Looking Out

Trust in him at all time, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us – Psalm 62:8

I am least likely to trust in God when things are going along splendidly.  It is easy to trust in God when all other hope is gone, when we have no other options.  

Trust in God first, second, and last.

Trust God when you are bitter, when you are snakebit, when you are well and able, when it all comes together, and when it all falls apart. 

Pour out your heart to God when it is filled with praise, when it is filled with joy or sorrow or hate or love, when it overflows with bitterness and cursing or gratitude and blessing. 

The world was different before the Cross, but I remember it.  I remember my life before the Cross.  God was a dread presence if I remembered Him at all for I was estranged and alienated, filled with animosity and rebellion.  But I saw Christ crucified, the wrath of God upon Him, in my place.  I saw, too, the risen Christ, and the ascended Christ, and I knew that I need no more suffer fear and foreboding in telling God my troubles, expressing my doubts, dismay, and anger, or confessing my faults, failures, and weaknesses.

And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by (Exodus 33:21-22).

When you picture “cleft of the rock” it is a rather womb-like image.  God is our Father, but Wisdom is feminine, and the Way has that aspect of mystery as well.  Moses had asked to see God’s glory.  To see God full on destroys our existence as material creatures.  He always has to be behind us, as we are sheltered in Him.  Looking out, we may, however, see what lingers of His having come by in the great spiral path we are on.

Believe On

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  – 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jonathan Edwards, in his work “The Excellency of Christ”, speaks of the many apparent contradictions, the paradoxes of the Lord Jesus as He was crucified, as in this excerpt: 

Christ's holiness never so illustriously shone forth as it did in his last sufferings, and yet he never was to such a degree treated as guilty.

Christ's holiness never had such a trial as it had then, and therefore never had so great a manifestation. When it was tried in this furnace it came forth as gold, or as silver purified seven times.  His holiness then above all appeared in his steadfast pursuit of the honor of God, and in his obedience to him. For his yielding himself unto death was transcendently the greatest act of obedience that ever was paid to God by any one since the foundation of the world.

And yet then Christ was in the greatest degree treated as a wicked person would have been. He was apprehended and bound as a malefactor. His accusers represented him as a most wicked wretch.  In his sufferings before his crucifixion, he was treated as if he had been the worst and vilest of mankind, and then, he was put to a kind of death, that none but the worst sort of malefactors were wont to suffer, those that were most abject in their persons, and guilty of the blackest crimes. And he suffered as though guilty from God himself, by reason of our guilt imputed to him; for he who knew no sin, was made sin for us; he was made subject to wrath, as if he had been sinful himself. He was made a curse for us.

You remember how in the movie Spartacus all the rebels begin to shout, “I’m Spartacus!” – identifying with and as their leader.  It was better to be crucified as Spartacus than live on as slaves. 

As He was crucified, Jesus said, in effect, “I am sin.”  He identified Himself with and as the worst aspects of humanity.  He became pride, lust, greed, envy, jealousy, hatred, rage, blasphemy – all the vile wickedness that dwells in the hearts of rebellious men.  But then He demonstrated, by going willing through the horrors of the punishment and ignominious death He suffered, His hatred of sin.  It was better to be crucified as sin than to allow us – all of His beloved children – to live and die in such bondage. 

In His death, sin was dealt with, not just the products of sin but the factory from which those products flow.  Because He took on our life and buried it, we may take on His and be raised. 

I struggle so much to be while the Lord just keeps saying that I am.  One says you have to pray without ceasing.  Yes, pray on, but pray for that which is not yet, and yet must be.  The Lord asks why we are praying for what already is.  Believe on. 

The Agreement

Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you. -- Job 22:21

If we are made in the “image and likeness” of God, how can we know who we are without knowing Him?  How can we know Him without being willing to accept who we are?  This is not a catch we can resolve apart from God’s revelation of Himself, and such an unveiling disturbs the pride and self-sufficiency of man. 

When we see the holiness and power of the Almighty in contrast to our sin, weakness, and mortality, we are abashed and without hope that we could ever meet His standards.  Simply reading through the Sermon on the Mount is enough to leave the swiftest and most ardent pursuer of God gasping in the dust.  But this is who we are in Christ.  The Cross makes all the difference, the exchange of His life for our death, His strength for our weakness, His conquest for our defeat. 

All the Lord asks is that we agree with Him, accept His revelation – especially of Himself in Christ Jesus.  We will never find peace in this world until we acquaint ourselves with Him. 

