by RobertCummins | Jun 19, 2014 | 25. Naked
For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
When I was younger I looked at the elderly and wondered what was going on that caused them to walk stooped over and to make moaning noises when they moved. That question was raised in the day when the house I was living in was a strong, low maintenance abode. Well, I no longer wonder why. I now know from personal experience. My moaning in part comes from degenerative discs (part of the structural framing of my current house). At least that is what the army of doctors I have seen tell me.
I also have an army of well meaning people who volunteer their cures when they hear me groan. There is a fascinating array of them. They may involve doctors, pills and potions, honoring Jewish customs and calendars, herbs, fasting, diet, oils, magnets, color, sound, touch, chemicals, repentance, communion, vitamins, rest, yoga, faith, prayer, confession or proclamation. I don’t mean to but I am sure I am leaving someone out. Oh yes, there is prayer. Prayer is sometimes recommended as an additive to the above list.
Sometimes (like now) I express my groaning with sarcasm. This may even be picked up as frustration or anger (which on some days it may lapse into). While those elements are sometimes present I hope that readers will also find something winsome in my words because, while I am usually trying to make an eternal-sized point, I am attempting to do it through an ornery and playful spirit living along side others in the midst of vast mystery and uncertainty.
While some might dispute this because of their bias toward one (or some) of these possible options I believe it is the Spirit He gave me as a pledge that helps me to sift and sort through these and all the options proposed for my life in all areas. Is this an infallible process? Does this interaction with the Spirit yield airtight solutions and guaranteed results? Well, the answer to these questions, I believe, all depends on our perspective. The short answer is “no” because faith would be precluded by certainty, a condition God does not offer his apprentices who live to please him by faith. A bit longer answer is what follows.
I believe that the Spirit in Paul and me and all who are trusting in Jesus as Lord and Savior has a distinct mission on earth. It was apparently a very important one if Jesus’ words are to mean anything…
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.
And we might ask, “So then, what is this advantage the Helper (his Spirit) will give us?” In a nutshell it is that…
He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.
How does He do this? You would think that if the Spirit was doing this much in the earth it’s expression would become the daily headlines of every news agency. Here is just a small byline from the story I believe he is writing on my heart. Please indulge me as I turn off the main highway onto what I pray will be a scenic overlook…
On the to my office this morning there was no coffee in my system yet to fuel any focused bursts of thought so I was still burning through the fog of a night’s sleep and a clutter of thoughts that were crowding in for attention. As soon as I recognized I was not really on duty, I simply turned my mind to the Lord. My first intentional act of this day was to say, “Lord you are the Way, the Truth and the Life.”My next thought was, “Like many of your words, many are aware of this phrase who do not believe or experience it. In my heart, I ask, “Why?”
Many I know would retell what I am describing as a crystal clear, “I said” and then, “The Holy Spirit said“-conversation between them and the Lord. I can’t in good conscience do this because I did not hear the Lord say, “Now Rob, “Here is how it works with me. You see…. (and then fill this space in with whatever download I thought he may have offered).” Instead, my thoughts (along with his Spirit, who I believe is leading me into all truth) just as he promised, produced, I believe, this advantageous thought (or comment);
“They do not believe these words because there is a great shortage of those who can tell others just how (beyond their salvation) Jesus has become their Way, their Truth and their Life.” So, were these; 1) God’s thoughts 2) my thoughts or 3) a combination of the two. I have chosen door number 3. But, I just report. You decide.
Instead of reporting to the world, my personal infallible thus sayeth the Lord, I will simply and unapologetically report that this is my best impression of what he is saying and that I have been living by these types of impressions for 36 years. You may ask why would I have ever gone down such a vaguely marked path? Answered simply; because his words have been a light along this path and they always seemed to have been leading me somewhere.
These types of thoughts are usually derivatives and distilation of scriptures that have been hidden away in my heart along the way, words that have progressively transformed my heart and mind (which I construe to be my character). Over time, the testing of these words by faith have proven to me that they were in fact His advantageous words. As I have embraced them by faith, testing them in the rough and tumble of real life, the outcomes have proven to me that God is faithful and true to his words. It is out of this living, inexact exchange of ideas and words, in the regular course of living, that a relationship with God has been forged which by virtue of the experiences they have led me into (and through), I can say in good conscience is personal in nature. When I report that I have a personal relationship with God, this is what I mean. I hoped you enjoyed that brief detour.
So, returning to our main passage, what is God saying about groaning and the myriad remedies and options we must sift through? For me, I report that while I have listened and will continue to listen to my well meaning friends and family, my sole remedy remains to be Jesus Christ. He really is my only ultimate Truth or Way. All of us who trust Him I believe will find that the Spirit’s mission on earth has always been above all things to point us continually to Jesus who is our very Life. It seems his mission in my heart has been a steady push to establish this fact so that I do not end up having trusted in some option that offered only an improved quality of temporal life.
