by RobertCummins | Nov 8, 2016 | 45. Tears
Where do our tears come from? According to scripture, only God and His image bearers weep: we can cry because we were created in His image. This is, in part, what distinguishes us from beasts. I am curious if evolutionary research has discovered that before Cro-Magnon there was Cry-Magnon man? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) Back to business.
We are all familiar with what causes our tears. Some of them come as we are surprised by something pure and beautiful or we are moved by an act of love or kindness. Some tears are joyful, but I suspect that God, who collects them, would confirm a disproportionate number of sorrowful tears to joyful. We know why we cry, but what brings tears to God’s eyes? I believe His role as a parent is the sources of His sorrow. “Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem!”
Jesus laments over a people created for relationship who instead spurned every overture of His love. The consuming fires of holiness and righteousness surely reside in God’s nature yet there is also a heart that is bound up, in love, with a people who are (at least for a time) hell-bent on rejecting him.
This passage reveals there are ultimate consequences to rejecting the love of God: “Behold, your house is being left desolate!” The temple was razed within 40 years of this statement. Jesus then bid His people a farewell until another day when their hearts would return to Him saying, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” The absence of God coincided with the sudden decimation of Jerusalem. I have wondered if the gradual erosion of America does not also coincide with God’s absence. Since we are systematically evicting him out of one arena of life after another, perhaps our nation is experiencing judgment as well. Unlike the visible plagues on Egypt, God’s agents of justice may be ten-fold and internal to our culture. Like Israel, God loves us but a parent must discipline His children. Being holy and a parent surely has brought a flood of God’s tears. I wonder if He laughs or cries at Fox and CNN.
Father, may your discipline be recognized for what it is, wherever it is. May our hearts learn wisdom from it. May we grasp that Your heart is to gather and to protect those You love. May we grieve over the things that grieve You. May our sorrow evolve into petitions. May we be the generation who recognizes and listens to your prophets. May we be a generation who recognizes Your overtures of love, even those embedded in discipline. May we come to our knees voluntarily. We pray that not one of Your tears be wept in vain. Let this be Lord. Please let this be.
by RobertCummins | Nov 7, 2016 | 45. Tears
Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. (Psalm 42:7)
The scriptures self proclaim their inspiration. This doesn’t mean that they are merely uplifting. Inspiration means God breathed, which implies there is more than just a credible history of God in scripture. This means the scriptures are coded with God’s DNA and must be compatible with us, who were made into God’s image and also animated by God’s breath. At some level we have a deep affinity with God’s Word. The depths of God’s Word call unto our own depths. God’s Word can awaken eternal realities within us. If we will look, we will find ourselves in the scriptures. That should be an adequate primer for our pop quiz: Which of the following descriptor(s) of God is the least compatible with the others? God is: a) omniscient b) omnipotent c) holy d) omnipresent e) emotional or d) sovereign? If you chose “e,” you are in good company.
How conscious are we that the God who spoke galaxies into existence also has feelings? If God has emotions, what are they and what triggers them?
As He entered Bethany, Jesus was met by some who believed He was the Messiah and by others who did not. Sadly though, both groups were of the opinion that the One who could have done something about this tragedy hadn’t. This only added to the pain of His followers. Is this sounding familiar? The tears of believers can double in volume since their God, who can prevent the pain, often doesn’t. When this happens, our only consolation is that: “Jesus wept.”
While it is short, this sentence reveals that our God weeps with us, making it one of the most powerful of all revelations about Him. What disturbed Jesus so deeply, eventually causing Him to cry was His acute awareness that our incomplete understanding of Him often adds to our sorrow. He had come to earth to present good news—not to add sorrow upon sorrow. I think it grieves God when we feel He has shorted us in any way. He surely understands, but I believe it still troubles Him (for our sake) when we perceive Him as “late” or as a “no-show.” That Jesus is “a Man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief,” endears Him to me as much as any other truth about Him.
This story gives me hope in another way. It reveals that God can also surprise us by being ahead of our expectations. The sisters didn’t anticipate seeing their brother again until Resurrection Day. Instead they witnessed a miracle and saw their brother within the hour.
I think I do better in my walk of faith when I keep some of the larger timing issues in perspective, such as: 1) The days I will live on earth are numbered; the ones I will live in heaven are not. 2) I ultimately have no control over time, so I need to steward it very responsibly and very open-handedly. 3) While there will be a Resurrection Day, today, regardless of my perception, is the day of salvation—forgiveness, healing, and deliverance.
