The Bible is at times so grand and the plot so complex it’s sometimes difficult for most of us to gather details about God’s will for us. We rely on scholars and theologians to interpret passages but because of disagreement among scholars we are forced to choose which we feel is most correct. That’s why it’s good to take an overview of the scriptures to discern the context; I describe this view as a “helicopter view.”
During my time in the Army, situations on the ground became much clearer when viewed from a position that permitted a view of the entire operation, not just one small perspective on the ground. This was done by finding high terrain, using unmanned arial vehicles (UAV), or jumping in a helicopter and seeing first hand the big view. This helicopter view is important when studying single scriptures to better understand the intent of the writer at that time to the recipients. The same can be said concerning the complete collection of biblical collection of writings. So what’s the story?
My dearest cousin’s husband is dying. How odd that phrase when , in fact, we are all dying, just at different times. For an atheist the idea of death must be one of great loss and despair. To have as your only hope, “like the little dog rover, when you’re dead you’re dead all over,” would not be extremely comforting. I suspect most atheists don’t remind themselves of death very often. Yet, we are surrounded by it. Every day the local paper reports them in the “obit” section. I am very happy to report that my cousin’s family are not atheists and have a comfort available to them that is not the case for people that prefer to “go it alone” without God. There are days when my cousin’s husband just wants to go on and leave the old shell behind, but he lingers. Even in asking, “why,” we know, if we’re honest in our quest for the answer. I believe the answer is the one given by one actor to another in a movie I saw once. One asked the other on the occasion of leaving this life for the next, “It’s hard to let go isn’t it?”
Physical life is precious, it’s a gift of God, yet, eternal life is so much more a gift. The transformation from one to the other is a great mystery. In his great novel, “If Winter Comes”, A.S.M. Hutchinson describes how a young man named Freddie Perch who had just been killed in the war (WW I) came back to help his mother die. He was the type of son that would never allow his mother to even cross a road without him. And here he was to help his mother cross the greatest road in her life.
She was moaning…. That inhabitant of her body had done its preparations and now stood at the door in the darkness, very frightened. It wanted to go back. It had been very accustomed to being here. It could not go back. It did not want to shut the door. The door was shutting. It stood and shrank and whimpered there….. It was old Mrs. Perch that stood there whimpering, shrinking upon the threshold of that huge abyss, wide as space, dark as night …
Picture God in your mind…
If you’re like most of the people I’ve asked, you probably thought of some combination of a man in a gray beard floating on a throne in the clouds or a scowling judge glaring down from his judgment bench. Both are totally wrong. God has a presence in the world today, and how we see Him will determines how we see ourselves and how we see others.
Before we can establish how to see God today we need to explore how he was seen in the past. Bible accounts paint a picture of a God who made himself visibly present; initially for His benefit an eventually for ours.
“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day….” (Gen 3:8 NIV). I love to imagine what it was like in the garden of God when He physically walked among and enjoyed the beauty of his creation. To think about enjoying the presence of my creator in the unsurpassed beauty of his newly created earth is overwhelming to me.
In the garden that day Adam and Eve could not be found because they were hiding from God. They knew they had disobeyed and were ashamed of themselves and their appearance. This was the moment that separated us from God, but also set into motion a plan to redeem his creation and reestablish the perfection of His dwelling place. From that moment on God manifested Himself in various forms.
Recently I discovered a wonderful poem entitled “ The Universal Prayer” by Alexander Pope. In the tenth stanza Pope writes:
“Teach me to feel another’s woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.”
Perhaps Pope was inspired by Luke chapter 18 which mirrors his poem.
“ To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ’God I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ’God have mercy on me, a sinner. I tell you this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God” ( Luke 18: 9-13 NIV)
We should be very careful how we interact with our fellow travelers, for we are interacting with the personification of Jesus. How we treat others is how we treat Jesus. “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Col. 3:13).
Weighed in the Balances
By Lou David Allen
He fed the hungry,
Visited the sick,
Gave his money,
For a great cause.
