Born Free

For freedom, Christ set us free.  Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.
-Galatians 5:1

Christians are born free.  We are freed to be free.  To be a Christian means to be set free.

We are set free from the bondage to sin and to religion.  When someone becomes a Christian they are set free to be free, in Christ.

Becoming a Christian is not just about believing the Bible, but about believing in Christ.  Being a Christian is being a person in Christ.

The freedom that Christians are born into, is freedom of conscience.  Christianity is inside-out.  Christ in you.

When we participate in the process of someone coming to Christ, to be be born from above, we are all about leading them to him and not to us.  It is wonderful if we are so immersed in Christ that people see Christ in us.  But our goal is never to make disciples after ourselves or our brand, but of Christ himself and let him take this person where he wills.

The freedom that Christ sets us free to is freedom of conscience.  Jesus works within each one of his followers, enabling them and guiding them to do what is right.

Disciplemaking is not about converting people to our opinions, but making them disciples of Jesus.  There is no program, but Christ.

So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.
-John 8:36

The Son of God has set us free.  What that means is that I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but the life I now live is by the faithfulness of the Son of God (Gal. 2:20).  The freedom of having been set free is only in the work of the Son of God.

Outside of what Jesus did on the cross, I do not have freedom.  With centering my life in the cross of Christ and bearing my own cross, I will be selfish and become enslaved again to sin, religion or both.

Some people say, “I just can’t do that”, or, “It’s too hard”, and live a life of selfish complaining and victimhood, paradoxically, living as slaves in freedom.

Christianity is lived inside out.  When you look for something on the outside of you to feel better, you are not living in freedom, but are looking for a medication.

Jesus gives you life from your inside.

Freedom in Christ is what Christian salvation is.  Galatians 5:1 is a concise statement of what Paul has written in Chapters 1-4.

The gospel is grace, not ‘Jesus plus’.

This is what Richard Longenecker wrote about Galatians, in his closing explanation of chapter 5:1-12:

“Most often Galatians is viewed as the great document of justification by faith.  What Christians all too often fail to realize is that in reality it is a document the sets out a Christ-centered lifestyle— one that stands both in opposition to nomism and libertinism.  Sadly though, applauding justification by faith, Christians frequently renounce their freedom in Christ by espousing either nomism or libertinism and sometimes (like the Galatians) both.  So Paul’s letter to the Galatians, though directly relevant to the Galatian situation, speaks also to our situation today.”  (R. Longenecker, Galatians, p. 245, 1990)

Searching

Every year His parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival. When He was 12 years old, they went up according to the custom of the festival.  After those days were over, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but His parents did not know it.  Assuming He was in the traveling party, they went a day’s journey.  Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends.  When they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for Him.  After three days, they found Him in the temple complex sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all those who heard Him were astounded at His understanding and His answers.  When His parents saw Him, they were astonished, and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for You.”

“Why were you searching for Me?” He asked them. “Didn’t you know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” But they did not understand what He said to them.

Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them. His mother kept all these things in her heart.

-Luke 2:41-51

I am searching for something right now and it is consuming me.  I have been preoccupied with it.  I have let my search stress me out to the point that I have been too anxious about it.

This story, from Luke chapter two, came to my mind.  In this story, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, after the festival was over; when his mom and dad, family and friends left.  Their group was big enough and Mary and Joseph were trusting enough of Jesus maturity, that when they travelled, they did not need to always have an eye on him.

I can really identify with them, because my son is eleven years old.  He is right at the age where we do not have to keep an eye on him all the time.  But we are still concerned about where he is and with whom.

I know exactly what the panic must have felt like for Mary and Joseph.  They were one day’s journey away from Jerusalem, when they realized they lost him.  Talk about losing something or someone special.

I’m talking about losing your own child.  When I became a parent, the stories of children being abducted struck horror in my heart.  I took it all for granted, before I became the parent of a beautiful little boy.

When Jesus parents realized he was unaccounted for, they first looked among the whole group that was travelling with them.  Maybe he was there somewhere?  But he was not.

So, they made their way back to Jerusalem, and looked all over, perhaps retracing their steps.  Then, they got to the temple complex and there he was, seated with the rabbis.  He was so engaged in the discussion that he hardly noticed mom and dad walk up.

Joseph and Mary perhaps had the chance to hear Jesus words as he dialogued with the teachers and saw the amazement at what he had to say.  Luke does not tell us that they scooped Jesus up or that they said, “Thank God, you are ok!”  Nope.

Instead, we are told that they rebuked him: “Son, why have you treated us like this?”  Mary was calling him to responsibility.  She is speaking to him, like we might speak to our 15, 16 or 17 year old; because maturity and responsibility came at a younger age in first century Jewish culture.

We say that someone becomes an adult at age 18 and the truth is that many young people do not even become adults today until their mid-twenties.  And the markers of adulthood are maturity and responsibility.

In that culture, where Jesus grew up, age twelve was the transition from boyhood to manhood.  He is more mature than our twelve year olds.  He is ready to be a man.

Have you wondered where he spent the night?  Probably at the place where one of those teachers lived or at the temple.  Have you wondered if those teachers would have asked him about his parents or if he should be going home?

