The Journey: Called, Going Out, and The Promise

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going.

By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

By faith even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the one who had promised was faithful. Therefore, from one man—in fact, from one as good as dead—came offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and as innumerable as the grains of sand along the seashore.

-Hebrews 11:8-12

We are all on a journey.

We are all called to go out, on a journey, towards something that we are waiting for.

The text says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called”.  Calling is not something for the few, but we are all called.  Put your name in that sentence.  What did you do when you were called?

It says that, “By faith”, he did what he did.  What did you do?  He went out.  He left behind.

Is calling something for the few?  Is calling only for the extraordinary person, or are we all called?

If you think calling is for only a certain small percentage of people, then let me ask you a question.  How did you get saved?  Are you going to tell me how you saved yourself or are you going to tell how how God saved you?

If God saved you and God is still saving you, part of your story is how you responded to God.  God did call you and you responded.

This issue of call brings up the question of what did you do.  It brings up personal responsibility.  When you were called, what did you do?

Like Abraham, did God’s call to you set into motion a chain of events that forever changed your life?  Was it like, “From this day on, everything changes”?

If you did not leave something, someone, and go out into the unknown, to follow the call of God; I might not believe that you have been called.  Because nobody stays the same after God calls them.

You might think that being called is something for the few, but that is not true.  If you are God’s child, he calls you.

People that say they are God’s child, but don’t have a call story, are probably not really a true follower, because God calls his followers.  You can be a fan, in the crowd, investigating, researching, trying it out, a student even, and following, but not called.  You may be all those things because he is calling you.

And that’s the key question, “Is God calling you, and are you answering the call?”  Then, the question is, “What are you doing to answer the call?”

Stepping back, what is the call?  In the Bible, when people are called, they leave things, they leave people, and they are forever changed.

When we are called, we leave and go; and we do it by faith.  That means, we go forward, without seeing where we are going.  That is what Abraham did, and Sarah went with him.

And the call had some specifics.  He was to go to an unknown geographic place and become a nation there.  This couple that did not have children were to become the father and mother of a nation, in a new geographic space, unknown to them.

Between the calling recognized or discerned and promise in the call being fulfilled or taken hold of, is the waiting time.  And the waiting is a journey we go on from call to realization.

And waiting is not passive.  In waiting, we are attentive to the calling becoming manifest in our life.

You can not get from hearing the call to seeing the promise come to pass unless you go on the journey that is between the two.

To hear the call and then stand by the door to the journey, but then never going on that journey, and then to complain that God’s call does not work out, is foolishness.  Because the call will not become fulfilled unless we leave and go into the unknown of the journey from calling to fulfillment

Abraham and Sarah were called into the journey and were also waiting for something.  The journey also called them to look for something.

It is perhaps ideal if you hear from God when you are a child and grow up serving him for the rest of your life.  But that is not Abraham’s story.  He was called in mid life.  He was 75.  He still had 100 years to go.

With today’s average lifespan for men at about 80 years, Abraham would have been about 34 years old when he was called.  He and Sarah did not have kids.  They had probably been married for a while and were living among their family.  Suddenly, God called them, speaking to Abraham, to leave his dad and their hometown and go to a totally different place.

This is how it is documented in Genesis 12:

The Lord said to Abram:

Go out from your land,
your relatives,
and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. -Genesis 12:1-4

Has God called you?  Where are you on a journey to? What are you waiting for? And, what are you looking for?

Abraham and Sarah had a lot of unknowns.  They did not know where they were going and they did not know when they would get there.  They also wanted to have a baby and they did not know if they would ever conceive.

As they grew older, they naturally would have given up hope.  But their story is that God intervened.  God promised them that they would conceive.

As far as I know, God only spoke to the Abraham, so Sarah had to trust that her husband had heard it right.

Our singular relationship to God comes first in our lives.  What is God showing me to do?  In a relationship there are two people who both want to obey and follow God.  Me and I becomes we and us.

We have to ask, what is God showing us to do?  What if you don’t see what God has shown me?  Will you trust me or do we have to wait for God to show you?

A husband gets a revelation, a calling, he says from God, to go, to leave, to uproot.  Maybe it is the other way, and the wife gets the call.

What if one spouse gets the calling and the other spouse is comfortable where they are?

Every couple has to work this out.

But what if God calls you?

We are all on a journey where God calls us out of something or somewhere and into something else that is largely or completely unknown.  This calling may be completely metaphorical or spiritual, and will later take shape in the natural, physical realm of houses, people, vocation, ministry opportunities, and assignments.

When you are called to leave, you may very well be called, like Abraham and Sarah, to leave without knowing, without something, anything lined up.  Your destination is unknown.

The calling is clear on the leaving part and not so clear on the destination part.

As Tolkien wrote, “All those who wander are not lost”.

We are all waiting for something and we are all on a journey.  We get to spend our time between now and the time of the waiting to be over.  Spending our time well is what we want to do.

We can waste time and we can not get it back, although God can redeem it.  Wasting time might be one of the worst things we can do.  Leisure and rest were invented by God.  We call it recreation.

Some Christians might think of life as spiritual and sinful.  Spiritual is devotions, Christian media, church, and edifying fellowship.  Sinful is worldliness, addictions, and fleshly things; like the list of attributes juxtaposed and antithetical to the fruit of the Spirit, described in Galatians five.

But what about life in Christ?  Did Jesus see life and live life in that bifocal way?

A wise man said, “begin with the end in mind”.  What is the end of your life?  What and who do you want to be at the end and where do you want to go and to whom?

When you settle those questions and perhaps refine them before God, you can set up goals for your life.

If you read all on Hebrews 11, there is a shocking line in there, that says that many people never receive the promise they were striving towards, here in their lives.  And it says that we ought to be inspired by them and live the way they did, as sojourners or strangers here.

These all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth.  -Hebrews 11:13-14

Abraham was in the middle of his life when he was called to uproot and change everything, by following God into the unknown.  And he was five years older than his dad was when he was born.  I can imagine he was already getting concerned about his progeny.

Sarah found out that God was calling her to be a mother, not a step-mom or an aunt; but a mother who would conceive and give birth and raise a son.  

