I also have it on good authority that it will happen.

Ah, I know what some of you are thinking: the you who think you know me, that is. You’re thinking I already am one of most loving people you know, but the trouble is, you don’t know me, know me. You can fool some of the people some of the time…

And those of you who do know me, well, I see that knowing little smirk on your faces! I have glommed onto your thoughts like a blind man reading braille, also. Those smiles tell me that you’ve been waiting a long time for me to see the Light—that I am like the Frost poem, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” where the subject still has “miles to go…”

Yeah, I’m onto you.

But back to my stated position. I have it on good authority that what I seek will come to be, since I have come to understand prayer as more finding the will of God on a matter and praying that back to Him, rather than a monologue of wishes on a premeditated list. It’s clear to me that this salvation journey I am on includes His bringing me into fullness. Into glory. Or, as Paul put it to the Ephesians: ‘to grow me up to the Full Man, which is Christ’ (my paraphrase from 4:13).

That, o friends o’ mine, tells me that it is His intention that I live as He lived, walk as He walked, obey as He obeyed and love as He loved. And so, as I leeched onto His will for me, I decided to pray in expectation that He will do this thing in me. Granted, He’s got some work to do.

It’s a tall order, and I have fallen woefully short.

Granted.

But back to the premise. Er, the promise. When we “pray the prayer of the kingdom” (as Evan Roberts coined it), and learn the Father’s will, we can have the assurance that what we ask is truly from Him and our asking will lead to its doing (see Matt 6:10; Matt 18:18-20; Mark 11:22-24*).

So…I aimed for the fences with my asking.

I just said to myself: Why go little, when you can go TALL?

Here’s what my journal said just the other day:

“Father, You know what I ask for me: I desire to have all envy, jealousy, bitterness, forgiveness, vengeance and offense redeemed out of me! I desire to be the most loving person people will ever meet—whether they like me or not. Whether persecuted, I bless. Ignored, I rejoice. Overlooked or bypassed, I praise. Despised, I love. Hurt, I forgive. Treated discourteously, I return kindness. Belittled (even in attitude), I submit. Forsaken, I triumph.

“Lord Jesus, I trust You to save me from myself. Your work is finished, which is my set hope for my “finished” course. I turn to You to do the impossible. With God, all things are possible. Even these hopeless, endemic, pandemic issues in my flesh.

“You will answer this prayer of mine because I know I pray Your will. You will bring me all the way into glory, victoriously, not by the skin of my teeth…”

It occurs to me that my birthday is in four days. Hint, hint. I pretty much know what I want and I have stated it here. There is no hope it will be done by September 3rd (did I mention that was my birthday?), but I have every hope it will be done in time to see Christ Jesus, for “when I see Him, I will be like Him, for I shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2)

I just want a head start.

*These each presume the pray-er has already learned the will of God

I have been grievously burdened for some time about the gospel that is being peddled in the western church. Some have called it an ‘incomplete’ gospel in that it presses for decisions but leaves off the necessity of discipleship. I believe it is not only incomplete, but deceptive in that it offers an unreliable assurance to those who are trusting in it. It falls in the category of what Paul warned against:

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! (Galatians 1:8, NASB)

Then Paul repeats the last refrain just for good measure in verse 9.

We’ve made the Gospel message a veritable stroll down the Roman’s Road instead of a narrow road that leads one out of Vanity Fair. We place so much emphasis on “It is finished!”* that we tragically ignore the admonition to “finish the course” with a fixed belief**. There are entire generations who believe they have heaven because they prayed a prayer and made a decision for Christ. Where are the testimonies of the abiding life? I’d like to see John 15 become a bigger part of the discussion on eternal life than the Roman’s Road. All of First John, too.

Why not Mark 1:14,15? Or the rest of the ‘Red Letters’?

There’s a ridiculous notion out there that says the Gospels can only be applied to a particular audience for a limited period of time. Sorry, but the dispensationalism of Darby and Scofield have led to the diluted, deconstructed gospel we have today. Let’s do, as Scot suggests, “start all over again.”

