What’s the big deal?

August 1, 2015

Maria Genesis, God's Purpose, Jeremiah, Joy , , , , , , 2 Comments

dust

And God said to Adam and Eve: “…… you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  (or as the Amplified version puts it….you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt. (Genesis 3:19b)

I was upset with myself for messing up, YET AGAIN.  When I go down that road of self-recriminations, I tune out others and withdraw, my pride wounded.  It’s hard to shake that mood.  But the next morning during my Bible reading, I read God’s reminder to our first parents.  The next thought was: “Why do you expect more from yourself, Maria?  After all, you’re just DUST!”

What an equalizing and humbling assessment.  Taken a step further, if I am just an animated collection of dust, then so are you. So why fear or worry what a fellow assemblage of dirt thinks of me!

Lest you feel TOO wormy, remember God’s words in Isaiah – “Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you,” declares the Lord”, Isaiah 41:14)

Though we are little and powerless without God, we who belong to Him are fiercely loved.  Consider what God says via the prophet Jeremiah: “The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” – Jeremiah 31:3

Can you even take that in?  That the all powerful, omniscient, holy God has always and forever loved you, if you are His redeemed child?

  • Even before He created the universe…
  • Even before Jesus walked on this planet and died for you….
  • Even before your parents were a couple and then birthed you….

….the happy, triune God set His love on YOU!!!  And He will continue to love you.

Yes, we are dust and worms in one sense.

But we are special collections of dust with certain characteristics that image Him.  And evidently His plans to showcase His glory and magnify His joy include loving, creating and redeeming us!  Now THAT’s the big deal!

Lost in thought – musings about abiding in the Vine

March 8, 2015

Maria Holy Spirit, John, Prov 11, Proverbs, Soul growth , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Lost in thought

 

 

 

John 15:5

 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

I came across my friend, lost in thought. He didn’t hear me approach. Reaching out gently, I touched his shoulder so he wouldn’t jump. “Where ARE you? You look deep in thought!”

Don’t we sometimes refer to the content of our thoughts as a place?

At the very least, this illustration from ordinary life helps me to understand and apply what it means to abide in Christ.

Pondering again the whole viticulture analogy Jesus uses to differentiate HIS role from ours yielded some clarity.

If Jesus is the vine (think: TRUNK) and you and I are branches growing out of the vine, we are dependent on nourishment from the trunk. We need to stay connected, no matter how forceful the storms of everyday life blow. Our ‘soul’ survival and our spiritual vitality while inhabiting this current Earth depend on our on-going union with Jesus.

What role does the Father play? God the Father is the farmer, the vinedresser whose job it is to (superin)tend HIS garden. That means He sometimes cuts away new growth if it isn’t headed in the direction He deems best. His pruning sheers clip away the dead stuff as well. And He occasionally transplants us somewhere we didn’t choose, sometimes in soil that doesn’t seem to suit! But apparently, in His wisdom, He knows this particular dirt is rich and will cause us to produce more. I don’t always like the TASTE of His nourishing compost piles. There’s other plant food I would prefer, (namely, my COMFORT)!

Not only does the Master Gardner govern our physical setting, His Son as the vital vine, instructs us in how to be a ‘good branch’. Seems the only job He assigns us is to ‘abide’ in His Son, the vine.  But what does THAT mean? And how are we to do that?

Remember my lost-in-thought friend? We actually abide wherever our thoughts go. If we want to stay connected to Jesus, then we need to think often and hard on what He says in His word. Applying a quote from my favorite puritan, William Gurnall, we must ‘suck hard at the breast of the Covenant’. I think the idea is to be like a dog, working over a bone, aiming to get every last drop of tasty meat and residual flavor that he can.

In the same manner, I want to make it my chief daily activity to turn over Jesus’ promises, His deeds, His words, in order to gain as much nourishment and joy as I can.

What about the Holy Spirit? What role does He play? Ah, this is what is cool and encouraging. God’s Spirit is the One who actually produces the grapes, that is the fruit, through us.

Until recently I thought that ‘bearing fruit’ meant PRODUCING fruit. It doesn’t! It means to be the living stalk attached to the trunk from which the 3rd member of the Godhead grows the fruit. Our branch mission or job, therefore, is to focus on Jesus and His living Word.

This is actually work? Just pondering and thinking?   I know, I know, it’s pretty humbling, isn’t it! We think we’re to do GREAT things for Christ. But remember how Jesus actually addressed our labor?

John 6:28-29 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

That’s all! Think on and believe what Jesus says.

If it is we who produce the fruit, then we could claim credit and look for glory. The way God has set it up, He alone gets the credit. Well, what about us? At least we get the fruit, right?

Yes and no. The fruit isn’t primarily meant for the branch that holds it up, that bears it; it’s for others. Nonetheless, we get the privilege of being part of God’s provision to the Church and the confused world. And when God’s fruit grown in us nourishes others, we ourselves are replenished! What a good deal!

Proverbs 11:25b ….those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.