Life is made up of waiting and being on a journey.  We receive promises from God and then the promise works something in us, while we wait and walk forward in life.

This is the life many of us are living.

What are the questions that drive you?

Have you begun to understand your life in retrospect?

______________________________________________
The artwork is Rembrandt, “Abraham Caressing Isaac”

Leaving & Saying Goodbye

“And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.” -Acts 20:37-38 (ESV)

At Michael Jackson’s memorial service, Stevie Wonder tearfully sang Michael’s song, “Never Cared To Say Goodbye”.  Saying goodbye is hard and missed a lot of the time.  

When my dad died, we were an hour late, and missed saying goodbye.  When I left the church I loved and placed my key in the secretary’s desk and was walking out for the last time, I came across a lady who worked in one of my favorite ministries there, in the pastoral care area, and said goodbye, so that I could say it to someone.

The last time I was at another church I had been attending, I was lucky to have a moment alone with the senior pastor, a moment of peace in the midst of a crazy meeting that would be the last time I set foot there.  Years later, I took my wife to an event, at the church I had loved and left.  We were seated near and greeted by a very special man that I had known there.  He also was a medical professional who would show up later in my life, at the birth of my son.

Fast forward a few more years, and I saw another dear man from my old church, at a meeting, who had been and was very kind to me.  When I was engaged and first married, for about a year or two, my wife and I were often approached by people that had seen me at my old church, but we didn’t know each other’s names.

Before Christmas, someone I have worked with for decades resigned her position.  She stopped by my office and personally said goodbye.  Over the years, I can remember just a few people who did that, stopped by and said goodbye and I said goodbye to them.  

Most people don’t do that.  We don’t know how and it’s hard.  Sometimes we are leaving with so many feelings or under certain circumstances that it makes it too hard.

I am a car person.  I see cars as more than appliances.  I remember selling my first car and letting it go, in front of our house.  When my second car ‘died’, or was crippled by it’s starter breaking for the second time; I lost patience with it and left it, until I had it towed away.

I was sad when my third car started having problems after sinking tons of money into it, and decided I was tired of the clutch and the manual transmission.  I had very mixed feelings about letting it go.

My fourth car is the one I have had the longest, thirteen years.  Most of last year, I was planning on and looking for my fifth car, which I found right after Christmas.  I have been saying goodbye to car number four, for a while now.  I cleaned it out yesterday and started making arrangements to give it away.

I was blessed to have four grandparents in my life, all the way through into early adulthood.  Before my grandmother that I was closest to died, I was able to say goodbye, over a six month period, when she was in the hospital and a care facility, run by the same Catholic hospital network where I was born.

Most of my life, goodbyes have not been great, but sometimes they have.  And sometimes when it has been difficult, God has provided unconventional ways of seeing and being with people I have departed from, once again, and saying hello to them with grace; knowing that the lack of good goodbyes before is covered by grace and love.  No bitterness and complete forgiveness.

In some churches, they give going away parties to people who need to move out of the area, due to work or family.  But, if you decide to change churches or try something else; that’s a different matter.

I knew someone who agonized about leaving his church, to join another one on the other side of town.  He wrote a letter to the lead pastor, a guy he went to school with; and got no reply.  But, another staff pastor did acknowledge him.

There is a tradition of leaving with the blessing or being sent by those you leave.  This is beautiful when it happens, but often does not.  I remember when I decided to leave my homegroup and join a different one.  I called to say goodbye and they blessed my leaving.  When I could not attend that next group because of my school schedule, I was able to tell them and that was cool too.

It was painful when we stopped meeting with another couple for church, who did finally move too far away.  We saw them, with our boys, a couple of months ago and said hello over a number of hours, and loved one another as if we had never been apart, because they are family forever.

The one time in my life, that I did greeting ministry: I was one of the greeters at the front door of our church on a Sunday morning, when I normally did not attend in the morning, but the evening service, because most of the time I worked at my ‘day job’ on Sunday mornings.  That was the morning that it was announced that our pastor had suddenly stepped down, that past week.  My job was to be the face of the church that day, that greeted everyone, as they came to be shocked by very bad news.

I also remember that at a large funeral, a few years later; when a person who had not said goodbye to me very well, years earlier, must have spotted me and crossed a large room, and apologized, and we covered our goodbye with forgiveness and grace.

About two years ago, before my wife’s dad died, who I was praying my heart out that he would not die; the last time I saw him, I told him for the first and only time, that I loved him.  That was my goodbye that I could not bear to say and I am so glad that I said it.

Notes For 2018

Here are my notes on what is going to happen in 2018.  Four points.  Not comprehensive.  

Do you know the story of when Jesus left his family at about age 30?  This year might be like that.  Do you know about the time when boys become men, when they leave their mom and join the men?  This year might be like that.

Do you remember when you left home to go to college?  Do you remember when you stopped being single and got married?  Do you remember when you became a parent?  Do you remember when you were called up to go somewhere, if you have ever served in the military?  Do you remember when you were tapped for or fell into a leadership role?  Do you remember when you lost your job and had to find another one: things changed but you survived and made it?  This year is going to be like that.

Do you remember meeting your spouse?  Do you remember your first day on campus?  Do you remember the day your marriage ended or someone died?  Do you remember the birth of your child?  And do you remember the day you met that boy or girl that you adopted?  Do you remember when you found out you were pregnant?  This year is going to be like that.

This is going to be a liminal year.  I mentioned all those life events, to bring to your mind what liminality is like.  There is liminality every day and every year: sunrise & sunsets every day and births and deaths every year, seasons changing and new jobs, and all the changes that we face in life.

But there are particular years when liminality is bigger, at large, corporately, society large.  And that is what 2018 is going to be.  You and I are like swimmers in the ocean.  The wave is coming, and we can ride the wave joyfully or have it crash over us.

No matter what, that wave is coming, and we will be disoriented from our bobbing up and down in the swells.  You can resist it, jump up like a cork and let it pass you, or ride the wave.  I imagine that people will do all three.  Three people might be standing before the wave and each one responds differently. 

The wave is coming and how to respond to it will be up to each one of us.  We aren’t robots.  Here comes the move and now we must choose.

