by RobertCummins | Dec 22, 2015 | 55. Joy and Celebration
Joy and Celebration – Nehemiah 8:1-10
The contrast between our times and Ezra’s is startling. A remnant of the Jewish nation has just returned from 70 years of captivity. They have gathered in a unified spirit of hunger and contrition, keenly aware their captivity was a result of ignoring Yahweh. They asked that the Word of God be read to them. They stood to honor the Word. They wept as its truth pierced their hearts. The officials encouraged them not to mourn and weep rather…..
to celebrate, compose their heart in joy, for the joy of the Lord is their strength.
The United states are not unified. Our nation is split and Washington DC, our governing mind, is the bi-polar consequence. The nations of the world wait in four year cycles to see which personality they will be dealing with. On the surface of things, it appears public life is shaped by debates, elections and legislation. However, beneath the never-ending and futile political rancor our divide is a spiritual one that involves the Word of God.
At a foundational level, there is a collective attitude within a nation that either honors the authority of scripture or it doesn’t. Instead of asking that the scriptures be honored and read, our nation has decided the Bible and its Author are infringing on our personal rights. How ironic that a nation such as ours, with Christian roots, would wilt in its regard for the Bible. The courts of our land regularly take sides against God, claiming he interferers with the affairs of our nation.
We are not a nation just returning from captivity. More accurately, we are a nation on its way into captivity. Proverbs 22:7 says, “The borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” We are a people and a nation drunk on credit. In our foggy state of denial, we have permitted our bi-polar Father, in Washington DC, to leverage the future of our nation for our current comfort. Could the American people elect someone who openly acknowledged our addiction? Its very unpopular to tell someone in denial they are an addict and then ask them for their vote. I think most of us see where this is going.
Whether we will admit it or not, our elected officials are a reflection of us. Most Americans, even though we think of ourselves as Christian, do not consider the scriptures as authoritative. The truth of God’s Word is not piercing the heart of our nation because it has not pierced the heart of the Church. What can we do if politics and government will not, or cannot, save us?
Check out: What Leading With Vision Really Means by Erika Andersen.
(www.fastcompany.com/3003293/what-leading-vision-really-means) From that article …
People want leaders who look beyond today. They want to have the sense there is a master plan to carry them through whatever short-term trials and tribulations arise….They look to the leader to articulate, in a compelling way, a clear and positive future state (more than 4 years) toward which they can direct their efforts. When leaders focus only on the current crisis or this quarter’s numbers, (or on making promises to get elected) it seems to us that they’re more interested in maintaining the status quo or protecting themselves than in creating a successful future. They are not seen as leaders. (parentheses mine) From; Welcome to America – The Former Land of the Free)
Today’s post may seem like a departure from my normal practice of writing about the heart, claiming it as the root of all fruit, good and bad. I’m not. I’m saying our nation’s heart is the sum of our individual hearts and it is our individual hearts which will ultimately determine our personal and corporate destiny.
While it is tempting to wring our hands in despair, concerned the pilot on this flight is drunk and is most certainly going to crash the plane, we will be better off to not storm the cockpit. Instead we must shift our dependency and focus to God – the One with whom we have to do. We seem to forget that as big and impressive as our Father in Washington is, he is not ultimately in charge. You might be asking, “So, as a Christian what can I do to make a difference?” Those were almost precisely the words Jeremiah Lamphier, a mere layman and businessman asked, sparking an awakening in 1857. (Check out The Fulton Street Revival.) Reviewing historical events such as this can awaken our faith that all things are possible with God.
To this nation, who once declared her independence from England and has more recently declared her independence from God, the Spirit would say, “Compose your hearts in contrition that you may once again find God’s favor. The Lord will then restore your land. Then you shall celebrate.” Where shall we find our hope? On our knees. There, we shall compose our hearts before the One with whom we will individually and corporately answer to.
