Season for the Reason: Lifting Rocks and Rolling Stones

             There is an age-old paradox that is asked at times regarding the existence of an omnipotent God. "If an omnipotent being has the power to create a stone He cannot lift, how can He be omnipotent?" Of course, the inherent problem with the wording in this question is that it ignores the fact that God's thoughts and ways are above our own and in fact, are not our own. (Isaiah 55:8-9) God is capable of doing anything He wants- including, if He so desired, creating a stone that He could not lift and still be omnipotent. How could this be done? Since the definition of omnipotence means being all-powerful, God would have to lower Himself and limit Himself in order to perform this feat. Just because we can't understand something doesn't mean it can't be done. In the case of creating and lifting a stone heavier than an omnipotent being can lift, the Omnipotent God did this when He came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Though Jesus was fully God, He was also fully human. "...though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:6-11)
     Though Jesus often showed displays of His power as God (see Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for accounts of the numerous miracles He did of healing the sick, miraculously changing water into wine, feeding 5000+ with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread, walking on water, raising Lazarus and others from the dead, etc.), He also limited Himself and did not use all His power. Jesus tells Peter to put away his sword in the garden of Gethsemane when He was arrested and reminds him of His power. "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my father, and He will at once send Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?" (Matthew 26:53-54)
        Because of the heart of stone in our flesh that we all have that is bent towards sin, God needed to do a heart transplant for all of us to give us a heart of flesh instead. (Ezekiel 36:26) He accomplished that by having His own heart broken for us (figuratively and literally) when Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for all our sins. He then was buried in a tomb with a huge stone to guard the entrance. Mary Magdalene and other women wondered to each other who would roll away the stone for them, in order for them to anoint Jesus' body with spices. (see Mark 16:1-7) But, of course, they didn't have to worry about that because God used His power to roll the stone back via one of His angels, as Matthew 28:1-10 talks about.
          Beyond the physical, the greatest stone God lifts is a spiritual one. As 2 Corinthians 3:3 talks about, people's lives changed by Christ are the greatest testimony to His power, as written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone but on tables of human hearts. The stone tablets of The Ten Commandments Moses received brought us the ministry of death because the Law condemns us, as we have all broken it many times over- and our hearts are already tainted by the sin nature handed down from Adam and Eve from the start. We have all been condemned to Hell as a result, "for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23) However, the ministry of the Spirit has even more glory than the Law's ministry of condemnation. Moses had a glow on his face because of The Lord's glory shining through that Old Testament covenant of the Law that he had to put a veil on. That veil still lies on people's hearts today because they are hardened. When one turns to The Lord, it is removed. With unveiled face, we behold the glory of Christ and begin the process of being transformed into His image (more so than our physical creation in His image) from one degree of glory to another. (see all of Exodus 34 and 2 Corinthians 3.)
            This spiritual stone is one that God moves when we ask Him to do so- He doesn't force it upon us. "Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God." (John 1:12) Somewhat ironically, when that spiritual stone is removed- after we make the choice to call on the Name of The Lord to save us (Romans 10:9, Acts 2:21, Joel 2:32)- we then become a living stone that God uses to build up His church. (2 Peter 2:4-10) Of course, Jesus is the Stone the builders rejected Who became the cornerstone. Whoever believes in this cornerstone laid in Zion will not be put to shame. (see Isaiah 40:6-8, Isaiah 28:16, Isaiah 8:14 and Psalms 118:22) And as 1 Corinthians 3:11 tells us, this Cornerstone Jesus is the foundation laid that God builds His church upon. Those of whose who are living stones get built and molded together upon that Foundation- the church's one foundation, in fact, as the hymn says. 　
         And as Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 to another living stone (Simon Bar-Jonah, nicknamed Peter by Jesus- which means rock)- He's going to build His church upon the rock of Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And as Revelation 21 tells us, The Lord has 12 precious stones that He uses to adorn the wall of New Jerusalem in Heaven. The only way to get to see those stones in a kingdom that can never be shaken is to put faith in the Cornerstone Jesus and build your life upon His foundation. That requires having a stone of blindness and doubt moved from our hearts, which we can't do on our own, but God can do for us if we'll let Him. All we need do is ask.

How to Die

"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart." (Ecclesiastes 7:2)

  Do you know what everyone in the history of the world, with a very few exceptions, have in common? They are all either dead, dying or will die. Like taxes, you can't evade it. (Just ask Al Capone. Well, wait- you can't. He's dead.)

  If the abolition of man is his ultimate destiny, as C.S. Lewis told us, then it seems like we should take time to prepare to die. And guess what else? The great irony of this is: when you learn how to die, you also learn how to live.

