by RobertCummins | Jan 26, 2014 | 04. Hunger and Thirst
Just as Devon entered the office, Larry’s last thought was, “Oh crap! Is this kid’s name Devon, or does he pronounce it Devón?” He comforted himself that in the long run, the pronunciation of the name was of secondary importance to the biblical knowledge he was about to impart. He also made a mental note to repent later for thinking the word “crap”.
(more…) by RobertCummins | Jan 25, 2014 | 04. Hunger and Thirst
I believe the scriptures have been given to us to provoke our hunger and thirst. However, If we approach scripture as mere clinicians who must subject each verse to bible study vivisection we may miss this benefit that comes from the scalpel’s work on our own hearts.
(more…)
by RobertCummins | Jan 23, 2014 | 04. Hunger and Thirst
In the gospel of Matthew we find the parable of the Marriage Feast where a great king is hosting a grand celebration, all centered on the union of his son to a chosen bride. I believe Isaiah helped pen the invitations. They read….
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.”
Where were you when you first received your invitation? Has it arrived at your heart yet? How did you respond? Rather, how are you responding? It seems many I know were sitting as children or teens in a meeting when the evangelist handed out some invitations he had printed up that read…..….
Dear Monsters of iniquity,
You’re hearts are wicked beyond knowing. I am mad as hell about it and am prepared to send you there without even blinking if you don’t agree with this right now. Today is the day of salvation!
Affectionately,
The Great King
I will get back to the evangelist in time. But permit me to shift gears here;
I recently was encouraged by my daughter to watch Brené Brown’s TED talk on uTube. (It may be titled; Transparency) Mrs. Brown, is a Phd. researcher in the area of human interaction. She is a nuts and bolts, fact driven, social scientist whose research is closer to revelation than science. Is that really surprising if we are beings created in God’s image living in a world He created for us? Here are a few of her bullet points;
1) We are neurologically hardwired for connection.
2) It turns out our stories are data with souls.
3) Shame undermines connection because it undermines transparency.
4) The “whole-hearted” have overcome shame and live with the assumption they are worthy of
love and belonging. Their healed and whole hearts allow them to treat themselves with
compassion and kindness. They live out of the conviction that “they are enough”.
5) To have courage means to tell the story of who you are with all your heart (especially with the
imperfections)
6) Love, belonging, creativity and joy are birthed in the vulnerable hearts of the whole-hearted.
7) Vulnerability can be blunted. We can squelch it when we shut down our emotions and blame
others.
8) Blame is a way to discharge shame and discomfort.
She also made an interesting reference to religion. She said that instead of becoming a celebration of mystery religion has become mere declarations of certainty. I mentioned that we spoke the same language. The book I have reread most often in the last 10 years is The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor. My blog site address is middlewithmystery.com. That site was constructed as a platform to transparently and wholeheartedly tell my story which has much to do with an escape from religion which I think of as any system of thought or practice whereby the doing of it causes me to think that I have gained the favor of God.
Mrs. Brown and I also share something else in common; we both had breakdowns of sorts. Since both of us arose from the ashes of those experiences with new and whole hearts, we can think of them as spiritual breakthroughs. I think, in our souls, we both received God’s invitation…..
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.”
The condemning spirit of our evangelist is pervasive within christianity and all religions where men are working out their salvation out of fear and shame. I can testify, there is no living water in this well. But, that will not keep the spirit of religion from encouraging us to regularly dip deep down to reinforce how utterly deformed and alienated from God we are; how angry and ready He is to punish us.
While there are elements of truth in this twisted gospel, it contains the poison that explains how we have become so smug and certain about God whose vastness and mystery dwarf human perception.
Since my heart has been delivered from the burden and deception of religion, where I was striving for the approval of God and man, it has been in a continual state of celebration, declaring, “I am enough because God created me in His image and that image, though marred, has been restored in Christ. I am not JUST a wretched sinner saved by grace. I am a new creation, beloved of God. This is my identity. Christ is the unchanging rock from which I gratefully and continually make this declaration. So…..I would love to rewrite the shame-driven counterfeit invitations that our evangelist continues to hand out. I would write.
Dear Beloved,
I created your hearts in my image. In Adam’s fall they have become misshapen. I have sent Jesus to explain all that is confusing. Look to Him. In Him, My image can be restored in you and you will discover the way back into the safety of my heart. Hell is real but it was not created for you. Today (and every moment for that matter) is the day of salvation! For the record; I am not mad at you. On the contrary, thoughts about you make my heart beat faster.
Affectionately,
The Great King
The Parable of the Wedding Feast (and the bible for that matter) are about the Kingdom of God not the religion of Christianity. This kingdom has come in Jesus Christ and it enjoys its inevitable expansion in the earth as its laws of Love and Truth overthrow the shame and guilt of performance-driven religion. Millions of the kingdom’s sons and daughters are beginning to glow more brightly than they even imagined possible as this kingdom, which is also within them finds expression. Their stories frequently have common themes….