Father, please save America in behalf of a righteous remnant. Awaken hearts who will camp in your thrown room, asking for this nation’s soul. Awaken the hearts of the Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s. May your Word pierce the veil of darkness which has blinded our nation to your love and goodness. Have mercy upon us Lord. For Jesus’ name sake. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Dec 21, 2015 | 55. Joy and Celebration
Joy and Celebration – John 15:9-17
Here’s the deal. We cannot give or receive love, the essence of God’s greatest command, while we have walls around our hearts. Our walls exist because we have erected them over time to protect ourselves from the pain of life. The problem is that they insulate us from God and each other. I was a master builder. You may be too. I discovered that with my walls in place my life was more about religion than life. It certainly wasn’t about joy and celebration – this week’s theme. This post is about wall-demolition and, like all things, its all about Jesus.
The most scandalous and extravagant gift ever given was Jesus Christ. It was scandalous because the intended recipients were indifferent and even hostile toward the Gift. It was extravagant because of the lengths the Giver went to give it. Prior to Jesus, the distance between God and man was a chasm beyond measurement.
Once upon a time, God’s realm and ours overlapped in Eden, a place where the first man and woman walked in relational intimacy with God. However, they disobeyed and the realms of God and man separated – leaving both the earth and man’s heart, subject to futility and death.
Only a being that shared both man’s nature and God’s could restore the union between these realms. Driven by love, God satisfied the overarching laws of eternal justice by coming himself as the Son of Man. Regardless the distance, he himself has become the bridge between the realms.
For there is one God, and one mediator (or bridge) between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all…. (1 Tim 2:5-6)
This act of reconciliation was motivated by the driving force of the cosmos – love. Love will one day be vindicated as the primary and unrivaled power of all realms. Some may ask, “How can you talk about a loving God in the presence of so much evil, which a sovereign God could prevent? All I can say is that this question will one day seem ludicrous. One day we will see that the Man of Sorrows has not only saved the tears of the hurting, he has cried them as well.
Abiding in Christ, the true vine, is the theme of today’s passage. The Mediator himself is restating love’s intention that we abide in him. Abiding means we consciously live in Christ who is our life. In Christ, the realms once again overlap, in our hearts. The unity of heaven and earth have been restored in those who have received the Gift. Abiding connects us with new realities. Many believe and become sinners saved by grace. Others abide and live as saints – God’s sons and friends.
Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love…These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full…This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you..No longer do I call you slaves; for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things I have heard from the Father I have made known to you…,I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, He may give to you.
This I command you, that you love one another
Where I have spoken in his name without love I have been, at best, religious. Religion is that self-absorbed pursuit of God where there is conviction without compassion, form without substance and obedience without abiding. This is the one thing that lit Jesus’ fuse. Take a moment and consider the money changers and millstones of Matt 18:6 & 21:12.
Abiding in Christ makes truth our own and equips us to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. Servants who are transformed into sons reflect light. Our stories are updated as our identities are upgraded from servants to sons. We become the light of the world – the compelling message joyfully validating the gospel.
We are a letter (or story) … known and read by all men, not written in ink, but rather by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Cor 3:3.
Abiding in Christ has meant that I simply watch over my heart by receiving the Gift. By the same power he entered my life in 1976, he shot down the walls of my heart in 2012, making room for himself in a new way. MwM is all God’s aim. Being the target of his love is not always pleasant but there is no other way, if he is to be Lord. MwM tells some of my story as a prodigal. That event was fairly straightforward. However, my posts are largely the account of Father’s ways of getting an elder brother to join the party. I wanted my family to know the particulars of this story. I wanted them to know that God expands his kingdom one heart at a time and that our hearts are the battle front of the last great battle.
Father, may we fully receive the gift of your Son. May your Spirit prevail within our hearts until every last barrier to your love is demolished. Overcome every lie regarding Jesus – your gift to us. May we live joyfully and boldly out of our new natures in Christ, bearing the fruit of your love, amending the damage we have done in your name. May love, joy, peace and celebration prevail in Jesus Name. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Dec 20, 2015 | 54. Direction
Direction – Proverbs 4:20-27
My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; turn your foot from evil.
“My son.” What a nice ring that has to it! While I don’t remember those precise words as a lead-in to any of my talks with my father, I do recall the sentiment, “My son, what in the #*!! have you done now!” And, it was warranted. I don’t know how my poor father could have said otherwise. I was always in trouble. My grandmother would weigh in and remind me that I was even trouble in the womb, “You know, you #!*# near killed your mother.” I can identify with BIll Cosby here in thinking my name was “Jesus Christ.” Dad, if you read MwM in heaven, just know, “I’m really sorry.”
