by RobertCummins | Sep 16, 2016 | 37. Time
I watched A Thief In The Night as a wide-eyed baby Christian in 1976. The film opens with a woman awakened by an emergency radio broadcast. In her half sleep, she learns millions of people have vanished from the earth. When she realizes her husband is one of them, she sinks to the side of her bed as the reporter quotes Jesus: “Therefore, be on the alert—for you do not know when the master is coming…lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.”
This film affected me. After watching it I went on high alert! For a decade I fully expected Jesus to return at any moment. That might seem fanatical, but I believed, with Jesus, anything might happen. It was 1976 and the Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewal still had some momentum. It was as if Jesus, after failing in the mainline, had sent his servants out into the highways and byways and extended his banquet invitation to a multitude of unlikely characters, such as myself. It was an amazing time! People were being saved and transformed. To my impressionable eyes it looked like the promised harvest—the sovereign ingathering of souls that would occur just before Christ’s return. My bags were packed, but not that well.
In that season, large numbers of people were exchanging their religion for rebirth, coming into actual relationship with God. While Keith Green and his Last Days Ministries were sounding the alarm, many of us went to DEFCON 1, setting aside our vocations in order to labor in these fields so ripe for harvest. To the best of our ability, we were awake and about the Father’s business.
We were mistaken though about the timing of Christ’s return. So were the writers of the New Testament. I don’t regret this and I doubt if any of those New Testament saints did either. We were only wrong in one sense. In another more important one, we were right—in that we attempted obedience.
I thought I knew what Jesus meant when he said to “be on the alert.” I didn’t—at least not fully. I missed the spirit of the command because of an unhealthy fear that was undermining grace. Obeying God because you fear he might leave you behind is an inferior motivation for obedience. Fear exposes our unbelief in our Father’s competence to keep us. Fear creates an inordinate focus on personal holiness as a means of gaining God’s approval or blessing. Moving forward because you are being prodded from behind is not the same as moving forward because you are being drawn by His love.
Today, my bags are packed a bit differently. I’m ready to go, but I don’t have a clue when it will be. This is a better way to remain alert since scripture tells us neither the angels nor Jesus Himself knows at what time this will happen.
Father, whether You come today or thousands of days from now, may you find our hearts alert and secure in your love, busy loving you and those around us. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 15, 2016 | 37. Time
Job was the topic of the adult Sunday school class I was leading, and at least one attender was troubled over Job’s suffering. This rough terrain had not been plotted on their theological road map. The futility of Job’s life threatened the abundant Christian life as it had been explained to him. He proposed a solution: “Ignore Job.” He reasoned, “Since suffering and futility are minor themes in the Bible, we should discount the book of Job.” I almost fell over! I believed all scripture was inspired by God, and, from my reading, suffering seemed like a major theme. I reasoned, “Just because we are allergic to suffering, we are not exempt from its presence or relevance.”
Job is a man steeped in emotional and physical pain so intense he asked God to take his life. His only consolation was that, maybe, if God quickly answered his prayer, he could die before he cratered to the temptation of denying God. Have you ever been this distraught in your circumstances?
I think I may have a low TfS index (Tolerance for Suffering) because I felt like this in 1990, and my situation was a cakewalk compared to Job’s. None of my children had died and my skin was not falling off (yet). Here is a brief account of that season. I am telling my story because suffering is an experience we will all share. It cannot be otherwise in a world that, for a time, has been subjected to futility.
A host of problems, which had been gaining momentum, converged on me. Some were of my own making. Some were beyond my control. My arenas of suffering included: physical health, emotional-mental health, family relationships (almost all of them), a failing business, a collapsed vision of life and huge question marks about the future. Would I find a job? Would I have a wife? Would I have my health? My sanity? My faith? When I lay down, I could not sleep. My life had become a waking nightmare, and I had managed all this while following Jesus!