Whatever those conversations entailed of if they happened at all, there he was.  

I had scenes in my childhood, when I ventured out of my mom’s sight and she lost me.  My mom was very upset.  I know the phrase, “Where have you been?”, when I was perfectly fine, in my mind, and having an adventure or just enjoying myself with others.

Mary’s rebuke to Jesus, “Why have you treated us like this”, puts the blame for her anxious turmoil onto the boy.  He neither responds with “Sorry, my bad”, nor, “Don’t talk to me like that”.  

Instead, he gently turns the issue back to her and reminds her that God, His Father, is the center of his life; even though he is rightly related to his earthly parents.  Jesus is teaching me how to talk to my mom.

In the same section of scripture, it says that Mary and Joseph were Jesus parents and that he also has The Father as his father.  This is important, because Luke is underscoring that Jesus was human and divine.  He was not delivered, as a baby or a boy, from heaven; but came out of Mary.

They lost him and were searching, searching, searching for him.  But all along, there he was, at the temple, consumed with his Father’s things.  These are the first words we have of Jesus: “Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?”

This is our English language rendering, and in the HCSB that I am using here.  The oldest translation that we are commonly familiar with, the King James, says, “Knew ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?”  But what it literally says is something like, “did ye not know that in the things of my Father it behoveth me to be?’

That is how we get the idea that Jesus was saying something like, “Didn’t you know that I am all about being consumed by the things of my Father?”  Jesus did not say the word “house”.  House is in our translations  there because the translators would say that it is implied.

Jesus is saying that they should have known that he would be at the temple, the figurative ‘house of God’, involved in the discourse with people about the things of God.

The motif of this story, for me is ‘searching’.  We could say that the human perspective was of the parents and their tribe, searching for the lost boy.  Searching equals seeking.  They were seeking the boy while the boy was seeking or involved with the work of  seeking God.

They were seeking Jesus, all the while Jesus was involved with the pursuit of the things of the Father.  Jesus did not take a detour to an alone place to seek or be with the Father.  Jesus went to or stopped and stayed at the place where people gathered to discuss God things.

This is where we get the phrase, “I had to be about my Father’s business”.  What is the Father’s business?  It is God’s whole enterprise of loving and saving the people in the world he created.

Today, I am seeking something or a number of somethings.  And at the same time, Jesus is seeking or all about, as in ‘consumed’ with something.  I believe Jesus cares about what I am searching for, but mainly to the extent that he cares about me.

He loves me and he is consumed with the Father’s business.  I am searching for something, while he is involved with doing what he sees the Father doing.

What I am searching for is not bad.  Some people in the world must search for their daily food each day.  Jesus is not too busy discussing theology with the teachers to care about his people.

He does care and he does understand.  But where we get in trouble is when we stress out in our searching for whatever and I am assuming here that we are searching for something wholesome.  Something we do not want to do is to  stress out and then say to Jesus, “Why did you do this to me?”

My grandmother never touched alcohol and never went to a 12-step group, but she had the serenity prayer on a plaque, above the kitchen sink.  I grew up, looking at that prayer, and thinking about it.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change; courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

People who blame God and do not accept responsibility and and do not take the initiative are not developing spiritually, and are half-baked and stunted in becoming men and women, and staying childish.

Another remarkable thing about this story is that it says that Jesus went with them, back to Nazareth, in obedience.  Let that sink in.  He just showed them that he was ready and they did not get it.

Instead of forcing himself on them, he submitted himself to them.  This should blow our minds and massively teach us something about submission.  God was ready, but they were not ready to let go.

This is how it is so often with us in our lives.  We think we are waiting on God.  “Why is he taking so long!”, we say.  And all along, God is waiting for us.

Jesus and history had to wait 18 years.  When he left home at age 30, his family still did not get it.  They had lived with him and did not get him.

This is very sad in a sense, but should also encourage you, if your family does not get you.

It is really nice when people get you, understand you, to the best of their human abilities.  But the default position or the case that is most common, is that they won’t get you.  And then there is the whole range of the ones you love actually opposing you.

When we fast forward to when Jesus is 30 and begins his public ministry, in one of his first times of teaching, they love it, but then say, “Wait a minute, isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  Somehow, many people can’t wrap their heads around ordinary people becoming extraordinary because of God in their lives.  Instead, they want to see extraordinary people as gods.

The whole ethos of Christianity is that God in Christ comes into you and makes you a person in-Christ, that Christ works through and points to God.

What does this story from when Jesus was 12 have in it for me and what might it have for you?  I am searching.  I am always searching for something to one extent or another.

Sometimes my searching overwhelms me and I get stressed out.  I am tired and I need rest.  That is first.

Then there is the issue where I realize that I am missing God.  I have been praying about my search to God, but maybe not enough because my search has taken me away from God’s presence.  Maybe I need to search a bit less or pray more or perhaps wait on God more?

What about time out for recreation?  But if my search is desperate, like for food or water or a place to stay when all the places say ‘no vacancy’, I probably do need to pray more and practice God’s presence. 

It is all grace right?  Not my works that make life happen.  But faith is only real if it is tested and tried.

The circumstances of life test and try our faith to make it genuine.  Faith involves risk and when we risk we do often fail.  But God loves riskers who fail.