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18)

All That Is Breathless

Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

-- Psalm 115:2-8

Yesterday's post touched on the idea of identification, and, so, it seems, does today's.  This time we are warned to beware of a dark side as we inexorably become like the object of our worship.  Putting our faith and trust in something or someone triggers our innate identification process.  The family is where this starts, and, assuming one's family is fairly healthy, that's positive, especially if the parents are godly people whose own loyalties point the children toward the God who is Good. 

It's pretty easy to translate the heathen idols of stone and wood, images plated with gold and silver to modern digital images, to icons of power, fame, prestige and wealth.  The pagan priests of old called on worshipers to placate their lifeless gods with offerings in order to end plagues, bring rains, or gain favor.  Our modern priesthood demands we buy their goods that we might find favor in the digitally-enhanced eyes of airbrushed gods and goddesses. 

The consequences are still the same, too.  The man who makes gold his god loses his will and his sovereign, individual purpose.  He becomes but as a coin himself — a counter, a cipher within the system.  Those who worship power may, for a time, gain power over others, but eventually they are enslaved, reduced to useless heat — empty, depleted batteries fit only to be tossed aside.  Those who worship the famous become as two-dimensional, vapid, superficial, and valueless as the forms they idolize. 

The idolaters dismiss the Living God.  They see no image.  They hear no voice.  Golden calves are easier to perceive, not to mention a lot less demanding.  How hard is it to be worthless?  

The psalmist points up to the transcendent One who is not just beyond perceiving but beyond naming.  He is there, on the other side of that cloud of unknowing, doing that which He pleases. But make no mistake, God has not abandoned the earth:  The heavens are the LORD's heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man (v. 16).  We are His agents, created from the first in His image and likeness.  When we turn back to Him as our God, we become like Him so that His will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Unfair Trade

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. — 2 Corinthians 5:21

Many long years ago, Dr. Fred McKinney was a professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri.  We were in a rather large lecture class listening to Dr. McKinney expound, probably on the psychology of personality, when a big German Shepherd wandered in through the open doors in the back.  The dog made its way to the front where the utterly unruffled professor launched into some remarks about animals in general and dogs in particular.  For one thing, he stated that, though understanding the logic of it, he could never bring himself to have a male dog he owned neutered.  "I suppose," he observed, "I identify with them too much."

We identify with our family, which makes sense, but we also identify with things that are more difficult to explain rationally.  We are all, I think, a little tribal in identifying with schools, towns, states, sports teams, political parties, and celebrities.  It's not a new thing, and it has always been a phenomenon manifested in religion.  Paul chided the church at Corinth in his first letter to them for adhering to personalities such as himself, Apollos, and Cephas thus creating sects and "dividing" the Body of Christ.   

Politicians, for all their interchangeable and disposable rhetoric about unity, thrive on tribalism and party identity.  Both professional and collegiate sports teams are able to rake in vast sums of money because of people who pay to watch and support "their" teams.  Everybody talks about supporting your church, buying locally, being community-spirited, being patriotic.  Veterans identify with their branch of service.  We seem to have some intrinsic need to belong, to tie who we are to someone or something else.  The point is not that these connections are  necessarily wrong, rather that they evidence an inherent human ability which God is able to use for our benefit. 

I quoted the well-known verse from Ruth a couple of days ago:  For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Ruth was not only committed to helping her mother-in-law, she was going to cease being of Moab and become of Israel, specifically, like Naomi, of Judah.  Christ calls us to be "in the world but not of it".  As Christians, our identity need no longer be tied to the place we were born, who our parents were, where we went to school, or what we do for a living.

What is truly astounding and inconceivable is that we are able to identify with Christ because He identified with us.  He identified with us as humans, as sinners, going so far as to identify with our sin.  Look at what Ruth said and think about her words as foreshadowing what God did.  He said, "I will come down and dwell with you, and your sin will be My sin."  Ruth didn't get something for nothing when she identified with Judah.  She gave her love and loyalty but she also gave her child:  Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse.  And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi." 

As God steps in to identify with our sin, He offers us His sinlessness and righteousness that we might identify with it.  He offers us His Son's death that we might have His Son's life.  Through the death of Jesus, we become sons and daughters of God.  Identification has the power to completely alter the course of our lives, free us from the bondages of the old nature, and empower us to live above and apart from the world system.  


Helen Parr:   Your identity is your most valuable possession. Protect it.

Return to Sender

God’s love was revealed to us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we must also love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us. – 1 John 4:9-12

Humanity is an ugly mess, and we do well to recognize it. As the old saying goes, you aren’t paranoid if they really are out to get you, so, too, you aren’t being cynical when you question the motives of your fellow man – especially if there is money involved, or he’s a politician. Yet in spite of all our craziness, God, who knows us best, loves us. Knowing we could not come to Him, He came down to us.

