by RobertCummins | Jul 6, 2016 | 27. Letting Go
Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him because he was plainly stating that he must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” (Mark 8:32-33)
How does this scene grab you? Previously, I have read this and thought, “Peter, what in the name of all that is holy, were you thinking? This was the Son of God and you had the hutzpah to take him to task! Who did you think he was? And who did you think you were?” That reaction is now mostly historical. My pointed questions are fewer today and I carry around fewer stones to throw.
One of my good friends is faithful to pass on adages, especially ones with wry humor as their basis. One dovetails nicely with Peter’s experience with Jesus: “If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.” I suppose we will have to amend this now to read: “If you want to hear God’s rebuke, give him your opinion.”
That’s not as funny is it? Buried inside my older attitude was this question, “Lord, why did you associate Peter’s shot at candor as Satanic?” I believe Jesus anticipated this question and answered it when he followed that tough get-behind-me-Satan comment by:
Summoning the crowd with His disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? (Mark 8:34-36)
Another adage (with humorous intent): “Don’t believe everything you think.”
Although it didn’t come about in a face-to-face encounter, I believe I have had similar experiences with Jesus, where circumstances, scripture, and wise, truthful brothers and sisters weighed in, confirming that my thinking was askew. Quite honestly, I find zero humor in these occasions. In fact, discovering I am wrong slams the needle on my worst-nightmare scale. “I’m wrong? You mean to tell me I have been expending my life’s energies based on lies? This cannot be!” This is a major crossroads where we will say to God, either; “Unacceptable,” or, “Please remove any hurtful way from my heart.” I believe what Jesus is saying to Peter (and to all who call him Lord) is:
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. (Isaiah 55:8)
Isn’t Jesus saying to us that if anyone wishes to call him Lord, he must deny his right to be right? That by having rigid inflexible positions we preserve our lives as we have learned to live them? It is no wonder my experience with God lacked humor. When we find the ideas we are living out of are false, it’s the equivalent to a powerful earthquake in our souls.
How counter-intuitive it is to let go of our convictions, as the solid rocks on which we stand, so that Jesus can have that rightful place. Even when I write, I am frequently compelled to add, “I may still be clueless on this, but then…(my 2 cents worth).” Reporting on my explorations and experience as a sojourner is the primary intention of MwM. I don’t want to pontificate with certainty on matters. However….
Neither am I writing from a total vacuum. Most of what I am sharing is born of a previous earthquake–occasions when I believed everything I was thinking. My expectation is that following Jesus as Lord will include numerous episodes of this nature—each one providing opportunity for repentance (i.e. the changing of the mind) and transformation (i.e. the changing of my heart). I believe following Jesus is to live within a mobile classroom in which all that touches us is intended to educate and to transform. He uses circumstances (external and internal), people around us, His Word, and His Spirit to lead us deeper into the Truth, which liberates us and gives us joy.
I don’t believe Jesus just came to save our souls from an eternity of hell. I believe that he came and died to save us, through his life, from the collections of ideas we hold so firmly, thinking they, in themselves, are what sustains our lives. I believe Jesus invites us to take up our cross, an act in which our human explanations die. Only at the cross will he himself become the replacement for the other convictions we use to make life work. He knows we will forfeit abundant life if we succeed in living out of a collection of ideas as opposed to his own resurrection life.
I believe Jesus was harsh with Peter and that he permits harsh things to touch us at times because he knows our thoughts and ways are destructive to us and counter-productive to his kingdom. He wants us to let go that we may live. If we die by letting go we live in Him; if we try and live by holding on to our thoughts and ways, tragically, we forfeit life.
Father, when all is said and done, we are left with You – our sufficiency and our abundance. Thank you that class is always in session, that you remain our patient counselor and teacher even when we think we have it down pat. Help us to let go of and die to all the idols we have placed our trust in. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jul 5, 2016 | 27. Letting Go
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:1-3)
What does this divine audience have to do with our battle with sin and the outcome of the race? How will we become any more or less motivated by playing to this crowd? Who were these people anyway? You have to read all of Hebrews 11 for the answer. One thing we discover about them: they were above the crowd before they became the crowd above.
