It's Mercy Over Blame

(Note: This is a devotional writing from the archives, first published February 23, 2011. Eventually, I hope to get all of them transferred to this blog.)

    Oh, the wonderful dichotomy of Christianity! The amazing power of paradox that opens our eyes and blinds those who say they can see. It’s crazy how two seemingly diametrically opposed ideas can prevail at the same time and both compete for the title of truth- and yet both already be Pilate’s answer. The Bible seems to be full of these. How God became a man and was fully a man, tempted in all the ways we are, yet was without sin! How was this possible? Because He was also fully God at the same time.
      The Jewish Shema tells us that there is one God. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) Yet Matthew 28:18-20 refers to God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Spirit. There’s a Triune Godhead there. Don’t try to think on this too hard- our minds can’t take it all in. It’s kind of like thinking about it would be possible to have no sickness, death or pain or crying in Heaven and how we can just keep going on living forever and ever and ever, ad infinitum, in Heaven if we know Jesus as our Savior. It’s when I think on those kinds of thoughts too long that I fear my already strained brain might explode within my head not unlike a scene from “Scanners” (random retro reference to something I haven’t even seen- sorry, couldn’t resist.)- and at some point I have to shut down cerebral functions and switch to cereal functions (I can handle that a lot easier ;-))- and just trust that it’s all in God’s control and I like it. :-)
    There are other examples of course, but I mainly wanted to focus on one.
How does it work that God can possibly have forgiveness upon us and instead of doling out the punishment, judgment, condemnation, and pain and torture that we so much deserve – instead, He decides to shower us with blessings, blessings so rich with His grace and mercy that it totally envelopes us and when truly considered and taken in, at least to some degree that we can take it in, leaves us absolutely astounded, astonished and amazed- and silenced in front of the Holy God and His love that can only leave us speechless with wonder and praise.
     It’s really the simplest message ever but so incredibly profound in its mystery. Jesus loves me, this I know- for The Bible tells me so. God proved that- He demonstrated it for while we were yet sinners- while we were yet separated from God and while we were yet haters of God- Christ died for us. Not only did He die, but He rose again from the dead!
(Romans 5:6-8)
        How can I keep myself from singing? What more appropriate response is there other than to willingly, joyfully and rejoicingly take Jesus at His Word and confess Him as Lord, believe that God raised Him from the dead and experience His salvation? (Romans 10:9) What response should we have other than what 2 Peter 3 talks about- seek to be spotless and blameless before the Holy God- not out of a fear of not truly having His salvation and having to earn it. You don’t need to- He’s already given it to you for free! All the “good” we do is really nothing more than filthy rags in any case. (Isaiah 64:6) We can never do enough so just stop trying. And because God lovingly gave us salvation as a gift, there’s no need to pay Him back. Again- we can never do enough good things to pay Him back. We may feel like Wayne and Garth telling Alice Cooper, “We’re not worthy”- and yes, we’re not worthy at all. What is man that God should be mindful of us? After all, all we are is dust in the wind- and to dust we shall return. (Psalms 8 and others)
      And just like boys love to do, God likes to play in dirt- in Genesis 2 and John 8- and He made man and then played the first game of “Operation” and made Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs. (Although one wonders about the Adam’s apple- did that come after he got some of Eve’s apple and the veins in his neck started throbbing after got through warning Eve and all before he broke down and sinned too? Oh well- separate topic there, I guess.)
          Okay, I think the point I was trying to get to is that sometimes I feel like there gets to be an amount of bravado and bluster in the Christian church which just really has no place there whatsoever. Don’t you ever just get mad at these folks who seem like they’ve gotten it all together and they’re so on track with God? And with all the signs they claim they see and feeling the will of God for their lives or having God speak to them and all? Okay- maybe this is bad to feel like this sometimes- I don’t know. But I know I’ve gotten kinda mad sometimes and maybe it’s just jealousy or enviousnessy (or maybe even envy) – I don’t know. I kinda wonder if maybe it’s just people are thinking that they should be hearing from God if they’re truly a Christian and so any particular choice that is made must be the leading of God or maybe it just gets interpreted that way so that it’s easier to make reassurances for themselves that they feel God’s Spirit moving in their lives.
