by RobertCummins | Jul 19, 2013 | 29. Becoming
Isaiah 29:13-16
The process of becoming involves living in the midst of theological tensions, some of which will be sufficient to pull us apart. There are no shortage of theological points of tension as our many denominations will testify. One of these tension-laden God-thoughts that is currently front and center for me involves the judgement of God. While I am tempted to abandon this (and I confess, all other tension-producing God-thoughts), the wiser part of me (I believe) is hearing this word; “The Truth is in the tension. Do not flee it. Do not fear it. Embrace it.”
That God judges, is ever so apparent in the Old Testament. Israel’s stiff heart seemed to regularly invite God’s wrath. Yet, in the New Testament judgement does not seem to be as prominent of a theme. (although Annanias and Saphira might beg to differ). Didn’t Jesus absorb all the judgmental wrath of God on the cross? So what are we to do with this tension between the Old and the New Testaments? Did God change between Malachi and Matthew?
How is God, the Judge expresing Himself under the New Covenant? What does that look like? If we back up just a bit to verses 9-12 we see a possibly overlooked aspect of God’s judgement that may shed some light on this question. Here God has “poured over them a spirit of deep sleep”. The consequence of God’s judgement was that the wise men and prophets (those called to lead) were stumbling around, and disoriented. Therefore, as a result of God’s corrective measures, we don’t find God’s people dealing with the more classic visible signs of judgement such as boils or natural disaster; instead we find them afflicted with something far less conspicuous – the illusion that their worship is acceptable to God.
In dealing with the tensions (particularly when I was younger and more certain), I wrangled with others on the points dividing us – hoping to win them over and thus create a unity of understanding. This was going to happen of course as they repented of their doctrinal error. Was it really unity I wanted? Or is it possible (in my pride) I just needed to be right? Is it possible (out of my independence) I needed God to conform to my perceptions of reality so that I could maintain some degree of control? Is it possible (out of my insecurity) I developed inordinate dependencies on others who would agree and validate me? Well…looking back, I know the answer to these questions and all I can say is, “Oh the marvelous kindness and the wonderful patience of God.”
Even though I have repented of the notion of a knowledge-based unity I still cannot help but long for the unity Jesus passionately asked His Father for in John 17:21;
…. that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
I believe God intends to answer Jesus’ prayer. Here is a question; Do you think this unity will be achieved through a massive doctrinal reconciliation where we will all be converted to a common theological understanding and creed? If so, shall we use yours, mine or theirs? Verse 16 describes us as objects of clay in the hands of a potter. I am no biblical scholar, but I am thinking the clay may not pull this off.
When the Potter decreed that His Words (the scriptures) be left to us, was it His intent that they inspire solely by dovetailing into our existing grid of logic and reason? Did we anticipate that when the two-edged sword of His Truth touched our hearts that it would always draw an “Amen.”? Were the scriptures left to us so that we could analyze and critique “the letter” of their content? Did the Potter intend for us clay-creatures to perfect our knowledge; form air-tight arguments about Him and then go out and win the world to Christ? Is the foundation we are building on constructed from doctrines that we have systematized, memorized, and used to make rational sense of our lives? If it is, what is being built will not stand. I believe in the Kingdom that God is building their may be some significant demolition scheduled.
In our newer grace-driven covenant, God the Judge has also revealed Himself as God the Father, having given new hearts to those who have entrusted themselves to Him. The Old Covenant, even though it was not without its own glory, was unsuccessful as God knew it would be. to create sons and friends. It depended on the Law and judgement to deal with a fallen nature. The New Covenant depends on God’s grace and His discipline to shape our brand new natures.
In the New Covenant, judgement has yielded to discipline. However as men who are saved, (yet still dealing with flesh) we are only partially awake. We are still being awakened from a deep sleep. However, If we will walk with Him in the Spirit, we will discover that He is providing sufficient alarms (personal and corporate) to awaken us from our slumber. Any alarms going off within your hearing?
Our understandings, where they are constrained by human logic and reason, must be demolished before we can awaken and lay hold of that for which we were laid hold of by Him. Our individual and corporate understandings and the institutions we have formed around them are no where near big enough to contain and organize the affairs of a God such as ours. If this has not yet dawned on us, we are still asleep to some degree.
