“ELF-LIKE ENTHUSIASM” – Dec 27

“On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”  Matthew 7:21-23

My family and I fulfilled what has become one of our Christmas traditions.  We watched “Elf”.  One of our favorite scenes is when Buddy learns that Santa will be coming to the Gimbel’s department store.  Buddy’s pure enthusiasm upon hearing of Santa’s pending arrive is contagious.

Elf the movie:  Santa Announcement

The divergent realms of religion and spirituality all proclaim to know God with as much enthusiasm and confidence as Buddy the Elf.  They shout out with certainty that they know God.  Their great works are provided as proof that they really do know and have experienced God.  However, Jesus tells us that they will be proven as false as a Santa that smells like meat and cheese.

Jesus teaches us that we must know Him and also be known by Him.

There are many voices who encourage us to explore the spiritual.  Some deem all spiritual experiences equal.  Others preach a religion devoid of Christ.  Others have cast Christ as a good teacher, a prophet, the brother of Satan, or a mere created mortal.  Yet, they all claim to know God.

Enthusiasm does not make us known by God.
Extreme devotion to a belief does not merit recognition by God.
Even an intellectual knowledge of Jesus does not obligate acknowledgement by God.

There are few things more tragic than a life led in devotion to a false belief.  We are told that there will be many devoutly spiritual people, even professing Christians, who will be rejected because they are not known by Christ.  They were never one of His.

Jesus knows who are His own.  He is the good shepherd – He knows His sheep.

I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.  (John 10:14-15)

Reza Vaziri / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Jesus calls out to His sheep.  His sheep are the ones who know His voice and follow Him.  They are the ones who believe that He is the one Shepherd who laid down His life for them.  They are the individuals who trust His leading as the Shepherd of the one true flock.

The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.  (John 10:3-4)

The ones, who change the gospel of Jesus Christ, proves that they are not one of His sheep because they don’t know His voice.  They don’t believe that He is the one shepherd.  They don’t believe in the one flock of God as revealed in the Bible.

We must be very careful of the voices that we listen to in this confused and deceitful world.  There are many voices shouting, with great enthusiasm, a false spirituality that will only lead to rejection by the one true God.

We can easily recognize these false voices because they lie about who the one Shepherd is and what He did for us.  Don’t be led astray by enthusiasm or miraculous works.  We all need to listen to the voice of the one Shepherd and follow Him alone regardless of all the noise going on around us.

PRAYER: O Lord, thank you for calling out to me.  Thank you for drawing me to yourself.  Thank you for being a shepherd to me.  Father, attune my ears to your voice.  Help me to discern your leading from all the false teachings vying for my attention.  Teach me to set my eyes upon You, my one Shepherd.  Enable me to trust your leading and create in me a desire to follow You wherever You may lead.  I pray this in the precious name of your Son,  Jesus Christ.   Amen.

“CHRISTMAS COEXISTENCE” – Dec 25

“Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”” Genesis 11:4

What is the Greatest Threat to Mankind?

Drugs
Intolerance
Global Development
Genocide, International Conflict
Wealth Distribution, Destructive Technologies
Power, Global Environmental Degradation
Religion

I listen to solutions proposed by political, business, technological, and cultural leaders.  I have read books and articles by academics, think-tanks, and journalists.  I rarely hear any new solutions and every solution has an ancient commonality.

It was this familiar commonality that was included in Jamais Cascio’s proposed solution which he discussed in a TED talk entitled “Tools for a Better World”.

We can save the planet, but we can’t do it alone – we need each other.  Nobody’s going to fix the world for us, but working together, making use of technological innovations and human communities alike, we might just be able to fix it ourselves. ~ Jamais Cascio

The ancient solution is the thread in various forms of  “Let Us Come Together”.

On one of the TED conversation strings, Kieran Sharp posed the ancient solution in response to the question, “How do we create a better world for all of us and future generations?”.