I have spent an inordinate amount of time seeking a cure for degenerative disk disease and the results have led me to ask, “Is this circumstance my thorn in the flesh?” This question will make many of my thus sayth the Lord-friends cringe because they know that by his stripes we are healed. I can almost hear the voice of some of them rebuking such an apostate question. And yet, the voice I hear is One saying,
These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
So Lord, just how am I to take courage?
I hear his answer,
Always give thanks for all things (especially trials) in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be subject to one another in the fear of Him.
So, always on the journey, always passing through a mysterious landscape, I see I am joined into a body of people (whom I am to listen to and love) who have a myriad of irreconcilable thoughts about God and his ways. So, what I see ahead is a pathway intentionally paved with uncertainties by a sovereign and loving God who is leading me into, through and out of a myriad of circumstances and relationships (many which I would not have chosen) for the sake of the day which I will stand before him and give the final report of what I’ve been up to. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Thank you Father for my degenerative discs which shall contribute to your glory as a faithful Lord as my healer now or my deliverer when I receive my new body which will know no degeneration. It’s all good because you are good always. Until that day, whichever comes first, I am so so grateful that my spirit is being renewed daily as it lives life in partnership with Your Spirit who is transforming me into the image of your Son, just as you have promised.
For the record, I am quite open to glorifying you right now with a report of either partial or total healing. Even in the presence of a little degeneration, thank you for all the advantageous thoughts and words that you are using to continually lead us into all truth. Take all the small bylines of our stories and somehow publish them for your name’s sake. Let them be shouted from the housetops. In Jesus’ wonderful name. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jun 17, 2014 | 25. Naked
While our passage picks up with Eve’s disobedience let’s back up and observe the temptation that preceded it. Here we find the Serpent laying the groundwork for his attack. It is simple. He starts by raising a question about the integrity of God’s words…..
“Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden‘?”
Eve walks right into the trap and does what we too typically do; add to what God has said then misquote and misapply it. In this case Eve responds (in a conversation that should not have even been taking place)….
“From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.‘”
While God draws us through his Spirit. the Serpent draws us through our flesh (our God-given, but vulnerable, human appetites). With the exception of the domain of power, sinning is often a momentary gratification of a gland through an unsanctioned use of our God-given appetites. As Eve’s unprofitable dialogue continues, her appetites are being aroused. While she has already imagined and begun to anticipate the sweet juices on her tongue, the Serpent adds…..
“You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it (the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The Serpent is systematically inviting Eve to remove all barriers between her and her now anticipated object of desire. He has already challenged the authority of God’s word; he has now positioned Eve to hear a blatant lie which not coincidently is the very thing she now must accept if she is to get what she has grown to want. The lie? It is twofold; that sinning will cost nothing and that the One who told her it would is shortchanging her. Does this conversation sound at all familiar?
When the “wow” saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Adam, knowing more acutely now, that it is most assuredly not as good for man to be alone, is drawn into the treason. (Read yesterday’s post. Wow is what I think Adam would have named Eve after she had awakened his senses in ways that animals A to Z had not). Understanding what happened next will enable us to have our eyes opened to the dynamics of temptation, human nature and sin. This is Life in Christ 101 for all Christians who would be his apprentices. By the way, there were no other kind of Christians other than apprentice-disciples in the New Testament.
Here is a question that haunts me; Where did we get the idea that we could be saved and opt out of surrenduring our lives to him? Stated differently; How do we imagine that He is rescuing our souls (as Savior) from hell while we are indifferent to the ways he would rescue our lives (as Lord) from a less-than abundant life on earth? Are we attending class? Were we even made aware that was a class where Jesus (as Lord) would train us up as his apprentices in the midst of our daily life’s trials, tests and temptations?
Whatever our life is is the classroom for Life in Christ. As we progress along the aprrentice’s way, we will become transformed more and more into His likeness by way of the renovation he has undertaken in our hearts. It is in the classroom that we come to know Him and discover Him as our abundant Life.
I guess, while I’m being honest, I am even more deeply haunted by why this question seems so far from the minds of most local churches and its leaders. While they have been entrusted with the souls of men, it would seem frequently that after the primary business of getting a soul saved is resolved, the matter of teaching that soul how to live in the kingdom as a disciple takes a back seat to the duties of maintaining the health of the non-profit and its assets.
In our tradition, this task has come to primarily mean providing a few stimulating meetings each week and in return hopefully receiving an offering suitable to cover the overhead of preaching the gospel (in western tradition). Note; the overhead of the kingdom gospel is only a fraction of the western-gospel since it is spread out over all the disciples that were to have been made in Judea and Samaria (before going to the ends of the earth).
