The Eyes of the LORD are Listening

I have found it a rather curious study lately to look into some aspects of prayer throughout Scripture.  It is quite confusing at times to be honest.  My thought that prayer is something that needs to be sacrificial, early in the morning, and consuming of large portions of time over many days is quite contradicted when I read of Asa.  He cried to the LORD, offering up a prayer that takes about 10 seconds (to read).  We get no indication that he did this day after day, week after week, month after month.  In fact, his prayer comes as a result of an army of "a million men" coming against his army of 580,000 men.  And still in this the LORD moved and gave Asa victory (2 Chron. 14:9-15).  

So why is it we wait?  Why is it some of us have labored in prayer without any resolution to the need before us?  Asa simply prayed, "O LORD there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak.  Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude.  O LORD, you are our God; let not man prevail against you" (2 Chron. 14:11).  It is not even so specific to the need before them of this great army coming against them, and yet the LORD answered in a great way.   Many of us have offered "better, more specific, longer" prayers that we have yet to see the Lord answer.  But truly it shouldn't surprise us.  

Look at the Psalms.  You don't have to look far to realize that the psalmists struggled with God, and His timing in regards to prayer.  It caused the psalmist in Psalm 42 to expose his innermost turmoil as he can only ask, "Why are you cast down, O my soul?"  And in Psalm 44 the psalmist says, "Why are you sleeping, O Lord?  Why do you hide your face?"  

This is the great mystery of prayer.  God's timing will rule.  He has greater purposes than just to answer what it is we ask for.  I am challenged by this statement recently that I read: "...the goal isn't to get what you want at all.  The goal is to figure out what God wants, what God wills."  This is one of the great purposes of prayer.  God is aligning our will with His perfect will.  So embrace the wrestling with God.  

Further, He delights to draw us near to Himself in all this. That seems obvious, but it is lost on us when we are just seeking "answers."  HE is THE ANSWER to the prayer request we make, nothing less.  The psalmist (Sons of Korah) in Psalm 42 (also responsible for 43 and 44) says, "...my soul thirsts for You...for the living God."  This is amidst His pursuit of freedom from oppressive enemies.  His request is ultimately not for relief to no end, but for GOD HIMSELF.  Allow for prayer to draw us nearer to God.  

Lastly, it is all about His own glory.  The great author A.W. Tozer once said, "Glorify Yourself, at my expense."  This is just a more personalized version of "Hallowed be Your Name."  And so even when a guy like Joshua led the Israelites over the Jordan River into the Promised Land it was to the ultimate purpose "that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, and you may fear the LORD your God forever."  

So I pray.  God seems to do some wonderfully irregular things on a regular basis for those who regularly pray.  We can't predict the when of it all, or even the extent of it all.  But hopefully we allow for what remains of 2013 to set in us a greater expectation of what God will do in 2014 even as we pray.   "For the eyes of the LORD run to and from throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward Him" (2 Chron. 16:9). 

This Baby Threatens Me

Matthew 2:3 says that when Herod heard the news from these Magi about a baby born, King of the Jews, he was greatly troubled.  Why is the most powerful man in the ancient near East troubled by the birth of some vulnerable, weak, little baby?  Too, it should be considered that since Herod had converted to Judaism some time before that, he should be welcoming the news of this Messiah.  

The reality is Herod had wealth.  One historian proposed that the personal wealth of Herod was one hundred times greater than the gross domestic product of the entire nation of Israel.  That he had wealth and power is clear given the remains of so many buildings he had constructed during his rule.  Indeed, even just two or so miles from Bethlehem stood the 3rd largest palace in the world at that time.  Herod assembled a team to build on the highest plateau in the Judean desert, and from there built a hill that ascended over two hundred feet higher, to where atop stood the Herodium.  There were four towers included in this great palace, the tallest of which was 60 feet while the three others stood at roughly 50 feet.  The diameter of this great building was roughly 200 feet.  It boasts of his great power, rule, wealth, status, and is today a reminder of the greatness of king Herod.  One can today venture to this area, just a short distance from Bethlehem and visit what remains at the Herodium.  

