THY WILL BE DONE

I advocate the principle of keeping things in context; our lives, our words, what we speak to, and what we listen to.  I also believe we need to quote and interpret the Bible in context.  The world and the people in the world have suffered greatly from the misuse of some using certain scriptures to prove behavior and attitudes that are truly ungodly and unchristian. 

The Bible was given to us as a source of reference for knowing and loving God.  I believe it is God inspired and full of Truth.  It serves the purpose of teaching, reproving, correcting, and training people in righteous living.  It should not serve the purpose of being a weapon of aggression and violence. 

The Bible is the history of God and His relationship with mankind.  It records what has happened from the beginning of time and what will happen in the end of time.  Because events recorded in the Bible happened, it doesn’t mean those things were meant to happen or were in God’s plan.  It records what God desires.  It records the consequences that occurred when people did not listen to what God said and disobeyed Him.  It records what happens when God’s people forsake Him, the fountain of living waters, and hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

It began in the garden when the first man and woman listened to the lie of the enemy of God and continues on into today, because we are still listening to the lies of the enemy of God.  Throughout the whole Bible the context is clear; this is what happened, this is what will happen; the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.  To understand the Bible in context we must keep the beginning words and the final words in tact.  Then we can live our lives in context.  Then we can see the points where things got off track.  Then we can also see how God works throughout time to bring them back on track and be assured that in the end His Way, the best way, will endure forever in eternity.

I found one of these points where things may have gotten off track.  While reading Acts 6 I am told that some problems arose among the early Christians as they were finding their way in the new faith they had found; organizational problems that needed attention; a complaint that widows were being neglected.  The twelve commissioned by Jesus to go and teach what he had taught them responded.  “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.  Pick out seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.  But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

Now that sounds like a god plan, of man, and it has continued down through the centuries; a division of priests and laypeople.  But was this God’s plan?

Did they even stop and ask God what to do about this?  I don’t think so.

To me, this response seems contrary to the teachings of Jesus; the teachings they were commissioned to be living and teaching; especially the final teaching he gave them, recorded in John 13: 1-17.  On the night Jesus was betrayed he gathered these same men and gave them a final lesson in how they were to lead.  “He arose from supper, laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and washed the disciple’s feet…If I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

The disciples were human.  When they became Apostles they were human.  All along the way during their association with Jesus they were always arguing about who was more important, who would sit at the right and left of Jesus, who would have power and authority.  Yes, they were transformed; yes they were filled with the Spirit; but in the end they were still human, with human personality, and human traits.

What I like about this story is what happens next.  Throughout the Bible you read very few sermons and preaching from the twelve. What you do read is a powerful sermon by Steven, one that is a catalyst for change in Paul’s life.  You read the preaching of the word by Phillip in two experiences, in Samaria, and to the Ethiopian Eunuch.  Stephen and Phillip were chosen to serve tables so the Apostles could devote themselves to the ministry of the word.  Turns out that God has Steven and Phillip out there preaching the word of God and those are what are recorded in the Bible.  God is funny that way.  His ways are mysterious and in the end His ways will be done.

YOU ARE THE IMAGE OF GOD...SIMPLY BE

The first and ultimate lie of the enemy of God and God’s children is that we have to do something else other than simply BEING who we are in order to be like God.  Eating the apple was the first in a long line of ways and methods to be like God.  These ways and methods developed into disciplines and burdens put on people, in the name of being righteous and religious.  It’s not that the disciplines, practices, or rituals are bad; it’s the motivation and expectation behind them that is the lie and the deception.

I don’t do Spiritual disciplines, practices, or rituals to be like God; I do them because I am already like God; I do them out of love for God.  I am already created in His image and that’s all it takes to be like God.  Sometimes religion focuses so much on original sin that it forgets the truth of original BEING.  For me that is where the hope lies when dealing with sin; sin is not my true character, my true self, what I was born into.  I was created to be the image of God; sin broke that mirror but God repairs and restores it, because that’s how He created me to be; His image.

My desire is to be the image of God in all I do, say, think, and BE.  My spiritual disciplines and practices are not rules or burdens; they are acts of love and adoration to God.  They keep me anchored and rooted to my Center, my Source, while living in a world that does all it can to set me adrift or uproot me from my foundation.  I don’t do them out of duty; I do them out of devotion.  I don’t do them to prove myself or approve myself to God or other people.  I do them because it pleases me to be in God’s Presence, and I know that pleases Him as well.

