Fifty Shades of Taupe

Since Mother’s Day is just around the corner and that’s the designated day to honor the women in our lives, I thought I’d get this out there in advance to both pay tribute to my female readers and encourage the male participants to be proactive.  The slightly provocative title is not chosen to spur some erotic adventure, but to honor my wife’s favorite color – taupe.  If you were to look through her closet, you’d find garments consistent with the title, along with a few black and white ones.  Her philosophy of decorating, both for her personal adornment and for our residence, is to use earthy tones as a background punctuated by splashes of color.  As I consider her plan, it seems God used the same strategy with the earth and its people – shades of taupe with splashes of color – so it must be a pretty good design approach!

In a time when many people seem to want to put all their “business” out there in cyber space, I find subtlety – the “taupe-iness” of personality – a preferred virtue, and my wife is filled with the quiet grace to qualify.  By contrast, those personas, that if they could be described by colors such as bright red, or neon orange, or electric blue, are a bit disconcerting for me.  I much prefer taupe.  It’s my contention that the writer of Proverbs does, too.  Here are a few excerpts from Proverbs 31:

Who can find a capable wife?  She is far more precious than jewels.  The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will not lack anything good.  She rewards him with good, not evil, all the days of her life.  She …works with willing hands…she…provides…for her household.  She draws on her strength and reveals that her arms are strong.  She sees that her profits are good…Her hands reach out to the poor, and she extends her hands to the needy.  She is not afraid for her household…

Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come.  She opens her mouth with wisdom and loving instruction is on her tongue.  She watches over the activities of her household and is never idle. 

“Many women are capable, but you surpass them all!”  Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.

Nothing lipstick-red about that woman.  Just hard-working, generous, strong, compassionate, prepared, wise, gracious, and productive.  Oh, and filled with faith.  That, my dear friends, is a life-palette to be honored. 

God is less concerned with the quality of our “selfies” than He is with the character of our hearts.  So to all the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters, I offer both prayers and praise for your strong lives and godly examples.  Men, get it together!  If the women in your lives are setting the pace by being Proverbs 31 women, the least you can do is try to keep up!  And don’t forget the cards and flowers.  Maybe even a nice outfit?  I’ve heard you can’t go wrong with taupe….

Thankful for the wonderful women in my life,

Jacob

Dear Gavin

Sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like being a kid.  Even when I was young, I thought my view of things was pretty “grown-up”.  I worried about my parents getting divorced every time they argued, because I had heard that sometimes happened when parents couldn’t get along (though only a couple kids I knew had divorced parents back then).  I always told my parents, “Good night, I love you” after I got into bed, but I always alternated telling them, mom first one night, then dad first the next, for fear either would think I loved them more.  I remember that I decided I would live in Iceland when I got old enough because I read they had the lowest murder rate in the world.  And though back then I aspired to grow up to be a politician, I wanted to be a senator rather than president, because in those days, they shot you if you were the president.  That’s all kind of sad when I think about it now.  Kids shouldn’t have to worry about such things.  Children’s lives should be spent in simple trust and feeling secure.

That’s why Jesus became so upset when His disciples tried to keep parents from bringing their kids to be near Him:

Then children were brought to Him so He might put His hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them. Then Jesus said, “Leave the children alone, and don’t try to keep them from coming to Me, because the kingdom of heaven is made up of people like this.”  (Matthew 19:13-14)

I find it interesting that most adults feel much “safer” around other adults than children.  Kids scare us!  We never know what they’ll ask us or, scarier still, what they’ll ask us to do with them or for them.  I wouldn’t want a video to surface on YouTube of me doing the Hokey-Pokey, though I have done it at the request of children.  And I believe Jesus would have, too. 

Jesus thought kids were cool.  He didn’t have to wonder if they were planning to be mean to Him later, even though they were acting as though they liked Him now.  It wasn’t children that plotted against Jesus – they loved Him as much as He loved them.  That’s why He wanted them to know these three things and to never forget them:

1.  Jesus wants every child to know Him and love Him, because He knows and loves each one of them.
2.  Heaven is a real place and life there will be like it should be for all kids now – safe, secure, and filled with love.
3. When it sometimes seems like life is difficult, or someone hurts you, or you feel alone, remember Jesus is always there for you.  Always.

 Right after Jesus rebuked His disciples about trying to keep the kids away, He did just the opposite of what they wanted.  Jesus touched each child, and based on the way the Bible says it, He prayed for each and every one.  Can you imagine having the real Jesus put his hand on your shoulder and pray to our Heavenly Father on your behalf?  For those children who were old enough to remember, that experience must have been a treasure to cling to forever. 