Pretty much every revival in the history of the church was embraced by some and rejected by others.  God moves and we have to choose.  Ironically, members of past revival movements often reject new revival movements, that are both from God, but are different.

When Jesus moved out of, departed, or took leave from his family, his hometown, and the business he headed up; he was not exactly given a nice send off and wished well, especially when they discovered his new endeavor.  His change was right and good, but some didn’t get it, and were even opposed to the move.  There is a time to shift and change, move from and into, to walk through a door of  destiny when you must depart in order to arrive.

• 2018 will be a year of departures and arrivals.  We will move on and take leave.  We will say goodbye and say hello.  This means big change.  We can not stay and be at the new place.  We will depart and arrive. The old can not hold the new and must be bid adieu.  After the Hebrew year of 5778 began, last fall, some people in our lives announced their departure plans and today they are already living in their new destinations.  They are first first-fruits people.  I don’t think everyone is going to move, but we are going to make moves, designed by God, in our lives, this year.  This is the year to move into your destiny by moving through change, from one place to another place.  This year is a year where there is a door that is open to be walked through.  We will all move this year, from one place to another place.  
• 2018 will be a year of moving from something and into something: departures and arrivals.
  
  I think that this is a year to move, to depart one thing and go into another thing.  We have to depart in order to arrive.  We will not get into the new place unless we leave the old place.

  It’s time.  We are now ready.  A window of time is here to walk through a door into something new.

  There is a time to stay, but 2018 will be the time to go, to depart.  If we stay, if we do not move out, move on, and move to; it will be a missed opportunity.  There is favor and permission to move this year.

  “Your move.”

  It will not happen if you do not act, if you do not make your move.  There is a path set before us, that we can only see the entryway to.  We have to move into that way, to get into that path, to go down that road; or it won’t happen.

  

  We can not go into the new thing, the new level, or the new and better dimension, unless we also leave the old.  To go there, we must depart here.  We can not arrive unless we depart.

  To stay where you are, but bring in that new thing, is not what God is doing.  That would be like staying with your parents, but still getting married: something not recommended (Gen. 2:24, Matt. 19:5, Eph. 5:31 ).  And that would also be like how Jesus said new wine will burst the old wineskins (Matt. 9:17, Mk. 2:22, Lk. 5:37-8).

  We are going to move from something and into something.  We are going to have to depart in order to arrive.  God has been preparing us to depart, so that we can arrive, preparing us to move from, so that we can move into.

  Did you notice the change in 2017, where you have already begun to reconfigure things?  When we walk with God, he changes us, for the better.  And changed people live differently.

  God has a better life for us, but we have to be changed to enter into it; and that is what has been happening.  People who refuse to be transformed, to change, will suffer unhappiness and needless pain.  They will miss out.  We have to walk in Christ to inherit the promises.  It’s not automatic.  God is placing a door in front of us, but we have to walk through that door.

• 2018 is going to be a year of justice for, in, and through governmental leadership.  There will be justice where there has been injustice.  There have been great injustices at the highest levels of government, particularly but not limited to President Trump and his team, that will be exposed and dealt with for all to see.  There will be exoneration for some and consequences for others.  President Trump will gain and regain his reputation as a champion of justice.  There is a move of God going on, in government; national, state, and local; to expose corruption and injustice.  President Trump and his team happen to be the ones in place while God is doing this.  He and his team may want things cleared out and cleaned up, but this was God’s idea and God is now answering prayers that have been prayed for decades.

• In 2018, people who have been looking for the authentic church, built by God in Christ, are going to find it.  We are going to be surprised to find other people, who are already there.  We are going to be surprised that we don’t have to build the church, but it is already built and being built.  We just did not see it or could not find it, but that is going to change in 2018.  Pioneers are going to find their homes.  Jesus’ church, that he has been building, will become more visible in 2018.  The church at large, especially the church that has Jesus as it’s head, will begin to regain it’s lost reputation this year.  The church that allows Jesus to be it’s head and builder, will be renovated and restored to it’s original design.  It will stand up and stand out as a city on a hill and the light of the world again.  A place of peace and rest.  A gateway and bridge to God and heaven.

• In 2018, Christians will repent.  Repentance will come alive in the body of Christ, corporately.  Together, as a people and a family, we will repent of our sins and the sins of our fathers and mothers.  We will get in touch with our shame, so that we can be healed.  Instead of being shameless, we will repent and get in touch with our ugly, frightening shame; and let Jesus heal us and cleanse us.  We will get in touch with how out of step we have been with Jesus and with heaven.  We will get in touch with how and where the church has just become something in the world, run by worldly values, and not by Christ and by words that come from heaven.  The church will get in touch with it’s own captivity, of being Christians in name only.  It will be more obvious what ‘churches’ have nothing to do with the living God and His Christ and the Spirit of God, but are counterfeits, from the world and by the world, that is at odds with Christ.  False churches that bear the name of Christ or people and tribes who authentically represented and followed Christ in the past, will have the opportunity to repent and change.  Just the fact that some parts of the church do not bear a resemblance to Jesus and heaven, but are from the world, that has not been to the cross and bowed to the Lordship of the living Christ, will become more evident or exposed in 2018.  

Happy New Year!

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.

A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

There is a proverb that says, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’.  It means that it is better to act on or deal with problems immediately, because if you wait and deal with them later, things will get worse and the problems will take longer to deal with.  That is what the Cambridge Dictionary says.

Here are some other phrases that describe what ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ means:

• Sort out problems that arise immediately and it will save you a lot of extra work later.
• Sew one stitch now, so you won’t have to sew nine stitches later.
• A little effort expended sooner to fix a small problem prevents it from becoming a larger problem requiring more effort to fix later. 
• A little preparation can eliminate the need for repairs later.
• If you sort out a problem immediately it may save extra work later.
• It is better to deal with problems immediately rather than later as things will worsen and take longer to amend.
• If you fix a small problem right away, it will not become a bigger problem later. Let’s patch the roof before that hole gets bigger.

What did Jesus say and what does the Bible say on this topic?

Jesus said,

“Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
–Matthew 6:34

Jesus was saying to deal with what is happening in the present.

