by RobertCummins | Sep 15, 2015 | 37. Time
Time – Psalm 102:1-28
Some of us have been through rough stretches emotionally. I have gone through seasons where the Psalms were about all I could read. In those seasons it was the Psalms that rang truest to me. The author’s gut honesty refreshed me. That’s a big deal to have Spirit-inspired writers giving permission, by way of their example, to be gut honest with myself, others and with God. When I grasped this, my quiet times were not-so-quiet anymore.
There were two recurring questions that the new, more open Rob started asking. They were. “WHAT IS THE DEAL!!??” and, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!??”. Warning: If you pray like this in public, you will forfeit opportunities to lead out in corporate prayer. And further; If you aspire to pray publicly, shouting and weeping should also be avoided.
This psalmist’s days were filled with distress and illness. As he wept and withered away, he pleaded with God, “Hear my prayer! Let my cry for help come before You! Listen to me!” While the anguished writer has no sense of God’s personal attention, he refocuses his remaining energy on something he was more confident about. He seemed to reason; “Even if I may have fallen off God’s radar, certainly Israel, the object of His compassion, has not.”
In his emotional drift, it is as though gut honesty allows the Psalmist’s anchor to catch somewhere way down below the fickle emotional currents and lay hold of the firm reality of God’s goodness. From this place, he is then able to think, write and proclaim with new clarity and fresh authority.
A pastor friend asked me a few years ago, why I thought businessmen did not attend his church which happens to be ultra-positive and upbeat. I admired him for even asking the question. My response was simple; Life has never been perpetually upbeat and positive. I suggested his tone may seem shallow to the businessmen who rarely sees idealism prevail. It may have escaped my friend’s notice that businessmen and psalmists had this trait in common.
Emotionally speaking, my story has some messy chapters in it. Audience responses are interesting. The religious ask, “Brother, where is your victory?” Or, “Brother, what sin are you harboring that has caused you to have such a negative testimony?” Or, (a favorite) “Brother, why are you not in proper submission to authority?” Today, I have an involuntary twitch when someone calls me “Brother”.
Then there were the hungry listeners, perhaps a bit poorer in spirit, who would breathe a sigh of relief as they heard someone being emotionally honest. They were relieved to know others, especially leaders, also had a messy lives.
I do have an ultra-positive testimony but its not because God has exempted me from trying circumstances. My story is upbeat because he is with me in the midst of these circumstances and is leading me through them. I’ve noticed at my friend’s church a testimony get’s more amen’s if one is delivered from something than if they are merely enduring that something. I’ve also noticed a great deal of pre-emptive religious energy devoted to making life work out like the American Dream.
I recall a sermon where the preacher got transparent. With genuine fear and trembling, they confessed they had said a curse word after missing a free throw. The audience braced themselves as they spelled their curse word, “S-H-O-O-T.” My involuntary response to this scandal was “Oh S – # – ! – *, I am toast if this is how the score is being kept!”
In my defense, I had a grandmother who was apparently a sailer and a father who was a contractor. I had heard a few expletives. Consequently, a foul thesaurus remains in my operating software. I was genuinely proud I hadn’t verbally released my salty oath right there in the sanctuary. I don’t think I was alone in feeling that I would never clear the bar of holiness which had just been set. That may have been the glorious day I decided to quit jumping at all.
Transparency produces credibility and credibility is a root of authentic authority. This is one reason why I think pastors with professional smiles can have credibility problems with businessmen.
In my story, while brokenness has had its place, I no longer highlight it as my singular cross to bare or as the premier value of the Christian life. In my painful emotional drifts, also known as depression, I logged many raw hours in God’s presence, asking questions often with bitter undertones. For the record I got very few answers and zero apologies.
My anchor did finally catch and a great deal of emotional stability was restored as well as a new spiritual vitality. Being emotionally honest is essential to having a personal relationship with God. People want to be led by those who have shared the trials and the pain they have known. Jesus was a man like us who suffered and was tempted just as we are. This qualifies him to lead. He is our safe place. In our transparency we become safe spaces for others. The good news is God is using us messy, non-professional, Christ-dependent bricks to build his Church.
