REMEMBER WHAT GOD HAS DONE

What happened to the Israelites; what happened to the Puritans?  Both were Godly people, led to a place they considered a “promised land” provided by God.  Both groups did the same thing and left their dependence upon God, started doing things the way they thought best as they lived in freedom, and both groups lost their first love, took their inheritance, and squandered it in reckless living, following other gods and wound up bankrupt, helpless, and hopeless.  When people neglect to learn from history, they only end up repeating it.  When people forget from whence they came they will end up lost, in a strange land that once was theirs but is no longer a place they can live their lives in peace.

FOUNTAIN OF LIVING WATERS, ABUNDANT & ETERNAL

I love and worship the God who is the fountain of living waters.  I love Jesus, God’s Son, who came to earth to make the abstract concrete and who offers me living water from that fountain of living waters that becomes a spring of water within me and quenches my thirst forever.

There is no need of cisterns or water jars for I need not capture God; I cannot capture God, for he is Spirit and unable to be restricted to handmade vessels.  He fills everything but he cannot be contained or restricted.

God is abundant and eternal.  He gives me abundant life to enjoy eternally, just as the fountain of living water flows free; just as the manna, the bread from heaven was not to be collected and hoarded, but to be eaten and enjoyed fresh every morning, so is the living water not to be collected and hoarded in cisterns or water jars, but enjoyed fresh as it springs up within me and all around me, every moment of every day.

The Spirit of God, the fountain of living waters must remain free.  There is no cistern or water jar that can hold it; there is no shelter that can contain it.  The cisterns build by human hands become broken, unable to hold the water; the woman at the well left her water jar behind, for her thirst had been quenched; Peter stopped his plan of building tents to shelter Jesus, Moses, and Elijah when he heard God say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleases; Listen to him.”

Cease your striving; stop your building; be still and know that God is God; find that fountain of living waters and delight in Him abundantly and eternally.

Is It Me; Am I Crazy?

Is it me; Am I crazy

To be concerned

When at theater producing The Grapes of Wrath, about destitute people

I hear applause about raising $100 dollars to go to Helping Hands Ministry

And $125 thousand dollars going to enlarge the bathrooms

In the theater?

Is it me; Am I crazy

To be concerned

When strong, able bodied college kids

Spend lots of money to travel to help people in New Jersey

When they live less than 5 miles from a city in distress

Or take expensive trips to third world countries merely

To observe and then simply show their slides when they return?

Is it me; Am I crazy

To be concerned

Over the cries to save the “isms” we have constructed with our own hands

And totally ignore and forsake the I AM who created the world with His?

Is it me; Am I crazy

To be concerned

When my ears get worn out from listening to so many words

And my eyes become vacant because the words vanish

Leaving nothing of substance, or change, behind?

Is it me; Am I crazy

To actually take God at His word

To believe He says what he means and means what He says

And needs no human being to interpret for Him

Or put a spin on what He has clearly commanded

To believe He only wants my love and my obedience

And that obedience is all, and only for my good and well being?

 Is it me; Am I crazy?

LEST YOU FORGET

“Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes…”

(Deuteronomy 8: 11-20)

Knowing who God is and knowing who I am in relation to God needs to be the taproot of all I am and all I do.  All else is just commentary.  That root will produce obedience because obedience out of my knowledge and love of God will be my new nature.  It’s out of freedom that obedience grows free.  Obedience doesn’t make me free; it’s the fruit of my freedom.  Being free produces the desire within me to want to obey.  In that, obedience is freeing and not restrictive.

As I am reading about the ‘church fathers’ it is interesting to see how restrictive they became in their explanation of God and how we are suppose to live as people of God.  It seems to be human nature to get things clear and concise, well researched, and proven.  Then that is made into a doctrine, well formed and put in stone.  People then adopt the doctrines, build groups around these doctrines, and try to live them out, encouraging or even demanding that others do the same.  So Christians have been fruitful and multiplied, filling the earth with Lutherans, Calvinists, Wesleyans, Franciscans, Dominicans, and so on.