It is worse to do nothing than to do something that fails.

I am searching.  Will Jesus follow me in my search and make it work out? I am supposed to be following him.  But I can ask him to grant me success in my search.  I can pray as I consider things and choose things.

I would rather be with him wherever he is.  When I am searching and he is not with me, that is not his fault.  I left him behind and he never left me.

Rather than doing a comprehensive search and then getting overwhelmed and saying “Where are you in all this?”, I want to be with him and then put my head on his chest and ask him about it.

Come Dancing

My love calls to me:

Arise, my darling.
Come away, my beautiful one.
For now the winter is past;
the rain has ended and gone away.
The blossoms appear in the countryside.
The time of singing has come,
and the turtledove’s cooing is heard in our land.
The fig tree ripens its figs;
the blossoming vines give off their fragrance.
Arise, my darling.
Come away, my beautiful one.

-Song of Songs 2:10-13

Come dancing.  Have you heard God say that?

What would that mean?  I think that when we dance, we have stopped being passive and instead activated.  Dancing is moving.

When I am moving, I can be guided or ‘course corrected’.  The motion of dancing gives me the ability to be guided.  ‘Come dancing’ is similar to, ‘let’s take a walk”, ‘get up and go’, ‘now, run’.

If someone invites you to dance, they are asking you to join the dance, with them or with others.  The invitation implies the plurality of dancing.  People dance solo or privately all the time, but that is not what this is about.

In God’s story, shared in the Bible, His people are His wife and His bride.  God has always been like a husband who loves and shares with his bride.  This includes going away with God and letting God love us.

God would naturally say to us, ‘let me share with you’, ‘let us eat together’, and ‘come dance with me’.

The life that God has always wanted for His people is a close relationship, like in the old hymn, “He lives”, where it has the words, “He walks with me and talks with me”.  Our God is a relational person who walks with us and talks with us.

That is the backdrop of God saying, “Come dancing”.  And “Come dancing” is different than “Let’s dance”.  God is perhaps saying that there is a dance already in progress,  and He is inviting us to join in.

Did you know that the Bible views dancing as wholesome and is commended?

Did you know that God invented dancing?  Dancing is actually a godly thing to do.

You may not be a natural dancer.  One of the most awkward things I ever did was take part in an audition for West Side Story.  I soon discovered that this was not my thing.  

I remember a very popular Christian teacher, who opined about dancing  He said that since it would be awkward to lead someone to Christ, while dancing, we should not dance.  But he was giving an opinion about youth dancing to secular music: it it ok or not ok?  “Not ok”, he said.

From just listening to this one man, I never knew that there was legitimate, wholesome God-endorsed dancing, in the Bible.  Later, I did discover dancing in the Bible, and I thought that while we read of Jewish people dancing, from time to time, that it must just be cultural; because I never saw dancing in church or in any Christian context.

Dancing in the Bible is not liturgical.  Liturgy is the high church word that means ‘service’, and that is where we get the descriptive title for formal church gatherings called ‘church services’.  We say, “Are you holding services?”, to people starting a new church; and the idea is commonly held that ‘church’ means ‘services’ at a ‘building’, with people.  So, people + building + service = church, is what is commonly held to be the definition of ‘church’.  Only one third of that equation is correct or New Testament.

The NT teaches that the people are the church and the the gathering of the church is not about buildings, small or large, nor is it about service or liturgy.  The gathering is about people gathering in Jesus name, for Jesus mission and cause, in his love that we express towards other followers of Jesus, who have also left everything behind for him, to invite people who do not know him to also follow him.

On the other hand, churches, like synagogues, do have liturgies; ‘things we do when we gather’.

Liturgy equals ‘what we do’.  “What’s your liturgy, man?”

An easy example of liturgy or what we say makes a (real) church service, is singing.  It is hard to recall a church meeting without singing.

Many people, by far the majority in my experience, equate church with singing.  We also equate ‘church’ as being something we go to.  But the NT teaches that the church is something we are.

Today, many people think that church is something you go to, to sing.

But, singing is neither what defines or makes a church.  Singing is a liturgical thing we like to do.  And it feels good too.

Same thing with sanctified dancing.  But some Christians who love to sing, don’t see dancing as appropriate.  Yet, they are both things people like to do to both celebrate and worship.

If church is not a building or services, then what is church?  Church is intimate fellowship with Jesus and each other, around Jesus.  The communion with Him and his people involves sharing.  Sharing stories, sharing food, sharing life and sharing our stuff and money.

Church life may include dancing, but it is not part of the liturgy or service, because the duty, liturgy or service of the church that marks or defines the church is loving one another from Jesus love.

The only liturgy or service direction that we were given is to love one another and serve one another and to go out and tell others about Jesus.

Dancing has a place in church life, when if is spontaneous or celebratory.  The people danced in Jesus story of the two sons and their father, in Luke chapter 15.

And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.
-Luke 15:23-5

If Jesus had dancing in a story he made up, that was an expression of celebration and spontaneous jubilation; we can take that as an example of when dancing is a good thing.

