsing our faith.

An Experience in Sharing the Gospel

June 14, 2010

Maria Gospel, Reflections, Uncategorized, Wisdom , , , , Leave a comment

Colossians 4:5-6 Be wise in the way you act with outsiders, make the most of every opportunity.  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.

I clobbered my mother-in-law with doctrine.  I wrote her a letter outlining my concerns about her spiritual life.  I shared some basics about sin, repentance, the Good News of what Jesus has done for us and how to grow in the love & knowledge of God.  But I overwhelmed her with my intensity. And I have irrevocably moved our relationship into a new territory where neither of us knows how to maneuver.  All of this – 2 weeks before our youngest son’s wedding when family will gather.

My mother-in-law is 81.  She grew up in the Catholic Church, switched to the Episcopal Church in college, met & married a seminarian and shared the life of an Episcopal priest & bishop for almost 59 years.   Thus has the Episcopal Church been the center of her life.

My concerns for the state of her soul were cumulative over many years as my husband and I were graciously drawn out of the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of light.  Looking back on our past, Mike & I recall how we truly THOUGHT we were Christians all the years we were faithful church-goers and served in different ministries.  Indignation and denial most likely would have been our reaction had someone confronted us with the state of our souls.  So I understand how it must seem puzzling to someone living a ‘religious’ life, that it might be possible not even to belong to Christ.  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”  Matt 7:21

As we discovered truth and life, we wanted to share this joy and the assurance of salvation with those closest to us.  My mother was a believer, yet died before I was regenerated.  I failed to share the Gospel with my father.  I tried, but was not equipped and backed off many times when he didn’t want to talk.  Out of that experience, my husband and I approached his parents.  Our concerns for their spiritual well-being intensified over the past months as my father-in-law was dying.  We prayed for opportunities to have authentic discussions about the reality of Christian hope.  But we could do no more than skirt the periphery of religiosity.

I don’t understand people’s boundaries.  To my discredit, it is very difficult to imagine or empathize, and therefore yield to limits and walls friends and family erect to protect emotions or comfortable routines of looking at life.  (Why wouldn’t you want to talk about the most important topic in life? – your future after you die?  Don’t you want to know if what you have staked your life on is valid?  Don’t you want to even know WHAT it is you believe?) My grown children and husband consider me intense.  But I can’t see that:  I am what I am.  Is a fish aware that he breathes in through gills?

So returning from my father-in-law’s funeral I wrote my mother-in-law THE letter and launched her on a roller-coaster of emotions of anger, shame, indignation and horror.

Here is what I have learned from this experience:

(1)   – Patience is not something I practice naturally, so just as a pilot must intentionally crab into a wind to keep her flight path straight, so must I wait longer than I think is necessary.  I composed THE letter on a Friday and sent it to two people whose opinion I value.  I received a green light from one, but did not wait long enough to hear back from the other person before mailing it off.  She replied 3 ½ days later and suggested restraint.  But I had already mailed off the letter. To my ‘partial credit’ I had slept on it and prayerfully revised it over a 3-day period.  Yet I should have waited for this second person’s wisdom, since I had explicitly asked for it.

(2)   Offhand remarks I wrote that were not even my main point were received poorly.  This really surprised me.  I should have considered every sentence.  When I closed the letter to my dear mother-in-law with the reassurance that her grandsons would be praying along with me for her, I thought that would encourage her.  Instead she was horrified that I had shared something ‘negative’ and had ‘misrepresented her’ to the boys.  I never would have anticipated that reaction.

(3)   Less is more.  I dumped TOO much on her (14 pagesL).  The quantity had two negative effects: a) she missed some important parts because it was too much to take in all at once and b) she felt bludgeoned by the sheer amount of what I wrote.

I failed to SEASON my written conversation with her; I just dumped out the whole blue container of Morton’s iodized salt.

So, I am trusting God now to work my blundering efforts for her good and for mine.  I am praying that we can sort out a way of relating that is safe and comfortable for her when she arrives next week for the wedding.  I am sorry that she will feel self-conscious around her grandsons and us.  That was not my intention.  But I don’t regret that I initiated the discussion.  I could never have said some of what I wrote face to face.  I will continue to share the Gospel with others when appropriate and will trust the Holy Spirit to let me know His timing and the proper words.

Older Entries Newer Entries