Life’s circumstances have created some kind hunger or thirst. They have often bottomed out, realizing they have been spending their money on that which is not bread and laboring for that which does not satisfy. They are listening more diligently. They are inclining their ear that their souls may live. In a new and radically beautiful covenant with God in Christ, they are coming and buying wine, milk and bread without money and without price.
So, how shall we get from religion to Life? Perhaps we begin by being radically honest and vulnerable with ourselves and with God. We could take Jesus council……
When you come before God, don’t turn it into a theatrical production. Don’t make a show out of your prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:
Our Father in heaven, reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best— as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty! Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jan 22, 2014 | 04. Hunger and Thirst
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.”
We Christians in general are filled with passions that enthuse us and drive us to share them with others. I relate to many followers of Jesus Christ, who together represent an unbelievable array of particular passions that bubble over when the opportunity allows. My heart’s desire really is to listen to those passions, praying that my encouragement will serve to bless those particulars in the most beneficial way. Meanwhile on another planet….
Actually, in a gathering of believers in my home, I am trying to learn how to give the Holy Spirit room to express Himself; you know…when you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation or a teaching; has a tongue and an interpretation. 1 Corinthians 14 suggests this was the extent of the early church’s liturgy. Beyond this limited picture, we also know that in these meetings, the secrets of men’s hearts were revealed; they would experience conviction; they would fall on their faces and declare that God was certainly among them. The outcome of these gatherings where the gifts were being expressed through many, was the edification of the group as a whole. However, in my home group, I am often taken aback and challenged by the disparate particulars and passions that surface.
disparate; 1) containing or made up of fundamentally different and often incongruous elements 2) markedly distinct in quality or character
In our home gathering of 20 or so people, here is a sampler of the particulars that can bubble up; Messianic Christian emphases; A TED talk (having nothing and yet everything to do with Christianity), angels; the latest prophetic word on what God is about to do; foreign missions, the revival that is on the near horizon, the need for signs and wonders, God and American conservatism. As a facilitator, I just try to keep one eye toward heaven and the other toward earth in hopes of reading the currents of what God is doing among us. Wow! This is challenging. I’m just trying to lean into God, listening for that common divine vibration that needs identified and encouraged. However, I am going cross-eyed in my efforts.
I have come, by way of hard knocks, to a firm belief that groups, no matter what their size or mission, are healthy when they have an “our” – something (or somethings) they can collectively take ownership of. I may be wrong (I am seeking feedback on this) but as a facilitator I am concerned that the disparate nature of our bubbles, for some in the group, is producing more of a sense of “theirs (as in “not mine”). As a leader, I just have not picked up on “our” common current. I have wondered if the currents I am reading are not actually cross-currents. I was not sure if I am looking at living water or something else. As far as the edification of the group is concerned, is the water still alive if its particulars are alien to others present?
From 1991 to 2013, a part of me died in the local church trying to determine if my particular current held anything in common with that of my my co-elders. In that setting with its particular passions, I learned that it is very challenging to have a creative open dialogue that will benefit the whole body when most are simply waiting to share their particular passion. When one person’s passion is alien to another’s, the available options are; 1) Promote your passions. Endeavor to infect others with your passion. 2) Subjugate your passions to the passions of others. 3) Abandon your passions. Shut them down. Go through the motions. Just try and survive without bitterness (good luck) in an environment that repeatedly fails to esteem the things you call treasures.
If you have stayed with me, you see the dilemma. How do we nurture and honor all the disparate particulars and simultaneously create the hallowed and needed “our” that makes a group healthy; that forms legitimate community? If I am right, when people sense that a gathering is mostly somebody else’s’, they will leave and instinctively seek a setting where there is an “our” (that includes their passion). As well they should.
As the facilitator, I thought I had detected the common current; it was Christ in us, the hope of glory. I thought, Voilá! That must be it! Down below all the disparate particulars, there is Christ, who is our life; Christ alone and Him crucified; Christ who is our sufficiency; Christ Jesus who aspires to be the satisfaction of our soul’s deepest longings. At the very bottom of the well there must be Holy Spirit who is revealing to us the Son of God and the Father. The natural expression of this living water must be a present tense awe and wonder with God alone. Real living water is flavored with a “now” joy, a “now” abiding contentment and rest, all flooding out of God Himself. So, it turns out that its not so much a passion of particulars as it is a passion about a particular person – Jesus Christ.
As it turns out, my particular passion; “Jesus” + no particular particular” may be the most peculiar and disparate particular of our gathering. As this has dawned on me with some force, I have begun to wonder if I would make a good Catholic or Episcopalian. I find myself longing for liturgy; anything to take the strain off my eyes which is failing to find a current we can collectively call our own.