In Bible times and today, there has been pagan, cultic and erotic dancing that is not the kind of dancing that believers take part in.  When we suggest that believers can dance in life, or in church, some of us are chagrined, because we think of dancing as worldly.  But the job of the god of the world has always been to corrupt and twist what started off as wholesome.  And redemption means to take those back and put them back to their original function.

Have you ever thought about angels and dancing?  In the same chapter in Luke where Jesus includes the scene of the people dancing, he also says that when sinners repent, that angels experience joy in God’s presence.  The thread, in Luke 15, that ties the reality of angels experiencing joy, with Jesus story of the returned prodigal, is the joy in heaven and celebration on earth.

“What man among you, who has 100 sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don’t need repentance.

“Or what woman who has 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she calls her women friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost!’ I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.”
-Luke 15:4-10

Jesus has music and dancing in his story.  Many Christians are uncomfortable with dancing and especially dancing in church.  Why would people dance in church, they ask.  The answer is Luke 15 and the admonitions to dance in worship in the OT:

Let them praise His name with dancing and make music to Him with tambourine and lyre.
Praise Him with tambourine and dance; praise Him with flute and strings.
-Psalm 149:3, 150:4

 Music with instruments and dancing, for worship, praise and celebration is from the Bible.  Anyone who would say that instrumental music or dance do not belong in the church, has either not read Luke 15, or they do not see Father God and his family there, of which every church is a part of today.  

In the Bible, there is wholesome dancing, that is commendable.  Dancing is also a metaphor.

If God is saying, “Come dancing”, to you; He might be saying, “Let’s go live”.  When we dance, we draw attention to ourselves, because of all the movements.  God might be saying, “Get up and shine”, like the word in Isaiah.

When you come out to dance, you may be dancing before God, with God or with others.  There is a ‘self-esteem’ lift to dancing, because you are out there and visible and vulnerable.  Others might laugh at you or commend you as you dance.  And when we dance, most of us must let go of our pride, because dancing is humbling.

Dancing, in its putting us out there, in humility, makes us recipients of grace.

There has been a time to sit and watch life go by.  But now is the time to get up and dance.

The voice of the bridegroom summoning you to come, is what empowers you to arise and go.

Jesus never planned to have us live passive lives.  Jesus never planned to have us be a holy people who are enclaved from the world.  And He never intended for us to be experts but not practitioners.

Hear God say, “Come dancing”.

It is a New Day

A new day will dawn on us from above because our God is loving and merciful.
He will give light to those who live in the dark and in death’s shadow.
-Luke 1:78 (God’s Word translation)

I have noticed that it’s a new day.  I don’t know if you have noticed, but I thought I would mention it.  Something new is happening or ready to happen.

Change has been in the air for some time.  The atmosphere has been changing and a new time is here.

Many things have not changed, but it is still a new day.  I still have many of the same problems.  But it is a new day, so the way I am facing those problems is a bit different.

Not only is it a new day, a new time and a new season; but I am becoming aware that I have changed or been changed.  And as I look around, at the people in my life, it seems they have been changed too.

In the new day, I believe I can expect new things.  And I do, but I don’t know what they will be.  I have learned that God’s gifts are often different and better than what I would imagine.

Auld Lang Syne

Source/Artist unknown

Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

And you don’t put wine in old, cracked bottles; you get strong, clean bottles for your fresh vintage wine. And no one who has ever tasted fine aged wine prefers unaged wine.

-Isaiah 43:18-19, Matthew 6:34 and Luke 5:38-9 (The Message)

We are three and a half weeks into the new year.  The big change happened in November and was made official this past weekend.  America said goodbye to one president and said welcome to the new president.

Many more changes are in the air and are coming, as they always are.  God is doing something in the earth.  Trump’s ascendency, like it or not, is emblematic of what God is doing.

Jesus has been building his church.  God is ready to pour out new wine.  And new wine always requires new wineskins.

The wineskin is the structure that holds the wine.  The new wine is the brand-new thing that God is doing.  The old structure will not be able to hold, manage or give leadership to the new thing that God is doing.

After taking in the inauguration weekend, I was musing about that song, “Auld Lang Syne”.  President Trump’s swearing in and his address where the final events of this election season.  But just as important, were the goodbyes and farewells to president Obama.

There has been grace to end a season and begin a new season.  Endings and beginnings are not always this way.  For example, the transition from Saul to David was pretty rocky.

I love this quote:

“The hardest changes are from God’s order to God’s new order.”
–Rich Marshall

“Auld Lang Syne”, is a song that is traditionally sang at midnight on new year’s eve, bidding farewell to the old year.  It is also sung as a farewell or ending, to other occasions.  These words are in Scots, and could be loosely translated into English as, “For (the sake of) old times”.

This brings me to the scripture from Isaiah 43.  These verses basically say that if you dwell on the past, you will miss what is presently about to happen.

“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.”

Imagine a person who is still talking and thinking about their ex, when they are in a new relationship and you get the picture.

When we have our eyes on what is behind, we do not see what is beside us or ahead of us.  We need to learn to live in the present with God, not dwelling on the past, nor fear-filled or worried about the future.

I love how The Passion Translation puts Matthew 6:33-34:

     “So above all, constantly chase after the realm of God’s kingdom and the righteousness that proceeds from him.  Then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly.  Refuse to worry about tomorrow, but deal with each challenge that comes your way, one day at a time.  Tomorrow will take care of itself.”

