by RobertCummins | Sep 6, 2016 | 36. Ordinary
Isaiah begins with a question: “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Then he provides an unlikely description of the coming Messiah. If Peter had been there, he might have said, “Nope, Isaiah, this won’t do; He must have stately form and majesty!” I shouldn’t be so hard on Peter. I too wish Jesus would present Himself to the world in extraordinary ways.
Yet God ignored human wisdom, coming to us as an ordinary man. There was nothing distinguishing in His appearance. It is noteworthy those with preconceived notions about Him were not those who “believed the message nor to whom the arm of the Lord was revealed.”
Long after Isaiah recorded his prophecy, we learn something of God’s reasoning. Being an ordinary man positioned Him so that the stroke of God’s judgment would fall upon Him. I am surprised more do not believe based simply on the sheer impossibility that humans could invent such a bizarre story!
Those who have believed the message have embraced the Son of Man whose life, for 30 years, was ordinary in appearance. That Jesus did not posture Himself as an elite reveals a surprising aspect of divine royalty—it is approachable. It is humble and does not seek to lord authority over people. Even though He is a king, He prefers to draw us by way of invitation rather than control us with mandates.
We do have a robed King with a scepter, but He loves us and desires we find Him accessible, not aloof. We think of Jesus as God’s disguise. Perhaps it was no disguise at all. Perhaps Jesus is the exact representation of the Father just as the book of Hebrews tells us.
Father, we have believed your message and your strong arm has been revealed to us in the wisdom of Your gospel. That you are our friend and not our dictator is tremendously good news. As common as Jesus may have appeared, You did extraordinary things through Him that drew men to You. May we too, whatever our appearance, be vessels of honor overflowing with the surprising Life of God to all those You permit us to serve. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 5, 2016 | 36. Ordinary
Sing to the Lord a new song;
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless His name;
Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.
Tell of His glory among the nations,
His wonderful deeds among all the peoples… (Psalm 96:1-3)
Worship the Lord in holy attire;
Tremble before Him, all the earth. (Psalm 96:9)
My attire consists of layers of clothing designed to keep me warm and dry while motoring about this remote Canadian lake hunting Walleye, the prized catch of these waters. For me, this is worship.
Splendor and majesty are before Him,
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name;
Bring an offering and come into His courts. (Psalm 96:6-8)
Since there is no place God is not, all our activities, both work and play, occur in His presence. Therefore His courts are everywhere our feet tread and all of life is worship. Living intentionally with this in mind accentuates our worship. Worship reaches unique heights when his splendor and majesty are on display in the unspoiled wilds of remote forests and streams, where His strength and beauty are being revealed by the mountains and the lakes.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
Let the sea roar, and all it contains;
Let the field exult, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
Before the Lord… (from Psalms 96:11-13)
As I attempt to grasp the pristine nature of all that is touching my five senses something even deeper is stirring. I believe it is that part of me that remembers its shared origin with creation. In the wilderness, deep calls unto deep, awakening the spirit in unique ways. This is the worship prompted by the unsullied majesty of the Canadian outback.
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns;
Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. (Psalm 96:10)
The earth might not be moved, but in Ontario it has been shoved around considerably. The massive lake on which we are bobbing around is only one of thousands like it created by glaciers from an ancient and icy era. From the Otter floatplane that served as our ferry, we behold this spectacle as far as the eye can see in every direction. It all speaks of the Ancient of Days. This is holy ground.
There is an odd feature to Psalm 96. Its composer weaves the theme of judgment into his song: “For He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness…. He will judge the peoples with equity.” (from Psalm 96:10 & 13)
I think I understand why judgment is on this singer’s mind: our heart’s disorientation to God is also known as idolatry. “For all the gods of the peoples are idols.” (Psalm 96:5)
The ancient expanse of wilderness sang its song with an advantage over me. Being innocent of idolatry, it sang beautifully. Sadly, while nature is not culpable in man’s rebellion it still pays a price.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. (Romans 8:19-25)
Teeming with aquatic life, the lake’s hidden depths hint of the existing and ever-expanding kingdom of God. My depth gauge / fish finder only shows rough images of it. Neither can I always see the Kingdom as clearly as I’d like, but the spirit in me celebrates and eagerly awaits it nevertheless. The wilderness, freer from corruption than I, reminds me of what I was and what I am becoming in Christ.
For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods. (Psalm 96:4)
Oh Father, to finally be free from all that obscure my vision! Thank you for the sudden shakings that change us as well as the powerful glacial action of your Spirit, which is making us into reservoirs of living water. Establish us in perseverance that we might both experience and eagerly await this glorious consequence of belonging to you. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 4, 2016 | 35. The Soil of Your Soil
Have you ever heard anybody say, “If you want to feel better about yourself, just attend the county fair?” Along those lines, if you would like to feel better about your local church, definitely read I Corinthians. Almost any group would appear chaste next to these early Christians. The morality of the Corinthians would place their salvation in question in most evangelical churches today. After all, righteousness behavior is the evidence of our salvation, isn’t it?