But warm works
Came from a cold heart,
That would not
Forgive the sins of another,
And so he barely registered
On the Angelic Applause – O – Meter.
“And he measured its wall,
seventy-two yards, according to
human measurements, which are also
angelic measurements.
Rev 21:17
Lost, a terrible word. Rhoda, my lovely wife, was separated from her parents years ago at the Madri Gras parade in New Orleans. Years later, that memory is still poignant. If you have ever been lost, you will never forget it.
Bob Berman, in his column in the October issue of “Astronomy”, relates “A dozen cool facts.” One of them is that a neutron can live for more than 10 billion years as long as it stays in its place snuggled deep within its atom’s nucleus. But if it escapes, it will vanish in 10 ½ minutes, not even a blink compared to 10 billion years. Bob said one lesson that might be learned from this “cool fact” is that kids should stay home with their parents so they will never be lost. That’s pretty good advice, but I think there is more solid advice gained from this example. As God’s children we are safest when we stay close to Him no matter what happens in life. “Busting loose” from that safety net is not a wise thing to do. We will surely be lost.
In 1898 Lelia Morris wrote a beautiful hymn, “Nearer Still Nearer.” Her hymn speaks to staying close to God:
Nearer still nearer close to Thy heart
Draw me my Saviour, so precious Thou art;
Fold me, O fold me close to Thy breast,
Shelter me safe in that haven of rest,…
Nearer still nearer, while life shall last,
Till safe in glory my anchor is cast;
Thru endless ages, ever to be
Nearer, my Saviour, still nearer to Thee…
Why would we want to be anywhere else?
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. James 4:7-8 (NIV)
Photo by Chicago’s North Shore Conventions & Visitors Bureau.
“Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
The shortest and perhaps one of the saddest verses in the bible. The occasion was the death of a dear friend, beloved brother of Mary and Martha. Weeping for a friend – the human face of the Master – like us – grieving when death deals its horrific blow. In this case, though, Jesus knew He would raise Lazarus from death shortly. So why did He weep? Perhaps He was touched with Mary and Martha’s grief. Perhaps He was sad that His friend had to suffer through the pain of the death process. Perhaps He knew how happy Lazarus was, and He didn’t want to call him back to earth, far and away from Paradise.
Whatever the reason, Jesus was so moved that He mourned, deeply, for awhile. Even Jesus, with the universe at His beck and call suffered a period of deep, unfathomable grief. Grief of that magnitude cannot be hurried, cannot be wished away, can only be lived through. When grief becomes our lot, our friends, because they love us, want us to be whole again – like we were. They honestly think they know what is best for us, and sometimes it’s not. They want us back like we were before, and not only that, they want us back as soon as possible. What is difficult for those who haven’t taken residence on “Grief Mountain,” is that they have a hard time understanding that what we were before has forever changed. We do not have it in our power to return to what we were. We are different people, and eventually stronger for the Mountain we have ascended, but different. This difference is the by-product of an event we would never have chosen for ourselves, or even an enemy. We will be back, but not exactly the same, and it will take time, more time than some are prepared to invest is us. And that’s ok; we understand and love them anyway.
Please, and I hope you do, enjoy a poem I recently wrote that considers the foregoing thoughts.
THE JOURNEY
Good friend,
Please do not interrupt my flight,
For sometimes I alight
On leaves of loneliness,
Sometimes, on twigs of tears.
And please,
Do not try to catch my wings
As I try to pass,
For somewhere,
In the great Sometime,
I will alight again,
In a sweeter place, on better flowers.
And then I will be again, alright,
If you, dear friend,
Do not interrupt my flight.
Photo by LiebeDich http://www.flickr.com/people/liebedich/ used under Creative Commons agreement
In past years the dinner table at our house frequently rang out with the words “eat your peas!” We had the same plea of parents everywhere for our young ones to eat healthy food. Things changed on the occasion my youngest daughter Chera flat out refused. We spent the next hour proving our dominance over her by forcing her to eat them. We left the experience exhausted and emotionally drained. Then it occurred to us, the intent of our plea was to set a habit of good nutrition, it really wasn’t peas themselves that were the issue it was the benefit of the peas. Life-long devotion to health was our primary goal, how nutrition was delivered was secondary. We determined that it was impossible to achieve our primary goal if we forced the secondary.