My beliefs, which I could not just off-load for convenience’s sake, instructed me that God knew all the details and that he was lovingly involved in all the circumstances of my life. Regardless of its origin, this implied there was a redemptive point to my suffering. I was to take comfort that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him. However, even in the presence of this beautiful truth, the pressure of those converging circumstances was threatening to crush me. I feared that I might suffocate. What was being squeezed out of me, though, were not “hallelujahs.” I wasn’t sure just how much more of God’s intimate attention and lovingkindness I could handle.
Job’s friends were there for me too. I met them face to face, on the radio and in books. They wholeheartedly offered me their patented council for pain relief. Options they presented were: 1) Deny God exists; relieve yourself of the burden of reconciling your miserable life with some fairy tale you’ve subscribed to; 2) Deny God is sovereign and intimately involved in your life; this way God’s reputation can at least be salvaged; His glory will not be tarnished by the debacle that is your life; 3) For God’s sake, swap theologies for a victorious one that offers a more comfortable track to ride on; 4) Repent more thoroughly of the hidden sins that are obviously attracting God’s judgment; 5) Have someone cast out the demons that have been assigned to destroy you and rob you of the abundant life; 6) Take the anti-depressants the doctor prescribes and see a mental health professional; 7) Sing and dance your way to victory as unto the Lord; 8) Pray more frequently (and violently) in your prayer language; 9) Deny your prayer language; it’s a psychological aberration anyway.
I came to a place in this season where my deepest conviction was…Christians are driving me crazy!
It felt very lonely, but I knew I could not ignore Job’s experience. If I did, I believed I would forfeit the encounter with God embedded in suffering. In trying to sidestep it, I would have been guilty of trading Paul’s “all things work together” for some entitlement-blessing theology that worked “all things out for me.” While it had its appeal, I believed I would have been swapping the eternal for the temporal, making a bargain I would regret.
I want to be honest for the sake of those who will come to this same spot on the map. While my scriptural logic might sound noble, there was no sense of heroic faith going on here. My attitude was appalling. I was losing it. Hoping against hope, I was just trying to put one foot in front of the other, all the while asking, “Why?” Fast forward 25 years…
It was not mastery of Bible truths that carried me through that period. It wasn’t any of the pat answers offered by pop-Christianity. As messy as it was, I simply trusted that God was a good Father and that He was in those storms with me. I was simply holding on by faith to a truth that I could not feel at all—that he loved me and because of that, good would come from this. Even today, I don’t know if it was an attack, a trial, a test, or all the above. While that remains a mystery, I do know that all those things have worked to my good as Paul promised they would.
If there is an epiphany to my story, it is that our greatest blessing is currently bound up in our greatest obstacles and heartaches. The train wrecks we entrust to Him are the situations in which we will one day meet him. When we rise from the ashes—and we will—we will speak with an authority that allows us to comfort others with the comfort with which we have been comforted.
Father, you are good. You are kind. You are sovereign. In the midst of our trials and tests we are tempted to think otherwise. Give us the grace to persevere and to overcome. Whether we are escorted around or through trying circumstances, be glorified as the world sees us falling more deeply in love with you, more yielded to the sovereign, mysterious paths You lead us on. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 14, 2016 | 37. Time
Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation. (2 Corinthians 6:2)
We get our word salvation from the Greek word sozo, which means “to rescue, deliver, heal, protect, preserve, to make whole, to do well.” When we think to ourselves or profess to others that we are saved, is this what we mean? Or, do we mean, “My sins have been forgiven; therefore, I have been saved from eternal punishment?”
Considering sozo’s larger meaning, the gospel is not just good news; it’s great news! One teacher I have followed teaches that salvation is the forgiveness of sins, the deliverance from oppression, and the healing of disease. Has he gone too far? Jesus’ provides us with His answer:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are downtrodden,
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18-19)
We have not just been saved from a horrific end, but saved into a glorious now, into a kingdom of perpetual new beginnings. It should be normal, with minds that are being renewed, to regularly discover that being a new creation in Christ is a bigger deal than we had previously grasped.