The stark contrast between these two kings could not be greater.  One is in the middle to later portion of his life, one's life as a human has just begun.  One has the riches and treasures of this world, while the other has none.  One's power is great, while the other is a vulnerable, weak baby who needs to be fed, clothed, and moved.  One sleeps in the finest of rooms, in the largest of palaces, while the other makes the first nights of his sleep in a manger (likely a cave).  So why is Herod troubled?

Four times in Matthew 2 (from verses 2-10) our attention is drawn to the word "star."  Matthew is seemingly wanting us to direct our attention to it. While I would not ultimately conclude it dogmatically, it is at least worth some consideration to note a prophecy made some 1500 years previous.  In Numbers 24:17-18 there is a word about someone in the future.  There the prophet says, "I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a star shall come out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth.  Edom shall be dispossessed..."  It is worthy to note that Herod was an Edomite.  Too, in the genealogy preceding this section (Matt. 1:1-17) we find Jesus comes directly from the lineage of Jacob.  This troubles Herod, and rightly should.  His kingdom cannot compare to the Kingdom of Christ.

Ultimately this baby will not allow for one to worship anything other than Him.  Herod believes his contentment will be in all he possesses, all his status and power, all his reputation.  But this baby Jesus will not stand for it.  The coming of Jesus to save (which is what the name Jesus means) is such that He exposes the many idols in all our lives and calls us to repentance and to a life of worshiping Him, the Only Worthy One.  He will not be just "another" in our lives, He wants and will have the first place if we are to have any part of the salvation He provides.  Indeed, this is what it is to be saved.  In Him we discover freedom from all these transitory things and full satisfaction in HIM.  But this is troubling if our view is temporary and not eternal.  Take away everything, if I get something better for eternity.  But if this is all there is, in this life, then I want no part of sacrifice, and selflessness.  So was the battle within Herod. 

And marvel just a bit more.  The very breath Herod breathes, all the food he eats, the riches he possesses, and his ongoing existence is every bit dependent upon this seemingly helpless baby.  It is the Divine Son of God enveloped in this human baby form who gives Herod all he has, even breath and a beating heart.  He upholds Herod's existence, even when it seemingly threatens His own existence.  And He does it all to show the power of His rule and reign, as the unmatched KING to whom all worship and adoration belong, now and forevermore. 

The Canvas on Which God Was Painting

I have come to marvel all the more at this glorious reality which is summed up in the word Christmas.  However, even as I use that word I know my propensity is to dwell on a day, a season, and all the sights and sounds that have caused us to romanticize it.  And so we do well to remember it is about Christ, such that our reflection of it does not just remain on lights, stockings hung, presents, and milk and cookies left out.  But really it is not just about Christ.  Before I am called a heretic consider some of the development of this even from a genealogy.  

Matthew 1:1-17 takes us through a substantial list of names, some of which we know, others of which we know little, and others of whom we know nothing.  And normally we just gloss over those we know, and blaze past the rest until getting to the terminating name of the list: Christ.  Our inclination is naturally to arrive at this "last name" on the list, but without realizing it we don't even have a good perspective on that last name (Christ) because we have failed to see any bit of the development of those  names preceding. 

The point is this: God was ever working to paint a picture.  The story involves a man (Abraham), but we don't stop there, the picture wasn't completed.  But not just about one man, but about a people. And it would appear monochromatic as we see just one group of people (the Hebrews).  But so as to add the expressive, vivid, diverse colors of the Artist's disposal, God involved the nations in His picture (Gentiles like Rahab and Ruth).  But then in the deepest shades of black the darkness of sin sweeps over this canvas (everyone named), before finally the oppressive chaos of a deportation (Babylonians) leaves gray clouds floating over all that is painted so far in this picture. But it is because of all of this by which Christ in all His glory and splendor absolutely and unmistakeably pops off the canvas that God was painting in this magnificent redemptive story. 