The words, spoken over us as we grew, have profound influence over who we are. They are life to those who find them. If you don’t find them, well … there is death. I learned that it was not life and health to my whole being for me to think of myself as somebody with the unique skill to destroy and anvil with a rubber mallet. Hmm … Perhaps I should have started Cummins Destruction Company, gifted as I was.
My early 20’s were days of awakening, fueled by these questions; “Why am I so screwed up?!” and, “Why is the world so screwed up?!” I chose Alvin Toffler to explain the world’s problems. He believed I had been future shocked – a victim of an accelerated rate of technological and social change which left me disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation.” I chose Thomas Anthony Harris to explain why I was not OK and others were. I eventually graduated from Harris’ Transactional Analysis (TA) to the Maharish Mahesh Yogi’s Transcental Meditation (TM). I still recall my mantra; it was “ima.” I would quiet myself – breathe as instructed, and chant in my mind …ima … ima … ima. I also recall an epiphany I had while deep within myself … ima … ima … ima duffus … ima duffus. So much for pop psychology and eastern religion. Thank God I still had drugs and alcohol!
As I was desperately looking for an answer, God graciously intercepted me while running with all my heart away from the many voices which all reminded me I was trouble incarnate. I gave God my life and I heard him say …
Son.
While that was a game changer, he added, “Whenever you fall (implying that I would) I will be there, immediately present, to lift you out of danger.” He also conveyed that Jesus’ name was magnificently glorious beyond all human comprehension and that the potency of his love dwarfed all powers. I know this is problematic for some since this word exceeded bible told me so – level revelation. If you were to ask me, “Then what did his voice sound like?” I would have to say that it resembled a bell in terms of clarity and that it came with the power and cadence of great ocean waves.
One would have thought that from this point on it would be “Bob’s my uncle” – everything would be hunky dory. Leaning on traditional definitions of hunky dory, this was not the case. There was still something in me that believed I was messed up. The voice sounded like, “My son, it is actually worse than you thought. You are not just a little messed up.” This set up a new inner dialogue.
The preachers informing me about my new faith did not follow through with the word God had spoken, affirming me that I was “OK” and you were “OK.” No, it now became: “I am monster of iniquity and so are you. Now go forth and share the good news!” What was impeding the word God had clearly spoken and demonstrated from getting from my head to my heart?” The answer to this question is why one of the guiding truths of my life has become …
Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.
I was a zealous Christian for 35 years before the words “My son” actually settled in my heart, revealing who I really am. Middle With Mystery is the story of my epiphany in devotional format. It is the scripture based account of how new creations can devolve into elder brothers and how elder brothers can enter into the party which Father continually hosts. Today, watching over my heart with all diligence means that I will war against ideas, philosophies and doctrines that suggest that I am primarily a monster. While that was true, I diligently guard my identity as a new creation and follow that thread to wherever it leads. Watching over my heart boils down to seeing myself as God sees me. Not only is Bob my uncle but God’s my Father.
Father, I see you with your arms open wide. I see the robe and the ring. I can almost taste the fatted calf. Whet our appetites Oh Lord. You are so good! Amen.
by RobertCummins | Dec 19, 2015 | 54. Direction
Direction – Jeremiah 18:1-6
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.
Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
At what point in a civilization does God say, “The vessel I was making was spoiled in my hands. I will remake it into another vessel, as it pleases me?” I confess, it is hard for me to think on this scale. More often than not, I’m just living my life one day at a time, trying to be present to God and to others. What is it though that my presence conveys? Does my life convey; Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die? Or, stop, drop and roll because we are on fire? Repent and perhaps the ship will not hit the iceberg, after all? No doubt you can find a TV preacher right now, damping his brow, teaching these or any number of other possible certainties about God’s plans. I think I must be damaged goods because I cannot bear to watch.
While I feel as though America is working overtime to qualify as problematic clay, I don’t know God’s plans for her. Perhaps he still sees her beauty as something yet to emerge from his hands. Rather than give up, agreeing with fatalistic notions about ourselves and this nation, I am inclined to take the approach Abraham took with God regarding Sodom, “Lord, will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” The presumption of Abraham is stunning!
Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?
Abraham practically scolds God while acknowledging his clay nature (although I am but dust and ashes). He then proceeds to negotiate for the salvation of a city – one just begging for fire and brimstone. This should be our strategy as well as children who are welcome in his throne room. If you have trouble picturing this, envision (or look up) the picture of John Kennedy’s children running loose in the Oval Office.
I love it when I see my children at ease with me, resting confidently in my love for them. I’m certain God is like this. He wants us to ask big things of him – things on scale with his dreams for the world; “God I was worthy of judgement and you saved me. Do this for my nation as well! Far be it from you Lord to slay the righteous with the wicked.” Abraham didn’t know he would get God down to 10 righteous men from 50. And, we don’t know that God will not relent and pour out his Spirit on this nation. Perhaps we have not because we ask not. We will not ask because we are the great United States of America. We will ask because, where our sin is increasing, his grace may abound all the more. We can bring ourselves to remembrance that our God is a good God, who desires, more than we, to seek and to save that which is lost.
Excuse me while I damp my brow but God has said he desires that none should perish! He has said that all things are possible with him! He draws camels through the eyes of needles! He tells us we may have what we ask of him – that he will give us the desire of our hearts. How do we possibly get off concluding that the judgement on our nation is a forgone conclusion?! Is it not time to beseech God to complete the good work that he has begun in America rather than scrap her? Why not ask God to heal the very deepest roots of our nation. Who knows, perhaps he would just like to keep this clay on the wheel.
I believe God wants us to simply be devoted to Jesus and each other until he comes and he will take care of the nation judging. We do not have to worry about much more than a sparrow or a lillie. Rueben P. Job, who is credited by Jim Branch as the original inspiration of the Blue Book had three simple rules: 1) Do no harm. 2) Do good. 3) Stay in love with God. This is a great battle plan. May it go viral.
Father, may our ears be tuned in. May our hearts be tuned up – that we may be responsive to this world by your love. May an accumulation of the accomplished deeds which you prepared for us, take on a life of their own and sweep over our nation as a great wave of righteousness. Teach us to be childlike in our presumption about your goodness. May we be as children. As it please you Lord. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Dec 19, 2015 | 54. Direction
Direction – Isaiah 30:15-21
A friend recently asked me to watch a DVD called Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero produced by Frontline/ PBS and to offer any comments I might have. I watched it and was surprised, even after a decade, how troubling 911 remains to me. The victims are buried but their ghosts still haunt us with the question, “Why?” As I was preparing my response, the unwelcome question struck again, this time in response to the massacre of Newtown, CT. In this picturesque New England village, twenty eight innocent persons were executed, 20 of them kindergartners.
I stumbled onto this news on the TV during lunch. “Oh, dear God. No. Please no.” Something deep inside me lurched. My heart just sank deeper and deeper as the media released the unfolding and grizzly details of the massacre. Various experts were discussing how we should go about processing an event such as this. How did you process 911? How are you processing Sandy Hook? These are important questions.
I found myself working through grief with tears and prayers mostly. I simply do not know how else to respond to the hollow and desolate feelings I am having. However, as I monitored the news, it dawned on me; the media was processing the story much differently. They were spoon feeding their audience in the politically correct answers as to why. In fact they were preaching! The blood was still drying as they posited their wisdom. I felt as though I had entered the Radio Sanctuary of the Secular. Below was their order of service …
Main Sermon; The Mass Slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary
Sub-sermon #1; The Lobbying Strength of the NRA and their ongoing mission
opposing the control of hand guns and assault weapons (like the ones used at Sandy Hook)
Sub-sermon #2; A Modern Day Heretic; a Pentecostal minister is vocal, saying we have
all been sold a bill of goods in regards to Hell. God is not a monster prepared to burn up more people than the Nazis ever dreamed.
Sub-sermon #3; Gay Latter Day Saints were struggling with the rejection they have experienced within their religion. They were evicted from an LDS facility where they thought they had finally found a safe place – a refuge from the intolerance of religion.