Preparing For The Rain

You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance.

-Psalm 68:9 (NIV)

The rain is coming.  But are we ready for it?  What can we do to get ready?

I would describe what we need to do is to have:

• Open hearts
• Outstretched arms
• Eyes that are open
• Shoes on our feet
• Clean hands

Open Hearts

Be reconciled.  Get reconciled with God, with yourself and with others.  Do not have anything against anyone.

Forgive everyone, starting with God. Make sure you forgive yourself.  Get rid of, cleansed of all bitterness.

This heart work may require set aside portions of time now to become aware of your heart problems and get free, get reconciled and purge yourself of spiritual toxins, waste and obstructions.

You may have need of heart warming or palliative care from other people right now.  Your heart disease may be killing you or immobilizing you.  Find out how to reverse the disease and get well and be well and receive from God.

Some hearts are damaged and not functioning properly.  People with these hearts are barely living and walking slow, with chest pain at times.  If this is you, seek open heart surgery immediately, from the great physician.

Be honest about your heart.  Take time off of work and check yourself in for surgery.  Sign all the papers and give Jesus everything and then let him heal your heart.

There may be people you need to talk to or see for reconciliation.  You may need to write a letter to them.  Your being reconciled to them does not mean that things will suddenly be like they were in the past.  Do not insist on that or think you have failed when it does not.

The key is for you to be reconciled to all the people that you have had anything against.  Release them from charges you have held against them.  Cancel their debt to you.

Now you are free and they are free.  If they did want to be close to you again, but they are unsafe for you or are just on a whole different path in life, you can lovingly decline the offer, without there being anything negative about it.  

The matter of the heart is to be loving: love God, love yourself and then love others as you love yourself, based on God’s love for you.  In that picture, there are many people that we can not be close to, but we can be reconciled to and hold nothing against them.  

We can not be close to some people, even many people.  But we can be reconciled to them and be willing at any time to be closer to them,  if they become safer to be around, based on God’s love in their life.

The rain is going to fall on us, if we avail ourselves to being under it.  And the main place that the rain goes into is our hearts.  Our hearts are living reservoirs or aquifers for the rainfall.

A person who has a closed heart or a calcified, dry heart; may stand in the rain and even dance in the rain.  But they will have little lasting effect from the rain and will not be able to carry the rain to others for any distance.  

The main place where the rain has lasting impact and can be held to give to others is in the heart.  Our hearts must be ready.  Building a man made container to catch, hold and dispense the rain of God sounds like a good idea, but that is not what God wants and is wrong headed.

Get your heart ready.  Get your heart right.  Get your heart healed. 

The rain of God comes upon the whole body of each person.  But it only changes lives when it comes upon and into a person’s heart.  And it is through our hearts that we live out Christ’s life and share life with others.

Get your hearts ready.  Set aside the time now to get your heart right.  Stop being distracted and get real about your heart today.

There is a time when it is too late.  And you can miss it.  An opportunity for you is imminent and you can choose to miss it if you don’t get yourself ready.

Outstretched Arms

Begin today, if you are not already doing so, to be a person who reaches out.  Reach out to give and reach out to receive.  Be less independent and more communal.

Reverse your style of estrangement and isolation from others.  Sharing is a key component to the Christian life.  Share your needs and meet the needs of others.  

Stop being needless.  If you are ‘the minister’ in your family or community, start letting others minister to you.  You may be the most gifted one, but realize your need for others, for the life in them, for you to be cared for.

Humble yourself by asking for assistance.  Delegate things to others where you have been controlling.

The impact of the coming rain will be spread and multiplied through the web or matrix of our relationships.  This is God’s design.  Today, we can be prepared for being missionaries by just being connected to those around us, right under our noses.

Stretching out our arms to touch and be touched by others is preparing a network that God can build upon.  Many of us are like the little boy, who only had a small lunch in a basket; but he offered it to Jesus.  The Lord takes our small things and multiplies them.

It is a grave error to not honor the small things we have and participate in them, offering them to the Lord.  The person who does nothing and offers nothing is a person who has a heart problem and can not be used by God, transformed by God and blessed by God.

We must do business in our very small circles, with our very small provisions or influence now and bless people in tiny ways, if that’s all we have got.  All you might have is a smile.  Then give that smile.

We need to extend out arms now to others, so that they will be extended and in service, as bridges and aqueducts; when the rain of God falls.  When the downpour happens, we don’t want to then lower our bridges and open our aqueducts and figure out how they work.

Now is the time to stretch out your arms.  Now is the time to reach out to others.  Now is the time to become available.

Now is the time to figure out how your open door policy is going to work or function.  Now is the time to make a path to your door that people can walk on.  Now is the time to venture out of your hiding place.

Eyes That Are Open

After we have got our hearts right and are stretching ourselves to reach out and be available to be touched by others, we need to learn to see.  I grew up in a revival church, where we learned to close our eyes when we worshipped, to focus on God, undistracted.  I also learned to pray for people, hands on, with my eyes open.  I also learned to see with my spirit.