I don’t believe such a thought even entered Paul’s mind. Before he wields the rod, Paul demonstrates the basis his apostolic authority—a father’s heart. To Paul, these people, as messed up as they were, were first and foremost saints who will be confirmed to the end, blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In addressing their issues, Paul does not focus directly on their morality, instead, he goes to the root of their problems: the Corinthians had forgotten who they were. Paul chides them, “are you not walking like mere men?”
To Paul, the core issue was identity. He knew his spiritual offspring better than they knew themselves. They had either yet to discover or had forgotten they were “saints,” and in this condition they were behaving as mere men.
Do you view yourself primarily as a mere human, or do you think of yourself as a saint? For many, a subtle rationalization develops which goes something like this: “Well…yes, in theory I am a ‘saint.’ I have accepted Jesus; I am forgiven, and… I have a high degree of eternal security, but as to how I see myself, my experience supports the mere-man proposition.” Mere men form their identities (and doctrines) around their experience, adopting beliefs which are easier to live with than God’s Word. Paul, the wise spiritual father, attacks this stronghold with a question; he asks them, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
Paul is saying, when they became temples of the Holy Spirit, they were no longer mere men. While it may have been more comfortable to write off their morality to mere human nature, Paul simply says, “No.” He makes it clear their behavior is wrong because it is incompatible with their new identity as saints. Sin is not just unholy; it is unnatural in temples of the Holy Spirit.
Paul could have given them relief by allowing them to think of themselves as mere “sinners saved by grace.” He could have relieved their consciences, allowing that it was in the spiritual DNA of mere men to stray. In spite of “woe-is-me” interpretations of Romans 7, I don’t believe Paul elevated fallen nature to the heights we modern evangelicals have. Paul’s view of redeemed man was far more triumphant:
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come…You are God’s field, God’s building. (from 2 Corinthians 5:17 and 1 Corinthians 3:9)
As a wise master builder, Paul is saying the only foundation that can support a mature and growing Christian experience is a new identity in Christ. Both the Corinthians and us are dependent on the revelation of our new identity as sons of God—saints with new natures.
Father, we are not the church we read of in the New Testament. Help us to humbly acknowledge this. Help us to not explain this away as some kind of sovereign dispensation of mediocrity. Holy Spirit, breathe Your life within us and awaken us to the inheritance of our new natures, our new identities and the new destinies awaiting a Bride who knows who she is. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 3, 2016 | 35. The Soil of Your Soil
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. (John 12:24-25)
In my twenties and thirties, I saw capitalism as a system that birthed greed and corruption. I believed I had seen proof of this with my own eyes. Even though its doctrines were unspoken, my family’s denomination was Capitalism and hard work was its mission. While it created some wealth, our family’s practice of its religion almost led its patriarchs to prison. While their excellent lawyers kept them out of jail, they could not keep ulcers, neurosis, and dissension from creating their own forms of imprisonment.
I had also become a Christian when I was 23. In my new walk of faith, I immediately acquired a strong conviction that Christians must shun the world, which certainly included capitalism—the cult I grew up in. My early heroes were now Christians who had lived sacrificially in behalf of others. Their spirituality had a definite hating-one’s-life flavor. Given my background, it was not a terribly heavy cross to bear, but I was willing to carry it with pride, dying to any prospects of economic glory. This is a short-version of why I abandoned any track toward the corner office of my family’s business. This is also why I committed myself to working with my hands and earning no more than I needed to meet my family’s basic needs. I don’t think the Lord was at all impressed with my little shot at urban asceticism in HIs name.
If one could have looked at the backstory of my life, the one God was writing, I believe you would see Him diligently working to undermine my flirtations with asceticism and put me on another track entirely, one which involved corporations, finance and complexity—things which I had vowed (for wrong reasons) to avoid. He also maneuvered me (with no shortage of resistance on my part), back into my family’s business and into close proximity to my father—someone I had vowed (at an early age) to distance myself from as soon as it was possible. However, It turns out the death Jesus had in mind for me was different than the funeral I had arranged for myself.
Jesus, the Living Seed, had been planted in my heart and God didn’t need me to modify the soil with my vows. While I didn’t see them, the elements needed for germination were all present. I can testify God will use both external and internal circumstances to create sufficient heat to germinate the Seed. The Soil of my soul was fine for growing.
The deepest truth about our heart-soil today is not its bent of rebellion and its propensity to stray. The deepest Truth about us is that Jesus Christ is our life; by His indwelling us, we are new creations. You may be thinking, “This makes the Good News a bit too good doesn’t it? Anyway, that’s not my theology.” Where does our theology come from though? How often does our experience shape our theology? For myself; I blush at the strong convictions of my younger days, knowing many of those beliefs were driven by baggage I didn’t even know I was carrying.