The fact is that God was painting a picture throughout history that culminated in and with Christ.  And indeed we don't see the brilliance of the picture, of which Christ is centered and the obvious focal point, because we don't see the backdrop God, in His beautiful, detailed, artistic design, was painting.  Note just a bit more of the details in this picture that we need to compare.  Consider some of these names on this genealogy: Abraham was called out of the land of his father.  Christ left a distance of time and space, of realms spiritual and physical to exit the proverbial "land of His Father" to embrace the incarnation.  Isaac was this one and only son of promise, who was spared from becoming a sacrifice by his father, while Christ is the One and Only Son of God the Father, who was sacrificed at the crushing blow of His Father, God.  Jacob was a deceitful, covenant stealing son, while Jesus in all truth shares the covenant blessing with others.  Judah sought comfort in sexual relations with his own daughter-in-law, while Christ sought out a woman at a well to reveal Himself as her eternal comfort, even after her sexual sins had left her broken, and then made her a daughter of God.  David whose unfaithfulness to the law (coveting and murdering) and to his wife in all surrounding his relations with Bathsheba is a great contrast with Christ who was perfectly faithful to the law and only continues to show Himself ever faithful to His Bride - the Church.  

So marvel at Him, whose picture was not some afterthought, but of intentional design.  Marvel at Him, whose picture was not at all limited by the diversity of people, or the wickedness of so many in and around it, but instead shows the sovereign purposes of God to work in it all, ultimately to display the beauties of the brilliance of CHRIST.  And marvel in the backdrop of that wonderful day, where the Son of God took on flesh.  In doing so we come to see a bit better the great glory of Christ and in doing so we understand just a bit better this Christmas.

Saved by Charades?

I am not sure when it happened.  I trust it was long before any of us were ever born.  I am sure this trend was popular many years ago in a variety of circles and came and went much like I anticipate it will with current trends too.  I am speaking of this social gospel that uses words like, "needs, love, acceptance," among so many others but has not the slightest clue as to what they are even saying.

I found myself in dialogue with a number recently who I would say have done a fantastic job of reaching out and meeting some needs in their community by feeding and clothing those in need.  This is great.  The church (at large) has done a rather lousy job of thinking outside its walls, its functions, its preoccupation with growing (whatever that means), and caring nothing for those right next door.  

The reality is, the extreme measure that so many advocate to "preach the gospel and if necessary use words" is a reaction not to the commands in scripture, rather a reaction against the church culture they previously knew.  And so we have found people saying, "We want to be a more accepting body," and "we choose not to use words like sin, hell, repentance, or even Jesus because that isn't our job.  Our job is to love," they say.  

Since when did truth and love oppose one another?  I yelled with urgency at my son who was approaching the open oven the other day with his hands out.  There was nothing offensive about what I did.  It was every bit truthful that he needed to back away from the open door and the intense heat that would have caused major trauma to his hands.  I did it out of love.  And even though he walked away from me scared, of me, I did what was best for him. 

Since when did our love not compel us to do something infinitely more important than give a shirt or a meal to a person in need?  Since when did this life, this SHORT LIFE, become longer than ETERNITY?  So excuse me just a bit if I get concerned when people say, "We are preaching the gospel...with our actions."  Oh really???!!!!!  When did anyone ever get saved without hearing the Word?  Paul had quite a bit to say about the need to proclaim this message (Romans 1:14-16; 10:5-17).  And none of these advocates of this social gospel were ever saved apart from hearing it, if indeed they are saved.  

Yes, the church has failed at regularly and consistently expressing the type of sacrificial love to the world around us in activities as mentioned previously (and beyond that).  And yes, the world will perk up and listen when we are engaged as such.  However, people do not understand they are sinners by us picking up a shovel and digging a garden.  People do not understand their need for repentance because we pull a turkey out of the oven.  People do not understand the need for faith by just seeing us smile and giving them a hug.  People do not see the eternal realm as a result of us taking a shirt off our back to give to them.  And so I argue as Paul so perfectly did, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word."  I care infinitely more about people having a soul feast on JESUS, the Bread of Life, who will forever satisfy the innermost desire, longing, hunger we have.  All our efforts to feed people food are but a reflection of this greater, spiritual, eternal reality.  So keep feeding, or start feeding people a physical meal, but bring and speak boldly the greatest food, the GOSPEL OF JESUS, that they all, we all need, by which we have been saved.