We need to live with God and others, with our eyes open.  Jesus is an eyes open person.  He saw people.

Jesus heart is always wide open to his Father and his eyes are always open to people.  We need to cultivate Jesus style in this.  Some of us do not see people.

Some of us are always struggling to see God and miss all the people.  Some of us are mostly preoccupied with seeing ourselves and with how others see us.  Many of us pass through life with our eyes closed, blocking out the people in the world.

To get ready for the rain, we need to cultivate and learn to live with our eyes open to other people.  We need to learn to be seeing God with our hearts and to be seeing people with our eyes.  We need to not just look at people, but see them with our hearts.

Meet people’s eyes.  Look into the windows to their soul.  Learn to do this.

Jesus can look people in the eyes and ask them, ‘What do you want?’, or, ‘What would you like me to do for you?’, and we can learn to do that too, as we walk with him in the world.

We so often see people as being in our way.  We so often see and look to see people who we want to get something from.  Instead of this, we need to cultivate Jesus style of seeing people and coming as servants and not to be served.

This is why Jesus said, “Open your eyes and see the harvest around you”.  That is what we all need to do right now.

Shoes On Our Feet

Many of us have the wrong shoes on our feet.  We each need to have our feet fitted with gospel shoes.  Many of us are walking through life in an angry rampage and completely misrepresenting Jesus and the gospel of peace.

Take an inventory of your shoes.  Are you wearing the shoes of Jesus or something else you have fashioned?  Do your shoes stomp and kick, allure and purr or are they functional for the bringing of good news to people?

Your shoes can be high fashion, open toed or closed, sandals or boots, athletic or dress up.  What matters is where are your feet taking you?  Your shoes are about where are you prepared to go and what are you prepared for.

One person carries the good news, wearing stilettos; while another person carries the message wearing flip flops.  God fits two people differently, but they have in common that they are prepared to share the good news.  We all need to take care to be ready to share the gospel every day in many different ways, just as we put shoes on when we leave the door of our homes.

Clean Hands

Many of us need to wash our hands.  We have lived lives where we have been doing all sorts of unholy, undignified and unchristian things with our hands.  Two big ones are what you type or text and your pointing your finger in judgement at others.

Christians also take part in many sinful activities that are participated in through using their hands.  The, ‘Cleanse your hands you sinner’, message of James 4:8, is a message to Christians.  It is not meant to condemn, but is a loving admonition to ‘Knock it off’.

Many Christians, from the first century to today, have lived double lives.  We have lived as Christians but not as Christians, in the same lives.  The word of the Lord to us is, the rebuke of, ‘Stop it!’

We must stop living on two paths and only cultivate the path of Christ in our lives.  Churches should stop having recovery groups and become recovery groups.

Many people disqualify themselves from being Jesus’ hand, because of their hands.  Some have shame and guilt and see no way out of double lives.  But there is grace for escape, deliverance and emancipation.  

Many people who name Christ also need deliverance.  Nothing to be ashamed of, but something to be glad of that is a blessing.  We shouldn’t be embarrassed about deliverance, but humbly receive freedom.

If our hearts get made right, if our hearts become cleansed, we will live a different way, exemplified by what we do with our hands and fingers.  Many people do not need deliverance, but need to just begin to learn to walk in Christ, and the naughty stuff, even addictive behaviors will change and just fall off their lives.

Jesus and critters can’t live in the same house.  Our job is to open up every room in the houses of our lives to God and welcome him to live there.  Even in the basements and the belfry.  

Grief In Moab, Curse Broken, and Freedom into Destiny

For their cry echoes throughout the territory of Moab.
Their wailing reaches Eglaim; their wailing reaches Beer-elim.

-Isaiah 15:8

Some people are sad today and some people will be sad for a while.  Misfortune comes upon people and there is a way that is right, in how we observe their misfortune; so as not to sin in watching the news.  Those who have suffered loss are our brothers and sisters.

Moab was the son of Lot, who was the nephew of Abraham.  And Ruth, was from Moab, and she was David’s grandmother, and Jesus’ great, great, great, great, grandma.  When Moab came under judgement, it was appropriate to be compassionate towards them.

The Bible instructs us to not rejoice or gloat when our enemy or brother falls (Pr. 24:17, Job 31:29, Ob. 1:12).  Isaiah writes, in the context here, “My heart cries out over Moab…” (15:6a).  

People of Moab can still be in the people of God.  Ruth is an example of this.  Where you were born and who you were born to or where you have lived and who you have lived among does not have to be your destiny.

The people of Moab, outside of God’s redemption, are a people under a curse.  The foundation of the curse that they carry and live in, is what happened with Lot and his daughters.  The short version of the story is that Lot did not see to it that his daughters could have husbands and this vacuum of leadership was filled by his daughters having sexual relations with their own dad, in order to produce children.

Lot failed in his duty, to get husbands for his daughters.  He treated them as pre-pubescent girls, when they had become of age to marry and have children.  He did not set them up or position them to be promoted into womanhood and motherhood.

Then, his daughters sinned; and one of the children produced by the incest, was Moab.  His mother desired a child, but did not have a husband, and she did something outside the boundaries of right and wrong, and produced Moab.  But the reason that she did this, or rather the environment that gave rise to her sin, was her father not promoting her or lifting her up into womanhood, by finding her a husband.