My point? Our sleepiness, like Israel’s, (due to our flesh) contains elements of religious self-delusion. And, because of our dependence on our belief systems, we are not inclined to question them. That collection of ideas (we have deified) is the best we know. Why jack-hammer away on our own foundation? Because, in spite of the good we perceive it might have served to this point, it may be the enemy of something far greater the Master Architect is aspiring to build. How are we to know if God is undertaking something of this sort in our lives? See any demolition going on around you? Within you?
As usual, God’s projects will involve the Spirit invading the kingdoms of our own belief systems with His Word, disturbing our status quo thoughts and disrupting life as we have known it. We can participate with the Holy Spirit by asking Him, “Are these disturbing and disruptive things going on in me and around me intended as discipline? As wake up calls? Are You wanting to use these things to awaken me from religious delusions? Remember, the essence of a a religious delusion is to be in a state of sleepy unawareness. Given our family linage, (going back to Adam) it will be to our advantage (as we have trended toward darkness) to keep certain prayers and questions always before the Lord, such as:
“Father am I just going through the motions of a well-established religious routine? Search my heart and expose me.”
If today’s passage has any application at all, it is as a warning to those of us who may think we (and/or our group) are the most doctrinally pure – those saying all the right words and who are doing all the right things, who are perhaps content with their lot in life, having taken refuge in the orthodoxy of our personal beliefs and religious habits rather than in Christ Himself. If we are cruising on auto-pilot comforting ourselves with favorable comparisons of our selves to some standard or another, the Lord says…..
“because you draw near with your words and give me only your lip service, and your reverence for Me consists only of tradition learned by rote, you have removes your hearts far from Me, “ Isaiah 29:13
I write as one awakened from a religious delusion; a bondage I knew as a follower of Christ that was nearly deceptive and debilitating as a direct battle with entrenched sin. From this experiential vantage point I offer an observation; In the insecurity imbedded in that religious bondage, I felt judged by everyone who did not agree with me. I would instinctively create space between myself and those parties to avoid the pain of rejection. This dynamic which I observed in myself is how I must explain church politics, church splits, denominations and the general sense of disunity the Church has projected to the world. To report how God delivered me from this condition of heart, I present a phrase in two versions of Isaiah 29:13-14.
“….therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous.” (from Isaiah 29:13-14 NAS)
I’m going to step in and shock them awake, astonish them, stand them on their ears. (from Isaiah 29:13-14 MSG)
And, as one who is currently more awake (and alive) than he has previously been, I write to report that the alarms God used to awaken me had more of the MSG (shock) ring to it than the NAS (wonderful) ring to it. While the marvelousness of God’s ways have begun to find expression, the awakening itself felt anything but wonderful.
My belief is that the persuasive unity that God has slated for His Church will not happen as we all graduate from some grand and unified discipleship curriculaum. I believe the Church will one day find herself in unity because all her individual parts have learned to respond to the Holy Spirit’s ongoing wake up calls. He wants us all to stand before Him one day, not with some diploma in hand, certifying our matsery of some body of knowledge. He wants us to stand before Him with a history of His Spirit’s operation in our hearts, which has transformed us into lovers of God.
Won’t we be shocked and turned on our heads when we discover that our theological differences and the tensions they created were never intended to drive us into hundreds of sects; rather they were the intended product of His Word and the context He decreed that HIs love would triumph? Won’t it be wonderfully marvelous when we acknowledge that right now in our midst, He has provided everything (especially tension and grace) to live out of the unity of Christ’s life within?
Father, I believe that Your wrath that was rightly due us and that would condemn us, was absorbed entirely by Your Son on the cross. And today, whether we refer to it as discipline or judgement, You have never taken any corrective measure with us, Your children, that was without love and purpose and that did not have a wondrously marvelous intended outcome.
