The sobriety of commitment…

Love, real, honest, committed, and determined, comes from an initial ache. Without that first ache and the pain of longing that it produces, love remains a mere seed in the heart. The emotion of love, that feeling of utter abandonment to the response of another, comes only from the initial ache of wanting yet not having. When two people fall in love they first give themselves to the reality of sacrifice. Without the disposition to give unreservedly, love cannot exist. Real love is painful precisely for this reason: it endures. Real love is also glorious for the same reason; it gives.

This is where I’m at with the Lord. My sense of entitlement is gone. The emotion of surprise has ceased. The question before me stands and shouts like a drunken Irish rover. “What are you in this for?” The pain has set in. The season of testing has come and my heart knows longing again. What do I really want? Do I want Jesus or His blessing? Do I love Him for who He is or for what He does? Do I trust Him? Is HE really all I want? Or do I want Him so long as He makes me feel good? Wow, is my god Santa Claus? Or is my God the God I see bleeding on a cross, losing His life, suffering because of obedience and committed love to the desire of another?

What does love look like? It’s not romance, I can tell you that. The human heart is fickle. Emotions come and go. How does God define love? The pain of these questions is surpassed only by the answers I find. Love is gritty. It smells. It hurts. It is an ache that feels like nothing I had ever imagined. Love is brutal. The romantic love of Hollywood never conquered kingdoms, risked everything, or died unnoticed and alone. The love of Jesus does so in a world of cheap imitation. It reminds me of fake crab meat: just enough taste to keep you chewing while your taste buds assure you that this is not, in fact, crab.

The love that God longs for caused Him so much pain that He could not look on His Son’s death. I sometimes wonder if the love I offer Him brings relief to His heart. And then I have to ask myself, as I ask for help, if I could ever love like that. I want to. I think. So I continue to ache, and long, and feel His pain. He wants us so bad it hurts. No love song can capture the essence of His pain. Nothing man produces is worthy. It takes God to love God. So my prayer today is that the Holy Spirit, the bond of love in the trinity, would escort me into the living flame of love. Aching, it seems, is the only way forward.

everything…

The Lord doesn’t care what amount we give when we give, as long as its everything.

The poor widow in Mark 12 gave everything she had to live on, which wasn’t much; two copper coins. Most likely she was in the exact same situation as the widow in 1 Kings 17. Elijah was told to go to a certain woman who the Lord promised would keep him alive during one of Israel’s worst famines. Elijah goes, interupts her from gathering wood for a fire, and asks her for water and bread. Her response to the man of God was that she had no bread, just some meal in a jar. She explained that she was gathering wood for a fire so she could go home to her son, bake what little bread she had left, and die. But, out of obedience, she promises to give Elijah some first. It was all she had to live on. She baked the last remaining measure of meal and gave it away, and the Lord kept her alive through the famine by miraculously causing the meal in the jar to replenish itself.

But the widow in Mark’s gospel gave a different resource, two copper coins. We don’t even know if she lived. Jesus doesn’t say anything about it, other than the fact that she gave everything she had to live on. She may well have died a week later. If she did, she did so highly esteemed by the Son of God. Life is more than food. So long as we relate life to only the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter, we will miss the Kingdom of God, which is truth, humility, and righteousness. I’m not saying that the Lord won’t give us those things because He promises that He will. Life does include food, but it is so much more than that. There is an element of walking in faith where you absolutely must take your eyes off of your circumstances. The Kingdom of God does not run off of copper coins and jars of flour. It runs off of extravagant, obedient love and the violence of giving everything in order to get everything: Jesus.

The Suffering Servant and the Way of Meekness…

We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. – Isaiah 53:4

But we esteem Him wrongly. What we call smitten and afflicted is honorable to the Lord. What we call unlovely is precious to God. What we call precious is often abominable to God.

The way of meekness is higher, deeper, stronger than our natural inclination to strength and individuality. The life of meekness that Jesus displayed was considered by His peers, a waste in the moment. But the long-term truth of humility’s overpowering beauty was made known at the resurrection when death itself was overcome by the power of meekness. Humility and meekness is not something we graduate from, ever. It is the pillar of God’s kingdom and it holds the power of the entire way of God. His ways are higher than ours. Our understanding of God’s humility is usually relegated to kindness for the sake of others. But Jesus’ way is directed first and foremost to obeying the Father.