The Biblical issue or topic that the proverb, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’, addresses is diligence:

• The diligent hand will rule, but laziness will lead to forced labor. (Prov. 12:24)
• The slacker does not plow during planting season; at harvest time he looks, and there is nothing. (Prov. 20:4)
  
• A slacker’s craving will kill him because his hands refuse to work. He is filled with craving all day long, but the righteous give and don’t hold back.(Prov. 21:25-26)
• I went by the field of a slacker and by the vineyard of a man lacking sense. Thistles had come up everywhere, weeds covered the ground, and the stone wall was ruined. I saw, and took it to heart; I looked, and received instruction: a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms to rest, and your poverty will come like a robber, your need, like a bandit. (Prov. 24:30-34)

The Bible is pro-work.  There is no retirement in the Bible.  All of life is work.  Work should be enjoyable is also what the Bible says.

The richest years of your life are meant to be your grey hair years.  That is when you get to spend your most valuable time working for others, helping others and mentoring others.

The proverb, ‘a stitch in time save nine’, is about not procrastinating.  Many little things add up to a great life.  Those who don’t do the little things never do the big things.

Millionaires or Billionaires are people who have done the small things well, usually.

Here are a few quotes on time:

“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.“

— Stephen Covey

“The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.“

— Mike Murdock

“The best thing to spend on your children is your time.“

— Louise Hart

“How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.“

— David Norris

“Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time wasted in disapproving of others.“

– Unknown

“Time spent in getting even would be better spent in getting ahead.“

– Unknown

“Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.”

— Thomas Edison

“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.“

— Laertius Diogenes

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.“

— Carl Sandburg

“The supply of time is a daily miracle. You wake up in the morning and lo! Your purse is magnificently filled with 24 hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of life. It is yours! The most precious of your possessions.“

— Arnold Bennet

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home.

When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.

Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. 

People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. 

If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

-Hebrews 11:8-16 (MSG)

Will you be home for Christmas?  What does coming home represent?  What does Christmas mean?

• Coming home means reconciliation with God or reunion with your family.  
• Coming home means placing your life on the journey towards God.
• Coming home means traveling into the journey towards God.
• Coming home means traveling towards your home in God.
• Coming home means traveling towards your heavenly home with God.

What does Christmas really mean?

• Mass carries with it the idea of taking communion or the eucharist and then going into the world.  
• Going into the world, on the mission of God in Christ.  
• Mass is where we take the eucharist, receiving the blessing of the bread and wine.  
• Thankfulness is expressed.  
• At the dismissal, we go out, in Christ, into the world, carrying God’s mission in Christ.

That’s ‘Mass’.

Christ means Messiah, Anointed One and the Son of God, who is endowed or invested with the authority of God.

Christmas means, ‘Christ’s Mass’.  The meaning is ‘Christ & Eucharist’, which means that Christ has come as the blessed gift that we partake of for salvation.  Taking Christ into our lives, who saves us and takes over our lives, transforming us and taking us into his mission; is the whole idea.

What is coming home, going home, finding home or traveling home all about?  We say a person ‘went home’ to refer to their passing from life, through death, and then into God’s presence.

I think that the whole Bible is about finding home and coming there.  God is our home and through Christ we come home.  Coming home means reconciliation with God and reunion with our family.

I think that Abraham and Sarah’s story encapsulates the story of the people of God, about our homecoming.

This is what we learn, from Abraham and Sarah; and that can apply to us:

• They left their known home to go to the home God had for them.
• This is the same for all disciples of Jesus.  He calls us to follow him, often away from our ‘know homes’, to his ‘unknown home’.
• Their only map was God.
• Jesus’ call to us of, “Follow me”, only has in it, us and him.
• Jesus does not tell us where he is taking us.
• God said, “Go out into the unknown”, and they obeyed.
• Trusting Jesus, even blindly is discipleship 101.
• When they got there, they lived there as strangers, in portable housing.
• Surprisingly, they did not take over or buy and build.
• The disciple of Jesus is a stranger and sojourner on earth.
• The number one thing is to make a home in God, while living in the world.
• Their home was built on faith before being built with brick and mortar.
• And they taught and trained their children to live the same way.
• Making a home in God, on earth is the task of the disciple.
• The home of our lives becomes the evangelistic door for people to meet God.
• Building the spiritual comes first before building the material.
• The height of spirituality is to find your home and living space in God.
• God gave this couple their child when they were barren and past their prime.
• They conceived what was inconceivable.
• The story of God is making the weak strong, the blind see and the lame walk.
• God takes the people that the world would reject and makes something good out of them.
• God loves to provide, answer prayers and heal us.
• Their faith was such that they were ok with not getting what God promised, yet.
• Instead, they continually grew in their trust and revelation of God’s faithfulness.
• We learn that our faith is more about growing in being loved by God and knowing his faithfulness, rather than getting stuff.
• Maturing faith that is ‘no matter what faith’, that is like Job’s.
• They discovered and were transformed into ‘heavenly-home-hearted people’.
• On earth, they learned to make heaven their home.
• Serenity, tranquility and contentment were theirs.
• Rather than go back to where they were born and raised, they continually chose God’s upward call to ‘heaven country’, even while they lived in the desert on earth. 
• Disciples of Jesus don’t look back.
• Disciples of Jesus continually choose to not go back, but prefer barrenness and a desert wasteland, pursuing God’s call, rather than the easier life, in the place they came out of.

The whole message of the Hebrews 11 story of Abraham and Sarah is traveling towards God’s home for them.  And on that journey, they participated in making their home in God.

This has always been God’s call for all believers.  That is the point that the writer or preacher of the Hebrews letter is making.

For anyone who has either had an unfulfilling Christian life or is just beginning their journey, this is what it is all about.  Coming home and being home.

God has wanted his people to come home to him, make their homes in him and for them to have their lives be a home for him to live in.  This has always been God’s plan from Adam and Eve, through Moses and David’s times and up to when Jesus walked the earth and then into the present.

Look for and listen.  Open your heart to the possibility of your life changing.  Anticipate coming home for Christmas.