I pray that we might be awakened in our various camps if we are laboring under any “religious” delusions – giving us false comfort while our worship is actually unacceptable to You. Whatever is necessary Lord, would you draw us out into the light – out past the boundaries of our intellectual security into these places of potential differences and tensions where love will triumphs over all fear – where Your Spirit of Truth is working to answer Jesus’ prayer – that we be perfected in unity so that the world may see us as one Body and know…. that You have loved them. Truly Father, that will be wondrously marvelous. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Jul 15, 2013 | 29. Becoming
Rom 12:1-21 (This was from 2012)
Paul is in “urgent” mode again in Romans 12. After reading this passage a few times I can understand why. In 21 verses he probably says as much about Christianity as is in any chapter in scripture. I sincerely hope you can give pause today; read this passage and hear a heart that has gained heaven while still on earth. I consider Paul to be one of the richest men (in the truer sense of that word) that ever lived. I try and pay close attention to all his heart-investment advise. This passage is crammed with treasure but one phrase stands out above the others this morning from verse 5. “… we, who are many, are one…”.
I recall my wife asking me how I felt once after I had taken a strong pain remedy for my aching back. The drug had just found its way into my bloodstream and I told her that I either wanted to write a brief poem in honor of “asphalt” or I wanted to “buy the world a coke and teach them to sing in perfect harmony”. When I think of God answering the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, “that Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven“, I wonder if the add-writers of Coke had not inadvertently expressed something about that “good, acceptable and perfect” – divine order of unity and “oneness”.
Verse 5 tells us this “oneness” comes from being “in Christ and being individually members one of another”. At some point, in our corporate “becoming” who God intended us to be, I predict there will be a discovery that “church” was never a building or a scheduled and scripted event. It was always a body of people who had been joined together “in Christ”. At some point in our “becoming”, I anticipate that the “renewing of the mind” that is promoted in verse 2 will include a new way of thinking about “church” and “each other” that will profoundly contribute to God’s will being played out on earth.
Daneille (my wife) has been in Israel for three weeks and where I might have been lonely and disoriented, I have instead been privileged to enjoy a taste of “oneness in Christ” as I have been the beneficiary of different gifts of grace which have been cheerfully offered me from my growing family – the body of Christ: In the way of service (The McDaniel/Lawrence clan, Honey and Sally); In the way of teaching (Tim Keller); In the gifts of exhortation and hospitality (Doris and the Bamburgs); In their gift of friendship (John and Mary Stam). Each of you with your own gift found a way to give preference to me and honor me by being sensitive to and contributing toward my needs. (I am sorry; there are so many I didn’t mention. God bless each of you) These gifts were all given outside any program or building. They all manifested in the context of community.
Thanks to my wife and my precious children for your generous, kind and honoring words on Father’s day. I pray that I am not being overly wise in my estimation of myself or thinking more highly of myself than I ought, but as I took inventory this morning, I felt rich in so many ways that had nothing to do with my CPA’s calculations. Thank you dear family from the depths of my heart for regularly demonstrating to me that church does not start at 10:00 am on Sunday but that it simply who we are and is enlivened when we simply connect to the person next to us in the Spirit of Jesus and discover the need in that life that we are uniquely called and equipped to meet.
Father, open the eyes of our hearts to understand and live out “church” as You intended it. By Your power within, may we demonstrate that “we who are many are one” in the presence of our detractors and those who would persecute us. In this way, may we overcome the evils of our inordinate independence and demonstrate that good; the “unity” that You have foreordained that we should walk out. Amen.
(Note; On Father’s Day my awesome son recommended I listen to Tim Keller’s free-downloadable sermon on The Prodigal Son passage in Luke – which is really about 2 sons and an amazing father. I urge you to check it out. I also recommend a book by Felicity Dale called An Army of Ordinary People which highlights much of the spirit of Rom 12.
by RobertCummins | Jul 15, 2013 | 29. Becoming
In the arena of your responsibilities what is “Thy kingdom come” looking like as Jesus’ prayer is being answered and what is “Thy will being done “ looking like as it is playing out “on earth as it is in heaven?” Even though it was only the size of a mustard seed, I was recently privileged to see the kingdom of God at work in my particular arena; the marketplace.
It is the following words gathered from our Romans 12 passage that are prompting me to write about the kingdom of God as it expanding into arenas of commerce. By all means take time to enjoy this passage in Romans.