The greatest hindrance to the fullness of God working in and around us is our resistance to being crushed. We give theological ascent to His humility because it benefits us. If we really understood His meek and lowly way; if we grasped the key of the kingdom, we would allow God to use us as He desires: to break us so that His fragrance comes forth. Can we say that we have seen the suffering servant and gone to do likewise? Do we follow Him wherever He goes? Do we even want to?    The bride at the end of the age will not only say yes, she will greatly desire it. Where He has gone is where we have been invited to go: glory. But it takes a cross to get there. The Spirit and the Bride say come!

Poetic witness…

A witness of Christ is by default a poet, and an artistic one at that. When your subject matter is Jesus, you find the gift of inspiration daily. Your writing is alive. Your verse His attributes. Your work is simply a reiteration of His extravagant mercy.

My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready scribe. – Psalm 45:1

If ever I lack motivation in serving this Man, in giving my all to Him, let me simply meditate upon His service to me. Let me recall His commitment to me. At once my heart overflows. All of the inspiration I need can be found in remembrance of His faithfulness and goodness to me. My heart knows the verses to declare; they are the songs I have sung in the house of my pilgrimage, where His unending kindness and gentleness have been my guides. Wonder and adoration sustain me as I grope through the wilderness, longing for His judgments. My tongue is the pen of a ready scribe. I declare with unshakeable confidence that His gentleness is making me great. Oh that all His people would meditate upon Him as they sojourn. Oh that all God’s people were poets in His presence. My witness to the world is the song of His dedication to me, and as I sing, I find my dedication to Him.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 43 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Mediator…

“I am praying for them.” – John 17:9

What unshakeable confidence is mine when I come to know that Jesus stands before the Maker of heaven and earth, the Father of Glory, and mentions my name, my circumstances, my requests, my hopes, my fears, and my faith. Surely His prayers are answered, for Christ Himself has been given the authority and power to fulfill the very petitions He presents (Philippians 2). He stands as intercessor, high priest, and judge to decide and release the answer.

He prays and all things in heaven and earth are compelled. His intercession is declaration. His role as mediator is maintained and perpetuated by His compassionate sympathy as a son of man. There is no tension in Him; His peace permeates every occurrence in my life because His prayers are uttered from a perfect working knowledge of my needs, desires, and cares. He does not ask amiss. And today, I am assured that He is asking and fulfilling on my behalf. Such is the nature of my servant King.

Alms, inside purity, and outward extravagance….

“But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.” – Luke 11:41

Whatever we do with money demonstrates the intentions and desires of our hearts. But Jesus flips this round and commands us to give of our time and energy as well. The aforementioned verse is a reiteration of Matthew 5:3: Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven, which I believe to be the summation of the great commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). 

I think it was Oswald Chambers who said that the bedrock of the kingdom is poverty, not possessions. The mark of cleanliness, which is another name for holiness, is a life of extravagant giving. This obviously includes money and resource, but according to the first commandment, it must of necessity, spill out into our time, passions, energy, commitments, work, life, love, play. It’s not enough to tithe 10% once a week. The Christian life is meant to be a living offering of devotion and overflowing joy. Joy in giving sacrificial. But for so many, joy seems to be directly related to circumstances. And circumstances change. Our joy should not be so shifty. The joy of the believer is because of a man, who not so coincidentally, is “anointed with joy more than His companions” (Psalm 45:7). And that man demonstrated the life of utter extravagance that is so joyful. He gave His all, literally, and loved us to the end. His was the manner of love that lost its own life, and demonstrated the Father’s kingdom. If you want to love God, give Him everything joyfully. You’ll lose your life, mind you, but you’ll gain God. Herein the statement holds true: You cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24).

The New Earth and a Giant Amalgamation of Debt Forgiveness…

What if there was no currency, no monetary system, no debt, and no financial system? Impossible? Or perhaps it’s the most practical idea ever. This is not my idea. It’s from the Old Testament, well kind of, at least the debt part. The year of jubilee was a law established by God to forgive all debts, everywhere, within the borders of the nation of Israel.