*  Parents: Your mom and dad help bring about your physical life on this Earth. From the moment of conception to your last day, they will always be the ones who will be concerned about you and taking care of you as much as they can. Parents are a wonderful gift and are people to be treasured and respected.

*  Means of death: While there are a variety of options out there for dying, including asphyxiation, incineration, drowning, and being eaten alive by wild animals, I would say the best option is still old age. I would certainly take this route if possible. However, this is one area you will not need to worry about, as the means of death will be provided for you in the dying process. So, unless you do something to increase the likelihood of one particular means of death over another, it will most likely come as a surprise and that's probably best.

*  These are really the main two things one needs in order to die. As you can see, death is a pretty easy and natural thing to do. It is something that comes to each person, so it is not something one need worry about seeking out. It will come in its own time. However, I would posit that a third thing is needed in order to die truly prepared.

*  Right relationship with God: "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him." (Hebrews 9:27-28)Herein is the crux of the matter. In order to have a successful death, one is only required to die with no decision made regarding God's position in one's life. However, in order to have a successful and triumphant death, one is required to put all hope and faith in Jesus Christ prior to dying. This is a very crucial point to make, as one only gets one shot at this. Once you're dead, you're dead and nothing outside of God's intervention can change that. All people are by default bound to die and spend eternity in Hell, due to our own evil natures and the evil thoughts and acts we do while on Earth. However, since God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance (see 2 Peter 3:9), He has instead made it possible for people to die and go to Heaven. His sole provision in revolutionizing the whole dying process came through His Son, Jesus Christ. When Jesus died on the cross for all the wrong things anyone ever has done or is doing or will do, Heaven's admission price was paid for everyone. By Jesus rising again from the dead, He proved His Lordship and made it possible for people to die with triumph. "But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you." (Romans 8:10-11) Those who choose to die in this manner can take hope in knowing that their death isn't merely a successful physical expiration of life, but it leads to a continued spiritual existence full of life. And here is the eternally essential and most vital component of the dying process, which absolutely must take place before the dying process is completed. "That if you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9) Upon making this cry of the heart known to God through prayer, one can feel the security of being truly prepared for dying. One should then find counsel in a Christian church as well as Christian friends to help in the journey to triumphant death. Daily Bible reading and prayer are also a must in this process. Having done all this, one can now truly understand how being truly ready to die makes one truly ready to live. "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21)

Knowing how to die should also inform how to live. Once one has made Christ the Lord of one's life, the remaining time spent living should be spent living for Christ in everything. One great way to do this is to tell others how to die a triumphant death as well.

This is a limited time offer. Just as no one knows what day they will die, in the same way no one knows if Jesus will return before you die. And since it could be today or it could be 1000 years from now (see 2 Peter 3:8-9), one should act on this information immediately. 2 Corinthians 6:2 says that today is the day of salvation!

*  "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." (Matthew 24:42)

The Meaning of Life

"We want more than this world's got to offer....we want more than this world's got to offer... we want more than the wars of our fathers...And everything inside screams for second life.......We were meant to live for so much more...have we lost ourselves?"- "Meant to Live" by Switchfoot