      And one thing I’ve concluded on this is this- Martha, Martha, why are you so worried about this? Mary has found the best thing and it won’t be taken from her. God speaks to different people in different ways- perhaps that includes audibly, perhaps that includes strong impressions on the heart or a peaceful easy feeling that lets you mount up on wings like eagles. Or maybe it’s a quiet voice in your head that says you should do this thing and you wind up debating it but eventually go do it and find yourself the better for doing so. I think maybe God speaks through our decisions informed by His Word, prayer and perhaps through a word from other Christians. And maybe when we come to make those decisions that we can later look back on and realize that we would never have made unless Jesus was directing us to do so- maybe that’s where we can see God speaking to us and directing our paths.
         And we just have to be careful to listen for The Spirit and not quench Him. And ultimately we read enough in The Bible and pray to God enough to know Him and His character better and know what He would have us do as He reveals things to us. And we shouldn’t begrudge or judge anyone on how they feel God communes with them and they commune with God (within the confines and context of Scripture of course)- if we are, maybe it’s coming out of a cry from our spiritual despondency and our need to be more built up in The Spirit and connecting with God better. Keep seeking God and you will find Him. (Jeremiah 29:11-13 and James 4:7).
        Okay- and that went a good ways off from what I was trying to say- but the point is that it really is mercy over blame when it comes down to how God judges us. When He sees the blood of Jesus that covers us, He passes over. Yes, He can come off sounding like The Punisher in The Old Testament and Mr. Rogers in The New Testament but we forget Ezekiel 18:24, Lamentations 3:22-33 and the Psalms and the book of Revelation that show that God is both in both places. (Another one of those paradoxes! Great Scott! Yeah, I know- this is heavy, Doc.) But it’s ultimately Jesus’ grace that gives us salvation through our faith in Christ! Now here comes the kicker- James says that if we’re going to say we have faith in Christ, we have to show our good works to back it up. But though the good deeds God prepared in advance for us to do help prove an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ- they never predicate it. They are a symbol in a way of what’s already happened. Good deeds are the fruit of the change in someone’s heart that Christ brings.
        And Jesus’ salvation through grace and faith frees us from God’s wrath because of Christ’s death and Resurrection. In gratitude for His amazing love and grace that is greater than all our sins- even though we keep messing up and falling back on Christ and desperately begging Him to remain Lord of our lives and ruling as Savior once more- and we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. But it’s really God working in us – so it is us, but it’s not really. It’s Christ in us and that’s what it comes down to you. Do you have Christ in you? If so, we realize that we are nothing without Him and so we don’t think highly of ourselves. Rather, we realize that we are not worthy to even unlace His Nikes and it’s Jesus who must increase and we who must decrease. As Matthew 5:3 reminds us- “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Our intense sense of need keeps us very much dependent on God always and well aware of our spiritual poverty and spiritual richness that Jesus brings. So we should be all the more thankful and relieved and wrapped in love to fall on Jesus’ everlasting arms and His most wonderful kindness.
          A few things have hammered these points home to me recently- “The Ragamuffin Gospel” by Brennan Manning, “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan and Rich Mullins’ music. This is essentially what I shared about recently at an Upward basketball game, along with my personal testimony of putting faith in Jesus as a child and continually holding on to it and Him every day now. What a mighty God we serve! Praise God for His love!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5RWve3yD1o&feature=fvsr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNYtYRbH6aI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKFld_ZY9D0&feature=related
         I picked up a great VHS tape of one of Rich Mullins’ last ever concerts on video- it runs about 2 hours long and it’s incredible! I love it! Take a moment and look at the videos here, some of which are pulled from the video. It’s not just his songs that I love- though those are certainly incredible- but it’s the life of straining after God and seeking to please Him that I love. It’s how he was humble enough to be honest about his failings, and to admit his need for God so freely. And in such a freeing way to fling off the trappings of life and seek after God with such abandon that it’s infectious. He was a huge fan of St. Francis of Assisi and I admire both of them. Rich Mullins also had this habit of being on stage with a plain white T-shirt, jean shorts, unshaven face and barefoot. He also left a lot of his concerts while the audience was singing the Doxology, so that he slipped out of the spotlight and instead people were left focusing on worshipping God- as it should be.