Click. I had to turn off self proclaimed crazy smart radio. It was making me crazy. I was appalled. was thinking,” Is this slick propaganda all you have to offer us as the morgue is overflowing?! Once again, goodbye NPR. I will try and process my grief and confusion by way of today’s passage – Isaiah 30:15-21.
Here is some of the backstory. Isaiah is speaking to the rebellious children of Israel. He calls them false sons. They earned this label because they refused to listen to the instruction of the Lord. They had plans-a-plenty but they weren’t God’s. They had solutions-a-plenty but they weren’t God’s. They had made alliances with those things they believed would most likely save them. In this case it was Egypt. Israel wanted safety but they placed their confidence in a government to provide it instead of Yahweh.
Just yesterday, a friend sent me a link to a segment offered by Paul Harvey from 1965 titled; If I Were The Devil. From that broadcast (which is well worth listening to) I have copied the following line where the devil says …
And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington.”
Israel insisted their prophets reinforce the idea of dependency on government, “Speak to us pleasant words, prophecy to us illusions.” (see 2 Tim 4:3.) He goes on to say oppression and guile (inherent to the false saviors of politics and government) will lead to a very sudden and comprehensive collapse. We may ask, “If it is not from politics and government, where then shall our salvation come?”
For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, “In repentance and rest you shall be saved. In quietness and trust is your strength.
For the record, it has never been the Lord’s heart to cause or allow Sandy Hooks or 911’s. Some sovereignty-laden doctrines have God sitting idly by watching the carnage. On the contrary …
The Lord longs to be gracious to you and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long for him.
Why are there massacres? Because there is evil in the world. Evil is not the faceless societal anomaly NPR portrays it as. Evil is the same malignant force that was crouching at the door of Cain’s angry and murderous heart in Genesis 4:6-7. It mastered his heart just as it mastered Adam Lanza’s yesterday.
Evil traces its origins to an angel named Lucifer, who had been cast out of heaven with a third of the angels. Modern man has filed this story away as mythology. In other words evil is a what, not a who. With this notion firmly entrenched, society is left to manage the whats with laws and policies. In other words, we have placed our trust in “our father who is in Washington” instead of our Father who is in heaven.
The radio station I was listening to (which claims to be crazy smart) would have me steer clear of any Christian worldview because it is obviously bigoted and angry. It would go on … but, if you insist on a God, be assured, it will not send men to hell.
For the time will come (and I suspect is now here) when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths…But you be sober in all things. (2 Timothy 4:3-5)
As much as we would like it to be, our world is not a safe place, at least not yet. It is, in fact, a battle ground. It will never be a safe place until we have rightly identified who the enemy is and who our Savior is. Evil is the manifest expression of a malevolent personality bent on destroying and opposing all that God desires. His methodology is to disseminate well-crafted (crazy smart) philosophies which lead men to make alliances with anything or anyone but God. God, on the other hand, is a benevolent personality who …
longs to be gracious to us, who waits on high to have compassion on us.
God’s righteousness is the opposite of evil. As God answers the prayer which he taught us to pray, “that His will be done on earth as it is heaven“, the Light of Truth will expose Satan’s darkness which conceals reality. God’s methodology is for us to recognize we are temporarily living on a high stakes battle field then enter the fray. How are we to do that?
Read Romans 12:2, 2 Cor 10:3-5, 2 Tim 4:1-2. We enter the battle with intentionality. We start by refusing the filters media, popular culture or pop-philosophy imposes on us. They all start with the wrong assumptions and therefore all end up with the wrong analysis. As we share the grief of Sandy Hook and the other inevitable nightmares this world will produce, let’s compose our hearts willingly and deliberately …
In repentance (changing our minds) and rest you shall be saved. In quietness and trust is your strength….. Then, we shall hear a word behind us saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”
Father, create a fresh vision of our part in this war against evil. Help us to see that the safest and most productive place for us is the front line – always allying ourselves, as children of Light, with your eternal Word. Grant us discernment to know where we are living as false children, having made alliances with the god of this world, embracing temporal wisdom and paying the price. Permit us to grieve and cry with those who are grieving and crying. May our grief become a longing for your justice. May our tears be converted into holy resolve to trust you alone. Until your kingdom comes. Amen.