I’ll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
I’ll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

Songwriters: Buck Ram / Kim Gannon / Walter Kent

Finding The One

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,  and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

-Acts 11:25-6 (NIV)

Back when I was single, I was concerned about finding ‘the one’ that I would marry.  I have also been concerned about finding ‘the one’ job and ‘the one’ place to live.  Right now, I have been researching cars, looking for ‘the one’ car.

I remember when I bought a cassette tape, almost 30 years ago, about finding a spouse.  The Bible has a lot of practical advice, but not really the idea of finding ‘the one’.  In a sense, who you select becomes ‘the one’ and the two of you become one.

The Bible does not point us to personality tests or compatibility questionnaires.  It basically says, “walk with the Lord”, and “marry a believer”.

What about the other ‘the one’s’ in our lives: the one job, the one house and the one car to choose?

Are we guided by God and is there a plan?  Yes.  But there is a dance, where we make mistakes and encounter opposition and God re-guides us.

Apostle Paul is an example of a man that God had a plan for.  And that man did good and did bad.  Sometimes God guided and he did not follow.  Many times, he was opposed and kept walking with God and rediscovering the plan.

He walked with God through disappointment, broken hearted failure and just being wrung out.  But he became for us perhaps the number one theologian about Jesus and God’s plan of salvation.  His life’s message might boil down to ‘a man in Christ’.  That’s a pretty good epitaph.

What about the the one, perfect job?  Did you know that a high percentage of people hate their jobs?  Even many pastors say that they would do something else if they could, but they don’t see anything else they could do.

The scripture from Acts 11 is about Barnabas finding Paul and taking him to Antioch.  Paul was ‘the one’ who was going to be a prolific Apostle and was going to write a bunch of letters that would be inspired by God and make it into the canon of scripture.

Of course Paul was an amazing person and his life had massive impact.  But behind Paul and beside Paul, was this special man named Barnabas.  That was actually his nickname.  His real name is the very good name, Joseph.

Barnabas was such an encouraging person that he got the nickname ‘son of encouragement’ which is what Barnabas means.  He was Paul’s friend, mentor, liaison, voucher and reference.

Paul had about three years of a rocky, wild ride in his ministry, before being ‘benched’ by going back to Tarsus for nine years.  At the end of those nine years, Barnabas went to recall Paul and bring him to Antioch.  After about a year, Paul went on his first ministry trip, with Barnabas.

Barnabas was a gifted disciple, but he never exhibited a ‘me first’ or ‘I am the one’ attitude.  He was simply at the service of Jesus and allowed himself to be empowered and assigned ministry jobs including teacher, prophet and apostle.  He neither bossed Paul nor introduced him as ‘the new boss’.

 Paul made mistakes and was in sharp conflict with a couple of his apostolic associates later.  That did not disqualify Paul or make him ‘not the one’ to write New Testament letters.

Most of us have to choose a car, a job and a location to live.  A majority of people choose a spouse.  I know many people who have been married twice and a few who are like C.S. Lewis and past mid-life and are still unmarried.  

You can be fat and happy or unmarried and content.  You can be thin and unhappy or married and  discontented.  A word for the younger people: money, success, power or popularity do not make you happy.  Believe it or not, having a lot of any one of these actually makes you less happy.

Only God can give you happiness.  Remember the word, “Blessed are the poor”?  That does not mean you must have no money to be happy in God.  It does mean that money does not bring happiness.

You actually are positioned better to enter the kingdom if you are not wealthy.  Money is not the root of all evil.  The love of money is the root of all evil.

When I was graduating high school and had to choose a car, I did not know much.  Maybe I got lucky or maybe I got blessed and maybe my dad, knew something, and guided me.  I selected a Toyota.

It was outrageously reliable compared to all the cars I had seen in my family.  I had that car for about ten years.  I sold it with a quarter of a million miles on it for five hundred dollars.

Then, I tried to find the car that would be ‘the one’.  I thought I was wise in not choosing a German sports car, but ended up choosing a more sporty Japanese car.  I ended up having two of these, back to back, that both needed new engines ($$$) after only 50k to 75k miles of ownership.

After those, I actually considered a third try, but then opted for something more reliable, while still being somewhat sporty.  And that anonymous car is now over 200k and that is why I am looking for ‘the one’ again.

My two sports cars were so much fun to drive and I miss that, but I don’t miss the cost.  Life is a balance of enjoyable thrills within your budget.  I have an advice book where the author says you should own a convertible at least once in your life and I can think of three older men I look up to who have owned and ridden Harley Davidsons motorcycles.  Did you ever see the picture on the Chuck Swindoll book, where he is on a motorcycle, with his wife?

I did find the one person to marry and to have a family with.  And I am confident about the car thing.  I know that if I am careful, I can own a car for a year and then resell it with no trouble.  The job, career, calling, ministry, vocation thing is more complicated.

In a sense, I am doing my dream job.  When I was a kid, I had my own audio equipment: tape decks, microphones, radio transmitters and receivers.

And I also had a movie camera and learned to shoot and edit film.  I made a music film to a Toto song in high school and another film to a Tears For Fears song in college.  I also made a short film about the end of the world.

From the end of high school through all my college years, I had many opportunities that knocked to work in making commercials, television or film.  But I had no vocational mentor or coach.  I just had a couple of conservative, electrical engineering career path guys, who supported me in whatever I was going to choose.

And what or who I chose is what or who chose me and that is God.  Out of my life that was in chaos, confusion, fear and a longing for meaning mixed with broken hearted unhappiness came a hunger for God.

In my strategic time of the end of high school through the end of college, with all the dreaming and deciding on what to do, as I made the transition into adulthood; God intervened in my life and drew me to himself.

There are many other details I can’t go into now, on how I came to live where I live and work where I work and about the church I joined for about 14 years, and what I learned and inherited and what was developed in me that I posses today.

And after getting settled into my life with God and having a place to call home and a job, I did want to find the one to marry and a better job or a job that was a ministry job where I could do something more kingdom oriented.

I actually tried out two other careers or jobs and did them at the semi-pro level.  That happened before I got married.  I could not push the river.  I did not find her and even though the chorus said, “just pick one”, I felt like I had not found the person that I had been looking for and that God was going to send me.