Jesus id my role model; it’s from his life that I learn.  He didn’t have a Rule; he didn’t use labels like Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Formation, and Spiritual Direction.  He simple lived out all those things; he communed with his Father as he walked, as he talked, as he withdrew at times, as he lived his life daily.  That is what pleases his Father; simply BEING His Son.

All other created life forms get this; trees and animals simple ARE; only human beings feel they need to categorize what they DO.  God made human beings simple; human beings complicate their lives by not simply BEING.

They still believe the first lie and continue to live in that deception.

STOP FIXING THE CISTERNS & RETURN TO THE FOUNTAIN

Sometimes I see the world as a broken place and I keep wanting to fix it, because it makes me sad.  Sometimes I see the Church as a broken place and I keep wanting to fix it, because it makes me sad.  It seems that we are living in the consequences of former mistakes and misbehavior and most people don’t see that, so that makes me sad.  We are the cause of many of our problems.  We have forsaken God and continue to build cisterns of our own design; cisterns that are broken and cannot hold water, and can’t keep from breaking even after they have been fixed.

The answer is not to keep building our cisterns but to realize we have forsaken God, the fountain of living waters, and repent of that great evil.  The answer is to restore our relationship with God; then He will redeem us and bring us back to the fountain.  He is not committed to repairing our broken cisterns.

We get into trouble spiritually, mentally, and physically when we forsake or disobey God; when we don’t understand God, or even know God.  We try to make Him human, created in our own image.  He IS NOT!  We come up with our ways of doing things thinking they are in accordance with His ways.  They ARE NOT!  We act in haste to fix the present crisis but don’t wait and ponder His eternal plan.  We continue to fix the cisterns, only to have them break again, and again, and again. 

My Quest as a Writer

I want to inspire more than inform

I want to put people on a quest not just in a state

I want to teach them to lay the proper fire

Not just invite them to the campfire

I don’t want them to read my book

I want them to write their own book

No loose change,

No hand-me-downs

No second hand stories

Simply the Real Deal, just for them.

TELL ME THE STORIES OF JESUS

There is something delicious about a story.  It feeds the heart and soul, and has an aura of intimacy about it.  When my family gathers together for special occasions us always bring out the stories of past adventures and escapades; most of them were unknown to my parents which brought a sort of shock and awe to my mother’s face.  I grew up hearing about the lives of my ancestors, always enveloped in a lovely story.  After hearing these stories many times, I felt like I knew these people I had never met, but whose blood ran through my veins.  Stories brought an intimacy to the relationship than just the usual facts of the year they were born and the year they died that we saw on their tombstones.

When I first fell in love with someone we would sit for hours and tell each other the stories of our lives.  We wanted to know everything we could about our childhood, our families, our hope and dreams, all of the experiences that made us who we were.  Stories brought an intimacy to the relationship that increased our knowledge of one another, increased our trust of one another, and increased our love for one another.

Stories put flesh and blood around the facts and make them alive.  My heart is touched and I can feel the impact of the facts and details, not just store them away as information in my mind.  I know on a different level, beyond the words and straight into my soul.  There is a true communion, not mere communication; there is an intimacy, not mere introduction.  I truly and wholly know.

I love to read the Bible.  I was raised in a family where church and Sunday school were a part of our lives.  We moved around quite a bit but we always found a church to be a part of.  In Sunday school I heard all the stories about the people in the Bible and enjoyed getting to know these heroes and saints of old.  Most important I loved hearing the stories about Jesus, how much he loved children, like me, and how caring he was to everyone he met.  He would touch them and be healed.  He did things like calm an angry ocean, make five loaves of bread and two fish enough to feed five thousand people, he liked spending time with his disciples, his friends, and of course he died and came back to life.  I loved these stories and believed all of them to be true; I still do.  After a few years of Bible College and three years in Seminary, where the Bible was more of a text book to be dissected, analyzed, and studied, I still think the stories of the people in the Bible still mean the most to me, now as an adult.  They minister most to my heart and soul.  Dissecting, analyzing, and studying certainly have their place; but it’s still the simple stories I love and grow the most from; especially the close encounters the people have with Jesus.