With the Gospel of King Jesus. The Gospel that Jesus—and His disciples (including Paul***)—preached.

*It most certainly is finished on our Lord’s end, having secured the means, way and endurance for our salvation, but it remains for us to enter in by faith and determined belief—all of which comes with the empowerment of grace to accomplish
**Such a life can only be lived by drawing on grace that empowers us to abide in ‘this other life’, not by human effort, and certainly not by the means of religious piety
***Acts 20:25; 28:30,31

Something happened last week. I went on a retreat with an amazing spiritual director / teacher named Jan Johnson. By the end of our time together I realized that I’m done with living like a Christian.

• I’m done serving the poor.
• I’m done going the extra mile.
• I’m done being a husband who strives to love his wife as Christ loves the church.
• I’m done visiting the sick.
• I’m done opening up my life to Christian community.
• I’m done loving my neighbor.
• I’m done living with integrity.
• I’m done loving my enemies.
• I’m done giving finances to global causes.
• I’m done opposing violence.
• I’m done speaking out against hatred.
• I’m done standing up for the marginalized.
• I’m D-O-N-E done…

This past week made me realize that doing all these things won’t change the world. That’s because the world can’t be changed unless God changes me.

For the past several years, ups and downs defined my spiritual life. Moments in the journey were some of the most intimate encounters with Jesus that I’ve known. Real (nearly tangible) experiences, that can’t be explained by anything but the power of the Holy Spirit, took place. Other moments, when I showed love to a neighbor, prayed for an enemy, served the poor… these were times when Jesus was right there with me.

Then there were the times when I got stuck trying to live like Jesus. In the Christian world we call these “good works” or “ethics.” I made my aim “doing” rather than “being.” By “doing” I believed that my “being” would be consumed by an experience of the life of God. Unfortunately, the God encounters often fade when all my time is spent “doing” or theorizing about such “doing.”

For me, it’s time to stop doing. It’s time to simply be done. Done “doing” because the Holy Spirit invites us to stop and to “be.”

• To be the kind of person who serves the poor.
• Be the kind of person who goes the extra mile.
• Be the kind of person who is an awesome self-giving husband.
• Be the kind of person who visits the sick.
• Be the kind of person who opens my life up to Christian community.
• Be the kind of person who loves my neighbor.
• Be the kind of person who chooses integrity.
• Be the kind of person who loves enemies.
• Be the kind of person who gives generously to global causes.
• Be the kind of person who responds to evil with creative nonviolence.
• Be the kind of person who not only speaks out against hatred, but who suffers for the sake of the hated.
• Be the kind of person who stands in the margins with those who’ve been placed there by society (and even the church).
• I want to BE, and in the process, become a different kind of follower of Jesus.

Why the distinction? It’s easy to follow the Sermon on the Mount and other ethical teachings of Jesus and to miss the Christ who taught such things.

Dallas Willard puts it this way:

Jesus never expected us simply to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, bless those who persecute us, give unto them that ask, and so forth. These responses, generally and rightly understood to be characteristic of Chrsitlikeness, were put forth by him as illustrative of what might be expected of a new kind of person – one who intelligently and steadfastly seeks, above all else, to live within the rule of God and be possessed by the kind of righteousness that God himself has, as Matthew 6:33 portrays. Instead, Jesus did invite people to follow him into that sort of life from which behavior such as loving one’s enemies will seem like the only sensible and happy thing to do. For a person living that life, the hard thing to do would be to hate the enemy, to turn the supplicant away, or to curse the curser… True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would.[1]

So, yes, I’m done with living like a Christian. I’m trading that in for living in a deeper relationship with Christ. I want to know Jesus. I want to hear Jesus. I want to be empowered by Jesus. Not simply in theory as I do the good things that he calls us to do, but as the natural outflow of intimacy with God. The former way “gets the job done.” The latter way changes the world.

For me, this means a new-found intentionality of placing myself in a position to hear from the Spirit. Spiritual practices like – solitude, Sabbath, lectio divina, silence, confession, prayer, and practicing the presence of God – these neglected areas of my life have led to a Christianity defined by “doing” rather than “being.”

