SPIRITUAL ORIENTATION

Matthew 28:19, 20

For months the news has been centered on people and their sexual orientation.  I am more concerned with a person’s life orientation.  Can I look in the mirror and say I am living a life that is pleasing to God?  Can I look in the mirror and say my life is Spiritually oriented towards God and all that He created me to be and do?  For me that is to be the focus of my time and energy.  It seems to me that this should be the focus of the Church of God in this day and time, when the salt and light that Jesus called his disciples to be is sorely needed.

Causes come and causes go.  Some are good causes and need some attention drawn to them.  But in the attention there must always be the true focus.

God loves everyone and desires to be in an interactive and intimate relationship with everyone.  Once that is the chosen life orientation all the other things will work themselves out.  That needs to be the focus of the message of the Church of God.  That needs to be the focus of my time and energy as a disciple of Jesus.  When the Church of God stays on focus the world will change.

TRANSFORMED INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD

The cry that is heard from many activists today is “Change the World”.  It is not a new cry.  Down through the ages those who are opposed to oppression, war, and poverty have worked hard at bringing about change.  I honor and respect their work and have often marched with many of them.

As I grew older I began to notice that the vision was almost always about external change of the conditions that caused the unfair and unjust situation in the world.  It was the hope of change that filled God’s people over two thousand years ago as they awaited their Messiah and looked to Jesus as that fulfillment.  In Truth he was, but few received or believed in him; many were disappointed and eventually rejected him.

Jesus did not overthrow the oppressive regime of the Roman Empire; he did not eradicate poverty; he did not end wars and bring peace and stability to the land.  Jesus did not change the world, as declared by God as good.  Jesus did not change the world, that God so loved as to send him to it.  Jesus did not change the world because the world was not the problem.  Jesus healed and transformed people, one touch at a time.  Jesus transferred the rule of the world back to its original Sovereign; he brought forth the Kingdom of God that began in the beginning with God dwelling with His people and being their God.

Those who enter into God’s Kingdom will know no oppression; those who enter into God’s Kingdom will know no war; those who enter into God’s Kingdom will know no poverty.  They will be changed forever.

The Messiah has come and those who follow his leadership, who are inspired and impacted by his vision of the Kingdom of God in the present and still to come will discipline themselves in His Way, will be equipped with His power and Truth, and will live the Life they were created by God to live.

The Messiah has come and will come again to fully rule and reign.

Maranatha Lord Jesus

Maranatha

BEING EMPTIED TO BE FILLED

God’s method of preparing people for ministry begins by putting them in the wilderness, an experience of emptiness.   In the wilderness everything of self is stripped away and there God meets His called people, provided for them, cares for them, reveals Himself to them, and promises that He will lead them with His Presence forever. 

As a disciple of Jesus I must empty myself and be filled with Him, His Way, His Truth, and His Life.  It is then that I can enter into the Kingdom of God and be given my part in His message and my part in His mission.  It is then that I am equipped for the task of assisting others to be disciples of Jesus and help manifest the Kingdom of God here on earth.

It is interesting that the Military seems to understand God’s method of discipleship better than the Church.  However, while their method is good their execution is misused.  Their concept of power and control is mistaken.

Unfortunately the reaction to the poor execution and misuse of a good method is not to reexamine and go back to the original and make the corrections; the method is simply abandoned as being bad, destructive, and irrelevant.  All restraints are removed, all discipline is discarded, and all sense of eldership is eradicated.  Freedom is given rather than earned; freedom is given with no sense of responsibility; and so, we have today a world in crisis and chaos, on the way to destroying itself and ourselves with it.

Authority, control, and power are necessary elements of life on earth.  But it must be God’s authority, God’s control, and God’s power.  That’s how it was in the beginning.  That’s how it will be in the end.

PREPARE FOR THE POWER AND PRESENCE

Jesus did not come down to earth to condemn the world or change the world.  He came to serve and to save the world.  His Presence and power transformed situations and people.  He transformed water into wine, bread and wine into his body and blood, broken people into whole people, and situations of fear into faith.  His Presence and his power continue to do these things, through us as we serve.

Transformation precedes change.  I would see my part in this as the one setting the table, creating a hospitable place, preparing the way for God to be present and manifest His transforming power, and then being there for the person or situation that has changed, to encourage and support as the change manifests itself.

John the Baptist understood his role.  He came to prepare the way for the One who would manifest the transformational power on the one to be changed.  He then knew that he must decrease in his position to the One who does the transforming, not gain in power and reputation by putting another notch on his belt for converting another sinner.