Lord, that You have wept for us adds a new dimension of Your compassions, which are fresh each morning and will never fail. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Nov 15, 2015 | 45. Tears
Tears – Psalm 56:8-13
My wife and I were worshipping at Bible Temple in Portland, Oregon. It was 1996 and the Toronto Blessing, as it was called, had gone viral. Churches, with Pentecostal leanings, all over the world, were being energized by the Holy Spirit in ways most evangelicals would never believe. However, the great evangelical radio talking heads had caught wind of some abuses and condemned the whole thing as demonic. Well of course it was demonic – people were laughing in church!
I had experienced enough and read sufficiently in the New Testament to know stranger things than laughter had happened among believers. Hanegraaff and McArthur could handcuff God to their interpretations of the written word if they wanted but I was recalling chapters 2 in the books of both Joel and Acts.
We had made the trip with our pastor and his wife as a reconaissance mission, asking ourselves, “Should we accommodate this phenomena in our local church?” I personally was quite open to a little laughter. In fact, given the gravity of life in our local church, I was 110% open to anything light-hearted. I was ready to laugh. Bring it on!
This church was huge! They even had a balcony and overflow rooms. There were hundreds of people in attendance. Many had come to receive whatever God had for them. We were on the third row. The time of worship was unlike anything I had known. I felt safe. I poured my heart out to God in songs that reflected my hunger to know Him intimately. While I was awaiting the acclaimed laughter something else began churning within me. As I worshipped, it was as though a valve was being opened in my heart. It was apparently a water valve.
For reasons I still cannot explain, I began to weep. Something powerful was rumbling in the depths of my being. The trickle soon became a torrent and I became something of a spectacle. I wasn’t having sad thoughts or necessarily happy ones. The joy of the Lord was supposed to be my strength but my knees had just buckled. I was coming unglued… publicly.
The church quarterback had to call an audible and somehow accommodate myself and a few others who were being affected. The play? An alter call. Not unlike a Billy Graham invitation, the announcer asked if the two people now holding me up, might please haul me to the alter. I’m sure the coach was hoping God could do something for me because he and the staff had not seen anything quite like this.
For a good 10 minutes I wept (loudly) as worship music played just above my head. I was conscious of no one. I made no attempt to stop the flow. As far as I knew, this was the peace that surpasses all understanding – on steroids! A few men gathered around me. Given the volume of tears, I’m sure they had high expectation, “This fellow must have surely cheated on his wife then murdered the neighborhood!” I may have disappointed them because I had zero conviction of any specific sins nor did I feel the weight of my sinful nature.
You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? (Psalm 56:8)
While I still weep upon occasion, I haven’t flooded anybody out in a while. What drawer does a person file something like this in? The 1996 Anxiety Attack? The Portland Mental Breakdown? “The Oregon Trail’s End? I actually have filed this away in my “Mystery” file with a few footnotes.
Portland Footnotes
David had his wanderings and so do we. Our wanderings are not just from one geographical point to the next. They are from helplessness to strength and back again. They are from one job to another, from one relationship to another. They may be from obscurity to honor or from riches to rags. Our wanderings, from dust to dust, are myriad. While our mental notes are sketchy, our hearts miss nothing. All the joys and sorrows of our wanderings are recorded. Our hearts remember and so does the Holy Spirit.
And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:27)
The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out. (Proverbs 20:5)
My Portland takeaways were; 1) The Holy Spirit is unpredictable. 2) There is a lot going on within us that we don’t see or understand. 3) Depression is un-cried tears. 4) I can’t spend my life chasing God. I must find Him where I live.
My community has heard me drone on about the inner life – this place where our hearts and the Spirit live together in an intimate and mysterious relationship. They have heard me espouse stillness and contemplation. They have heard my recommendations of the Blue Book and scriptural meditation. Why do I keep circling back on these ideas? Because they have proven to be meaningful pathways of honoring the unseen realities that govern life.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23 NIV)
While, being with God, may sound plain vanilla it is within that idea, I make space for God. More accurately, it is the space He has made for me, in Christ – God’s mystery. This space is not limited by geographic location and it is not constrained by time.
For in Christ we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)
We can partake of God’s presence in each moment of our lives if we don’t tie His hands, demanding laughter or goosebumps, or expository preaching, radio prophets or a good worship team. It is in the simplicity of my heart, while presuming upon His, that I have been able to best celebrate the limitless heights and depths of who God is and the particulars of what He is saying. MwM has been my experience of dipping into the well and drawing up something that is hopefully alive for myself and those whom I love.
While I hope it has been a refreshment – even more than that, I pray it has been an example for some. We must all taste and see that the Lord is good. He is much closer than we realize.
