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
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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
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Because we don’t HAVE to, we want to obey God’s commands http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
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.”
You lied to me! Perhaps one of the harshest sentences in any language is that one. No one wants to be lied to, deceived, tricked or otherwise diminished by another. The other day Rhoda and I were waiting for my daughter at her house when we noticed a hummingbird poised at my granddaughter’s basketball goal. The goal is bright red and the little bird thought it had arrived at a great big red flower. After a moment it was gone – after figuring out it was not a real flower. It was one of those “ if only I had a camera” times.
Satan grows those great big red flowers for deceiving human hearts. “…your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour…”. (I Peter 5:8 TNV). He can also transform himself to make the real bad look real good. “…for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light”. (2 Cor. 11:14 TNV). Elizabeth Browning brilliantly depicted Satan’s nefarious ways in her poem, “Aurora Leigh”, when she wrote, “the Devil’s most devilish when respectable”.
How much trouble will Satan take to try to deceive us “hummingbirds”? Whatever it takes. He only quits trying when we draw close to God. When we stay close to the cross, he can’t come there. But, we must be ever vigilant. In the book of Revelation, chapter 2, John says that some folks simply do not know the depths of Satan. Yes, he is real and yes he wants “hummingbirds” to fall for the fake great big red flower. He desires all to follow him, not God.
Watch our for the great big red flowers! Several years ago I wrote a poem and I think it speaks to the issue of not being on guard against the wiles of Satan. In this case it ends tragically as it always will when one becomes a friend of Satan.
DONKEY FLATS
Two men met where two roads cross.
One man was old and one was young.
Where to, young sir?
Where do you go?
To Donkey Flats, sir.
Why there young man?
Men only go there when all is lost.
All is lost sir and I am lost too.
Everything is lost that I held dear.
Cards, drinking and women
Took wife, children and home.
So I’m going to Donkey Flats sir.
And I won’t be coming back.
We often describe our Christian life as a daily walk, which is an enduring example of how we dedicate every moment of every day to Christ. The good news is we walk in the light near to God which gives a guiding light and illuminates a Spiritual path to the comfort of eternal life. To discover the true depth of this good news we need to focus on things to come. In Revelation the new heaven and the new earth are described by John:
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Revelation 21:1, 21:3, 21:23-27 (TNIV)
For believers it’s almost overwhelming to think of the day we can walk in the light of the Lord. BUT WE ALREADY ARE!
The little English sparrow is a great success story. The insignificant little bird is actually not a sparrow, but a member of the weaver family of birds. Brought to America, probably as a stowaway on early ships, it took hold in the New World and became one of the most dominant birds we see. Jesus also spoke of sparrows, the sparrows of Jerusalem. He remarked in Matthew 10 that two of them sold for just a penny. Then He makes the astounding observation that not one of them falls to the ground apart from the Father. The implication is that not only does He know when the tiniest of His creation dies, He is there. Jesus is making the obvious thing obvious. If God loves His little sparrows like that, then how much more does He love His children? When we are in trouble, God comes to our rescue. The psalmist in Psalms 102 considers himself as a sparrow alone upon a housetop facing great danger. That’s a pretty good picture of a helpless and hapless individual. But in verse 17 he says the Almighty would regard the prayer of the destitute. No one is ever alone who has his Father.
Listen to an audio presentation on this topic here
On May 29th, my darling little granddaughter, Sierra died. She fought a most heinous form of cancer for eighteen months. She died bravely, the way I want to when it’s my turn. I was with her at one o’clock in the morning when she breathed her last. Those eighteen months would take a volume to chronicle which I will never do. But, through all the hours of weeping and happiness, yes, happiness, there is something that I learned that is on my heart to share. Maybe it will help you, I hope so.
People usually deal with dying and death, particularly a tragic one, in pretty much the same way. They believe that no matter the severity of the illness, prayer will more than likely change the outcome. Their core belief is that God will interdict on behalf of the sick person and heal them. Modern medicine does what was impossible only a short time ago, people live who would have died then. These medical marvels are a gift from God.
But what about those who are not healed? And no matter how many, how long or how fervent the prayers, they die. When this happens some will blame God for “taking” their loved one. How could an all knowing, all powerful God let theirs die and let another live? It’s a puzzle that begins to eat at the very center of the believer’s heart. Well meaning friends might say, “If we had only had more faith”, or some other horrific statement, the sick one would have been made well. This is a satanic phrase and even though well intended strikes terror deep into the soul. How guilty would you be if your loved one died because you “didn’t have enough faith?” Yes, we should have faith, enough to move a mountain, as Jesus said, but this faith is not for physical mountains, but spiritual ones.
“All the glory is due you! You are the Holy One! You’re the One, You’re the only One!”
I listen as my family and I sing these words. We sit together as one unit, one band of people suffering through a tragic loss; if you only knew what we had been through. You wouldn’t believe it if you could hear us singing these words with all of our hearts. You wouldn’t believe that just a little over a month ago, we lost one of our family members to cancer. A little girl, we loved her without measure and now she is gone. We are upset and we do struggle through life sometimes. However, you would never believe it if you could hear us now. We hold our heads high as we show God that we trust His judgment. “You’re the One, You’re the only One!” We know it, we believe it, and we sing it with pride… together.
Chelsea Chaney is a 17 year old Christian who loves God and Christ. She is a leader and inspiration to her family and friends. In addition to being active in the church, she is the captain of the high school varsity cheer squad, senior class president, student council president, book club president, and publicist for the Spanish club.
And my daughter…
He was so proud of it. The lines were right, the joints fitted, the wood finished to a glow. The boat drafted better than any other and its beauty inspired use. He could remember it now looking at the vessel before him. Where had the beauty gone? The years had worn it so slowly he hadn’t even noticed. Now weathered, dull and leaking, the boat’s original beauty was only a faint remembrance…
Growing up in the church a lot of time was spent on two categories of sin, namely sins of commission, those things God tells us not to do but we do anyway, and sins of omission or those things God tells us to do but we ignore. These are important categories but with a warning: if we focus on a checklist of things we should and should not do, we by our nature grow to rely on OUR goodness and not on God’s. Jesus clearly stated over and over that his disciples would become children of God and be consumed with a relationship with God through him.
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37(NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! John 3:1(NIV)
Over and over the Word of God explains Christians are about relationship not rules. Our obedience (omitted and committed) is because we love God and value His presence in our lives. We want to please Him. Because of this, I believe there is a far more dangerous category of sin, attrition. Attrition is any activity that causes a slow drift away from our relationship with God. The dangerous thing is that it can take the form of just about anything, including religion. Sometimes seemingly harmless activities over a lifetime (or less!) lead us to a point we are separated from God and don’t even recognize it until it’s too late.
We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Hebrews 2:1 (NIV)