Those who read scriptures from an “eat your peas” point of view find that God wants us to obey his commands (John 15:10). So we immediately start looking for a command checklist of do’s and don’ts to obey. Then we add traditions as commands to our checklist. We rationalize that if we force ourselves and others to obey everything on our checklist we will find the peace and love we seek.
Many of our church traditions today have adopted something similar to the original system of laws given by God to the Israelites. Under that system of laws I understand that 613 laws were commanded including 248 dos and 365 don’ts. The result of this system, generations of Israelites who couldn’t keep the commands and were not devoted to God. They were forced to “eat their peas” and despised it.
Jesus fulfilled the old law and placed a new law “in our hearts and in our minds” and made a new promise to believers. “By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. Hebrews 8:13 (NIV)
Like Angie and I did as young parents, if He wanted to, God could establish his dominance over us by forcing his commands. But we would likely leave the experience despising Him more than loving Him. By focusing on the secondary outcome of our love for God, that is, obedience to HIS commands, we risk missing the power of our primary goal lifelong whole-hearted devotion to God.
- Because God loves us, we love God
- Because we love God we do what pleases him
- Because Christ’s sacrificed for us we sacrifice for Christ
- Because we don’t HAVE to, we want to
The early church was dealing with this situation as Jews who became Christians were having trouble leaving their checklist of laws and traditions. The church in Galatia was struggling to place relationship with God over rules, so Paul wrote this to them:
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself….”So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. Galatians 5:13-17
So what does God want from us? The closest to a complete checklist under the “new law” is this:
- Love God more than anything else
- Love other people unconditionally
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV)
I want to be very clear to all Christians or those seeking the peace found in God through Christ. Putting love of God above all other things does not give us the “freedom to indulge the sinful nature” as Paul put it. He went on in the next sentences to give a test to discern if a life is lived “by the Spirit.”
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:19-25 (NIV)
The message is clear, if we love God with all our hearts there will be no room for things that are contrary to that love; the fruits of the Spirit will outflow from our hearts and we will bless those we love (everybody). Not because we have to, because we want to with all our hearts.
See also 2 John 1:6, John 14:2, John 15:10, 1 Corinthians 7:19, 1 John 2:3
Suggested Twitter posts related to this article:
Jesus abolished the old law and placed a new law “in our hearts and in our minds.” http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
Because God loves us, we love God http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
Because we love God we do what pleases him http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
The Christian checklist of commands: Love God more than anything, live others http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
We love God not because we have to, because we want to with all our hearts http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control http://ow.ly/tGRE #God #Christ #Bible
We love God we do what pleases him http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
Christ’s sacrificed for us we sacrifice ourselves for Christ http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
Because we don’t HAVE to, we want to obey God’s commands http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
Do you have a good friend? What a great blessing if you do! If you have several as I do, then you are many blessed. In the great movie, “A Wonderful Life”, the angel Clarence wrote in the book he left George, “ no man is a failure who has friends”. The wise Solomon said that there is a friend that can be even closer than a brother. I suspect that kind of friend is what we call a “true” friend.
Friends are the flowers of life – what a dismal place this would be without friends. Storms will come and go and when they do, friends are what carry us through when we’re weak and weary – too weak, too weary to take one more step. Shakespeare had Cassius say in his play, “Julius Caesar”, “ a friend should bear his friend’s burdens”. Perhaps Shakespeare was restating what the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatian Christians, “carry each other’s burdens…”. And what a blessing to have the Greatest Friend of all. “What a Friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear…..”.
I think the following poem by the great poet, Henry Van Dyke says so much of what a true friend is.
A MILE WITH ME
By Henry Van Dyke
O WHO will walk a mile with me
Along life’s merry way?
A comrade blithe and full of glee,
Who dares to laugh out loud and free,
And let his frolic fancy play,
Like a happy child, through the flowers gay
That fill the field and fringe the way
Where he walks a mile with me.