Here's the best part.  No matter how old you are today – 10 years old or 110 – if you know Jesus and you trust Him, He is doing the very same thing for you right now.  “Christ Jesus is…at the right hand of God and intercedes (prays) for us.”  (Romans 8:34)  Jesus is thinking about you and praying for you.  Right now.

I wish I had known that when I was ten.  It would have saved a whole lot of worry.

I’m so thankful for faith like a child,

Jacob

The Language of Forgiveness

¿Es difícil leer esta frase?  Как трудно читать это предложение?  Both of these sentences, first in Spanish and then in Russian, say “How hard is it to read this sentence?”  Kind of tough to figure out if you don’t speak the language, right?  But when you stop to think about it, the words used in church services to speak about faith-related issues form their own language.  When we use terms like “redemption, justification, and propitiation”, we might as well be saying, “Ukombozi, kuhesabiwa haki, na suluhu.” (Same thing, but in Swahili).

So how do we get across the truths of the Bible without having to teach listeners another language?  By using the pictures those words represent.  In fact, the Hebrew language (in which the Old Testament is primarily written) is actually a language of images. In Hebrew, the word for the lid placed on the Ark of the Covenant is כַּפֹּרֶת.  Unless you read Hebrew, seeing the word doesn’t do you much good, but the picture the word represents is “lid”.  Makes sense right?  But it can also be translated “cover” – as in a cover for something (it covers the ark).  Even more to the point, it can mean “to cover” in verb form.  That’s starting to sound like something that might have religious overtones.  And its ultimate interpretation is “mercy seat” which refers to its role as the place where the high priest of Israel sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the day of Atonement to “cover” the sins of the people.  Here’s the passage:

“Make a mercy seat of pure gold…Make two cherubim of gold…The cherubim are to have wings spread out above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and are to face one another…Set the mercy seat on top of the ark and…I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark….”  (Exodus 25:17-22)

How does this all fit together?  The word translated “mercy seat” in both the Old and New Testaments is also translated in both to mean propitiation.  That’s a religious word that means when Jesus died, He satisfied the wrath of God toward us because of our sin.  Said another way, God will never take out His anger on us (who accept Jesus through faith as our substitute sacrifice) since Christ propitiated all that sin on the cross.  Confusing when we say it that way, right?

Here’s the picture God sent us:

One time each year, the high priest of Israel entered the holiest place in the temple and offered a sacrifice for the sin of the people.  The priest approached the golden box that held the stone tablets of the Law that showed everyone’s guilt before God.  (Go back and read the post, Raiders of the Lost Art, if you need a refresher on what’s inside the Ark.)  The high priest then took the blood from the sacrifice, and sprinkled it seven times on the lid, the mercy seat, of the Ark.  Then, symbolically, the glory of God would “meet” the people above the mercy seat, between the angels positioned there.  And as God looked down at the Ark, He no longer saw inside the sin and guilt of mankind, but instead saw the mercy seat covered by the sacrificial blood offered for sin.  The blood covered our sin.  See why it’s called the mercy seat?

What a perfect picture of God’s mercy and grace toward us!  While we are rightfully convicted of sin by the law, we are freed from the wrath of God and His judgment because we are covered by the blood of Christ.  By the time Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem, the Ark had been lost to history.  So on the day He died, instead of the blood of an animal sacrifice dripping from the edge of a gold-covered Ark, the precious life-blood of the Lamb of God flowed down onto an axe-hewn cross.  For you.  And that doesn’t require any translation.

 感谢耶稣的血  - In Chinese it says, “Grateful for the blood of Jesus”

Jacob

Raiders of the Lost Art

First of all, no, I didn’t misspell the title.  Nearly everyone is familiar with the movie hinted at by the title, or at least they’re familiar with the object of the movie – the Ark of the Covenant.  What exactly was the Ark?  It was a boxy device designed to carry the promise of God’s love for mankind.  Though that description might sound like the ark that Noah and his family used to escape the flood that decimated the earth, this is a different ark, but designated for the same purpose.  And God was pretty specific about how He wanted it made. 