Loving God, loving ourselves, loving one another, and loving our enemies is a way of setting the table, creating a hospitable place, and preparing the way for God to be present and manifest His transforming power.  Let my life, my message, and my mission be that simple service.

GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD...SO MUST I

These days I am very aware of the true unity that people of faith will have to have in the days to come.  Our petty divisions with one another will have to cease.  We need to get on task and that requires building bridges not walls. 

“God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”

This verse is used to show Jesus’ work in our lives.  But reading it today I was struck with the first part of the verse; God so loved the world.

The world was as much of a mess then as it is now.  People were as much of a mess then as they are now.  At one point in history God looked at that mess and decided to destroy it all, except Noah, his family, and the animals.  The world didn’t change much.  But this time God so loved the world He decided to save it.

For me there is a lot in this world not to love; a lot in this world I would like to see destroyed; poverty, was, killing babies, corporate greed, oppression, just to name a few.  But God had and still has a different way besides destroying everything.  He sent His Son to save the world by transforming the way people thought, believed, and lived.  We are called to follow in his footsteps; in the world but not of it we are to reflect God’s love to people; we are called to instruct not condemn.  Jesus helped people by teaching them to see differently, think differently, and live differently. I want to do that in my writing, my ministry, my life.  I want to produce conversation not conflict.

JESUS IS THE ALPHA AND OMEGA

I like the concept of Red Letter Christians; taking the words of Jesus as a guide for living.  But I believe in order to truly know Jesus, one has to know the full counsel of God, for that is who he is.  To understand Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets, one has to know and understand the Law and the Prophets.  Jesus fulfilled them.  He did not replace them.

The whole Bible from beginning to end will manifest Jesus, who is himself the Alpha and Omega.  To neglect the conflict in the Old Testament because it doesn’t meet with one’s sensibilities or concept of God is to miss the full meaning and substance of Jesus and of God.  The Old Testament speaks to the consequences of people not doing well and suffering the result of the sin that was crouching at the door waiting to devour them, just as God spoke to Cain as a warning.  The Old Testament also speaks of the drive and desire of God who loves His people and rescues them again, and again, and again; eventually sending His own Son to die on a cross to rescue them once and for all.

Without all of that knowledge and background Jesus just becomes a good teacher with some good ideas on living life. 

IT'S ALL RELEVANT

I was pondering on the word relevant this morning.  I hear that word a lot in the many discussions about why “the God hypothesis” is no longer necessary in our 21^st century thinking, or why the churches must change the way they do things.  The goal is to make things relevant, useful, and meaningful to the world’s needs today.

I was looking out the window at my Tree that is glowing like gold.  This is an old tree and has been planted there, doing what trees do for many years.  It’s pretty much doing the same thing that all trees do, even the century old tree I used to sit under at Pendle Hill.  It’s pretty much doing the same thing that all of the trees in the ancient forests do, in the same way they have done since the creation of time.  But then most of nature is that way as well, when left untouched by human hands.  It’s how God made them in the beginning.  The sun appears every morning and disappears every evening; the oceans tides rise and ebb everyday; the rain falls and waters the earth.  Those things don’t change.  Are they still relevant?

My tree goes through the seasonal changes.  In spring the buds blossom and the leaves develop.  In fall the leaves turn beautiful colors and then die and fall to the ground.  The following spring the cycle begins again.  Every spring and fall are different yet very much the same.  The fruit of the tree may vary but the foundation of the tree remains the same; the paradox of being different but being the same.

There are things that can change without destroying the foundations and I believe the church needs to hear that more than ever today.  God is not a hypothesis.  God is the Creator of everything created and that needs to remain True as the foundation.  God is relevant, yesterday, today, and forever for the entire world.  Jesus is relevant, from the Alpha to the Omega for the church.  The foundation does not need to change to be relevant to the people.  The people need to change to be relevant to the Foundation.

There is a lot of building on sand these days that will be washed away with the first storm; and that storm is coming.  This world has become godless by choice, which is very foolish.  The picture that Paul paints of the people in the last days, that he warns Timothy about, is much like a picture of contemporary society.  “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unforgiving, slanderous, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-having a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:2-5).

It’s time for all who call themselves Christians and lovers of God to wake up and listen.  Now is not the time to turn away from the Foundations of the faith that Jesus taught and lived out. Now is not the time to turn our ears away from the Truth.  Now is not the time to be deceived.  Now is the time to turn to the God who is Relevant throughout all time, not out of fear but in faith and love.

Paul exhorts Timothy to, “Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (II Timothy 3:14, 15).

There are many good examples throughout the centuries, of godly men and women who built on the foundation of the Rock and who knew God to be relevant in their lives.  I want to listen and learn from them.