 In my heart of hearts I still question if this is what God planned for his people.  Or have we fallen prey to the temptation put forth by the devil in the wilderness, both in the Exodus wilderness experience and in the temptation wilderness that Jesus was led into.  Are the doctrines made by human hands stones made into bread, that one would think would satisfy hunger, but truly isn’t the word of God; are the doctrines testing God, putting forth the word of God through human interpretation, without his true Presence; are the doctrines ways of humankind to the final destination of God, but not God’s Way?

As I read the Bible and learn the history of my faith it is clearer to me that it’s important to look at the whole council of God in context and in perspective.  From the beginning in Genesis to the end in Revelation, there is a pattern.  That pattern hinges on Jeremiah 2:13.

“For my people have committed two evils;

they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

CALLED TO REFLECT GOD'S IMAGE

What is it that causes some religious people to be so unloving, so uncompassionate?  I look around and see people who are sincere in their faith, work hard at their faith, and say that they love God, but then they do such horrible things and act so unloving to others, in the name of their faith.

Pride is bad enough but religious pride is an abomination to God.  It totally misrepresents him to the world and to people who desperately need his love, mercy, and compassion.

Where there is no brokenness there is no compassion.  Jesus was heartbroken, scourged, and crucified; the one, who did no wrong, committed no sin.  The Pharisees, the older brother, and the rich young ruler were all obedient to God’s laws on the outside but could not produce the fruits of the Spirit or reflect the character of God because it was not there within their being.   It’s out of a broken vessel that the oil of forgiveness, compassion, and mercy can freely flow.  My obedience to God must come from my deep love for him, my desire for Him, and my joy to be in His Presence.

I think that is why I love being in the mountains and being by the ocean.  I am kept ever mindful that God id God, and is so much more spacious than I am, and yet He keeps me close, surrounding me, encompassing me in his love, compassion, forgiveness, and mercy, so that I can then reflect that to those around me.

SHE LEFT HER WATER JAR BEHIND

As I read the history of Christianity is appears to be all about people trying to relate to God and then telling others how to relate to God.  All of these people are sincere but all are simply human beings with thoughts and opinions like all other human beings.  Then these people share their thoughts and opinions, other people agree with them and they form groups around them and churches are created, following their particular rules and doctrines, all of them claiming to be the true one, and end up claiming all the others are wrong.

God was very clear when he gave Moses the commandments the people were to live by.  He was also very clear when he gave Moses directions for the Tabernacle and how people would worship him.  This was a part of the old covenant.  Jesus brought forth a new covenant.  I don’t find clear directions about building a church anywhere in the Scriptures.  Reading John’s revelation about the fulfillment of the kingdom of God, there is no tabernacle, temple, or church.  “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelations 21:22).  What Jesus does share is, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23, 24).

So what am I, who claims God as my Father and Jesus as my Lord to do as far as the idea of church is concerned?  What I see going on seems to be what Paul, who is looked to as an expert on building churches, warned people NOT to do.

“I appeal to you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.  For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you.  Each on of you says, ‘I follow Paul’ or ‘I follow Apollos’, or ‘I follow Cephas’, or ‘I follow Christ’.  Is Christ divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Or were you baptized in the name of Paul” (I Corinthians 1:10-13)?

I hear the echoes of this in ‘I follow Luther’, ‘I follow Wesley’, ‘I follow Fox’, and ‘I follow the Pope’.

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results.  From the beginning of time up until now, people are guilty of doing the two evils that God spoke to Jeremiah, and expect different results.

“For my people have committed two evils;

they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,

and have hewed out cisterns for themselves,

broken cisterns that hold no water.”

Jeremiah 2:13

When Jesus spoke about true worshippers that God was seeking, he was speaking to a woman who had come to draw water from a well.  He provided her with living water, directly from himself, the fountain of living water; and when she went home she left her water jar behind.