Their acts of faith are what distinguished them, set them above the crowd…an act of faith is what God noticed and approved as righteous. They believed both that he existed and that he cared enough to respond to those who seek him. Each one of them died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believed. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world.
What do we envision on the horizons of our imaginations? Is there something out there we are intentionally pursuing? Hopefully it is Jesus. In Jesus Christ, who has become our life, we have in hand what these saints were running toward by faith. This audience is applauding our faith, this faith which makes us sojourners as opposed to squatters. Our Hebrews 11 audience is our example. They remind us that in our race there will be much to endure. While our race may become grueling through some stretches, it will really be much shorter than it may seem in those moments. And, regardless of the cost, running it will win divine applause.
Jesus too is our example. He persevered in sufferings more severe than most will ever know. In the midst of them, he overtook the joy that was set before Him. Jesus continually did the math: “Whatever I encounter is mine to conquer or endure.” In our running some of our greatest hurdles will be questions, such as: “What bearing on my race does the life of Jesus have?” “Will a mental inventory of Christ’s sufferings somehow fortify my stride?” I have tried this. I won’t say it is useless. I will only say that I think there is more to it than mere reflection and volition. I believe the Holy Spirit is integral to our race in ways the author of Hebrews assumes we understand.
God’s Spirit has breathed Life back into our mortal bodies, raising us from the dead. His Spirit rarely comes upon us as it did in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit has now come to dwell in us. So the same Spirit, which is God’s Life, is what equipped Jesus and the Hebrews 11 crowd. He will equip us as well for the long haul of our journey. And once again, at the risk of wearing the point thin, our journey is not really that long. The Spirit’s presence has altered our nature. It is our nature which animates the thinking and the choosing of our running. It is really no longer about God’s part and our part as if they were separate tracks. In Christ, a great mystery exists. In Christ, God and man have merged. The exertion of running is now a commingled partnership with Christ as the controlling partner.
We must continually rest in Jesus’ promise that he will complete what he has begun. As our controlling partner (the head), he is the originator and perfecter of our faith. We will each be tempted to grow weary and loose heart but in our malaise we must discover, in our own experience, God’s Spirit within. It is in these moments when the winds of inspiration are absent, where temptations are so tangible, that Hebrews 12:1-3 is most helpful. It is here in the unwanted place of our doldrums that His best faith-perfecting work is advanced. Isn’t it just like God—that His ways and His thoughts are so unlike our own? While we think we may be perishing, we are in reality being perfected!
Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Father, may you train us to run our race well, persevering by faith, putting one foot in front of the other, trusting that you are the ground beneath our feet and the very path we are traveling. However fraught our race is with discouraging circumstances lead us again to the realization that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. Right now, in the midst of our inspirational vacuums, breathe endurance and vision into us. Succeed wildly in your mission to perfect our faith. With our eyes fixed obediently upon You, may we each cross our finish lines in full-stride. All to your glory. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jul 4, 2016 | 27. Letting Go
We have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
Newness of life! Paul clearly anticipated a believer’s victory over sin because of what Jesus had accomplished. He taught that since we have been crucified with Christ, we have been liberated from sin as our old master. Neither sin nor death has any further authority over us. In our inner most beings we have been liberated from their tyrannical reign. In light of these truths, has it been your experience that sin no longer reigns in your life? For many of us the answer will be, “No, sin still seems to reign.” Why is this? Let’s explore this question and another related one.
Since coming to believe in Christ nearly four decades ago, I have kept an ongoing question before the Lord. It has been, “What is Your part Lord? And what is mine?” I’ve never heard the Lord say, “Robert,” (that is my legal name), “This is My list and here is yours.” His answers to my question have come slowly through an ongoing process of living continually in His presence in the light of His Word. If that sounded super-spiritual let me comfort you: it has also been messy! The fact is we can never escape His presence, even if we were to go to the remotest part of the sea. As to hearing God’s voice, this dynamic has been a moment-by-moment, day-in-day-out affair of living with Him. This experience has been far more intimate than hearing an occasional string of words, which He is more likely to speak if I pray adequately or get real, real quiet.