One thought I have had recently is to unite 3 areas of society to help lead a real change.  If we could bring the current government, economic and political leaders into one group, spiritual and religious leaders of all religions and spiritual directions in to another, and scientists ecologists and environmentalists in to a third. In this system, we could possibly make it that these three sections of leadership must agree upon all decisions made for the planet unanimously. ~ Kieran Sharp

I am reminded of the quote:  Our true nationality is mankind. ~ H.G. Wells

Mankind has always thought that if we can just eliminate the issues that separate us then we will be able to coexist.  Nations separate people.  Cultures separate people.  Ignorance separates people.  Religion separates people.

If we can just come together then we will be able to solve our greatest problems.
If we can just come together then we will not hurt each other.

Zé.Valdi / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Coming together always seems to play a role in mankind’s solution to eliminate what we perceive as the greatest threat to our existence.

If we can come together, we will be able to solve a lot of problems.  The removal of the issues that separate can be an excellent and necessary stage in the solution of many problems.  Learning to coexist can be an admirable goal.  However, the coexistence of people of different nationalities, races, and religions is not mankind’s greatest problem.

Mankind’s greatest problem is that we
cannot coexist with a righteous God.

The people of the land of Shinar coexisted.  They had the same language.  The call for unity when out and they came together to build a city of renown.  Their unity was so great that God acknowledged that, “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” (Genesis 11:6b)

Probably the first example of large scale human coexistence was shattered by God.

So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.  Genesis 11:8

God destroyed the coexistence of the Shinarites (people in the land of Shinar) because it contributed to their pride related to independence and disobedience.  God knew that the greatest need of the people of Shinar was not their coexistence.

Their greatest problem was coexisting with a righteous God.

Their act of coexistence was actually an act of disobedience against God.  That is often the result when mankind makes coexistence their primary solution.  It gets stated like this comment in the same TED conversation strings about “How do we create a better world for all of us and future generations?”.

Look at America and look at your question. Religion is the problem. God tells a preacher to tell his congregation that jobs for white people are more important than the water and air we need to survive and an entire political party begins working on destroying the environment in the name of God. God tells a preacher that women are lesser beings and not entitled to equal rights – and is inferior to a fertilized cell – and women’s rights are set back 50 years almost overnight. God tells a preacher that homosexuals choose their gender attraction and homophobia sprouts up. Christianity is frequently referred to as the American Taliban.  It has become so aggressive in the last 20 years, that I fear it. These people are so cruel that they don’t honor our Constitution now. What will cause them to honor some other laws that their God doesn’t like. ~ Grace Greene

I can understand Ms. Greene’s concerns.  She attributes to Christianity all of the responsibility for preventing a unity that would solve the problems that she perceives as greatest. For many people like Ms. Greene, toleration is their religion.

Toleration is the best religion. ~ Victor Hugo

Coexistence, that ancient solution to create a better world, will inevitably collide with a God determined to separate a people for Himself.  Christmas represents this fundamental problem for the people of the world.  Many believe that Jesus came to bring peace on earth for all people.  They think that the message of love that Jesus preached will bring about a coexistence of all people.  The peace that came with Christ was for those who God is pleased with.(Luke 2:14)  The coming of Christ did not usher in an era where the people of all religions and atheists will coexist as if that was the solution to our greatest problem.

Jesus came to transform people.  When Jesus saves people, He separates them.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.  I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.  Matthew 10:34-35

The Gospel of Jesus Christ separates people;
it always has and it always will. 

The gospel calls all men and women to repentance.  Repentance requires that we acknowledge our unrighteousness and separation from a righteous God.  Those who reject the gospel hate to be told that they are unrighteous and need a savior.  They hate the concept of needing to turn from the sins that they love.  They hate the division that acknowledging sin causes.