Father, thank you for giving us permission to be real. Show us how to move forward in creating safe places for each other. Show us how to be the honest psalmists you desire, who worship you daily in spirit and truth. Help us to press on to know you through every emotional detour tempting us to think we are lost or unworthy. Deliver us from the evil of living by standards which are at best, a sad parody of holiness. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 14, 2015 | 37. Time
Time – Ecclesiastes 3:1-11
There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven – a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. A time to search and a time to give up as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; a time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.
After spending some time with our passage, I am tempted to try and put the Byrd’s, There Is A Season to the melody of Doris Day’s, Que Sera Sera. Solomon’s fatalistic tribute to time may be beautifully poetic but it is barren of new testament optimism. He sounds like a ruler, fatigued by 900 wives and jaded by worshipping their idols. At one point Solomon may have been the wisest man on earth but his unwise choices regarding wives and worship, in themselves, may have corrupted his judgement. Nevertheless his pen is active. Here is another of his (tarnished?) gems…
Humans and animals come to the same end—humans die, animals die. We all breathe the same air. So there’s really no advantage in being human. None. Everything’s smoke. We all end up in the same place—we all came from dust, we all end up as dust. Nobody knows for sure that the human spirit rises to heaven or that the animal spirit sinks into the earth. So I made up my mind that there’s nothing better for us men and women than to have a good time in whatever we do—that’s our lot. Who knows if there’s anything else to life? (MSG)
Unless Darwin has trumped Paul, Solomon seems to have sacrificed his hope to the idols he and his harem worshipped. In the estimation of the wise king, God has intentionally obscured any transcendent future, perhaps even obliterated it, so that men might focus more completely on their brief allotment of years. Listen to his sermon….
He has also set eternity in their heart, so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by.
I am remembering Country Joe McDonald’s impartation of wisdom after his cheerleading debut at Woodstock. Joe too may have just listened to the Byrds’ rendition of this scripture passage and been under Solomon’s spell. Sadly, Solomon’s fatalism was present in the Whoopee we’re all gonna die – live for the moment – 60’s moral devolution.
I have to keep in mind that not only was Solomon weighed down with the benefits of much wealth and many women, he had no idea a new covenant was on the horizon. Do you think Solomon might have liked to edit his work after learning of Jesus the Messiah? Being wise, I think he would have quickly deferred to the hope-filled gospel of the kingdom.
Regarding time, Paul’s heart was more closely aligned with Moses , who said…..
Teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.
Paul was a man bursting with hope regarding the future. Listen as he lays open his heart to the Philippians ……
I long that I may be found in Him…..that I may know Him…..that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead….. I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
While I agree, there is an appointed time for every event under heaven, I believe mankind kept their appointment with the Old Covenant and now is the appointed time-window of the New Covenant with its own unique glory. I do hope God revealed this to Solomon before he discovered he was, in fact, a good deal more than an animal whose future was nothing but…..
dust in the wind.
Father, thank you that our lives in Christ are anything but vanity, that our advantages over the beasts are infinite. Thank you that even though our vision is not comprehensive, it is sufficient to see your resurrected Son. Thank you that we too share the inheritance of resurrection life and that we have been created for a future and a hope. Thank you that we have not only been called to fear you but to love you as well and to live in a place you have gone ahead to prepare for us.
by RobertCummins | Sep 13, 2014 | 37. Time
Luke 12:35-48, 54-56
In this passage Jesus likens “being ready” to being a good steward. He even reveals His sliding scale of responsibility….
And from everyone who has been given much shall much be required.