“They are to make an ark of acacia wood, 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high.  Overlay it with pure gold; overlay it both inside and out. Also make a gold molding all around it.  Cast four gold rings for it and place them on its four feet, two rings on one side and two rings on the other side. Make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark in order to carry the ark with them. The poles are to remain in the rings of the ark; they must not be removed from it. Put the tablets of the testimony that I will give you into the ark. Make a mercy seat of pure gold…Make two cherubim of gold; make them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat…At its two ends, make the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat. The cherubim are to have wings spread out above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and are to face one another. The faces of the cherubim should be toward the mercy seat. Set the mercy seat on top of the ark and…I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the testimony; I will speak with you from there about all that I command you regarding the Israelites.”  (Exodus 25:10-22)

If you read all that, it sounds just like the Ark pictured in the Raiders movie.  Instead of people, this Ark was filled with the symbols of God’s perfection, His provision, and His power.  “The tablets” mentioned in the passage refer to the stone tablets that contained the 10 Commandments delivered to Moses at Mount Sinai.  Later, two other items were added to the Ark (see Hebrews 9:4).  The second item in the Ark was a golden jar containing the manna that was delivered to the wandering Israelites every morning during all four decades of their desert journey.  The third item was the staff that belonged to Aaron, Moses’ brother.  This staff, the same old piece of gnarly wood that Aaron had toted around for years, had actually bloomed and bore fruit (Numbers 17:8).  Life and fruitfulness from something that was once dead.  Doesn’t that sound like a lot like the faithful believers who follow Christ?

So this amazingly beautiful, gold-wrapped box was filled with the symbol of God’s perfect character, the sign of His constant provision for our needs, and a stick that showed He can make dead things alive and fruitful.  If YOU could put together a “boxy device designed to carry the promise of God’s love for mankind”, what could you have possibly chosen that would have better pictured the amazing truth of what Jesus does for you each day? 

So why not try this today?  Instead of staring at your computer screen until your eyes glaze over, or watching the “idiot box” for hours, commercials and all, try to picture in your mind’s eye the contents of that sacred box.  Use your imagination to look over each one carefully, considering the love and power behind each item.  And then thank the One who makes the power of the Ark real in your own life.  Because if you can master the art of reflection and worship, then nothing has really been lost….

Jacob

The “Inside” Scoop on Sin and Grace

Why do believers struggle so much in dealing with S-I-N in our lives?  I thought if Jesus saved us, we shouldn’t have to worry about the S-word any more.  The G-word (grace) trumps it!  But if that’s true, why did the apostle Paul, that icon of the New Testament, still struggle so much in trying to explain all the back-and-forth that believers face when confronting sin in our own lives?  And if you read his treatise on sin as it relates to the believer in Romans 6, 7, and 8, you’ll come away feeling a bit like you just rode the teacups in the Magic Kingdom!

So let’s look at the end first, and then fill in the middle.  In Romans 8, we can read:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…”

“…Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”         (verses 1,2,31)

Paul REALLY wants us to understand that if you have trusted that Jesus died to pay for your sin, then God is on your side now.  You are not condemned.  You are no longer in bondage to sin and death.  No one who tells you otherwise really matters.  You’re His.

But what about the struggle that you admit goes on inside you?  Paul felt it, too. 

“Why am I struggling with sin, I don’t understand.  I want to just do “good” things, but I’m not doing them.  And the things I find myself doing, I hate them!  So if I do the things I don’t want to do and I know they’re wrong, it’s not the “real me” doing them, but sin that dwells in me.”   (Romans 7:15-17 – my paraphrase)

Wait a minute!  I thought I was FREE from sin.  How can it still be dwelling in me?  Am I some schizophrenic spiritual freak now?  I don’t want that old sinful person in me anymore, I just want to be the “new me” in Jesus. 

Well, here’s the inside scoop on that dilemma.  You’re just going to have to wait.  It’s true that you’re not the “old” you anymore.  And it’s true that you’ve been changed into a new spiritual lifeform (2 Corinthians 5:17).  And it’s also true that your new, living spirit can commune with the very Spirit of the Living God if you will and do.  But your spirit that was brought back from the dead by the transforming power of Christ is still housed in that old body with its habits of sin and, when you allow it, that spirit that can keep you from sin still gives in to the thoughts, desires and emotions arising from that old sinful brain of yours.

So what does waiting have to do with anything?  Paul reminds us that after we’ve escaped from the kingdom of sin and death that we need to kill off those sinful bodily desires and reprogram our brains so we can live like we want to live (Romans 12:1-2).  That takes time.  He also helps us understand that someday – and none too soon for most of us – this shiny, new living spirit that Christ redeemed is going to be housed in a body meant for heaven.  One that fits perfectly and without the wrinkled, defective, nasty tendencies that this one has.  I can’t wait. 