God actually gave me a word, a prophecy; a promise verse that was about Janine.  That verse kind of says that all women are not equal in how they live or choose to live their lives and God will give that woman to the man who receives her from him.  I also had an additional prophecy, promise or word about my future that I wrote about, called ‘two-ten in the afternoon‘.

The clue or lesson I have learned in my search for ‘the one’ is my life is God.  The search for ‘the one’ comes out of and goes through and back to how God is ‘the one’.  God, worshipping God and serving God is ‘the one thing’.  God has always and will always be the one for me.  

I have discovered that God has a destiny, calling and inheritance for me that is developing and coming.  I chose that scripture about Paul and Barnabas because God calls and recalls and uses encouraging people in his calling and recalling.

What was Paul thinking and feeling when he went back to Tarsus for those nine years?

I think that whatever happened to Paul in those nine years was very important and had to do with his internal spiritual formation.  I believe he shared his faith and evangelized.  I don’t know if he taught people or had disciples.

Being a Barnabas and finding the Paul’s is an awesome ministry and so important.

The last thing I will say is that all of life is an in-between time and we are often in transition.  You can ruin the time you are in now by sentimentally looking back or discontentedly looking forward.  Remember that, “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it”.

Not recognizing transition is when ‘good’ becomes the enemy of ‘best’.  The old order gets in the way of the new order.  It is the wineskin that Jesus talked about.  God has new things, new assignments, opportunities, relationships and responsibilities to give us that require new structure.  The new structure has God’s design for that new assignment, in you and for you to serve him.

God has our best for us and we have to let go of the good, to receive it.  Paul had those three rocky years and then went to the sidelines for nine and then was called back up.  God never forgot him and Barnabas got to be God’s representative to get Paul back into what was going to happen.

Imagine the ridiculousness of if Paul never left Tarsus and just stayed there.  He instead was open to change and reforming his call.  That is a good example to follow.

Are we guided by God and God has a plan.  But there is a dance, where we make mistakes and encounter opposition.  Then God re-guides us, renews us and recalls us.  We will have opposition, but we keep walking with God and rediscovering the plan.

The path to the one is in and through The One.  That is the overarching, chief plan of radical union with Christ.

Valiant: Courage With Determination

“Now therefore let your hands be strong, and be valiant, for Saul your lord is dead, and the house of Judah has anointed me king over them.”

-2 Samuel 2:7 (ESV)

There is a crossroads that we come to in our lives, when we have to choose to be courageous or not.  One way or another, we are given the discernment of what the right thing is to do.  But to do the right thing will require courage.

There is a word, that we do not use much, that describes this very thing.  And that word is ‘Valiant’.  To be valiant is to show or possess courage, with a determination to do the right thing.

In the story that 2 Samuel 2:7 is a part of, to a group of men, David sends this word: “Let your hands be strong, and be valiant”.  The surrounding context of the story tells us that for these men to turn their allegiance to David, it will be difficult and dangerous.  And that is why David says, “Be strong and be valiant”.

To be valiant is to show or possess courage with determination.  Valiant to a word that is not in most of our vocabularies. To be valiant is to be brave and not cowardly.

Valiant people are the ones you want on your side.  And you call people that you are encouraging to stand with you to be valiant.

Valiant, valiance or valor are words that the writer of Samuel and the writer of Judges use to describe formidable warriors, who exercise the power of their personal strength.  Through Judges and Samuel there is war and there are warriors, and some people are described as valiant or men of valour: brave and courageous.

Valiance is also something you want in someone who is going to lead others.  For leadership, it is not enough to just possess godly wisdom and character.  A leader is a person who also has courage: “Having the courage of their convictions”.  This same Hebrew word, ‘ḥa-yil‘, translated ‘valiant’, in 2 Samuel, is translated, ‘able’, in Exodus 18:

But you should select from all the people able men, God-fearing, trustworthy, and hating bribes. Place them over the people as commanders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. They should judge the people at all times. Then they can bring you every important case but judge every minor case themselves. In this way you will lighten your load, and they will bear it with you. If you do this, and God so directs you, you will be able to endure, and also all these people will be able to go home satisfied.” 

Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said. So Moses chose able men from all Israel and made them leaders over the people as commanders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.

-Exodus 18:21-5 

Here we have an illustration of the delegation of authority or leadership.  The people that should be selected to lead will fear God, be truthful, not corrupted by bribes, and bravely courageous.  This is an Old Testament, rough draft of the qualifiers for an elder in the people of God.

Back to the story in 2 Samuel:  While it is clear to us that David was meant to be king and that God had rejected Saul, many people, ‘on the ground’ and ‘at the time’, did not get this.  The people had to come around or come to the realization, that David was meant to be their next king and was indeed ‘God’s chosen’.

It is ironic or perplexing for us today to read these stories and see people who are part of the twelve tribes, reject and oppose what we know to be God’s plan or God’s man.  These ideas go along with the saying today that, “God has no grandchildren”, or Paul’s words in Romans 9:6, “For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”

In other words, we are not born into faith.  We must choose and decide what we believe and who or what we will follow.  My son and your son or daughter must decide for themselves if they will follow Jesus.

David, plainly said or told his messengers to say, to the men of Jabesh-gilead, that he had been anointed king over Judah, after Saul’s death.   He blessed them and said thanks for what you did for Saul, that was kind, and he said that he planned to be kind to them as well.  In that context, David encourages them to be valiant, which means to show or possess courage with determination.

The context of this statement and David’s words, are that there was danger and uncertainty about how things were going to shake out.  Saul’s army or those who had fought for and were allied with the house of Saul and particularly against David, were still unsubmissive, insubordinate and at odds with David and what we, the readers today, see and read as God’s plan.

David is doing diplomacy with the men of Jabesh-gilead.  He said, “God bless you and thank you for showing kindness to Saul.  I am now becoming king and I will show kindness to you.  Be strong and valiant.”  They needed to be strong and valiant because they were in danger from the Philistines, and the Saul faction that was not behind David, would soon be knocking on their doors, asking or demanding their backing.