Is this not what Jesus meant when he said to go into the world and make disciples (apprentices) of all men, teaching them to observe all that I commended you? We have taken this command, called it “Great“ (which it is), formed foreign mission boards, raised money and sent people out to assist in getting foreign souls rescued from hell (which is truly great). However, in light of the Christian religion’s waining influence in enlightened western nations (those whose eyes have supposedly been opened), I ask myself if we have not failed to actually make apprentices to Jesus right here in our own Judea’s and Samaria’s thus getting our cart before the horse. When this is corrected and the gospel of the kingdom is actually preached, I look forward to hearing of The Greatest Commission, one that remarries the gospel and the Lordship of Christ and commissions believers to go out and live as disciples in whatever circumstances the normal courses of their daily life may find them.
When the Lordship (and correlating apprenticeship) is excluded from salvation, the seed of the gospel is robbed of the multiplication powers of its native kingdom DNA. Salvation without lordship is like a sterile seed that is incapable of reproducing. There is no head of grain. What happens to the harvest if its this type of seed that is sown? If there is a yield at all, it per-acre numbers will certainly not be a kingdom sized 30, 60 or 100-fold.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
While the fruit initially had a sweet taste it soon turned bitter and poisened the well inside the earth’s two initial rulers. The consequence was a self-awareness God had not intended and a new capacity to see and think about God and themselves, and about right and wrong, through a distorted time-bound lens. It now became the burden of men to make their way in the world; to wrestle with the eternal ways of their Creator with their fallen temporally-conditioned wits. In scripture this is called the mind of the flesh and it is by nature, spiritually barren. Paul tells us that the mind set on the flesh is death. Our story, in Adam, continues…
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
Men, hiding themselves from each other and their Creator; is this not the story of the human race and the origin of most all of our woes? What is there to hide that was not there in us originally? It is (at least in part) shame . Shame flooded into man’s soul (along with other spiritual toxins), extinguishing his light just as God had told him it would. While it is natural to the flesh, which is man’s heart (or mind) in the absence of the Spirit’s influence, to lust after flesh, things and power, it is also in its fallen core make-up to compensate for this shame which dominates and leads man into myriad forms of slavery, including religion (man’s attempt to cope with shame with his own temporal wits). This is why you can usually find a spirit of rejection (and surprisingly pride) at the core of most all religiously devout persons.
We know the next scene by heart. The man shifts the responsibility for his sin to Eve. Adam cannot bear the burden of shame and shifts it to Eve. It’s never our fault is it? I was recently impressed with the candor of a friend. His email address came right out and said it all, itsyourfault.com.
When things in us are awry at the level of our identities the Serpent’s job of deception just gets easier. When we think of ourselves as stepchildren whom God tolerates through Jesus (I am speaking to born anew Christians), it is quite simple for the Serpent to recommend a course of prescriptive ideas to fix ourselves up and get right with God. This would be the equivalent of us sewing our own fig leaves. Regardless of how good a string of moral thoughts and deeds we might string together, it will not effect our core issue (or standing with God) one whit. On the contrary, it will deepen the deception. God must provide the remedy…..
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.
God has provided Jesus to us as our sole remedy. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Religion, as we have spoken of it today (and yesterday) is an inadequate and even deadly covering. We must be clothed in Christ alone. He is the garment that God has provided to clothe us.
As they grow accustomed to its fit, the wearers always testify that they no longer feel like tolerated step children. Far from it! Rather, in Christ, they come to see their identities as cherished sons and daughters who are welcome in God’s presence, permanently free from shame and condemnation. They are able to declare in unity…..
He keeps me from stumbling, and makes me to stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy. In the sacred place of their innermost being they continue…. Now to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 24)
Father help us to recognize and honor the authority of your word. Help us to recognize the enemy’s initial attempts to intrude upon our thoughts with innocent sounding questions designed to undermine what you have said and tempt us into sin. May what awareness we have be focused on Jesus and not ourselves. May our hearts acutely grasp the cost of our sin and may we repent of the notion that in any way we have been shorted. May we live with an exclusive dependency on Christ and out of the fulness of his life within us. You are our sole remedy and you are in every way sufficient. Truly Lord, our cups are running over. In your strength, may we complete our mission to subdue and rule over your earth. Thank you, Thank you.
by RobertCummins | Jun 16, 2014 | 25. Naked
Naked – Genesis 2:18-25
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. Genesis 2:19
Had that last creature which was probably a zalophus (latin for sea lion) been followed by a female I suspect Adam might have named her specie “Wow!” and thought, “There is no way that thing was made from dirt! Come, let us be alone no longer!” Would we have ever become used to hearing pastors say, “And who gives this wow to be married to this man?”