Jacob

Can You Hear Me Now?

Close your eyes and listen.  What do you hear?  The sound of cars outside, the TV, the dishwasher running, or kids playing?  When was the last time you heard…nothing?  Just plain silence?  I’m betting it has been a while.  In a world filled with so much noise that you need to be able to tell the difference between your ring tone, the sound your phone makes when you get a text message, and the song the dryer sings when a load is done, finding complete silence is pretty rare.

I wonder what God thinks about all that noise.  I wonder, because I’m often asking Him to show me something, or help me understand something, or give me direction in my life.  If He tried, I’m not sure I could hear Him!  In most families, it’s the loudest voice that gets the most attention.  When kids are going crazy and the television is blaring, what parent who wishes to be heard speaks in soft, deliberate tones?  Don’t we usually bellow so we can be heard above all the commotion?  Sometimes I think if God did that, it would certainly be easier to discern His voice.  After all, when my mom yelled, I certainly knew it was her and understood precisely what she wanted!

So when we need to get a message from God, how does that work?  Not long after God’s prophet, Elijah, enjoyed a great victory over the prophets of a false god (1 Kings 18:20-40), Elijah became fearful about what direction his life would take.  He needed to hear from God!  Elijah had enjoyed the amazing blessing of God and then just as quickly felt alone and abandoned by Him.  This seemingly invincible man of God was a mess and would have listened to advice from anyone who had offered it.  Ever been there?  In Elijah’s case, God sent an angel to get him back on track and the angel suggested it might help Elijah to hear directly from God.  So the angel pointed him in the right direction and the rest is the point of this story:

¹¹ Then He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the Lord’s presence.”  At that moment, the Lord passed by. A great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper.  (1 Kings 19:11-12)

When God spoke to Elijah, it wasn’t in a supernatural Earth(quake), Wind and Fire voice; it was in the soft whisper you might offer to your young child as you tuck them in at night.  That quiet reassurance, “Sleep tight, I love you.  I’ll be right here if you need me.”  Isn’t that what you really want to hear from God anyway?  Do you really want all the answers, or do you just want to know He’s got everything under control?

Is it even possible to make our lives silent enough to hear that soft whisper of God?  Yes, it is.  But it means turning off your cell phone; and the TV; and taking out the ear buds; and getting away from any interruption you might be subjected to so you can ask God to speak.  Then listen…very carefully…for the soft whisper of the One who is close enough to hear every breath you take.  If He cares that much about you, wouldn’t it be sad if you couldn’t get quiet enough to hear the love in His voice when He speaks to you?

Striving to hear His whispers,

Jacob

Double Jeopardy

While perhaps not considered the “trial of the 20^th century” (that was probably the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial), the infamous murder trial of a well-known football player is the biggest trial of my lifetime.  Though sincere folks disagree about the verdict in that trial, one truth can be stated unequivocally:  The defendant was judged to be “not guilty” and can never be tried for the same crime again.  It wouldn’t matter if that guy stood on the street corner holding a knife in his bloody-gloved hand and shouting, “I did it!”, because he has already been justified by the law – judged to be without guilt concerning that crime.  In our justice system, “double jeopardy” is the inability to be tried again for an offense for which you’ve been judged to be innocent. 

While we might not like it that someone can get away with murder, or some other crime, the Bible addresses the same issue when it pertains to your sin.  In Romans 3, the apostle Paul writes these words about YOU:

²⁰ For no one will be justified in His sight by the works of the law…

²¹ But now, apart from the law…God’s righteousness has been revealed…²²that is, God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe… ²³ For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ²⁴ They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 

If you don’t speak “Bible” very well yet, let me translate the major points for you:

1. God’s rule of law sets a perfect standard for us to live by.
2. Everyone – that’s the “all” in verse 23 – breaks the law.
3. Since you have broken the law, you are guilty and forever condemned. 
4. Except for those who have been justified by grace through faith in Jesus.

 Now why is that?  Either we’re guilty or not!  I’m either a sinner or I’m not!  Well, I AM guilty, and I AM a sinner, but because Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and because I have received His loving sacrifice by believing He did it for me, I am judged by God to be innocent.  Not guilty.  No punishment.  “You do the crime; you do the time” – except in the case of those who receive grace through faith in Jesus.