Lot held his girls back from adulthood, but their bodies had matured to be ready for adulthood.  Lot did wrong and the daughters did wrong.  Lot did other wrong things, recorded in Genesis 19, with his daughters.

Lot had the opportunity to be mentored by Abraham, the father of faith.  It is interesting to consider, that Lot was not called the way that Abraham was (Gen. 12:1-5).  Even though Lot was from the same family, being Abraham’s brother’s son; he was his own person, with his own proclivities.  

We start in Genesis and then we fast-forward to Isaiah and see Moab judged.  We learned who Moab was and where he came from and noted that being a Moabite does not mean you are outside the possibility of redemption; with the case and point of Ruth, who was David’s grandma and was a wonderful lady.  The book of Ruth is a wonderful book about redemption.

Today, we have the figurative or metaphorical tribe of Moab, or the manifestation or lifestyle of unredeemed Moab, that is coming under judgement for redemption.  The judgement of Moab’s lifestyle or plight has already been here for a long time.  It is just going to have a light shined on it now and be given the chance to change and become free to be redeemed.

We have a whole lot of people who were not parented or led properly or watched over and allowed to grow, soar, and become productive.  Instead, their fathers, mothers, and leaders have not build launch pads, have not taught them to fly and leave the nest, and have not raised them up to take over the company or start their own businesses.  I am talking metaphorically.

We have had dysfunctional leadership on every level and in every sphere, including the church.  In this kind of dysfunction, those in the care of leadership, which starts in the home and goes all the way up to the white house; the offspring or those who are under the leaders are not raised up to maturity and allowed to take off, be promoted, or to be released into their destiny.

Instead, out leaders, up and down the whole spectrum; have not raised up those under them to be leaders themselves, unto their own productivity.  Instead, our leaders have fostered our dependence on them and kept us from promotion, from being mentored to take over the business, so to speak, and from leaving home to start our own families, metaphorically speaking.

Instead, our leaders, our mothers and fathers; have kept us down in a dependency relationship that is not how we were designed by God to live.  Some of us and for some of us, our ancestors; have sinned and used ungodly ways and means to try to fulfill their destinies, and have only ended up bringing more heartbreak and dysfunction into their lives.

People who are metaphorically in Moab, who for no fault of their own, were born under and into families and systems where the leadership has not allowed everyone to be promoted into their God given destinies, are being, about to be, and are going to be allowed to be set free into their destinies.

Right now, there is a shattering of this glass ceiling or curse that has held them back.  A whole lot of grief is going to flow, when people realize that they have been deprived or not loved.  But it is bitter sweet, because to process and flow is that to get out of bondage and to be delivered, you have to be shown and come to the realization that you have been held back.

The answer to deprivation of love and mentoring is not acting depraved, but being delivered and set free and having the curse broken and being set forth, back onto the path of destiny and fruitfulness that has awaited you.

Freedom in Christ

Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

-Galatians 5:1 (HCSB, NIV, NKJV)

Freedom in Christ

Christians are free.  Set free and changed.  This happened through the cross of Christ.

We need to know that following Christ does not put us or bring us under the law.  We have to say this because there have always been people who teach that we need to come, dwell, or abide in, under, or through the law to be saved.

We are now free to live in Christ, desiring to serve God, in love.

The center and the life of Christianity is the person of Christ.  The life of Christ in me makes me a Christian and his life in me desires righteousness and lives the godly life.

Living in Christ

The freedom of Galatians 5:1 is predicated on, is based on, and comes out of the life of Christ and the death of me.  Galatians 2:20 says,

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but the life of Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  

We are not saved and become Christians so that we can now finally obey the law, but we come to Christ and die to our selves and he begins living through our lives.

Our freedom, our liberty, is now in the resurrection life of Christ, in our lives.  We are set free to live freely in Christ.  That is the life of love.

Freedom to love

The whole law which Christ kept is summed up in, “You shall love your neighbor as your self” (Gal. 5:14).  The freedom in Christ is to love others (Gal. 5:13).

Before Christ, the law was given for people who do not wish to be righteous, to force them into righteous living.  We now have liberty from religious legalism imposed on us.  God wants us to take His strength and walk in freedom.

This is different than legalism, which is being bound to the law, which attempts to bring us into a righteous life, from the outside.

Freedom from the Law and freedom from sin

Freedom and liberty are not for us to do anything we want, not denying our selves any desire, ‘living large’ in some sort of life with no boundaries.  The liberty or freedom in Christ is freedom from the tyranny of having to work our way to God and freedom from sin.  He set us free so that we do not need to find our righteousness by following of rules, laws, or codes.

He is our righteousness.

Freedom in Christ is not a door way to selfishness (Gal. 5:13).  Freedom in Christ is about your having Christ and He having you, and your freedom to live out your life, learning to live in love (Gal 5:13).

The works of the flesh, just like the desire to live under the domination of the Law, are both what we are set free from.  We are freed to live free.  We stand in freedom and live by the Spirit.