As I read Colossians 3 this morning, I could not help but see Paul’s consistency in the way he addressed these questions. His comments dovetail perfectly with Romans 6 where he put it like this: “Keep doing the calculation. Recall as often as necessary the irreversible fact that Christ is our new master. Now that we have been included into Christ’s very own death and His resurrection, our ties to sin’s regime have been permanently severed. Once for all men, once for all time, to all those who trust in Christ.” (My paraphrase).
So…. what is our part? In Romans 6 Paul says, since you are now serving a new Master, having become slaves to righteousness, “present the members of your body to God as those alive from the dead as instruments of righteousness from God.”
If he were standing here among us, what would Paul have to say? Would he see us doing our part? I believe he might think we had misunderstood some things about grace, which have led us to an unhealthy passivity. I think he might wonder where our zeal and intentionality were in the doing of our part. He might wonder where are all the testimonies of those who have been liberated were. He might be so bold as to say, In case you missed it, here is your part…
Persevere in the calculation. Realize continually that the members of your earthly bodies are actually dead to sin; set your mind and keep thinking on the things above. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. And while you are doing the math and regularly calculating that it is no longer you who live but Christ lives in you and that Christ is now your life, live like this… Put aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.Put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the word of Christ rule in your hearts. Be thankful. Admonish one another. In summary, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. (my paraphrase of Colossians 3:1-17)
Note; I do not paraphrase to improve upon the scriptures. The condensing of ideas required by paraphrasing helps renew my mind. It rescues the scriptures from remaining just words upon a page – somebody else’s revelation.
Back to our original question—why then does sin still have stroke in our lives? Is it because we are just like Paul and have found that the principle of evil is present in us, making us slaves once again to sin? When we stumble and sin (and we all do), what calculations do our minds perform? If we do depravity-math (see Friday’s MwM post, Grasping–Romans 7:14-25), can’t we excuse ourselves from any victorious life he seemed to have been proclaiming and anticipating in Romans 6?
Let’s just fast forward to that moment when we have stumbled and have sinned. Shall we do depravity-math? I’m of the flesh + I’m sold into bondage to sin + Sure enough, I practice the very things I hate + It’s not really me doing it + It’s sin indwelling and reigning over me + There is nothing good in me + I practice evil + Again, I remind myself, I’m not the one doing it = What a wretched man I am!
Does this really sound like Paul to you? Can you reconcile this reasoning with Romans 6 and the balance of Paul’s victorious New Testament instruction and commentary?
Oh how familiar this math is to me! For much of my Christian life, when I would sin, this was my calculation: I have proved it yet once again + Yes, its true (with much self loathing): I am nothing but a wretch + My heart is utterly depraved + In fact, my heart is exactly as Jeremiah has said, more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9 is my old life verse. I’m not kidding.)
Are you tracking with me? What I am trying to say is that I used to do the calculation with the wrong variables and come up, naturally, with the wrong answer. If we sin, the bad math provides a path of least resistance. Here is that fumbling calculation: I am hamstrung (just like Paul supposedly was) by sin + I am saved by grace (aren’t I?) + So, I will get to heaven someday (hopefully) + But until then, my besetting sins are going to be a problem because I am, by nature, a sinner = That’s just who I am (my identity). The problem with depravity-math is that it produces a colossal identity crisis that insures a roller coaster-religious experience.
Are we just sinners as many of our hymns, teachers, and consciences have testified? Is depravity our root identity? Is the deepest truth about us that we are just sinners saved by grace? Or, should we plug in the apparently lost variable that we are now saints, those whom Christ has ransomed out of that old identity in hopes that we too, like Himself, will shine brightly, giving credence to the gospel’s claims of liberty. Here is a very pointed question: other than a hope of heaven, what is the Good News to us, if sin is still ruling in our members?