Repentance is not just the way into salvation, it is the way of salvation. ~ Timothy Keller

We, as followers of Christ, are called to be peacemakers (Matt. 5:9) but we need to be careful about the peace that we are trying to make.  The creation of a peaceful coexistence does not help those who do not have a spiritual peace with God.  A peace worked through by the ancient trap of coexistence is not a real peace.  During this season of Christmas, we should be intentional peacemakers for the peace that was ushered in by the coming of the Son of God.  However, the great joy of Christmas is that we have been saved from the greatest threat to our existence.

Christ told us how to be peacemakers of separation in a world clinging to their solutions of coexistence.  We are to speak the truth in gentleness and meekness, with mercy and a pure heart, and a willingness to be reviled and persecuted.  (Matt. 5:2-11)

It is a message that the world needs to hear, especially on Christmas.  Mankind can now coexist with a righteous God, through His Son, Jesus Christ.  However, we should not be surprised by the push back that we receive when Christmas crushes any hope of the coexistence of mankind.

Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  Matthew 25:32-33

Coexistence is an illusion.  We can either coexist with mankind or we can coexist with God.  We cannot coexist with both.  The choice we make is a reflection of what we deem our greatest threat to be.

PRAYER: O Lord, thank you for sending your Son into this world to solve the greatest threat to my existence – my fallen, sinful heart.  Thank you for making a way that I can coexist with You.  Lord, I pray for all of those who hate the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I pray that You will open their eyes.  I pray that You will show them that the separation that comes from acknowledging sin in true repentance is truly good news of great joy to all people.   I pray this in the precious name of your Son,  Jesus Christ.   Amen.

NO NAILS KEPT HIM THERE- Nov. 30th

“…behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said,”No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” Joshua 5:13b-14a

As part of my Bible reading plan, I am reading through the Gospel of Luke. My apprehension of the coming passion week is growing as it always does when I read through one of the gospels.  It is for the same reason that I find it difficult to watch the Passion of Christ.  I find it difficult to contemplate Jesus being spit upon, curse, beaten, flesh torn, and cruelly killed on a cross. I don’t like to ponder that treatment of my Lord.

However, I have to remind myself that Jesus was not subjected to that treatment. Jesus did not try and get away causing the Jews and Romans to conduct a manhunt. He willingly went to Jerusalem with the full intention of receiving that treatment. Jesus was the first man that the Romans did not force to be crucified.

Jesus allowed them to do it.

The cross is most meaningful to me, when I remember that it was not nails that kept Jesus suspended from those timbers. Jesus kept himself there – willingly.

We must remember all of who Jesus is. Yes – he is the compassionate, patient, long suffering, Lamb of God.  He is all those things while he is the commander of the Lord’s army. When Joshua met him, he had his sword drawn. Joshua’s response was to fall on his face and worship him. Demons feared him because they knew exactly who he was and what he could do to them.

John got to see Jesus clearly:

“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.  His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is ‘The Word of God’. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses… He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.” Rev. 19:11-16

That is who Joshua met. That is who was standing before the Pharisees and Pilate. That is who was hanging from that cross. Do you really think that anything in this universe, heaven or earth, could have kept him pinned with iron and wood?

Jesus, the commander of the Lord’s army, willingly allowed created men to spit upon him, to curse him, to inflict pain upon his real flesh, to crucify him; he sought out that treatment, in obedience to his Father, for me and for you. That is a treasure beyond my comprehension.

The one called “Faithful and True” calls me his friend (John 15:15). How can that be? It is a friendship that I don’t deserve and could never rise to. My gratitude and amazement can only be expressed in tears of joy.

There is nothing more important to me than that friendship. May it be the full expression of my life. (John 15:14).

PRAYER: King of kings, Lord of lords – praise your Name…praise your Name… praise your Holy and Righteous Name. You are Faithful and True; you are The Word of God; you are the Commander of the Lord’s army…you are the King of kings and Lord of lords.  Praise your name.  You are my King… you are my Lord… you are my Friend.  Thank you beyond any words I can express…all praise be to your Name.    Amen