I WANT THE LOST!!!

I never really noticed it happening while it was.  I suppose none of us ever really did, but it happened and we were every bit a part of the problem.  For me it wasn't until I found myself deleting phone numbers from my cell phone.  I began to notice the greater number of people in my phone were believers.  In fact, I am not so certain that I had but a handful of people who didn't know Christ.  That grieved me.  Fortunately though God never stops working on us.  

Much of the world of church planting lately, with trends around, behind, and in front of me, rubs me the wrong way.  I find too many church planters are looking for more Christians with whom they can plant a church.  Now I don't mean for a moment to take away from the fact that I don't believe we do well to plant churches with anything less than believers.  However, I am beginning to ask the deeper question, if indeed God wants us to be about church planting in the fashion we have been so engaged in, or if there is the need for emphasis not on a Sunday morning worship service, small groups, and ministry opportunities (and all our other "Christianese" terminology), but a need to start with a team who wants to win souls, and upon winning souls, watch God grow a church. 

I have spoken some of this before, but it is continuing to strike me that we seem a bit wayward in such an approach.  God doesn't call us to plant churches, but He does call us to make disciples (Matt. 28:19-20).  He doesn't call us to have a public launch, but He does call us to mobilize people for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:11-14).  He doesn't call us to count heads every week, but that we present everyone mature in Christ (Col. 1:28).  I say this to shame nobody but myself.  My own presuppositions about how to do all this have been increasingly exposed.  My heart is ever being transformed.  Instead of measuring success by a number, and a growing number, I am seeing it more clearly in terms of how God is conforming me and those around me into the likeness of Christ.

For those out there who feel the need for "social validation" by more numbers, go ahead and take all those who think like you.  For those out there who want to have seats full of bodies on week one, take whomever comes.  I would rather not busy myself with those worries, with those expectations, with that unnecessary weight.  Just give me souls!  I want the lost!  The lost don't know how to "do church."  The lost don't care about our neatly folded bulletins, or our well-planned service structure.  They need to know of their brokenness, their sin and the glories of the all-sufficient Christ who will satisfy them forevermore. So I want Christians to join me in this if their heart will be compelled to activity as regards the GOSPEL.  But if they won't engage a non-believing world actively with the gospel and instead make it about church activities as they have known, I have known, you have known, I would not have them.  My hearts cry continues to cry, "Give me the lost, I want the lost." And I labor in prayer and activity toward making disciples who make disciples who make disciples.  All for the GLORY OF CHRIST.

The Dead Keep Speaking - (reflecting on Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Sadly Dietrich Bonhoeffer died far too young, and before he could pen all that his hand and mind would have crafted.  But a glorious reality comes to light in all of this.  Only the Gospel allows the dead to keep speaking, because Christ is alive and because of that, it (the gospel) is alive.  So as of late the few little pieces of Bonhoeffer's legacy of writing that I have been able to consume have meant a tremendous meal for me to eat.  In fact, I am finding there is so much that I need to share it.  I may eventually write on all these matters, but for now listen to these powerful words from his work Life Together.  My reflection is for now limited to the header above each.

We Make Far Too Little of Corporate Gatherings

"It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather in this world to share God's Word and sacrament.  Not all Christians receive this blessing.  The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen lands stand alone." 

Learning to Share in the Gospel Together and Not Just Leaving it to Our Pastor

"God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man.  Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him.  He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth.  He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ.  The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother's is sure."

Small Groups Don't Do FOR Us What a Fixation on Jesus Does TO Us

"The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it." 

I Need to Pray More...a Lot More

"A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.  His face, that [before] may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner."