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (from 2 Corinthians 5:17-20)
I don’t fully know what “all these things” refers to, but I can easily imagine that being reconciled to God would include a renewed, sozo–sized salvation, which includes healing, deliverance and blessing.
Father, save us from our impoverished ideas of your kingdom. May we succeed as agents of the eternal life you entrusted to us. May your blood not be wasted upon us. May your Word return to You having accomplished that for which it was sent. Help us to align our hearts with Yours. Upgrade our expectations from then to now. Upgrade our experience from good to great. Succeed wildly in making Your appeal through us. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 13, 2016 | 37. Time
Some of us have been through rough stretches emotionally. I have gone through seasons where the Psalms were about all I could read. In those seasons, it was the Psalms that rang truest to me. The author’s gut honesty refreshed me. It’s a big deal to have Spirit-inspired writers giving permission, by way of their example, to be gut honest with myself, others, and with God. When I grasped this, my quiet times were not so quiet anymore.
There were two recurring questions that the new, more open Rob started asking. They were: “WHAT IS THE DEAL!!??” and “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!??” Warning: If you pray like this in public, you will forfeit opportunities to lead out in corporate prayer. And further: if you aspire to pray publicly, shouting and weeping should be avoided at all times.
This psalmist’s days were filled with distress and illness. As he wept and withered away, he pleaded with God, “Hear my prayer! Let my cry for help come before You! Listen to me!” While the anguished writer has no sense of God’s personal attention, he refocuses his remaining energy on something he was more confident about. He seemed to reason, “Even if I may have fallen off God’s radar, certainly Israel, the object of His compassion, has not.”
In his emotional drift, it is as though gut honesty allows the Psalmist’s anchor to catch somewhere way down below the fickle emotional currents and lay hold of the firm reality of God’s goodness. From this place, he is then able to think, write and proclaim with new clarity and fresh authority.
A pastor friend asked me a few years ago why I thought businessmen did not attend his church, which happens to be ultra-positive and upbeat. I admired him for even asking the question. My response was simple: Life has never been perpetually upbeat and positive. I suggested his tone might seem shallow to the businessmen who rarely sees idealism prevail. It may have escaped my friend’s notice that businessmen and psalmists had this trait in common.
Emotionally speaking, my story has some messy chapters in it. Audience responses are interesting. The religious ask, “Brother, where is your victory?” Or, “Brother, what sin are you harboring that has caused you to have such a negative testimony?” Or, (a favorite) “Brother, why are you not in proper submission to authority (namely – a pastor)?” Regrettably, I now have an involuntary twitch when someone calls me “Brother.”
Then there were the hungry listeners, perhaps a bit poorer in spirit, who would breathe a sigh of relief as they heard someone being emotionally honest. They were relieved to know others, especially leaders, also had messy lives.
I do have an ultra-positive testimony but its not because God has exempted me from trying circumstances. My story is upbeat because He is with me in the midst of these circumstances and is leading me through them. I’ve noticed that at my friend’s church a testimony get’s more “amens” if one is delivered from something than if they are merely enduring that something. I’ve also noticed a great deal of pre-emptive religious energy devoted to making life work out (typically, in harmony with the American Dream). Calling this “ministry” is a wholesale disregard of the New Testament and the lives of its writers.
I recall one sermon where the preacher got transparent. With genuine fear and trembling, they confessed they had said a curse word after missing a free throw. The audience braced themselves as the curse word was spelled: “S-H-O-O-T.” My involuntary response to this scandal was, “Well *#! T, I am toast if this is how the score is being kept.”
In my defense, I had a grandmother who was apparently a sailor and a father who was a contractor. I’ve heard a few expletives. Consequently, a foul thesaurus remains in my operating software. I was genuinely proud I hadn’t verbally released my salty oath right there in the sanctuary. I don’t think I was alone in feeling that I would never clear the bar of holiness that had just been set. That may have been the glorious day I decided to quit jumping at all.
Transparency produces credibility and credibility is a root of authentic authority. This is one reason why I think pastors with professional smiles can have credibility problems with businessmen.