One reason we reject our selves as new creations (and good soil) is that newness is painfully incompatible with our experience. We believe our lack of transformation discredits or even disproves the reality of our newness. Embracing our new identity in Christ would also create a new level of personal responsibility if our hearts were the good soil scripture indicates they are.
I no longer believe “hating one’s life” means taking a vow of poverty. I no longer believe adopting a deliberately downward socio-economic lifestyle will generate holiness. I don’t believe this glorifies the Lord in the least. I don’t believe wealth or its absence has any direct bearing on right standing with God. It is not about external conditions. It is all about our heart’s orientation to external things such as money, sex, and power. The evil lies in the loving.
As one who has lived with a taste of leanness and also with material abundance, I have discovered the Lord can grow his crop in either environment. The Seed living in our hearts will converge, at the right time, with the heat of our circumstances, promoting a dying to our selves. We will have to repent of older beliefs. Due to our resistance, some of our deaths may be spectacular. However for those who belong to Him, the Living Word will ultimately grow and displace fallen understandings of the world, our selves, and God. The fruit of His resurrection Life will be seen in us; the ruler of this world will be cast out and His Spirit will continue to draw men to Christ. He will be glorified in our transformation.
Today when I hear Jesus speak of hating one’s life or hating one’s family, I believe he is leading us to this idea: there are no comparisons, not even close, between His kingdom and the kingdoms of this earth; there are no comparisons we can make regarding earthly families and those we will know in heaven.
Here is my best attempt at grappling with this hard word from our loving King: I believe temporal words like “hate” will one day be unnecessary. Small words such as this will be displaced by eternal words such as love. I believe Jesus is saying, “Trust me. Comparatively speaking, you will hate the bleached out, compromised motives and affections of this life on earth once you taste the abundance which is your inheritance in Me. Embracing this idea today by faith is your mission.”
Father, whether our fare is currently lean or abundant, may we repent where we have opposed the Living Seed through our dependence on external conditions. Allow us to acknowledge, that in our current circumstances, conditions are ripe for a harvest of righteousness, love, peace, and joy. Right now, Father, in this hour, be glorified in us. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 2, 2016 | 35. The Soil of Your Soil
The hour had come for the Son of Man to be glorified. (John 12:23)
And on the occasion of this hour, Jesus said:
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. (John 12:24-25)
John tells us Jesus was referring here to His own approaching sacrificial death. But, in light of previous teachings, I believe He is also using His circumstance to say something universal to mankind. We know Jesus came to give us life that is abundant. To understand what Jesus was talking about, we have to consider all that He said about “life” to form our understanding. So, if I take Him literally, is Jesus saying I must have some form of “hate” in my heart before eternal “life” can grow? Help!
I wrote this MwM post from a beautiful mountain vista (Oeste Vista – Angel Fire, NM in fact). I had escaped the brutal Oklahoma heat and drought, which had plagued our region for several years. As for “hate,” I did, in a sense, hate my life more at 110 degrees than I did at 75. Here is the irony. At the encouragement of my son Daniel, who is an English literature major, I was reading The Grapes of Wrath, an account of other Oklahomans who had traveled west due to heat and drought. The stark difference is that they were trying to avoid starvation. I was only making a modification of 35 degrees to achieve some comfort.
I had begun my day thanking the Lord for His fresh mercies, which were not limited to, but certainly included, the pleasant circumstance of life at 9,000 feet above sea level. So, should I have instead begun my day by asking God to remove my comfort? Did I need to dial gratitude down to some degree of hate? As I read the Grapes of Wrath, I grew convinced John Steinbeck was available to assist me should I choose this path.
It got even worse. Steinbeck attributed most of the evil pressure driving Oklahomans west to corporations. Double help! It was a corporation that generated the funds for this vacation! Are Steinbeck and Jesus in cahoots? (Daniel, are you in on this too!)
As I have attempted to navigate through these complicated theological waters, I have not developed hard and fast rules in applying Jesus’ teachings. One might ask, “How then do I expect to direct my ship without firm biblical convictions?” I have noticed it does not find favor with my sola scripture brethren, but my answer is that I am navigating by his Spirit (who indwells me) and by his Word. I believe, in the context of mystery, the spirit of a truth is as valuable as the letter of it. Who then, better to have on board than Holy Spirit! I trust that even with my imperfect understanding of Jesus’ harder words, His Spirit is sufficient Light to press on.
Father, may the seed of Your Words germinate in my heart, finding Christ who is the only soil in which it may be established, returning to You the crop You anticipate, not some culturally modified crop barren of any eternal relevance. Be glorified in us Lord. Amen.