As I try and process this story, characterized by incentives and disincentives, I think of Paul and imagine, if he were preaching to us from this passage, if he would not expand more fully on the first verse, “Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps alight” something like this;
“To those of you who have repented and been baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, Christ has become your righteousness. The attire required to attend His Wedding Feast is this very righteousness He has freely given to you. By grace you were introduced to faith. And by faith you have been justified before God and can now, clothed in His righteousness, stand continually and boldly in His holy presence with great joy. It is no longer about you and your performance. In fact, truth be known, you no longer live. You died and were buried with Christ. You have been raised from the dead with Christ and Christ now lives in you. Christ is now your very life.”
Later in this discourse, Jesus gets quite sober with the multitudes and says something to the effect;
You are great at predicting the weather based on your experience and observation, why then are you so dull in appreciating what is happening right now?
I am uncertain precisely what Jesus was after but as I continue to filter His words through the revelation Jesus Himself gave Paul, I wonder if Paul would not add this point of clarification;
“Jesus used this story to highlight the impossibility of timing His return. You will best fulfill His command by not focusing on a future coming; but instead focusing on the fact that He has come. You will best stay vigilant, ready to open the door for the Master by keeping it fresh and clear in your understanding that you are, right now, the temple of the Holy Spirit. His Holy Spirit resides in you. Your stewardship consists of the continual celebration of your favored status as sons and daughters of the Living God; of enjoying His presence and the intimate communion available from moment to moment.”
Father, to think that we have been invited to a feast that You have prepared and that You will personally serve is something we cherish. Just the anticipation and hope of this day causes our spirits to burn brighter. May You burn so bright within us that this world will take notice of You and awaken to the grand reality of this day “today” which is the time for salvation. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 12, 2014 | 37. Time
Mark 13:32-37
A Thief In The Night was a movie I watched as a brand new wide-eyed baby Christian in 1976. The film opens with a woman awakened by an emergency radio broadcast. While in her half sleep, the commentator is announcing the disappearance of millions of people no more than 30 minutes prior. After the woman realizes her husband is missing, she sinks to the side of her bed as the radio voice quotes the BB scripture passage for today.
“Therefore, be on the alert – for you do not know when the master is coming,.. lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.”
The net effect of this film for me was what I thought Jesus wanted when He said, “Be on the alert!”. I lived for a decade with a gnawing concern, fully expecting Him to return at any time. That might seem fanatical but in the context where I met Christ, you definitely had the impression just about anything could happen. It was the waining days of the Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewal. It was as if Jesus, after failing in the mainline, had sent his servants out into the highways and byways and extended His banquet invitation to a multitude of unlikely characters such as myself. It was an amazing time! People were being saved and transformed all around me. It looked like a God-ordained “end-times”, ingathering of souls that many were presuming might just precede a “rapture”. My bags were packed, but not really all that well.
If you are unfamiliar with these movements, they pop up quickly on Wikipedia. For millions including myself the religion of Christianity was exchanged for a rebirth into a fresh and vibrant relationship with God, the Father. As Keith Green was touring and preaching with his Last Days Ministries, myself and many I knew were “on the alert” setting aside what we were doing with our vocations and plugging into ministries and missions in order to participate in this harvest and, very importantly I should add, to be found “awake”, being “about the Father’s business” when He returned.
It turned out we were wrong about the timing of Jesus’ return. If you have some familiarity with the New Testament you know that they too thought Christ’s return was imminent. I do not regret being wrong and becoming abandon to the prospect of His “anytime” return. I doubt if any of those New Testament saints did either. We were wrong in one sense; but in another more important one, we were right in that we attempting obedience.
I mentioned earlier that I thought I knew what Jesus meant when He said to be on the alert. Well, I didn’t just miss the timing. I also missed “the spirit” of the command. There was an unhealthy type of “fear of God” in my heart then, evidenced by the gnawing concern that I mentioned. Obeying God because you fear He might leave you behind is an inferior motivation for obedience. Fear exposes our unbelief in the “keeping” competence of the Father and causes us to think more about our own holiness than is good for us. Moving forward because you are being prodded from behind by fear is not the same as moving forward because you are being drawn by His love.