But we know this is not how that story unfolded. Instead….
The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
What Adam really said was….
“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
This is why…
…. a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
There are so many directions one could go on a keyboard given our gender-challenged world where these fundamental truths about who we are were debated by the wise of this world and discarded as fable. In this hour of history we see that human courts have taken it upon themselves to become the arbiters of these truths. If ever there were a living illustration of man’s folly in the light of biblical truth it is western culture. Listen to the Spirit in two passages warning us to not do what we have already done and continue to do…..
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption…..” Galatians 6:7-8
“God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” Romans 1:24-27
Why was it that the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed? A comment by Paul regarding human nature in general may help to answer this question…..
” ….. when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding. 2 Corinthians 10:12
Adam and Eve did not have the disadvantage of having a multitude of victims of modernistic culture to compare themselves with. We moderns have literally millions of images stored away in our minds for the sake of fruitless comparison. Most were intentionally planted there by Madison Avenue. How tragically ironic that the success of advertisers would fuel a perpetual discontentedness with who we are and what we have which ultimately turns out to be the plague of the human soul and the essential fuel of our economy. Talk about a quandary.
And Arlo Guthrie asks, “Hello America, how are ya?”
What should our response be to our conflict, when in it’s presence, the Spirit tells us…..
“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Matthew 6:25
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Mankind shall not likely return to this place of innocense at least as it pertains to apparel. However, that men might know a progressive transparency and innocense in their inner most beings is surely an aspect of the abundant life that Jesus promised to us. Our hurdle, shame, is as unnatural as same sex union yet it too is pervasive in our culture. Shame (in what we wrongly think about ourselves) not only drives fashion, it drives religion in a sense that we must understand if we are to know any transparency at all with God and man. Recall; light is what children of light are called to walk in. Dallas Willard rightly says that we live in a shame-based culture. (For a profound and thorough discourse on our hearts, by all means read his book; Renovation of the Heart.)
Religion is what we clothe our hearts with in order cover our shame and enable us (we vainly imagine) to approach God. In the insanity of human imaginations we think we can do things to win God’s approval. But church attendance, baptisms, giving, service are all but filthy rags in God’s presence. There are simply no human thoughts or actions that God approves of in and of themselves. They are worthless. They are even damning, if we die while thinking we are adequately clothed with them.
Yes, by some definitions (even Wikipedia) , Christianity is a religion. But by the definition that I believe Jesus worked with (study Jesus’ issues with Pharisees) religion is simply any system of thought or practice whereby the doing of it causes us to think that we have gained the favor of God. If life truly begins in the heart as Proverbs 4:23 tells us, it should be paramount that we ask ourselves, in the diligent watching over our hearts (as the verse commands), to ask ourselves the why’s behind our thoughts and deeds. We could complete this sentence, “I am accepted in God’s sight because ________________________________________________________________________ .”(Some may require extra space here but I sure hope not.)
If you think that you are ok with God and that heaven is assured you because of something you just placed in that blank space, rethink your position in comparison to God’s words. If we think we have performed in some way or that our personal righteousness is as good as another’s (there is that comparison again), we are standing on shifting sand. When the winds and storms come (especially the last one) we will have no foundation and it will indeed be finished. People often ask, “Why trials?” “Why suffering?” We must give thanks if God has sent storms in advance to expose the falsework of our existing spiritual house. He is working in us and wanting us to reinvest our faith in Him alone, the only firm foundation for life.
When we stand before him (and we all shall) we must be clothed in Christ alone. Even a peep about our righteousness on that occasion will be the ultimate absurdity in light of the glowing perfection of God’s holiness which is the only and continual comparison that we must make.
Be holy therefore as I am holy.
This can be achieved only by clothing ourselves in Christ; by being a vessel that he has come to inhabit by the Spirit. Today (as always) is the day of salvation. If you are laboring under the delusion that something about you is inherently good; that your life is sufficient; that your faithfulness to this or to that has won God’s approval, then repent and put your trust in Christ alone and be saved. Being clothed in this sense is not only how God saves our souls but it is also how God will restore to us the shame and guilt free-life he intended for Adam and for us. Walking in this light will bring the promised healing and substance of the promised abundant life.
Father, In your kindness disrupt us in every place we are trusting in oursleves for our salvation or our renovation. Let our restlessness be only that which comes from our longing to taste and see at ever deepening levels your beauty and your glory. We invite you as Lord to justly challenge and overthrow any religious idea that may have lodged in our thinking undermining the surety that is in you alone. Blessed be your name. Amen.