In my story, while brokenness has had its place, I no longer highlight it as my singular cross to bear or as the premier value of the Christian life. In my painful emotional drifts, also known as depression, I logged many raw hours in God’s presence, asking questions, often with bitter undertones. For the record, I got very few answers and zero apologies.
My anchor did finally catch, and a great deal of emotional stability was restored as well as a new spiritual vitality. Being emotionally honest is essential to having a personal relationship with God. People want to be led by those who have shared the trials and the pain they have known. Jesus was a man like us who suffered and was tempted just as we are. This qualifies him to lead. He is our safe place. In our transparency, we become safe spaces for others. The good news is God is using us messy, non-professional, Christ-dependent bricks to build his Church.
Father, thank you for giving us permission to be real. Show us how to move forward in being safe places for each other. Show us how to be the honest psalmists you desire, who worship you daily in spirit and truth. Help us to press on to know you through every emotional detour tempting us to think we are lost or unworthy. Deliver us from the evil of living by standards, which are at best, sad parodies of holiness. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 12, 2016 | 37. Time
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—
A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.
After spending some time with our passage, I am tempted to try and put the Byrds’ “There Is A Season” to the melody of Doris Day’s “Que Sera Sera.” Solomon’s fatalistic tribute to time may be beautifully poetic, but it is barren of New Testament optimism. He sounds like a ruler, fatigued by 900 wives and jaded by worshipping their idols. At one point Solomon may have been the wisest man on earth, but his unwise choices regarding wives and worship may have corrupted his judgment. Nevertheless his pen is active. Here is another of his (tarnished?) gems:
Humans and animals come to the same end—humans die, animals die. We all breathe the same air. So there’s really no advantage in being human. None. Everything’s smoke. We all end up in the same place—we all came from dust, we all end up as dust. Nobody knows for sure that the human spirit rises to heaven or that the animal spirit sinks into the earth. So I made up my mind that there’s nothing better for us men and women than to have a good time in whatever we do—that’s our lot. Who knows if there’s anything else to life? (Ecclesiastes 3:19-22 The Message)
Unless Darwin has trumped Paul, Solomon seems to have sacrificed his hope to the idols he and his harem worshipped. In the estimation of the wise king, God has intentionally obscured any transcendent future, perhaps even obliterated it, so that men might focus more completely on their brief allotment of years. Listen to his sermon….
He has also set eternity in their heart, so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end… That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by. (Ecclesiastes 3:12 & 15)
I recall Country Joe McDonald’s impartation of wisdom after his cheerleading debut at Woodstock. Joe, too, may have just listened to the Byrds’ rendition of this scripture passage and been under Solomon’s spell. Sadly, Solomon’s fatalism was present in the “Whoopee, we’re all gonna die,” live-for-the-moment, 60’s moral devolution.
I have to keep in mind that not only was Solomon weighed down with the benefits of much wealth and many women, he also had no idea a new covenant was on the horizon. Do you think Solomon might have liked to edit his work after learning of Jesus the Messiah? Being wise, I think he would have quickly deferred to the hope-filled gospel of the kingdom.
Regarding time, Paul’s heart was more closely aligned with Moses, who said, “Teach us to number our days that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.”
Paul was a man bursting with hope regarding the future. Listen as he lays open his heart to the Philippians (from chapter 3):
I long that I may be found in Him…that I may know Him…that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead…I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
While I agree that there is an appointed time for every event under heaven, I believe mankind kept their appointment with the old covenant and now is the appointed time-window of the new covenant, with its own unique glory. I do hope God revealed this to Solomon before he discovered he was, in fact, a good deal more than an animal whose future was nothing but “dust in the wind.”
Father, thank you that our lives in Christ are anything but vanity, that our advantages over the beasts are infinite. Thank you that even though our vision is not comprehensive, it is sufficient to see your resurrected Son. Thank you that we, too, share the inheritance of resurrection life and that we have been created for a future and a hope. Thank you that we have not only been called to fear you but to love you as well and to live in a place you have gone ahead to prepare for us.