Bottom Line? What we think about matters!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love rolls downhill

June 30, 2013

Maria Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Love, Trinity, Uncategorized , , 1 Comment

“Love me, love my dog!” were words we often heard when we would have dinner with my dad.  He had 2 spoiled poodles that he adored.  And that love was definitely requited!

It seems to me that God, the Father exhorts us likewise:  “If you love me, then you’ll love my Son!”

I’ve been reading a book about the Trinity.

And already, having enjoyed my way through the introduction and into Chapter 1, I’m hooked!  Michael Reeves asserts straight away that a primary characteristic of God is His Fatherhood.  He’s always been Father. And for Him to BE Father requires God the Son to have eternally existed as well.

We know that for God to BE God means that He doesn’t change.  What follows then is this:  He couldn’t have been single God who created the Son, thus adding ‘Father’ to His résumé.  God as Father and God as Son have co-existed since eternity.  (I won’t expand this discussion today by delving into God the Holy Spirit)

Of course I pray most often to God as Father. Furthermore I know that the Bible is replete with references to God as Father.  Yet, I’m seeing divine Fatherhood in a wholly/holy different light.  I’m noticing how often God is really called Father in both the Old and the New Testament. Although more developed in the NT, the Fatherhood of God is nonetheless THERE – for example:

          “The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.” (Deuteronomy 1:30-31)

          “But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.” (Isaiah 64:8)

So….you say, what’s new about that? Just that, Father-love is different than love between equals.  Hear me out…I’ll try not to be heretical or introduce the idea that God the Father and God the Son are not one.  They ARE one and they DO exhibit the same essence and same nature, BUT…their roles are different.

·         The Father loves the Son and the Son delights to obey the Father. But it doesn’t stop there.

·         The Son loves the Church and the Church is called to lovingly submit to/obey the Son.

·          Husbands love their wives and wives are called to delight in respectfully and lovingly helping (and submitting when necessary) their husbands.

·          Moms love their children and children are to respectfully and lovingly help and submit to their moms. (Dads are to train their kids)

·         Humans love their animals and their animals, if well trained, will devotedly and joyfully follow their masters.

In other words, love flows downhill.

I used to feel guilty because I sensed that I loved people unequally.  For example – I always knew my mom loved me with an intensity that I didn’t reciprocate. Yet when I became a parent, I understood that kind of love.  I think Mike and I love each other differently, too.  And we definitely love our cats MORE than they love us. (Think about our fears as our pets age!)

What does the fact that God loves us more and differently do for our security? (Take as a given that His love for us is qualitatively/quantitatively beyond our capacity to imagine.) For one thing, it lifts the guilt I have always felt?  And I feel more reassured and secure that God’s love won’t ever depart from me.  He can’t NOT love me;  it’s His nature to love His children.

I’ll leave you with this question– How do you see love between friends?

 PS:  I’ve just started a blog entitled about Logic for the ordinary person – in it I discuss in bite-sized measures what I have learned from teaching formal and informal logic to young teens.   Surprised by Logic

 

Divine Geometry – The Trinity

April 10, 2013

Maria Joy, Trinity, Uncategorized , , , 1 Comment

Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God –  (John Wesley)

You were created by a community to exist in community made in the image of a God who has never known anything except community – (author unknown to me!)

**

I’m treading difficult waters, as you can see by the first quote.  Yet, since community is in my blood, so to speak, God wants me to grapple with this complex but real entity.

Ever since my friend shared with me an idea of how the trinity is more than just 3 dimensional, I’ve been secretly snacking on this never-ending concept.  Her point is that there’s a synergistic, multidimensional – MORE THAN THREE- nature to the trinity.  Somehow God’s math adds a mystical, multiplier affect.

Presuppositions:

1. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are 3 in one.  They are ONE God.  We are monotheistic people, yet…it’s complicated:

  • Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
  • “And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. (1 John 5:6b)
  • Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6)
  • “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Is 9:6)

2. To be born again, you first have to die with Christ.  Given spiritual life, you now have a new nature.  You are forever different.

Your spiritual DNA has changed:

  • “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)

3. Those who are born again, have the Holy Spirit in them permanently:

  • “And it is God who ……  has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.” (2 Cor 1:21-22)
  • “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13-14)
  • “…..Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:27)

So by means of some simple logical deductions, we can conclude that –

If you are a Christ-follower (born again child of God), then you have the Holy Spirit IN you permanently.  And since the HS is part of a triune divine spiritual being, you actually have all 3 members of the Godhead in you.  And these 3 members are FAR MORE than 3-in-1.

**

When I wake up in the morning, I used to say, “Good morning God!”…then I got more personal and offered, “Good morning, Father!”….now I am addressing a community of 3 supernatural persons  – eager to join me for my day. “Good morning, Holy Community!”  They’ve been awake and active all night (no need to sleep!) keeping the universe going and bringing about the per-determined circumstances for the day.

Just think – this is no mere 3 dimensional divine figure.  We’re talking about a joy-filled, dancing, creative, celebratory, energetic, personal, compassionate, no-limit, über-everything , multi-dimensional God inside of us. And He wants/they want to be totally involved in all that we are doing this day.

Let’s enter the joy!

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