We could only hope and work, struggle and sacrifice. We could build temples and altars, give our best, do our best to play by the rules, and repent in sorrow when we failed. We could only hope but never know that we had done enough and been good enough for God as we understood Him to accept us. We only knew that He was sometimes angry with us and punished us for our sins. When the rains did not come or the locusts did, when the crops failed or our enemies succeeded, we knew we had failed to appease the god we served. Is it any wonder that some of us have done horrible, stupid things in the name of some god, from Moloch to Marx, made in our own image? Darkness was the standard state. Light came only in brief, prophetic flashes like bolts in the blackest of storms.

Then came Jesus, and, slowly, we began to understand God as Father, as One who cared for us, wanted the best for us. We saw the Light. At last we could know that we were truly loved and accepted. Now we know the God who loves us so much that He Himself was willing to submit to our death that He might give us His life. He identified with us – not just in a figurative sense. He took on the restrictions of human existence, and, in the end, in some way that is beyond our comprehension, He even took on our sins.

We did not love God first. We did not pursue Him and win Him over. No, like the good shepherd that He is, He came looking for the lost sheep, found us, and carried us back to fold, rejoicing all the way. Now in joy and gratitude we return that love to Him, or we would if we could. We can’t buy God flowers or a cool watch. We can offer Him praise and thanksgiving, and we need to do that – it is the foundation of a good attitude in a sometimes confusing world. But love needs more of an outlet than words.

Love is like electricity. It must have a circuit to be complete. It must have a place to go to be perfected. How is the love of God perfected in us? God says we close the circuit by loving one another. When I love you, the love I have received from the Father flows back to Him.

Who is that Masked Man?

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his practices and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of his Creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all in all -- Colossians 3:9-11

When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, He identified with man. When a person offered an animal sacrifice under the Law, he placed his hands on the head of the creature, ritually placing his own sins upon the offering and identifying with it. Without the identification, the sacrifice was meaningless – they were just slaughtering another lamb.

Much Christian talk and teaching rightfully focuses on what Jesus did for us. He bore the penalty of our sins. Like the scapegoat in the Old Testament, He bore our sins out of sight. Or, as Donnie McClurkin sings:

Living He loved me
Dying He saved me
Buried He carried my,
My sins far away
Rising He justified me
Freed me forever
One day he’s coming back –
Glorious day!

The other side of the coin is our identification with Christ, and Paul’s letter to the Colossians begins to emphasize that in the third chapter, where I’ve been stuck for a while, as I mentioned a few posts back.

The scapegoat and the sacrificial lambs were just a shadow, a little drama showing us truth. Offering my sacrifice, I could only be sincerely sorry for my bad actions and resolve to be a better man. I could use that symbolic act like a piton driven into the rock on an otherwise impossible face. It allowed me to stay in touch with God, to continue to receive blessings and benefits. The trouble is, as we are told in Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. It has to be repeated. The high priest can never rest, never sit down and say, “It’s finished. The payment is complete.”

Jesus came as our Great High Priest, became fully man, emptying Himself of His glory yet never ceasing to be God. He identified completely with us, to be tested and to suffer as a man. He then offered the ultimate sacrifice of Himself. On the cross, He said, “It is finished. It is paid in full forever.” When He ascended, unlike the sons of Aaron, He sat down.

When a baby is born it does not know what it is, let alone who it is. It has to identify with someone. I am like my father, not just because I have some of the same genetic material, but because I identified with him. Someone took a picture of me not too long ago. When I saw it some time later it took me a couple of minutes to realize it was not Dad. I do look a little like him physically but that wasn’t what fooled me -- it was the facial expression which is just so typical of him that I thought it was on his face.

To be spiritually born from above puts me back to that point where I don’t know who or what I am. As Jesus said to the sons of thunder, “You really don’t know what kind of spirit you’ve got there, boys.” Unlike an infant born of the flesh, however, the spiritual infant literally grows by identification. It is possible, I fear, to remain a helpless, amorphous infant spiritually for many years. I do not know what happens to one who dies physically in that condition. I would imagine it’s pretty shocking. It is certainly not meant to be.

I identified with the old natural man for a long time. Like my father’s expression, it can almost be a mask that hides who is really in the picture. It is a lie about what and who I really am. I need to end the lie, end the deception, stop living as a persona, drop the actor’s mask. What, as your mama used to say, if your face freezes like that?

It’s time to drop all the racial, tribal, and sectarian identities as being meaningful. They can be good fun and there’s nothing wrong with that, but they do no touch the core of what we are. Christ alone is my identity, just as I am His identity.