I am so grateful that the soil of my life was deep enough and of the right type that when my “gnawing” fear-motivation dissipated there remained a residual love component in the soil composition of my heart. Love and gratitude are superior motivations which provide a more stable and enduring motivation. I believe I am ready to meet Christ at the appointed time in whatever setting He might choose. However, I have repacked my bags with readjusted expectations as to the timing. I feel I am in good company on this since neither the angels nor Jesus Himself knows at what time this will happen.
Father, whether You come today or thousands of days from now, may our hearts find secure and safe refuge in Your love, so much so, that we avail ourselves of the bold access we have to You throughout each of those days, however many of them there are. May we maintain our alertness out of Your life within us; out of Your love for us, as we joyfully live out our days in Your loving presence.
by RobertCummins | Sep 11, 2014 | 37. Time
Job 7:1-10 ( I hope you wil read Job 6-7. It will make my story much more understandable)
Years ago I was teaching an adult Sunday school class on Job and someone was struggling with the book’s seemingly unending theme of suffering. They proposed a solution in resolving the tension between the futility of Job’s life and what they perceived the abundant life of Christ to be. It was really quite simple. They proposed that we just ignore Job. They reasoned before the class, “since suffering and futility were such minor themes in the Bible, that we should simply discount the life of Job.” I recall almost falling over when they said this because it was ingrained into me early on that all scripture was inspired by God. From my reading of the Bible I had gathered that suffering was one of its major themes. Just because I didn’t like it, or I didn’t understand it, did not exempt me from considering its relevance to my life.
Today’s passage is representative of Job’s story. He is steeped in emotional and physical pain so intense that He has asked God to take his life. Job’s only remaining consolation is that maybe, if God quickly answers his request, he may die before he succumbs to temptation and denies God. Have you ever been this distaught in your circumstances? I think I must have a low TfS index (Tolerance for Suffering) because I felt like this in 1990 and my situation was a cake walk compared to Job. None of my children had died and my skin was not falling off (yet anyway). [Given the trends, I was keeping this option open.] Here is a brief account of that season. I bother telling it because suffering is something we will all (at least eventually) have in common.
That year a host of problems, which had been gaining momentum on me, converged all at once. Some were of my own making. Some were beyond my control. The areas of my life that were impacted were physical health, emotional health, family relationships (almost all of them), a failing business, a collapsed vision of life and ministry and huge question marks surrounding the future. When I lay down, I could not sleep. I was haunted at the living nightmare my life had become (while following jesus!). When I was awake, I was just barely able to put one foot in front of the other.
My orientation to God, my theology (which I could not just off-load for convenience sake) instructed my heart that God was intimately acquainted with all the details of my life and that He was personally leading me along a particular path for the sake of His name. In other words, there was a point to all this.) I was to take comfort in the Romans 8:28 truth that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him. The strain of all these converging pressures was crushing me though. I thought I was going to suffocate. I wasn’t sure just how much more of God’s intimate attention and lovingkindness I could handle.
In my life, Job’s friends were there for me too. I met them face to face, on the radio and in the books offering me all their patented council. Options they presented were: 1) Deny God exists and at least releive yourself of the burden of reconciling your miserable life with some fairy tale you have subsribed to. 2) Deny God is soverign and involved so intimately in your life so that you can at least salvage His reputation as one associated to the debaucle of your life. 3) Swap theologies for a more victorious version that would offer a new (more comfortable) track to ride on. 4) Repent more thoroughly of the hidden sins that have obviously attracted God’s judgement 5) Have someone cast out the demons that have been assigned to destroy you and rob you of the abudnant life. 6) Take the antidepressents the doctor has prescribed and see a mental health professional. 7) Just praise your way to victory. 8) Pray more frequently in your prayer language 9) Deny your prayer language. Let me say emphatically, I definitely could not handle any more council from friends of this sort. Christians were driving me crazy!