Father, pour out Your Spirit on all people that Your sons and daughters will prophesy, that Your old men will dream dreams and Your young men see visions. Teach us the mystery of encountering You in the hear and now in body, soul and spirit. Let it be.
by RobertCummins | Nov 14, 2015 | 45. Tears
Tears – 2 Kings 20:1-6
In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.'” Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Return and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.”‘”
My insurance agent – the actuary prophet, informs me that at 62, fifteen years is the statistical remainder of my days. This authoritative word registered with me. I vigorously began setting my house in order. A few friends, seeing my burst of energy, asked if I hadn’t received a bad prognosis. I quickly set the record straight; I told them I wasn’t dying. But later I realized that wasn’t quite true. I am. In fact, we all are.
With the aid of a few wise counselors, I have been putting my house in order – gathering important information into one place. I have also been working to keep my uncle Sam out of the estate. (His stewardship has not impressed me in the least.) And while it cannot be bindingly written into any trusts or wills, I am praying my heirs will be wise stewards in behalf of God’s kingdom.
Unlike Hezekiah, I haven’t asked God to add any years to my life but I have asked him to help me make the most of the ones I have left. In part, my burst of energy is an answer to this specific prayer. I believe my recent flurry is also a result of God putting his house in order.
Each Christian is a dwelling place of God, a tabernacle of his presence. As pre-Christians our houses were vacant. However, when we asked Jesus to enter as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit took up residence in our hearts, making them his home. However, the Spirit as a mere occupant is a limiting idea. Something much greater than a tenant-landlord contract has been inked up between us and God.
When God enters the temple of our hearts, a joining of his Spirit and our takes place. This is how we are born again. We don’t become his children through any activity; neither confirmation nor baptism makes us God’s children. We become his offspring through rebirth by faith. In his children, the DNA of divine origin is awakened; spiritually, we once again bare his image.
The original plan in Adam died in Eden. In Christ, it is resurrected wherever we live. As a tiny mustard seed, a new kingdom genesis has begun in the hearts of his children – it is the very life of God. Our foundational makeup has been restored. Our hearts, the well spring of life, have been purified. Living water is now in us! God puts his house in order by placing his kingdom in us, in Christ. His kingdom has come and is coming. God is always putting his house in order.
Hezekiah reminds us we are all mortally ill. We may pray for additional years and get them but they are to no avail unless our houses are in order. We begin by making sure God’s life is in us. Are we born again? We maintain our hearts by recognizing his kingdom is within us. Is Jesus our Lord? Whatever time we have left is a sacred thing. God has entrusted this time to us for the sake of his kingdom – a realm without time.
Father, drain away our tears of bitterness. May your life flow from our inner most being. Whatever the cost, put your house in order that we may present to you hearts of triumphant wisdom. Defend our hearts for the sake of your kingdom. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Nov 13, 2015 | 45. Tears
Tears – Luke 7:36-50
Now one of the Pharisees was requesting Him to dine with him, and He entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. And there was a woman in the city who was a sinner; and when she learned that He was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster vial of perfume, and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet and anointing them with the perfume. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.
Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.
If Jesus were combative, he might have picked up the 2×4 of correction and said …
And … if you were a true shepherd of Israel you would know who I was and that it was precisely this sort of person I came for.
But Jesus knew a thousand well placed blows would not alter this Pharisee’s thinking. What is it about a religious spirit that causes such a total black-out of self awareness? How does it strip one of empathy and equip them to judge? Have you ever been guilty of this? I have.
Jesus: Simon, I have something to say to you. Simon: Say it, Teacher.
I went through a season where Jesus had been saying, “Rob. I have something to say to you.” But I did not have ears to hear. For the record, the way God has most commonly spoken to me is over time and through process. A season of threadbare emotions led me to believe Jesus was trying to say something! The intensity of my inner storm suggested this something might be significant.
I had heard the voice of God through scripture. I had discerned it through circumstances and, on one occasion, even heard an hour’s worth, of inaudible, yet brilliantly clear words in my spirit. However, on this occasion, I was about to hear God speak through others. First, there was the doctor who asked me, “Mr. Cummins, did you know your life is being driven by anger?” My response; “What?!“ Then there was the prophetic guy who told me, “You are filled with religion, aren’t you?” My response; “What?!” Finally there was the counselor who said, “You really do not know who you are, do you?” I was at the end of myself. My response; “No, apparently I am clueless.” It was at this point in the process that my heart said …
Go ahead Teacher. Please, just say it.