More of the story that helps us understand how difficult a situation that Jabesh-gilead was in, is the fact, told later, that it would be about seven years before other tribes would get behind David.  This snapshot, part of the larger story, takes place in a seven year, tumultuous window of time, where David is almost, but not yet fully, king of all Israel.

We know David is God’s choice, but in the story, David and our eyes with David, looks for, seeks and invites people to join him as ‘early adopters’.  And it is not simple or easy.  For seven more years, there would continue the last chapter of the civil war between the Saul loyalists and David.

What we learn is that David does not force himself on the rest of Israel, after Judah, but patiently waits for things to shake out.  David, who has already done a lot of waiting, has to wait some more.  David specifically waits on God to fully promote him.

In this context, David sent that message, contained in 2 Samuel 2, asking for support, and he encourages them to be courageous, and to do the right thing.

The word of wisdom in this story is applicable and relevant for us today.  To be shown or to realize what the right thing is to do, but not to do it, is cowardice.  But to have the courage of your convictions, and to do the right thing, in the face of opposition and unpopularity, is valiant.

To be valiant is to show or possess courage, with a determination to do the right thing.

We are called to be a valiant people.  And our war is not against flesh and blood.  We are a warrior people, doing battle against the devil’s schemes.

Valiance is to have courage to do the right thing in the face of adversity and opposition.

Happy Days Are Here, Again

Happy days are here, again.  We are in a new season.  A road is opening up.

We are in a time of God’s favor.  We do not have to wait any longer for the new time.  It is here.    

God is doing turnarounds in the lives of people.  What people have been waiting for, saying, “how long oh Lord?”, is happening.  Authentic desires, requests and dreams that have seemed impossible are happening right now.

Optimism is overcoming pessimism.  Belief, trust and hope will drown out cynicism.  Mourning will give way to dancing.

Dreams are coming true.  There is an open invitation being given, for a happier life.

From 2 Corinthians and Isaiah 49:

Working together with Him, we also appeal to you, “Don’t receive God’s grace in vain.” For He says:

I heard you in an acceptable time,
and I helped you in the day of salvation.
Look, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.

This is what the Lord says:

I will answer you in a time of favor,
and I will help you in the day of salvation.
I will keep you, and I will appoint you
to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land,
to make them possess the desolate inheritances,
saying to the prisoners: Come out,
and to those who are in darkness: Show yourselves.
They will feed along the pathways,
and their pastures will be on all the barren heights.
They will not hunger or thirst,
the scorching heat or sun will not strike them;
for their compassionate One will guide them,
and lead them to springs of water.
I will make all My mountains into a road,
and My highways will be raised up.
See, these will come from far away,
from the north and from the west,
and from the land of Sinim.

Shout for joy, you heavens!
Earth, rejoice!
Mountains break into joyful shouts!
For the Lord has comforted His people,
and will have compassion on His afflicted ones.
-2 Corinthians 6:2, Isaiah 49:8-13

We are in a time of favor.  But some of us, and that may even be the vast majority of us, have not recognized this.  We are still shaking off the old season.

It does not work to act like it is winter when it is spring, nor summer when it is fall.  We are going to be like bear cubs, who were born during hibernation, who are awakening to a whole new life.

Some us are afraid of the new time, because we are so full of disappointment, from the old season, that we are afraid of being permanently passed over.

God is saying to us, “I have never forgotten you.  I have never stopped loving you.  I have been with you through all the suffering.  Your sorrow has been befor me all along.  Do not worry.  Continue to grow in trust.”

Take a look at the next three verses, in Isaiah 49:

Zion says, “The Lord has abandoned me;
The Lord has forgotten me!”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or lack compassion for the child of her womb?
Even if these forget,
yet I will not forget you.
Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands;
your walls are continually before Me.
-Isaiah 49:14-16

We are realizing that God has been with us in unhappiness.  He never turned away.  This process or realization is like a catapult.

The more I know that God has been good to me, the more that I can enjoy Him and what He has for me in times going forward.  If I do not know that God has been with me in the desert, I will not know how to walk and receive and lay hold of the life God has for me in the land of promises fulfilled.

Happy days are here, again.  A time of favor is here, again.

Be consoled.  Your dreams are not cancelled.  Your prize or reward has always been God’s love.

See your life in God’s hands.  What will God do?

The Craving For Righteousness and Justice Fulfilled by God

Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full.
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.

-Matthew 5:7 (CEB, NLT)

Righteousness and justice are what the world needs today.  Agreed?  Righteousness and justice are the need we see in the world today.  

And we hunger and thirst to see things made right and to be bringers of justice.  This is what drives some of us and becomes our mission.  But this is not the mission nor the message of Jesus.

Didn’t Jesus come to save the world, to fix it?  

And isn’t Jesus the answer for all the injustices?  

Isn’t the heart cry of the Christ follower for things to be made right?

Pause.

Jesus’ first audience for this word, were people who had been slaves as a people.  

Jesus’ first audience for this word, were people who were living under a brutal occupation by a violent, unjust government.  

Jesus’ first audience were very likely people who wanted to see justice and things made right in the world.

The injustice and unrighteousness in the world was real then and it is real now.  God sees it.  But Jesus’ word here is a personal word to each person, who would consider following him.

We misunderstand Jesus, if we hear him say that he gets it, that we have injustice and unrighteousness in our society and he is going to fix it.  

We misunderstand Jesus if we hear him sending us as messengers of justice and community organizers of righteousness.  

We misunderstand Jesus if we are driven in our lives for justice and righteousness in our society.

Jesus did not come to bring social justice.  

Jesus did not come to bring justice and make things right in our societies then and now.  

He came to reconcile us to God and to reveal God to us and to bring God’s kingdom of which God is the king of and we become subjects to.

That is why he came and that is his message.  His message is to repent of all of your sins and to make him Lord and give up your life for him.  His message is to know God’s love and then begin loving others.

Those who are his followers are naturally going to crave righteousness and hunger and thirst after justice.  

But it is not because we see Jesus message and mission as bringing social justice to the world.  

We crave righteousness and thirst and hunger for justice, because we are pursuing God to the extreme.

