Earth Moving

And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none. -- Ezekiel 22:30

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. -- Mark 11:23

I am far from perfection, so it seems.  Yet, there is this:  that I have put my faith in Christ Jesus, identifying with Him in His death.  Whether I understand it or not, whether I can fully accept and appreciate it or not, I have been crucified with Christ.  My problem is that I see so much that I do wrong.  Possibly even more discouraging is what I might do in the future. 

If you have ever dealt with a habit you wanted to break, tried to diet, keep up an exercise regime, or break an addiction, you know what I mean.  It’s the future that ruins it because it is a lot easier to quit tomorrow or do right tomorrow than it is today.  To break out of an addiction, a person has to stop believing in tomorrow.  Yes, I know, Fleetwood Mac.  The truth is tomorrow is always tomorrow.  Today is the day of salvation. 

In order to live the crucified life, I have to live solely in the now.  I have to reject my old nature now, right this minute.  That’s all I have to do.  I don’t have to worry about tomorrow with its future trials and future failures because I can only fail or succeed in this moment.  Christ is in me and in control of my life only in this moment.  I am only going to overcome my bad temper or succumb to it in this moment.  It cannot happen any other time, because there is no other time. 

We talked yesterday about not yet being able to move mountains until we take care of ourselves and get our own hearts right.  We can't wait until tomorrow for that.  We get ourselves in alignment in Christ right now.  Just like eating too much carrot cake and ruining a diet, walking in the truth of who we are in Christ takes place right now.  Once we realize that, it changes everything.  Self-doubt is gone because self is gone.  We are connected to the Father just as Jesus was in the Incarnation.  The branch is connected to the Root through the Vine, but it is no less connected than the Vine.  It’s all one. 

The place I began to understand this was public speaking, of all things.  I was always a very shy person.  I was stricken with panic that someone would notice me.  I would hide when people came to visit our house.  My fear was that someone would notice me and make fun of me.  It wasn’t humility but self-consciousness.  I could not bear to be mocked or ridiculed.  Since I was, throughout grade school and high school, physically intimidating, I could control some of it by inflicting pain on my oppressors.  Some accused me of being a bully.  I guess it was true, but I don’t recall bullying anybody that left me alone.  It may not have taken much to set me off, but I never started anything. 

Being pulled up to the front of the class to race against another student doing arithmetic was no problem because I was facing the blackboard.  If I ever had to turn around and face the class, it was a different matter.  I never got over that.  Any time I had to get up in front of people, and, really, even talking one on one, I couldn’t face people without nearly debilitating panic.  I carefully avoided Speech in both high school and college, going so far as to take French to get the Fine Arts credits I needed.   

Imagine, then, how I felt when my pastor asked me to teach an adult Sunday School class.  He was a wise man.  The first couple of times were as painful for the class as they were for me, but I learned to leave my self somewhere else and stand up in the “role” for that forty-five minutes or an hour.  I ended up filling the role of “teacher” in five or six different churches under different pastors, occasionally speaking on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, or Wednesday night.   Learning to step out of self and into Christ did more for me as a Christian than anything else I can think of.   

One of the things negative thoughts such as fear, dread, despair, shame, guilt, and regret do is show us where self is.  Like pride and lust, greed and envy, they mark the boundaries of self.  When we step away from and out of those negative emotions and desires, we step into Christ. 

I cannot move mountains.  Jesus doesn’t say that I can.  He says,  “… it will be done for him.”  My part is to believe today.  The question of when and how and even if our mountain will be moved is not ours to resolve. 

We see this mountain before us.  I fear for my children and grandchildren.  I am concerned about the direction the nation is going because I love my country (my government, not so much).  A part of me wants to turn back the clock and restore all the values we had when I was growing up.  Turning back time is not possible.  I’m not even sure that is a good idea.   I have a lot in common with my Amish neighbors, but never go full Amish. 

A lot of society is rotting and decaying.  I won’t call it gangrenous because it is already detached from Reality, already dead and withering, for that reason.  People are going to try desperately to save what is not worth saving and cannot be saved. 