Oh the religious hamster wheel we spin when we do depravity-math! There can be nothing more exhausting than attempting to live a life pleasing to God as a sinner. With this lie about our identity operating at the foundation of our being we are left cranking out our works, our compliance, our strategies of sin management, and our religious traditions as inadequate salves to soothe a conscience that is never really free of its guilt and shame. How could it be? I’m just a sinner after all (maximum sarcasm intended).
I have battled sin as a sinner and I have battled it as a saint. There is no comparison in outcomes. As a sinner, I was defeated before I began. No matter how well I thought I had strapped on my armor, I was still exposed to a myriad of fiery guilt-producing missiles. It turns out my breast plate of God’s righteousness was not in place while I thought of myself fundamentally as just a sinner. Is this terribly surprising since depravity-math had produced my identity as a servant-slave (only), whom God tolerates, instead of a son, whose company he cherishes?
Even as a saint, I have been knocked down hard. But with my identity in tact as a son, I don’t just lie there concluding a TKO is normal. As familiar as it might feel (for a moment), sin is unnatural to God’s children. So, when I do sin, I no longer view it as my fate or as a confirmation of my fallen identity. Instead, I do a higher math. I calculate that sin is alien to my new nature. I hope you can see how doing the math with the essential variable of ourselves as new creations can, as Christ intended, lead us to our victorious destiny.
Oh how different Romans 6:23 looks in light of our new identities and In light of a true kingdom gospel!
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
From the old just-a-sinner identity, eternal life is that life we get only after our physical bodies have expired. From that limited and defeatist position, the great hope of the Christian is the rapture, where our futile attempts at righteousness are no more because we are getting new bodies free of their native connection to sin. From God’s kingdom-paradigm, where Christ is reclaiming the domain of men’s hearts, Christ’s Life is now our life. We have eternal life now! It is unfortunate that we have equated death with that occasion when our bodies finally expire because, in reality, those whom Christ has made right with God are not going to taste death. Remember: sin and death no longer have any claim upon us!
Even now, we can experience and proclaim that we are living out of His Life, which is now our Life (capital “L” intended). He is the free gift of God, who is even now our eternal life. This is the good news of the kingdom of God! This is the full gospel. It is so, so much more than dying and going to heaven. We truly need to crunch the numbers afresh. Here is the problem: How much eternal life do I actually have? Answer: your years yet to live + infinity.
In another place Paul stated it like this:
We’re free of it (that old constricting paradigm)! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18 The Message)
It turns out that our part, our responsibility and opportunity, grows where eternal life is a now–life as opposed to an after-death-life. We are now kingdom citizens who are in partnership with the reigning King who will bring about His unending kingdom, one heart at a time. I believe Paul’s writings will make much more sense to us as we look at them through this lens.
I sincerely pray this morning’s math lesson was helpful.
So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)
Father, help us to let go of the ideas which exalt themselves in our hearts, eroding away our new creation-identities. Deliver us from every false religious salve we apply to our consciences where they labor under guilt and condemnation. Persevere with us until we truly are resting in the security of our new identities as your beloved children and friends. Fill your Church with fresh stories of liberation that come from higher math. Thank You that you have done Your part and have empowered us, in Christ, do do ours. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jul 3, 2016 | 26. Grasping
Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. (Philippians 2:1-2)
This is like saying, “If the sun rises in the east, please be united in why and how you are living. Pursue the common objective of love. It will do my heart good.” It is a though Paul anticipates the question: “What exactly would this look like?”
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others… Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:3-8)
In Paul’s age when there was a stock of deities, and the reference points for great kings were Alexander and Augustus, Jesus, a Jew who died on a cross, was an unlikely model for a divine ruler, yet:
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 1:9-11)
N.T. Wright points out that Jesus did not cease being like God, the divine ruler, as he subjected himself to the humiliation of the cross. Rather, he demonstrated what He was actually like in the core of his being as he willingly laid his life down for others. God’s nature is love and love is sacrificial.