It would be nice if we could hear Jesus just saying it earlier, sparing everyone the wear and tear but that would preclude process, and Jesus, I have learned, is keen on process. In a life he is transforming into the image of his son, the heart is both the battle ground and the promised land. For our heart’s sake, (and Christ’s), he uses process to enable us to see and take ownership of that thing inhibiting intimacy – God’s supreme objective. For some (like me), just hearing and presumedly obeying, would shortchange the opportunity we have, in process, to know him and his ways. I didn’t understand what the doctor, the prophet or the counselor were saying. I just held those odd words in my heart, wondering if they would ever make sense.
I have told the story elsewhere of The Great Loader Bucket Incident – one of the events the Lord arranged to show me my heart. The scene was no less a spectacle than Simon and the Sinful Woman, except that hers was admirable. Mine was absolutely deplorable. While tears of repentance streamed from this broken woman’s eyes, oaths and curses spewed from my angry and indignant heart, directed at a well-meaning and undeserving friend. As the mushroom cloud faded, my heart eventually said …
Oh Father! Now I see what you mean. I am angry and religious. Please keep speaking. You have my full attention…………… This is going to hurt isn’t it?
Some will read this and think, “Poor chap. All his reading has driven him mad.” Others understand and are still asking the question; “How do I distinguish between judgement and discernment? Between a critical self-righteous spirit and an honest, Spirit-led one?” Again …
What is it about a religious spirit that causes such a blackout of self awareness? How does it strip one of empathy and equip them to judge?
In a sense I am exposing the religious spirit in each MwM post. I have to. The Lord exposed it in me. It’s my story. However, a condensed response would be that, in my sin, like Adam, I had fashioned my own fig leaf of a belief system which protected me from prolonged exposure to God, others and myself. From my hiding places, I had learned to live in compliance to religious standards and the fear of my insecure heart. And, most impressively, I had done it all in Jesus’ name with scriptural support! These are the types of things I learned over time and through process. These are the things I believe God has spoken to me.
I entered this season discouraged because I did not hear my father’s voice. I exited it knowing he had been speaking all along. That was large because, in the culture I came from, God delivered important words, by important people in concise sentences with thus-sayeth-himself unction. I exited this season of process having encountered God. I had asked the teacher to say it and he had.
The fruit of this encounter has been revolutionary. I am far less inclined to label someone as a this or a that. I am also more inclined to empathize, knowing this or that person’s plight, like mine is Garden-variety sin and religion. Jesus’ words and my experience concur – the bonds of deceit are tighter with religion than sin because an outer religious life is in compliance while the heart (where life originates) is filled with dead men’s bones. Religion is extra deceitful because it serves as an institutionally approved substitute for authentic relationship with God.
“A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?” Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.”
There are many among us who have asked Jesus into our hearts. Upon asking, some of us knew our debt was at least 500 denarii. Others prayed the prayer, thinking theirs was about 5. Since empathy is realized and tears are spilled proportional to perceived debt, my prayer for us all is…..
Father, help us to understand we are all in the “500 Plus” club and that any tendency to pick up a stone, as opposed to shedding a tear, keeps our hearts aloof from you and others. In your kindness, show us how deeply indebted we are to you and to others. Show us our qualifications as the chiefs of sinners who, by your great mercies, have been enabled to stand with boldness and joy in your most holy presence. May we live the balance of our days repaying to both the deserving and undeserving, and especially to you, our indebtedness of love. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Nov 12, 2015 | 45. Tears
Tears – Hebrews 5:7-10
In the days of His flesh He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.
What accounted for all this emotion and intensity? Even though he asked if it might be avoided, his personal suffering was not the heaviest thing on his heart. It was our suffering. He knew we had been ravaged. He longed to deliver captives from the killing burdens of sin and religion. He saw how disease wracked men with pain, ultimately claiming their bodies. He also knew either eternal glory or catastrophe awaited every soul.
Rolling toward him in the Garden, Jesus saw a wave, accumulating all the horror and filth of sin, past, present and future. He knew this tsunami was headed straight for him and that he would be crushed by it.
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.
Jesus knew the more you see, the more you will need to cry. He grants that some will share his burden and know his tears. Even with darkness in view, he wants them to see the superiority of Light. He is the Light of this world. We are his children!
For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:5
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Phil 3:10
That God’s children have not been exempt from suffering is a mystery. Instead we are called to endure it and learn from it. It is not meant to crush us as it did him. It is meant to draw us to him and to teach us to abide in him. If he permits us to know the suffering of clear vision, he knows we cannot carry it alone. He desires we live in a state of continual dependency upon him, always casting the burden back upon him.
Father, in these brief days of our flesh, may we see and may we offer up, with passionate tears, our prayers and petitions to You – the One who has saved us from death, knowing that we have been heard because of your piety. Amen.