We are not going to make that mistake.  We are going to put off self, put on Christ, and stand in faith to make up the breach and stand, like Aaron, between the living and dead.  The mountain is moving.  Don’t be surprised if the ground shakes. 

Let's Get Small

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.  -- Matthew 7:5

 

The title of yesterday’s post was “what this country needs”, talking about man’s craving for right standing with his Creator and playing on early 20^th Century advertising slogans suggesting that the good of the nation depended on some reasonably priced, high quality consumer product.  In a nation of over 300 million on a planet of over 7 billion souls, the choices of one individual hardly seem noteworthy.  Politics, even at its best, thinks in terms of groups and masses, and it is primarily for this reason that political solutions to human problems have always and will always fail.  The programs are failures even when they can be sustained, even when the unintended consequences are less than catastrophic.  Most often, of course, they end in blatant destruction, economic disaster, and bureaucratic tyranny. 

What is needed is a better class of humans.  Communists and Fascists like Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot – to give them their bloody due, understood this.  They simply killed off those who would not fit in their systems.  These despots, not unlike many of us, see the other guy as the problem, and, sometimes, the other guy is the problem, but it is mostly a result of him trying to fix me. 

I have always disliked collectivists and statists.  It is, perhaps, bred in me.  We were a clannish lot.  We took care of ourselves, our families, and our neighbors.  If we needed a schoolhouse, we got together and built it.  If we wanted a church, we covenanted together and raised it.  We hardly thought beyond the borders of our township, let alone the county, when it came to solving problems.  When you are dealing with a few dozen people, when there are twenty or thirty children in the one-room school, and Sunday School attendance is fifty, it is easy to realize how vital it is for me to do the right thing and be a decent person. 

It does not take a village to raise a child, but a village does do a better job of it than a massive, bureaucratic, central government.  The further away the center of responsibility and accountability, the less we think what we do makes any real difference. 

Jesus tells us this is not so.  I am inclined to believe He is right.  It does not matter if we find ourselves living in a massive, parasitic, corrupt police state.  What matters ultimately, the only thing that matters ultimately, is my relationship with God.  A nation changes, for the better, when enough individuals change for the better.  You can change regimes, change governments, change political parties, reform laws and policies, but, if you have a nation of collectivists, a nation of individuals who point the finger and blame someone else, something else, you are going to have a corrupt, collectivist nation. 

First, take the beam out of your own eye, even if the other guy doesn’t.  We can easily get trapped in worrying about fixing Washington and getting a better president and a better Congress, pouring ourselves into that effort.  We can complain about intrusive government, militarized police forces, and corrupt, tyrannical politicians.  The truth is that we have the kind of government that a majority of citizens desire.  It does not matter that they are being deceived.  The easiest person to deceive is a deceiver. 

But, you say, I’m not that way.  I have gotten right with God.  Things are still messed up.  What do I do?  Read it again.  Once the log is out of your eye, you can see to get the speck out of your brother’s eye.  Bring some light to the life of your family, your friends, and your neighbors.   We may not be able to move the mountain just yet, but we can get the gravel out of our boots. 

Mountains can, though, be moved, and they will be moved when we address them in faith.  Maybe we will ponder that a little tomorrow.

What This Country Needs

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. --Matthew 6:33

It took me a long time to ask the obvious question:  why should I seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness?  Why can’t I just do whatever I want?  Does my obedience make God feel good such that He will subsequently look after me?  Does my obedience make God love me, or love me more?  Could it be something else?  Is it possible that God knows my true need better than I do? 

God does not tell you to seek righteousness so He can love you.  He tells you to seek righteousness because He loves you. 

Righteousness is sometimes defined as the state of moral perfection required to enter heaven.  That is somewhat of a circular definition.  To be righteous, or upright before God, is to enter heaven.  The Hebrew word at the root of it all is sedeq.  This usually gets translated in the Septuagint as dikaiosynē (so I am told).  According to the New Dictionary of Theology (Wright, Ferguson, and Packer), “It thus denotes not so much the abstract idea of justice or virtue, as right standing and consequent right behaviour, within a community.”