In an episode of Friends, the character Phoebe was asked if she would like to help her closest friends on a project. She responds, “Gee, I wish I could, but I don’t want to.” Upon hearing this unapologetic, un-sacrificial response, her friends go silent while the audience laughs. Did the writer’s of this show just generate a laugh by exposing us in what we frequently think but don’t say? Now that they are on the table, what are we to do with our selfish tendencies?
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world. (from Philippians 1:12-15)
My point? Phoebe’s light had gone out and so has ours, when, free of any fear and trembling, we fail to have in us that sacrificial attitude that was in Christ. While we may wish for the motivation to love our neighbor we need to understand that, as his apprentices, we must often obey before being gripped by inspiration. There is a good reason for this.
If we are not walking with him as his apprentices, we are still be walking in the flesh, in which we do not yet know how to love and we only know truth in propositional forms (as opposed to experiential forms). If we have not walked through this intimidating barrier of not wanting to when we are commanded to, we have yet to experience that Christ in us is our sufficiency even in a motivational lull. So, whether we’re struck by the mood or not, the command remains:
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)
So when we come to that place like Phoebe where we are presented with an opportunity to serve, we may be tempted to think, “Gee, I don’t really want to” but then add, “And I am happy to lend a hand.”
Perhaps as we lay aside our own agendas for the sake of others, we will discover we have found unity even when our beliefs are far from reconciled. Perhaps love shines most brightly when it is not dependent on theological unity. Could it be that the needs of others will become the thing that catalyzes our unity? After all…
By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
Father, Help us to rethink the role of these people you have placed all around us, whose needs sovereignly touch us. Help us to see that it is in their needs that we fulfill our calling as lights in this darkened world. Deliver us from our excuses of not being called or not being inspired. Animate the life of your Son within us to respond afresh to the needs you direct us to meet. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jul 2, 2016 | 26. Grasping
I recently heard a law professor advocating, of all things, humility. To him, humility meant that you should consider you may be totally wrong in the way you’re looking at something. Humility is what I think God was after as well when, through Isaiah, he said to us:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts”. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
All men have an ancient family tree. We are either rooted in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or we are rooted in the Tree of Life. The fruit of those trees are either lies that bind or Truth who liberates. As those conditioned by a fallen world, we scarcely have a clue as to just how saturated we became with the enemy’s lies while we were serving him. Yet, how dangerous is our pride, which presumes to have cornered the market on understanding?
This is why humility is so precious and so rare. Humility is founded on the premise that we were born in bondage, that we have lived in and been conditioned by ideas that came from the wrong tree. Humility presumes that man’s thinking needs altered if not scrapped. Humility lives in dependency on the Word and the Spirit.
As an example: our presumptions regarding money. The wisdom of this world says, “Nothing happens without it.” The scriptures disagree. Through them, God says:
Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? (from Isaiah 55:1-2)
Apparently money is not the coin of the realm in God’s kingdom. This verse is speaking to all who, in their pride, are totally wrong and who desperately need humility, which has actual value in God’s kingdom.
God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. (James 4:6)
So where do we go to buy this bread that is so affordable? Recall how Jesus referred to Himself:
I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst. (John 6:35)
We must come to Jesus, first to be born again and then daily as our Life. This is both impossible and simple. It is impossible to earn Christ because he is the Gift; it is simple because Jesus is the only way. We must each learn how to abide in Christ because He is our Life, from our beginning and in our ongoing.
Father, It is apparent in your words that abundant Life has been given to us and that you would continually direct our hearts to Him who is our Life. Please show us where we are attempting to live and get by on that which is not Bread. Help us to see where we are kicking against the goad, reaping time after time, that which we have sown in our own earthly wisdom and strength. Grant us the humility to admit: where the thorn and nettle continue to grow, we may be totally wrong. Amen.