And who will walk a mile with me
Along life’s weary way?
A friend whose heart has eyes to see
The stars shine out o’re the darkening lea,
And the quiet rest at the end o’ the day,-
A friend who knows, and dares to say,
The brave, sweet words that cheer the way
Where he walks a mile with me.
With such a comrade, such a friend,
I fain would walk till journey’s end,
Through summer sunshine, winter rain,
And then? – Farewell, we shall meet again!
Every Sunday my family participates in a worship service at our community’s nursing home. On most Sunday’s we shake hands, hug necks, sing for the residents and listen to a message from the Word. On one particular Sunday morning I received so much more.
As I was preparing for the service an older lady wheeled herself towards me by carefully walking her feet in front of her chair. As I approached her with my best Sunday morning “glad to see ya” attitude she grabbed my arm, pulled it to her face and slowly pet me. She pulled me down close to her face and asked, “Is your name Scott?”
“No ma’am, my name is Greg. That’s Scott over there” I replied.
She continued, “This morning I let the cows and the dogs out into the pasture and they are trampling everything down in the field.”
Realizing her consciousness was based in a reality from years past, I mumbled faux words of agreement and encouragement. I was playing along to enhance her reality but beginning to pull away when she grabbed my arm again and said, “Is your name Robert?”
“No ma’am, my name is Greg.”
“Are you my son?”
“No ma’am,” I gulped, realizing engaging in further deception would likely lead to hurt. She continued with a new story about setting a match to the pasture and burning all of the trash, I didn’t catch the details being distracted by the mission of extracting myself from the situation saying something like “Ok, I understand, have a good day” while patting her gently on the back.
As I was walking away she called to me, cupping her hands around her mouth and calling in a loud whisper that came out like a fained yell “Hey, I love you.”
In a moment, my heart was broken.
Throughout the service I fixed my eyes on the precious sister and thought:
- Even when everything else is failing, Love is still present.
- My love had been superficial, based on my comfort and reality – not on hers.
Peter wrote about the love Christ intended for believers, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart” I Peter 1:22 (TNIV). The message is clear, Christians are purified by the blood of Christ and obedient faith in order to love each other so deeply, it never leaves regardless of the condition.
Later in his letter Peter continues, “… all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.” I Peter 3:8 (TNIV). Like he was writing these words directly to me I know my love in those moments was neither empathetic (like-minded), sympathetic, compassionate, or humble. Rather is was based on MY feelings, MY reality, and compassion for MY comfort – not humble at all. I suspect most Christians struggle to develop the kind of love Christ commanded when he answered the teacher of the law who asked him about the most important commandment:
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31 (TNIV)
Love God (check), love myself (check), love others (well…). Even though her mind was tricking her consciousness, the elder sister taught me two valuable lessons:
- Love deeply to the very end
- Love others as they are, not as I am
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- Even when everything else is failing, Love is still present http://ow.ly/rjrL
- Love deeply to the very end and love others as THEY are not as I am http://ow.ly/rjrL
- The elder sister cupped her hands and called in a loud whisper like a fained yell “Hey, I love you.” http://ow.ly/rjrL
- … all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble http://ow.ly/rjrL
- Christians are purified by the blood of Christ and our obedient faith in order to love each other deeply http://ow.ly/rjrL
- …you have purified yourselves…so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart http://ow.ly/rjrL
Down where we live it doesn’t snow much. When it does, we love it, well, most of us. The kids hope with the snow comes a snow day away from school. Most folks never lose their wonder at snow’s beauty and its nature of covering the most unsightly sights. Even a junkyard takes on a beauty not its own when snow falls and covers the old cars. Snow! Snow is a transformer of the ugly to the beautiful.
Lewis Carroll had Alice in “Through the Looking Glass” describe snow to her kitty this way.
“Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if someone was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, and that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ’Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’ And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about – whenever the wind blows – oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball of worsted to clap her hands. “And I do so wish it was true! I’m sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.”