I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment….you are all one in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly…. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor…Bless those who persecute (or oppose) you..Be of the same mind toward one another, do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly (even employees). Do not be wise in your own estimation…Respect what is right in the sight of all men…If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. (my commentary)
The CEO of a company in which I and many of my friends have invested allowed myself and a small company of other investors to offer our views to him and to freely interact without censure with his employees. If you are unfamiliar with typical CEO’s and their organizations, you will understand how threatening interaction like this might be. Horizontal exchanges of differing ideas are countercultural to the vertical authoritarian management structures that are overseen by most CEO’s. The transparency that characterized our sessions would be the worst nightmare of most CEO’s. The tensions that were created by the candor of our dialogue are not what most CEO’s welcome into their boardrooms. Ironically, that is exactly what they need. Permit me to explain.
This company is managed, staffed and funded by mostly people who call Jesus Christ their Savior and their Lord. As the employees and investors of this company are working their salvation out in close quarters and in trying circumstances, Jesus as Lord, is endeavoring to expand His kingdom with its countercultural values into their space. While there is a temptation at this time for everyone to throw up their hands in despair or just walk away, I hear the Lord say, “Do not lean on your own understanding, in all your ways know me and I will make your paths straight. Don’t be conformed to this world (and its conventional reasoning); instead, renew your mind; allow your thinking to be transformed so that you can witness my good, acceptable and perfect will being done on earth as I have decreed it in heaven.” (my commentary)
God’s ways are so much higher than our ways that the values of His kingdom may appear as nothing more than an odd notion on the periphery our consciousness when God first introduces them to us. These still small presentations are the invitation of the Holy Spirit to press on by faith into the unfamiliar and the eternal. The Lord is faithful and skilled at creating the conditions for His little kingdom seeds to grow. Most often, the conditions involve pressure that encourages the germination of the seed. The pressure of trials will produce doubts regarding the status quo-nature of our thoughts. As the plant breaks through it may first appear in the form of deep questions such as; “What is amiss here? Where is God’s provision? What are the obstacles between our present situation and His blessing?” Is the kingdom showing signs of breaking through in your theater of operations?
The challenging thing to grasp for CEOs who are becoming agents of the Kingdom is that the immediate and pressing issue is not money as the world has trained them to believe. The immediate and pressing issue is always our hearts. If our hearts are not right with Him, He will not add His blessing. It would be cruel to His children and counterproductive to His Kingdom if He were to just provide money for some earthly venture when He is endeavoring to entrust us with the stewardship of His eternal Kingdom. He who is faithful in little…….
Everyone carries their load in the kingdom. Those who this world has labeled as employees owes their honesty to that person the world has labeled boss. The boss owes it to his employees to create a safe space for them to be forth right. The board, in their accountability to the shareholders has the stewardship responsibility of a dialogue that must be informed and transparent. For children of the light, transparency and colaboartion are the intended pathway. We are stewards of of truth. Our honesty is one of the main ways we partner with the Spirit of Truth and make our contribution to His kingdom. This means that we must militate against all shades of gray in our speech. If we do not we will find ourselves partnering with the wrong kingdom.
I think if Paul had the opportunity to water and fertilize the kingdom seed that I have seen growing, he might say something like this;
I urge you CEOs to present your everyday corporate lives to God as your spiritual service of worship. Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought. Invite those who are opposed to you into your inner circle. Because you are members one to another, associate with the stakeholders in your venture; respecting, honoring and even preferring what is right from their perspective. Become a devoted listener. This will guard your heart from haughtiness. Listening acknowledges the oneness you have in Christ and connects you to the complimentary gifts God has placed around you. Listening will provide you with the sound judgement your stewardship requires of you and enable you to exercise true authority which derives from love not from title, as the world would have you believe.
In God’s kingdom the redemption of all things is possible. Where evil has abounded grace can abound all the more. Our worst nightmares, (either existing or unfolding) are His premier opportunities. While the circumstances of this company are challenging they are also optimum for an expansion of God’s kingdom. If the CEO of this venture can build upon the openness that he recently invited into his venture, I believe he will transfer rightful ownership to the One Who owns all things. I believe he will overcome the evil fostered through autonomy and replace it with the good born of inclusivity. Do your associates consider you a good listener? Are your piers gravitating toward you out of trust? Is your circle of confidants growing or shrinking?
Father, may all those invested financially in these kingdom ventures of Yours become invested in heart as well, holding out in faith and prayer for the hundred fold kingdom return you have intended for it. Bless these seeds Lord. Teach us to nurture them in truth. Amen.