I know some of you might be concerned that I have set my sights too high and am setting myself up for more disappointment once again. I just want to share with you that I have a great peace about this because in the end everything will work out ok because its my house and I know I am right.
In case that was unsatisfactory…
For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in Christ Jesus and finds its purpose in Him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, He organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. He was supreme in the beginning and He is supreme in the end. From beginning to end He’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is He, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in Him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of His death, His blood that poured down from the cross. (from Colossians 1:15-20 MSG)
Father, as we press on to know You, help us to keep a smile on our face, knowing that You are the head of Your Church that You’re not going to loose a single one of us that the Father has given to You. You are not going to fail to have a Bride that is radiant beyond our grasp. Thank You that where we are the most fragmented; You are holding us together in the site of God; holding us harmless of every offense to Your cross. May we be individually and collectively content with You alone if we never see an iota of our particular. Just give us Yourself. Our cups will overflow. Amen.
I suppose until I see living water flowing freely within the Church, my particular passions will have as much to do with questions and exploration as it does some particular ministry emphasis. Always asking “Which way is the water flowing?” “What is our common current?”
by RobertCummins | Jan 21, 2014 | 04. Hunger and Thirst
When they found him back across the sea, they said, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.
It appeared the numbers of Jesus’ congregation were up this week but contrary to popular seeker-freindly strategy, Jesus challenges their motives for even attending. I suspect Judas was in the wings thinking, “Man, this guy is going to kill our cash flow.” But Jesus just pours it on….
“Don’t waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.”
But, their hearts are set on what their hearts are set. To that they said, “Well, what do we do then to get in on God’s works?” I wonder if Jesus ever thought, “There’s no way this crowd will ever understand this but for the Spirit’s future use and the benefit of those who will one day get the printed version, He answers;
“Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God’s works.”
But again, the multitude wants what it wants when it wants it and makes its counter proposal..
“Why don’t you give us a clue about who you are, just a hint of what’s going on? When we see what’s up, we’ll commit ourselves. Show us what you can do. Moses fed our ancestors with bread in the desert. It says so in the Scriptures: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
God, in His patient and persistent love, pursues this multitude (and us as well) with these words which He desires should produce eternal rather than temporal benefits in us and for us. He explains…
“The real significance of that Scripture is not that Moses gave you bread from heaven but that my Father is right now offering you bread from heaven, the real bread. The Bread of God came down out of heaven and is giving life to the world.”
This lit up the crowd! They jumped at that: “Master, give us this bread, now and forever!”
Jesus then delivers the summary remarks to His sermon..
“I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.
It appears the First Church of Jesus in the Wilderness is poised for growth but Judas knows better. He has heard Jesus’ sermons. He knows the multitude’s appetite for the Bread of Life is going to be turned upside down when Jesus tells them that they are going to have to daily take up a cross if they really want this Bread.
Perhaps, because Judas had less delusion than the others about what he really wanted, he knew that while miracles are impressive, he also knew you don’t rule men with mere miracles. Ruling requires power. Power requires money. So, even though Jesus would not produce an earthly kingdom to Judas’ liking, he could still turn this Jesus into some real cash at the right time.
So, isn’t the real question always, “What do you want?” What do you really hunger and thirst for? Consider a few possible objects of our hunger and thirst;
– revival and awakening in my city replete with God’s presence, signs and wonders
– the dismantling of all organized church and a resettlement of the flock into smaller groups meeting in homes
– a growing healthy traditional church motivated to go out and win the neighborhood and the city to Christ
– to feed, clothe and shelter the poor
– to find a good local church with good teaching and music ministry where my family and I can attend
– to leave America and go abroad where there is legitimate hunger and thirst for God
– I have no wants, Christ in me is sufficient for every need that is present.
While all of these may be good, which of them would be the best core–hunger to have growing in our hearts in light of Jesus’ famous proclamation?
“I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever.
I anticipate that my questions will do more stirring than settling. That is frequently the effect Christ’s words have on my heart. However, my assumption is that in the heart-turmoil His words create there is always a loving Father’s intention at work. He knows, bound up in our hearts there is folly that needs exposed so that it doesn’t end up leading to our wasting energy and striving for the temporal. He is always persistently sending out His invitations for us to invest in those counterintuitive kingdom-values that nourish a lasting life which has been and never will be anything more than Himself and the the things He does which are guaranteed to last forever.
Thank you Father for Your persistence in challenging our heart-level understandings of Your words. We pray that with You alone at the center of our motives, You will build Your Church in Your timing and in Your ways. May You become the loving and persistent disturbance in our hearts so that You might ultimately become, in Yourself, their exclusive satisfaction. Amen.