"You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense." - Rick Warren

As Rick Warren talks about in his best-selling book, "The Purpose Driven Life", we and all those philosophers that have come before us and the ones here now often can't find the purpose for our lives because we start at the wrong place. As human beings we have a natural tendency to focus in ourselves and so we look to defining life and its purpose in terms of how it affects our own lives particularly. But that's the wrong approach. As Rev. Warren's book states in the first line- "It's not about you."
           Now that's just an affront to our self-centered fragile egos. It takes some real humbling on our parts to remember that there are many things in the world so much bigger than ourselves and everything does not revolve around us. We are but dust blowing in the wind, as Kansas said. But though we started out as dust, God makes something more of us through Jesus. And here we get to the purpose and meaning of life when we change the focus to the One bigger than us- bigger than everything else in the world. Life starts with God Himself- because He is Life. In fact, as Jesus said in John 14:6, He is The Way, The Truth and The Life. No man comes to the Father except through Him.
       After spending most all the time and money in the world on women, wine and song, King Solomon concluded that all of life is vanity! " 'Everything is meaningless,' says The Teacher." (see Ecclesiastes 1:1) What a bleak outlook on life! But read the whole book- that is exactly what life is like without God. It's all meaningless without God. Without God, it's nothing but a set amount of time to kill before time kills us. The kicker is there at the end of the book. "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)
        Okay then- so if we start this quest for the meaning of life by looking outward to God instead of inward, where does that take us? Well, here are some Bible verses that speak to this point. God Himself tells us plainly our position in the universe and our purpose. While the Psalmist marvels that God should think of us at all- "What is man that You are mindful of us?" (see Psalms 8). Yet God made us "a little lower than the angels." (again, see Psalms 8). And since Genesis 1:26 tells us that God made us, male and female, in His image- we have an infinite booster shot's worth of self-worth right there! Of course, our worth is not in us- it's in Jesus. It's because we are made in His image that we are infinitely important and valuable. And God loves us with an eternal love because we are His creation. (Jeremiah 31:3)
          And why were we created? What are we here on earth for? What are we? When are we? Where are we? Who are we? Why are we? Well, we need look no further than God. And He says that He created all things- and they were all created "for His pleasure". (Revelation 4:11) That's it right there. We were created to bring God pleasure. Unfortunately, too often we have brought Him nothing but heartache and grief, as Genesis 6:5-8 attests. Fortunately, that's where Jesus comes in- both figuratively and literally. Though we were created to bring God pleasure- and nothing brings Him more pleasure than our willing obedience to Him and worship of Him- we chose instead our own pleasure and chose to sin against God. And the wages of sin is death- and not just physical death. There is also the spiritual death we dwell in outside of Christ- and the eternal second death in Hell. However, after Adam and Eve's sin brought corruption to the whole earth and tainted the human race's bloodline with a sin nature, God still had a plan in mind to put right what once went wrong. And much like Dr. Sam Beckett quite literally in some ways becomes one with the person he Leaps into (on "Quantum Leap"), God became one of us in the person of Jesus Christ. And Jesus paid the price for us and made the sacrifice of His own life for all the sins of the world. And because He lives again, we have forgiveness from God and a restored relationship, all free for the asking. Romans 10:9 says if we confess Jesus as Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. And we can know we have an eternity with Him in Heaven instead. Praise God for His love! (see Philippians 2:1-11)
          When we are in a right relationship with our Creator, everything falls into place. As we seek more and more to obey God and be more like Christ, we come to fulfill one of God's other purposes for our lives. We are created for His pleasure and one of the ways God gets the most pleasure is when we worship Him as He rightfully deserves and thus bring Him glory. He formed and made us for His glory. (see Isaiah 43:7). And the crazy cool thing is this- when we live in right relationship with God and seek to bring Him glory, we also find ourselves most fulfilled and find purpose in our lives. In becoming more like Christ, we become more ourselves than ever before, as C.S. Lewis once noted. Of course, there is a good reason for this. This is how God designed us to be- this is His original intent. He is a relational God and He desires us all to have a relationship with Him. And only in that relationship with Jesus can we truly find the fulfillment and purpose and meaning we are looking for in life. It just doesn't work any other way. Try to save your life- you'll lose it. Try to get ahead and win in life- ultimately, you'll fail and lose. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? If you want to know peace, fulfillment, purpose and meaning in life- they only come in following Jesus. Forget the pursuit of the temporal and rather pursue the eternal. Not only is the eternal all that will last- it's all that really matters in the end. The eternal not only rewards our permanent dwelling in Heaven with Christ- it enriches our time allotted in the land of our sojourn.
          We are here for a reason. God has a purpose in mind for each one of us. He loves us with an eternal love and He has placed eternity in our hearts. To live for His glory and bring Him pleasure is built into our DNA- but it's only realized when we make the choice to follow His call and accept Christ as Savior through faith in His death and Resurrection as payment for all our sins and then live in union with Him- the way that He designed all along. To reject Him and His love is truly a living hell on earth that extends for eternity. To accept Him and His love is pure ecstasy- pure rapture for a captured heart that eternally dwells in His presence in His heavenly realms. He is the meaning of Life-He's The Way of enlightenment and understanding and wisdom- He is The Truth- there is no other. We either live with anathema or we can join an anthem of the everlasting Hallelujah chorus! Praise God for His love. :-)
           So the call goes out to us all- forget about our own lives and pursuits- deny them all; yes, deny our very selves- take up our own cross and follow Jesus. It's a daily process and thankfully, one that He prearranges and ordains and maintains all the while working through our surrendered will and being. (See Matthew 6:24-28).God is faithful- even when we're not. (1 Corinthians 1:4-9). And what is His command? Love The Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength- and love thy neighbor as thyself. And speak The Truth in Love. (See Matthew 22:34-40 and Ephesians 4:15). Love undergirds everything. So keep walking in fellowship with Jesus and live a life of purpose on purpose- just as He purposed it all along. That's The Way He planned it. There is no other way to truly live. This is The Life! And that's The Truth. :-)