Here’s what is so great about Double Jeopardy: I can’t be punished for my sin.  Any of it.  Because when Jesus died for me, He took MY punishment for every wrong thing I’ve ever done so I would be judged to be innocent before a holy, righteous God.  God will never ask me about my sins, though they are myriad and heinous, because Jesus said, “Put that on my account.”  HE justified ME.

So before you get too excited about being able to do anything you want and getting away with it, you should probably check your spirit to make sure you have received the justification of Christ, otherwise you WILL still answer for your sin.  Because once we do belong to Christ and are protected by His love and sacrifice, the Bible says we will obey His commandments.  That’s what happens to those who belong to Jesus – they no longer get excited about getting away with sin.  In fact, they see the ugliness of sin and they grow to the point that they don’t want any part of it.  The apostle John wrote this:

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”  1 John 5:13 

When you belong to Christ, your sentence is “life in heaven”.  What an amazing God we serve!  He sees our sin; pays a price we could never pay; and then promises never to bring it up again.  You know what’s better than Double Jeopardy?  Amazing Grace.

Jacob

Why do we need so many rules?

How is it that when God put Adam in the garden of Eden, He only gave him one rule to follow (Genesis 2:15-17), but by the time Jesus was born, the religious Pharisees of His day had upped the number to 613?  But wait, it gets worse!  The 2016 California Penal Code is 3,350 pages long and only God knows how many different rules those pages contain.  What in the world has happened to us, that we need to be so specific about what it means to be good to others and do what’s right?

It didn’t take long for Adam (and Eve) to break the one rule God had laid down, so eventually God thought it necessary to quantify things a bit more.  So two or three thousand years later God directed to Moses to take His TEN Commandments to His people.  Why ten?  Because that’s all it took to share the essence of God’s heart:

Then God spoke all these words:  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.  Do not have other gods besides Me.  Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. You must not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ sin, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commands.
Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses His name.  Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the foreigner who is within your gates. For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.

Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.  Do not murder.  Do not commit adultery.  Do not steal.  Do not give false testimony against your neighbor.  Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exo 20:1-17)

Whether you read all this or just jumped to this line, step back and look at the text.  The first paragraph just deals with who God is and how we should relate to Him.  That little section at the bottom is about how we should relate to one another.  Does that make a point with you?  If not, here it is:  God knows that if you are in a right relationship with Him, how you relate to others will just fall into place.  That’s why when Jesus was asked, He summed up all of what God wants from us into just TWO laws: Love God first with everything you’ve got and then show that love to everyone else (Matthew 22:37-39).  That’s the same thing that God had Moses share with his people – God’s “10-step Plan” for the thick-headed! 

So…why do we need so many rules?  Because we don’t seem to be able to respond to the loving character of God.  God says, “I’m God and you’re not, so live to honor me; respect those in authority; see how precious life is; work for what you want; and don’t take what’s not yours to take!”  (My paraphrase of the 10 commandments).  If we all did that, we wouldn’t need all the other rules.  You see, those rules aren’t there to trip us up – they’re there to show us God’s heart.  That’s what life is all about.  That’s what the Bible is all about.  That’s why Jesus came.   So we could see God and His love for us.  God put us here and He’s been working to show us His heart ever since.

Why do we fight so hard to make our own rules when giving up and loving the God who loves us is so simple?  Beats me, but I’m guilty as charged…. 

So grateful for the forgiveness of Jesus,

Jacob

You Can't Believe Everything You've Been Taught...

Remember those lies we were told as kids?  Babies are delivered by storks (we know better now).  Santa Claus flies around the world in a sleigh delivering toys to good kids on Christmas Eve (everyone knows Santa uses a teleporter like on Star Trek to get the job done).  But perhaps the most hurtful to us now as adults was the lie that when Jesus was dying on the cross, God turned his back on Him.  You know the story.  Jesus was suffering and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)  I was taught, and the lie continues to be told, that at that very moment, Jesus took on Himself the sins of the world so our Perfect God (who can’t look on sin) had to turn His face away.

How does that sit with you?  If you understand what the Bible teaches, we are ALL sinful and deserve to be rejected by God.  (Romans 3:23)  How does it make you feel that every day when you mess up, or miss the mark, or even intentionally do something that you know displeases God, that He can’t stand to look at you?  Here’s the truth that I’ll explain in a moment – you are the object of God’s affection; you are the apple of His eye; you are precious to Him – you rotten, sinful, defective thing.  You are loved deeply by the Creator God of the universe because He made you to be His.  You are FORGIVEN by the Creator God of the universe because Jesus bore the penalty for your mess-ups and unkindness and selfishness and hypocrisy and…well, you get the idea.