Back to the Sunday school experience. If I were to have bought-in to the idea that Job’s expereince should be ignored, I would have forfeited the deep truths (and future grace) that God had embedded in Job’s disrupted life and in my own. I would have also started down the road of making a cut-and-paste theology that may have provided some shallow comforts along the way but would have eroded the all dimension of the Romans 8:28 revelation. It is a pressing temptation but in light of God’s economy, swapping the eternal for the temporal is a terrible trade.
I feel no duty to know if that season of intense pressure was an attack or a test (or both). It was not my refined understanding of biblical truth that carried me through that period. It wasn’t many of the things that Christianity was holding out as the pat answers to the circumstances I was facing. It was just trusting in who God is and what He is like, as a good Father; that He was in those storms with me. It was just holding on by faith to a truth that I deeply believed but could not feel at all; that He loved me and that there was purpose buried in the apparent futility of my life. It was messy to say the least. I believe it was simply normal Christianity.
We are to comfort one another with the comfort with which we have been comforted. If my story has had any comfort-value to you, it should be that our greatest blessing is currently disguised as our biggest obstacle or heartache. The problems or crisis’ we entrust to Him are the places we will one day look back upon as the places where our faith grew most dramatically. They are the places we will look back upon where we grew to know Him and love Him at a new and deeper level. And, when we arise from the ashes we can speak with confidence and authority in these specific areas where we proved to be over-comers. Through perseverance we become equipped as authentic representatives of sozo-sized salvation. (If you want to have your salvation sozo-sized, read yesterdays post on 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2.)
Yesterday, I wrote about emotional honesty as a foundational aspect of walking in relationship with God. Job got this. Here is a man of God revealing an indispensable aspect of his relationship with God. In his pain, he said,
Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Father, you are good. You are kind. You are sovereign. In the midst of our trials and tests (which seem to suggest otherwise) give us the grace to persevere and to overcome for Your Name’s sake. Whether we are escorted around or through our trying situations, be glorified as the world sees us falling more deeply in love with you, more yielded than ever to the soverign, mysterious paths You lead us on. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Sep 10, 2014 | 37. Time
2 Corinthians 5:11 – 6:2
Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:2
I am curious what is coming to your mind as you read this verse; especially what comes to mind when you read the word “salvation”. The original language of the New Testament was greek and the word used was “sozo”. The definition of sozo is to; rescue, deliver, heal, protect, preserve, to make whole, to do well. When you profess to others that you have been saved, is this what you intend to convey? Or, like most of us, did you mostly mean, my sins have been forgiven and I have been saved “from” eternal punishment?
Wow! If that is what salvation includes, the gospel is not just good news. It’s great news! One pastor I track drills into his listeners that salvation is the forgiveness of sins; the deliverance from oppression and the healing of disease. Do you think he has gone too far? When (and if) we we wrestle with this tough question are we reasoning from experience or from scripture? If we are committed to reasoning from scripture, Jesus’ words can help us;
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because he has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year (time) of the Lord.
I believe that as God’s government increases (as He promises it will) and His kingdom comes (as we are instructed to pray), the Church will progressively discover that we have not just been saved from a gruesome end but saved into a glorious now. I believe we will discover as our minds are more and more renewed that our status in Christ is a considerably bigger deal than we have understood.
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry (task) of reconciliation…we are ambassadors, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
I do not know completely what Paul meant when he used the phrase,, “all these things” but given our sozo-sized understanding of “salvation”, it would probably not be outside the spirit of Paul’s intent to include; healing, deliverance and blessing as apart of what will be involved in reconciling the world to Himself. Those things seem perfectly compatible to Jesus’ inaugural words as well as to the heart of a loving God.
Father, may we lay hold of that for which you have laid hold of us. May we not discount Your intentions or our callings. May we fulfill Your intentions as agents of the eternal life entrusted to us. May Your blood not be wasted upon us nor Your Word return to You without accomplishing that for which it was sent. Help us to reconcile our thoughts with Yours. Save and deliver us from any limiting notions we have embraced of your kingdom. Upgrade our understanding and expereience from good to great. Upgrade our expectations from then to now. Amen.