This word about those who crave righteousness and hunger and thirst for justice is the fourth blessed state for the follower who has begun to experience the first three beatitudes.  These have a synergy that is started by encountering God in his son.  These involve the experience of personal poverty, bankruptcy and emptiness that turns towards Jesus for a changed life:

“Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
“Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.
“Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth.
“Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full.

Jesus is not saying, “I get it, now here’s the plan to change society”.

He instead says that it is all about laying down your whole life to God.

“God is king and God loves you”, is Jesus message.

When I come through that door, I am going to have to change how I live.  And that is what Jesus is teaching us about.  Jesus’ followers are hopeless, they grieve and they are made humble through that experience or process, which goes on through their whole lives.  And these humbled ones crave righteousness in their lives.

We have it backwards, if we think that now that we understand God, through Christ, we are going to bring justice to the world.  That is proud, self-righteousness.

This desire for justice, that Jesus is talking about, comes in the context of relationship with God that is intensely personal.  It is not about social or societal justice.

Jesus words are about intimacy with God.  The bedrock of his whole message is the Father’s love for each one of us.  None of the rest of it works, if we do not experience the affection of Father.

When you have a foretaste, you get a taste for something.  And that is how it is with Christ.  And his righteousness, that we crave, comes through humility: it is not at all proud or self-righteous.

Christ’s followers never look down on others in a self-righteous fashion, because we are continually embracing the humility that Jesus weaves into our lives as we follow him.  That is what bearing your cross is about.

When we set aside or set down our personal crosses and try to live, try to function and talk to others, there is a good chance that we will come across and pretty much be self-righteous people who are bad representatives of our Lord.  We’ll be giving lip service to Jesus being Lord, but acting like we are bosses.

The righteousness that Jesus followers desire comes from hearts that are completely without hope in themselves and continually grieve their own hopelessness.  The craving for justice is through personal encounter with Christ, Jesus as Lord, and we know that true justice is only through him.

The hunger, the thirst and the craving is not to see righteousness and justice come about on earth through earthly means.  But it is to see heaven on earth.  This is like that hunger or craving that David was talking about in Psalm 42:

Just like a deer that craves streams of water,
my whole being craves you, God.
My whole being thirsts for God, for the living God.
When will I come and see God’s face?

The hunger for righteousness and justice is the also like the hunger Isaiah wrote of in chapter 55:

All of you who are thirsty, come to the water!

Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat!
Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk!
Why spend money for what isn’t food,
and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me and eat what is good;
enjoy the richest of feasts.

God is not trying to get us involved in social justice.  God wants to bring heaven to earth, though the lives of the saints. This is the birthright of followers of Christ.

Are we asking God to bring the kingdom or are we trying to bring our version of it?

The righteousness that Jesus is speaking of, that his followers will crave, is the desire to trust in God more and to be obedient to him more fully.  This is the goal of the life of a follower of Jesus Christ.  That is what Jesus is saying.

What Jesus is saying is that his disciples will hunger and thirst, even crave to live before God, in lives that are unmarred by sinfulness.  The child of God lives a life fully vindicated in Father’s love.

Have you ever heard and wondered about the Negro Spirituals, written by slaves that expressed sorrow and joy?

The believer lives in a paradox of an unjust world, under a loving God who is king.  We can and do cry out, “how long?”, and remain living in His love.

He makes a way through and we get confused sometimes because we are so eagerly looking for a way out.

God’s answer to the thirst, hunger and craving for things to be made right is intensely personal.

God’s answer is not just a deeper and wider heart; but also for real deliverance and real change in the physical world.

The kingdom of God coming affects our insides and our world around us.  It is not just one or the other.

The Psalms are filled with songs that say, “I cried to the Lord in my distress, and he delivered me.”

The Psalms tell stories of rags to riches and restored fortunes.

But there is also that in-between time, when deliverance, healing, justice and righteousness are “not yet”.

One way to look at the whole kingdom of God is that is is “already and not yet”.  Everybody that is not healed yet, is not whole yet, is not delivered yet or has not come into their destiny yet; is in the “not yet” of the kingdom.  Being a child of God and a citizen of the kingdom means that we always have the hope that there no longer be a “not yet”, at some point.  Nevertheless, we live and breathe in the, “already and the not yet”, season in many arenas.

But God is always good and we can always trust God.  Psalm 107 tells this story of people who were hungry and thirsty for God’s justice and righteousness.  Here are the first nine verses:

“Give thanks to the Lord because he is good,
because his faithful love lasts forever!”
That’s what those who are redeemed by the Lord say,
the ones God redeemed from the power of their enemies,
the ones God gathered from various countries,
from east and west, north and south.

Some of the redeemed had wandered into the desert, into the wasteland.
They couldn’t find their way to a city or town.
They were hungry and thirsty;
their lives were slipping away.
So they cried out to the Lord in their distress,
and God delivered them from their desperate circumstances.
God led them straight to human habitation.
Let them thank the Lord for his faithful love
and his wondrous works for all people,
because God satisfied the one who was parched with thirst,
and he filled up the hungry with good things!

The rest of Psalm 107 tells amazing stories of people and God.  This hunger and thirst were real.  God’s deliverance was real.

What people need is God’s deliverance.

Today, we need the great God of man and woman, not the great man or woman of God.  We need and people need God’s intervention.  We are dead and need to be made alive.

There is no program and method that we have that will bring about what people need.  Our brokenness is beyond repair and hopeless.  God’s intervention is our only hope.

And God has already come in Christ to a dying world.  And God is here in this world, ready and willing and filled with desire to save us.  Turning again to God for answers is the only way and the only hope.

And the good news is that some people are already doing this and they are abounding with fruitfulness, because they have ‘put all their eggs in the one basket’.  The invitation to join with the ones already sold out for Jesus stands to all.  He promises fruitfulness to us, as we put all our our hope and trust in him.

“Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness,
because they will be fed until they are full.”

_____________________________________
Bibliography:

Common English Bible (2011)
Matthew: Our Loving King, B. Simmons (2014), p. 24
Matthew, R.T. France (1985), p. 110
Matthew, D.A. Hagner, (1993), p. 93
Studies In The Sermon On The Mount, D.M. Lloyd-Jones (1959), p. 73