So what about Jesus being forsaken by God?  When you hear, “I pledge allegiance…” or “For God so loved the world…”, don’t you immediately know what follows?  When Jesus spoke the words, “…why have you forsaken me?” on the cross, He wasn’t complaining, He was PROCLAIMING!  You see, the words were written by old King David about 1,000 years before Jesus repeated them.  You can find the whole story in Psalm 22 in the Bible.  David was struggling with feeling rejected by God, but by the end of the Psalm, David acknowledged “He (God) has not despised me…nor has He hidden His face from me, but when I cried to Him, He heard.”  (Psalm 22:24)  David got it right.  No matter how we feel, God always knows what’s going on.  You are never abandoned.  Never alone.

So why did Jesus say those words?  Well, no doubt He was feeling pretty bad – He had been abandoned by most of his disciples and had suffered unspeakable pain for the sins of every person who would ever be born – including you and me.  But when the self-righteous religious leaders of the day who were standing around watching Jesus suffer and gloating that they had finally silenced Him, when they heard those words, they were shaken to their toes.  They recognized the words because they had them memorized, “My God, my God…”, and they understood what came after.  “Those who see me ridicule me…They pierced My hands and My feet…They divide my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots…”  Those things didn’t happen to David who wrote them, but the Holy Spirit led David to write of things that were still to come.  From one king to the One King.

So why does all that matter to us?  Psalm 22:27-31 goes on to say:

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.
For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations…All those who go down to the dust shall bow before Him…A posterity (His heirs) shall serve Him.  It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation. They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this.

That’s us.  Heirs of Christ serving and declaring His righteousness to the next generation.  Keep your chin up and realize it’s OK to get frustrated with your circumstance and complain that you feel abandoned.  Just don’t ever believe it.  And that’s no lie.

Jacob

Doing vs Being

As Shakespeare famously wrote, “To be, or not to be, that is the question.”  In our 21st century life of busyness, our question is more likely, “To do, or not to do?”  In our culture, WHAT you DO carries more weight in most circles than WHO you ARE.  I know there are exceptions to that rule, but isn’t part of the American dream to be able to find success and value through our efforts?

It is precisely that struggle – that striving – to DO more that challenges us in our walk of faith.  Those who consider themselves followers of Jesus lay claim to that relationship based on trust (faith) that Jesus has already done everything necessary for us to BE who He wants us to be.  Christ has saved us based on our faith in Him alone, not based on what we do, our works.  (Ephesians 2:8-9)  But we become His so we can live a life full of good works.  (Ephesians 2:10)  So is BEING good enough for a follower of Jesus, or must we be concerned with DOING as well?  James, the brother of Jesus, muddied the water even more for us by reminding us that our faith in Christ without our “doing” is just dead faith, not worth anything.  (James 2:14-26)  Shouldn’t we be focusing on DOING then? 

 Just when I think I’ve excused my “Type A” focus on DOING as God-honoring, I’m reminded of the story of Mary and her sister, Martha.  Jesus came to visit their home and Martha, apparently the eldest, was VERY busy working to make the visit wonderful for Jesus.  Mary, the younger sister, just sat and listened to Jesus share about the things of God.  How many of us, especially those of us who are first-born, would have complained to Jesus just as Martha did?  (Luke 10:38-42)  

Did Christ excoriate Mary and urge her to get busy helping her sister?  Did He pat Martha on the back saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”?  Nope.  Jesus told Martha that Mary had it right.  The best thing that Martha could have been doing right then was just what Mary was doing.  Nothing.  Just learning how to listen to the voice of Jesus.  Finding comfort and direction and encouragement in that voice.  Was Martha’s desire to DO wrong?  No, work needs to be done.  But it needs to be done with perspective.  Martha’s efforts were WAY over the top, considering the circumstance (that’s clear from the Bible text).  

Apparently, Martha found it easier to work harder than everyone else and found that it usually brought her the greatest satisfaction and praise from others.  Does that sound like anyone you know?  Don’t we often equate our production with our value, even in the Church?  Apparently, Jesus doesn’t.  When what we DO becomes more important than who we ARE as believers, WE are the ones who lose.  That's because we’ve wrongly determined that the work of our hands is more vital to the Kingdom of God than the condition of our hearts.  Believe me, it’s not.  It is the condition of our hearts that drives the success of our efforts for Jesus, not the other way around.  That was Martha’s mistake, and is often my own.

Jacob