Jesus said, “For God so loved the world …” – why not stop there?  The Lord could have just said, “We’ll call it good, and everybody is all right.”  That’s not the way it works.  Man is destroyed for the lack of righteousness -- not by God -- by the lack.  Both the libertine and the legalist miss the point Christ is making -- in His words, in His death and the shedding of His blood.  

One of Jesus’ parables is about a wedding feast to which many were invited.  The invited guests refused the invitation, so the king sent out his servants to gather in the poor, the strangers, and the homeless that the abundance might not go to waste and that the marriage would be joyously celebrated.  Since these people were not necessarily properly clothed, the king even provided for that.  He probably gave them the opportunity to bathe, and he gave them new, clean wedding garments to wear.  So the king is walking around, enjoying the great feast, making sure everybody is having a great time.  But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment.  And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. (Matthew 22:11-12) 

By this parable to which the covenant of marriage is central, Jesus shows us the covenant side of righteousness.  To be part of the covenant community is both a gift and an obligation.  If we would accept the offer of life, we must also accept the appropriate garment, of righteousness.  To enter into the covenantal relationship we must put off our old clothes and “put on Christ”. 

The deepest need of the creature is the Creator, and, possibly, because He created us, the Creator – no, I am too fearful to say He needs us; He loves us more than we can comprehend.  That is enough.  He wants the best for us which can only be ours if we can be upright before Him.  But we are broken, weak, marred vessels, wandering beggars along the roads.  He calls us who are covered in grime and the filthy rags of our unrighteousness.  He says, Come in and we will clean you up, and robe you in righteousness that you may enter.   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)

We do not need better marketing, more gadgetry, faster connections, more hybrids, more tolerance for wickedness, more celebrations of decadence – not even more money, more jobs, and better politicians.  Our deepest need is for righteousness.  Ease, comfort, convenience, pleasure – these things are sought and when they are obtained, we quickly find they are not enough. 

Yet if we would simply hunger and thirst for righteousness, we would be freely, abundantly, and everlastingly filled. 

Take Refuge in Him

I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.  But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.  Yes, I tell you, fear him!  Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?  And not one of them is forgotten before God.  Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.  – Luke 12:4-7

You are never powerless.  Your enemies and those who want to manipulate you will try to convince you that you are not able to oppose or overcome them.  When a person is sitting in a prison cell or being marched to the gallows in bonds, it can be pretty convincing, but the worst they can do is kill you.  Admittedly, that is bad.  But then what?  The mortality rate is 100% anyway.  The executioner dies in his time. 

Deception is the thing that robs us of power.  All of us, I believe, are fearless when we know we are right and in the right.  It doesn’t mean we push our way to the front.  The truly meek person, knowing he has the power, is not compelled to demonstrate.  The truth does set us free.  If you knew for a fact -- if you had an iron-clad guarantee written in blood by an honorable, absolute monarch that you would inherit a place perfect for you, a guarantee by an omnipotent, omniscient ruler that the end of your body was not the end of your life, you might still fear the pains of the torturer or the transition, but you would know it would pass. 

Jesus, as a man, put aside His omniscience.  There were things that were hidden from Him by the nature of the Incarnation.  The human mind can attend to only so much at one time.  He had to ask who touched Him in a crowd.  He had to pray for the strength of reassurance in the garden.  He could go to the cross and endure the torment and suffering, not because He was God who could not die and could not feel the anguish, but because He was the Man Who Knew He Was Right.  He knew the truth. 

If there is a benefit to argument and debate, it is usually not that we convince the opposition but that we solidify the ground upon which we stand and confirm the position of those on our side.  Once we have reached that bare rock of certainty, debate, for us, ends.  Some people are certain only of their uncertainty and deny that we can ever really know.  They are wrong. 

Cultural norms are ridiculed, and some are mere fashions.  The truth may manifest itself in various times, seasons and situations in differing guises, but it is the truth beneath it.  Appearances may help to make it more palatable and digestible for a given group, but the appearance is not all there is.  Essence is eternal and unchanging.  We can know and be sure of that. 

Seek not to defend forms and appearances, but seek the truth that gives them shape and substance.