We, the Church, Need to See Our Misrepresentation of the Gospel

"The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner.  We dare not be sinners.  Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous.  So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.  The fact is that we are sinners!  But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you."

Oh For Confession Like This With One Another

"In confession the break-through to community takes place.  Sin demands to have a man by himself.  It withdraws him from community.  In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart.  The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power.  It has been revealed and judged as sin.  It can no longer tear the fellowship asunder.  Now the fellowship bears the sin of the brother."

Letting Jesus Qualify Love

I am beginning to wonder if the love of man to his fellow man as outlined in the law (then later clarified by Christ) is to be distinguished from the love of brothers and sisters (as in Christ) unto one another. I only mean that the qualifications placed on it are not as far reaching as the love for members of Christ's body, one to another.  Now before you completely discard this idea, consider some of the words of Christ that seem to indicate this. 

Ultimately what we find is that we are called, indeed commanded, to love both people who are not members of Christ's body (Matt. 22:39) and we are to love one another as members of Christ's body (John 13:34).  However, the qualifying words of each of these mentioned relationships and the love that is to be held between the two gives us reason to believe they are different.  One goes much further reaching.  Jesus simply sums up the commandments regarding relationships between humans and keeping of these with the word, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  But as regards the relationship among His own disciples He says, "...love one another, just as I have loved you." 

Now on the surface these two commands look like one in the same.  But there is a great distinction made in all this with what follows the commands themselves.  His qualification of each love is in the words following the word "as."  In the first instance of the love of people to anyone and everyone it is listed "as yourself."  Nobody would for a moment deny that there is built into them an intrinsic care, concern, desire for what is safe, joyful, in his/her best interests.  None of us has to look hard to realize we care about our self and it is this self-care to which Jesus appeals that indeed if we had this for one another we'd be fulfilling this original law.  But when appealing to His disciples to what standard of love they need to have for one another (as disciples of His) it is said to be "as I have loved you."  That is, Christ is somewhere in here qualifying a love that they do not know in and of themselves.  It is a different love than they have ever known that can no longer be qualified merely by the self-care. 

I would argue that the love to which Jesus is calling ("as I have loved you") far exceeds any self-care, intrinsic love that we have for ourselves.  This is the highest love known toward man.  I am no longer to measure the standard of my love for others by anything of me, but now Christ becomes the ultimate measuring standard.  If this doesn't convince you then consider further the words of Jesus.  In its entirety His word to the disciples is, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you."  What about this commandment is new?  They know they need to love one another.  They have heard it before that they are to love their neighbor.  They are familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan.  What makes this new is the very qualification to which Jesus directs our attention.  It is this new standard, namely CHRIST'S LOVE. 

We haven't known this type of love in the body of Christ.  We talk about it, in part.  We act as though engaging in it is who we want to be, but rarely attempt.  The reality is that we cannot perfectly attain to it.  There is no way my love for another will ever reach that of Christ.  So what?  Give up?  Never!  But to keep the standard of such Divine heights, and to keep our love for one another dependent upon His enabling He gave this to us (John 15:5).  To keep us from becoming ineffectual in our witness to the world He gave us this command (John 17:21).  Even to allow us to participate in a greater joy than what we ever conceived, He gave us this command and highest standard (John 15:11).  To allow us to show just a reflection of the glories of the gospel, He gave us this command (1 John 4:11-12). 

So love your neighbor.  Love them greatly.  Give for their sake.  And go love in increasing measure those with whom your participate in adoration of Christ, your local body.  Let the world see the powerful transforming work of Christ, even to unite people, who show off Christ by serving one another, sacrificing for one another, meeting the needs of one another.  The gospel commands not merely a commitment to Christ, but a commitment to one another.  It is no gospel to love Christ and care nothing or little, commit nothing or little to, sacrifice nothing or little for, and give no or little time to your brothers and sisters in Christ.  The gospel demands of us commitment to Christ and commitment to one another.  In this is freedom, and joy, and peace, and power because THIS IS THE GOSPEL.