The free life is now lived by service to others in love (Gal. 5:13).  The freedom is so free that there is a temptation to sin in the flesh, which is another form on slavery or bondage.  This is why Paul says, “stand firm” in your place of freedom, and “follow the Spirit” (“keep in step with the Spirit”).

The life in Christ of standing in freedom and following the Spirit

There are ‘some-things’ that we must do, and there is someone (the Spirit) that we need to cultivate a relationship with, to walk out the Christian life.  Jesus indeed does not leave us as orphans (John 14:18).  We ought not live as orphans who don’t belong, but live belonging and loved and guided, helped, and comforted by the Spirit.

The freedom comes through the cross and the living out of Christ comes by the Spirit.  One cannot avoid the cross nor avoid the Spirit and be a Christian.  A Christian is one who has been to the cross and lives by the Spirit.

Rules are good, boundaries are good.  God created rules and boundaries.  It is a problem or an enslavement when we begin to tell ourselves or tell others how well they are walking with God based on following rules (Gal. 2:4).  Freedom is within boundaries and within Christ.

However, if we see or experience that someone is walking in sin, we know that they are not living in Christ and we can call them back to Christ, lovingly.  Lovingly, lovingly, lovingly.  Some ‘Christians’ rebuke, judge, and try to fix people; before loving or instead of loving them.  This is not love.  This must change.

We are free in Christ through the cross.  We need to stand firm in that freedom, from Law and from sinfulness.  We stay free and live free through walking with the Spirit of God.

Notes: An overview of Galatians from G. W. Hansen:

• Freedom and unity in Christ are central themes in Galatians.
• Paul addresses Christians whose preoccupation with keeping the Law was splitting their churches along racial lines, separating Jews from Gentiles.
• These splits are intolerable because the new unity in Christ (Gal. 3:28) that transcends racial, social, and sexual barriers; is based upon the “truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:5): Christ was crucified to set us free from the curse of the Law so that we might receive his Spirit (Gal. 3:13-14).
• It is the Spirit, not the Law, that gives us our identity as children of God (Gal 4:6).
• Believers must protect their freedom from the Law (Gal. 5:1) and also use their freedom to fulfill the law by serving one another through love (Gal. 5:13-14).
• We are no longer under the Law that divides;  we are under the Spirit who unites.
• The central teachings of Galatians are freedom through the cross and unity by the Spirit.
• Complimentary themes in Galatians are:
• Paul’s account of his calling to the Gentiles (Gal. 1:13-16).
• Paul’s story of his loyalty to the gospel for the Gentiles in relation to the other apostles (Gal. 1:17-2:21).
• An explanation of justification by faith, not by works of the Law (Gal. 2:15, 3:6-12).
• An exposition on OT texts regarding the Abrahamic promise and the Mosaic law in the context of salvation history (Gal. 3:6-25,; 4:21-31).
• A defining of Christian ethics, in terms of the flesh and the Spirit (Gal. 5:13-10).

The message of Galatians is, “stand firm” for freedom in Christ by “keeping in step with the Spirit”.

– G. W. Hansen: Galatians, Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, IVP, 1993. pp. 323-334

Freedom: Asking For Rescue and Deliverance or Vindication

In Your justice, rescue and deliver me; listen closely to me and save me.

-Psalm 71:2

How many of us right now need to be rescued or delivered?  I think there are two categories of people: those who who are desperate and those who think they are ok.  The truth is or the reality is that we are all in desperate need of rescue and deliverance.

What if I told you that you need, I need, we all need deliverance and rescue?  If you keep saying that deliverance is for someone else and you are ok, then I doubt that you have a vital spirituality.  To be alive towards God is to come into the realization of our deep need for rescue and deliverance.

The rescue and deliverance that we need is asked for on the basis of God’s justice or righteousness.  The NET Bible translates the beginning of this verse this way: “Vindicate me by rescuing me!”.  I asked, “where are the words, “In Your justice”, or, “In Your righteousness”?  “Vindicate me”, is the answer.

Justice is asking for vindication.  We don’t want to try to vindicate ourselves, but cry out to God for vindication.  The psalmist had been abused in some way and was calling out to God for help.

Did you know that righteousness and justice go together?  Most other translations have “righteousness” in Psalm 71:2, but the HCSB and The Voice have “justice”.

Righteousness has to do with doing the right thing.  When I ask God to do something, “In Your righteousness”, then I am saying, “Please make it right”:  “Wrong has been done to me and I am asking you to make it right: give me justice”, or “vindicate me!”

We are asking God to make things whole that are messed up.  “That ain’t right.”  “God, please make it right, make it just, please vindicate me.”

There are two ways of living.  The first way is the way of absolute surrender, where we continually surrender our lives, unconditionally, to the Lord, and humbly ask for help.  The second way, is the, “I’ll do it my way” life, where we live as actors on life’s stage and direct our lives, writing our scripts and signing our tickets to ____, and do not ask for help, because we’re ‘fine’.

Psalm 71 has 24 verses, and in them we learn all about this good man who is an older man, maybe a man in his early 60’s, who is calling out for God to make things right in his life.  He is not a new believer nor a young person and he has some serious history behind him in God.  Yet, he asks for help.

We too have a life-long relationship with Father where we ask him to help us, to rescue us, to deliver us, and vindicate us.