         I know Rich Mullins was just a man too and certainly by no means perfect- he suffered with doubts and struggles of his own and felt free enough to share many of them on stage. And I love his efforts to reach out to Native American children and bring them music and more importantly, the love of Christ.
          I want to be an arrow pointing to Heaven like Rich did and continue to witness wherever I can.
          This gets into a bit of some personal sharing experiences here that I may just briefly mention. Suffice it to say that I did feel like God was leading me to talk with someone who I typically avoided and maybe even snubbed some on the inside though I never said anything. So I had to get down and talk with him- and when I did it turned out to be the brother of a student I had shared with before at my work. And it turned out to be a great opportunity to share the Gospel with the guy and to pray for him. It’s amazing the opportunities God brings to you when you are willing to obey Him and follow Him wherever He leads- even to the “creepy, weird dudes.” Maybe they’re not so creepy and weird. Like everyone else- they need to know the love of God. And we need to show it to them.
      Anyway- that’s all I have right now. I’ve completed some parodies lately and maybe I’ll post some soon enough. But this is pretty much what I wanted to share for right now. I’m just continuing to cling to Jesus and seek His will for my life and try to follow Him every day. And that’s all there really is to say- Jesus loves you and so do I. Keep being awesome and stay cool. And as Rich Mullins told us, be God’s. :-)

A Faith That Works

      It's the classic faith vs. works paradox of Christianity. I've struggled with it much too. 1 Corinthians 3 is true- you can't throw that out. But 1 John 4 is true too. It is primarily about knowing and loving Jesus. When it becomes all about what good works we do for God, it reverts into Judaism, hoping to be saved by keeping the law. But if I'm just loving and knowing God and I'm not doing any good works, am I really saved?
      I mean- James 2 is there for a reason too. Well, if loving and knowing God doesn't naturally drive me to do the good works He designed for me to do all along, then yes- I'd question my salvation experience and my real level of love for God and knowledge of Him. But if I'm always doing good works because I know it's expected and not out of a heart that loves and knows God, then I become a works-based Pharisee. It's got to be both. But the order goes like this- FIRST- Jesus loves me for no reason I can understand except for just being who I am- God's creation.
       Brennan Manning once said that he believed God the Father will ask one question and one question only on Judgment Day- "Did you believe that I love you?" And I think this is why he said that. His love and grace is the foundation for everything else. It's because I believe I am known and loved by God that I put faith in His salvific work through Christ's death and Resurrection. And that love for Him naturally drives me to want to be like Him and obey Him. If Chewbacca can faithfully follow and obey Han Solo because he owes him a life debt, how much more should we do the same with Jesus to Whom we owe an eternal life debt? But Chewie is not Han's slave- he's his loyal friend who loves him fiercely and deeply first and foremost.
    That's a good model of our love relationship with King Jesus. We fall out of fellowship when we sin but the love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13) That's why we have 1 John 1:9 and that's how it is with real true friends. We forgive each other and restore the fellowship. God doesn't love us for what we can do for Him. John 15:5 says we can do nothing apart from Him anyway. Jesus also says that if we love Him, we'll obey Him.
       I know this is true in any good romantic love relationship too. When you truly love someone, you naturally want to know everything you can about them. I can think of a girl that God has blessed me with knowing that I felt this way for and still have a deep philio love for as friends even though the relationship didn't work out. And every time I see anything to do with her home country I get excited. We talked with each other for hours at a time and never got tired of it. There were always new things to learn. I loved to reference her name anywhere I could- just thinking about her made me happy. Just looking at her picture and reading her letters made me smile. I wanted to name drop her everywhere.