I can picture the removal of hard currency for the alternative of goodwill to all men, A.K.A bartering. Would it be fantastic if everything was traded and bartered? I’m just ruminating, but I really like this idea. Can you imagine an entire political sphere operating apart from money. Not that there wouldn’t be money, it would just look different. Instead of credit cards and paper money, imagine favors, without the mafioso stigma. Favors of kindness built on tradition of trade and sharing. Also, I’m not talking about communism. That works nowhere. It’s like capitalism without the capital. Get what I’m getting at? My point is not to nail down the specifics. We’ll only know when we get there, or it gets here. But what I know for certain, though I have no way of proving it, is that economics will look completely different with Jesus at the helm.

Until then, we must carry on, and watch entire infrastructures collapse as proof that unredeemed man is not good with money.

My joy is fulfilled…

The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears Him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. – John 3:29

The true nature of prophetic ministry is not the release of a message, a declaration of mysteries, or making known the future. The greatest man ever born of a woman, and arguably the greatest prophetic voice in Israel’s history, John the Baptist declared that the foundation of his prophetic ministry was the joy of hearing the Lord’s voice. His joy was complete simply by hearing the Lord speak. How many years did John spend in the wilderness just listening to the Lord’s voice before he was released into ministry? Years, decades? The stark reality is that John’s primary ministry for years on end was simply hearing the voice of the Lord. The fruition of listening for years came when he saw Jesus for the first time and could finally declare, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

The prophetic ministry is about intimacy; it hinges on desire and nearness, not information and knowledge. The tenderness of listening to the Beloved for decades produces the earnestness necessary to sustain the heart with fiery zeal and love. Hope and joy become the anchor of the soul, and strength is found in the simplicity of devotion. Prayer and intimacy, it seems, were the primary operatives in John’s interior life. Oh that we would find this disposition and hold to it. Let the world be graced with two or three men and women whose greatest joy is hearing, living, and loving the Word of God for its own sake and then watch the disruption in the Church break forth like water onto rocks; all will be changed. If trickles of water can carve desert floors into grand canyons, so can the joy of hearing the bridegrooms voice turn religious formality into thunderous declarations of God’s majesty and mystery.

What we desperately need in this hour is the cry of King David: In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. – Psalm 119: 14-16

 

The Incarnation

This time of year inevitably evokes thoughts of Christ. All over the earth, Christmas is a time to dwell on the mystery of the incarnation. Believers and unbelievers alike will find themselves pondering the life of Jesus at some point during these yearly festivities and rightly so, for it is in memory of His coming, His incarnation, His birthday that people stop to dwell on the mystery of Immanuel, God with us.

But I wonder if we truly understand the implications of the incarnation of our Lord. To stop and think, to ponder, to consider or reflect is not sufficient means for truly grasping the weight of God’s redemptive plan for all of mankind. Eternity’s cumulative expression is voiced now in one little, helpless, baby boy. This is a miracle, not merely a historic happenstance to be remembered once a year at Christmas. The reality of this miracle is as powerful now as it was to those shepherds and wise men on that evening in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago.

Imagine with me for a moment what it all means. A baby born to one of the weakest clans in Israel, to a poor family of the least tribe, said to be conceived by the Holy Spirit, born in an oppressed nation during an era of foreign domination at the hand of pagan Rome, considered by His peers as an illegitimate child, his humble family was forced to flee with Him because of a murderous tyrant seeking His life. Through His life as a young child and teen he was an outsider; now as a young man He has no reputation, no prospects, no wealth, considered by Himself as homeless for He had nowhere to lay His head, being ostracized by the religious leaders of His day in a country where your religious status means everything, and He comes claiming Messianic status as the savior of Israel, only to be scorned, rejected, mocked, and eventually crucified as a trade-off for a murderer; all because He was being obedient to His Father. The company He held was the most despised class of people: prostitutes, the sick, tax collectors, sinners, and vagabonds. All the hopes of Israel, from her first prophet all through her turbulent history, spoke of this man. All Israel’s expectations for a King for thousands of years and here Jesus is, claiming to be that man. If we were His contemporaries, would we have clung to His confession as we do now, post cross and resurrection?

Do we really understand what He did? The cross was not a brief moment in time for Him. The cross was His entire life, from humble birth up until His extravagant passion. Every moment in His life He was driven by the will of His Father and joyfully submitting His life as a living sacrifice.

Christmas is not just a celebration of His birth but the nature, character, humility, and culmination of that birth and the life of exemplary love that followed it. As we celebrate Him this Christmas season, let us think and pray over what it meant for His incarnation, and we will likewise declare with the apostle Paul, “Let this mind be in you which also was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:5-11).