       The romantic eros love is representative of the desire God has for us and the desire we should have for Him. (Just read Hosea 2.) And when we love God with that kind of passion, we find ourselves not only learning about Him and knowing Him more but desiring to please and obey Him more- and eventually becoming like Him more. As in the relationship with my friend I described, I found both of us becoming like each other in some ways because we know what each of us likes and our particular emotional needs and such. This is of course exactly what happens in the covenant marriage relationship as husband and wife become one unit that works and operates together. The wondrous thing is that their individuality is not diminished but they become more themselves than ever before, much as our union with Christ, as C.S. Lewis explained it.     
      This brings us to the marriage of faith and works as we see laid out in The Bible in passages like Ephesians 2:8-10 and Philippians 2:12-13. Yes, we are saved by Grace through faith alone. However, as John Calvin said, saving faith is never alone- it naturally brings good works with it. Jesus Himself said in John 8 that we would show ourselves to be His disciples by our fruit. But if it's all about our works, why did He come down on the rich young ruler and tell him he still lacked one thing- he needed to sell all he had and give it to the poor and then follow Him? I think Jesus was trying to get him to do a heart check.
     I think the rich young ruler thought he was following God by law-keeping in itself but it wasn't because he really desired God. His reaction of leaving in sorrow proves that he loved his stuff more than God. In Matthew 13, Jesus describes salvation as someone who finds treasure buried in a field and in his joy, the man who finds it, sells all he has to buy the field and get the treasure. That is a picture if how we are to desire Jesus.
      The grace and faith that save us drive us to do the good works that God had already planned for us to do. We are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it's God who works in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Thus, it's not an either-or situation, but a both-and situation. The order is always paramount though. It starts and ends with God. He draws us to Himself and saves us. He moves in our hearts to be more like Him. When we fall because we have cut off fellowship with Him, His Spirit draws us back and we repent and the fellowship resumes- but the relationship is always intact.
      My parents have often told me an approach in prayer life that is applicable here- pray as if it all depends on God and work as if it all depends on you. I believe God honours our faith and particularly when we demonstrate it by taking action. This is the great paradoxical nature of the faith and works relationship in The Bible and in our lives. It all comes down to the heart and motives.
     We can either fall into two errors, as seen in the two brothers in Jesus' parable of the lost son in Luke 15. One is openly defiant to his father and blatantly lives in sin and then finally comes to his senses and returns in repentance. Note that the Father runs faster than The Flash, Road Runner, Speedy Gonzales and Superman combined to his son as he comes down the robe. The love of the father is totally undignified as he enthusiastically embraces his most likely muddy, smelly, pig slop-covered son and showers him with hugs and kisses before he can get a word of his prepared apology out. Now, make no mistake, the son did admit he had sinned before his father and Heaven and came in humble repentance but the father's love was already there and poured out.
      Too many times we have the attitude of the elder brother who is as lost in his righteousness as the younger son was lost in his wickedness. The elder brother cites his years of service and faithfulness and complains that he never got a young goat to barbecue with his friends. The father explains that he is always with Him and all he has is his but it's fitting to celebrate this lost brother who was found; this dead son who is now alive. It seems both the younger and elder son wanted their father for his stuff- the younger forced his hand in rebellion for it but the elder thought he could earn it through righteous works. The truth is that it's freely given to all of us- it's The Father's good pleasure to give us the Kingdom! (Luke 12:32)
      We must repent of both our errors though. The younger son had to repent of his wickedness and the elder son had to repent of his righteousness. We can't earn God's love or deserve it or pay Him back for it- it's a free gift. (John 3:16-17, John 8:32-36) We are all desperately in need of it and once we've experienced it, it should so change us that we want to live a life of love to God and others in gratitude, with a heart set free to love and know others in agape love as He has known and loved us first!
     P.S. I must acknowledge Rev. Timothy Keller's excellent book "The Prodigal God" for much of the ideas about the parable of the lost son as well as Brennan Manning's incredibly awesome "The Ragamuffin Gospel" book, both of which I highly recommend reading! I have read and reread and reread the latter and cried over it numerous times. As I have said before, the most profound theologically rich Christian song I know is still "Jesus Loves Me". Rest in that Truth today. :-)