My prayer for us is that our intimate relationships with Christ would make it impossible to not respond with the ethics marked out by the Kingdom of God. Not out of effort to do good things, but out of our efforts to know Jesus Christ through an awareness of the presence of God’s Spirit. When this becomes normative, we won’t be able to help it… we will just start looking like Jesus.

[1] Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives,7-8.

Did Dad ever want to wring the son’s neck? Ever?

Where was Mom in all this?

What happened six weeks or six months later?

Did the kid suffer a relapse?

Questions.

So…let’s pretend.

Imagine if Father’s Day fell a week following the prodigal son’s return. No, check that. Let’s pretend it occurred about six or seven months later. On that morning, the father—let’s call him Chanan (Hebrew for gracious)—awakens from a dreamless sleep and rubs his eyes so as to roust them from their hours of inertia. It is still dark, but an oil lamp casts a coppery glow inside the master’s bedroom, and he looks at the pleasing, sleeping form of his wife—oh, may as well: Chana. Hannah. Grace.

She stirs slightly and for a moment he only wishes to look at her, not interrupt her slumber, and when her breathing again falls to a soft purr, he smiles. Ah, Chana! How gracious our Yahweh is! The woman I adore is the woman I awaken to each morning…

He persists in this reverie for a few more holy moments before something draws his eyes past her to the tapestried fold in the door. Just over the delicate slope of Chana’s hip he sees the corner of a small parchment partially slid beneath the curtain. His brow plunges in puzzlement so he quietly rises from the bed and pads over to the door and stoops to retrieve the paper.

As he carefully slides it to himself, he notices a familiar hand has addressed it: “Gracious Father.” A note from Habib (dearly loved). His youngest. Chanan’s eyes mist as he remembers the long nights spent in this very room praying for Habib’s return, crying out to G-d with Chana that He would keep their boy from peril and destruction. The years were long and their inner woundings great, but Elohim proved powerful as always and His providential blessing brought palatial healing and restoration.

Chanan’s eyes welled and spilled over, mirroring his heart’s release. Habib. The little lamb that was lost. Now home. Their lamb once again. The moment was only spoiled by the jealousy of Aaron (lofty, exalted one) who, even to this day sulks and harbors inner hatred. He has gone to his own far country. Chanan sighed and petitioned for Aaron’s “return” once more…

Old, gnarled fingers lifted the parchment to his heart as Chanan walked nearer to the light source for better reading. He sat by the table and unfolded the document. Chana lightly breathed from the bed behind. Outside he could hear some of the animals coming to life and those who tended to them. Dawn was moments away.

Gracious Father,

It was your love that found me where I was—that despicable, hellish place—and with tender bands to my wrists and ankles, you pulled me home. I am a slave to your love and forever choose to remain in your care. I will spend the rest of my life in awe of such grace that never gave up on me, searched for me, located me and has made a home for me. And I will let such grace run its full course in me until I, too, become this grace to others. You and Mother are everything I never knew I wanted, but now that my eyes have been opened, I want naught else.

I thank Eternal G-d that I was delivered from the pit, but I also consider the far country a closed chapter in my book. I know it will come as no surprise to you, Father, but since my return, I have entertained thoughts of going back, but they were only thoughts, praise Yahweh, never actions! Today I declare I could never go back to where I was, for the beauty of where I am is so alluring and permanent.

But, Abba, I also want you to know that I am not only delivered from the pit and done with the far country, but I am determined to choose life always. You never let me finish my little speech back there on the hillside where I fell at your feet. I know now it was grace that stopped me short that day; your grace that finished my best intentions. But you must know, Papa, on this Father’s Day, since you gave me life, to quote beloved David: “I would rather be a doorkeeper in your house than to dwell in tents of wickedness.” I know he was singing about the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but I feel the need to declare my intent to serve you, Father, by living out all of my days as your son. This is my promise: your name, your values and your heart will be perpetuated through my life. With you is life. With you always I will remain.

This is the best way I know to thank you, Father. And to honor you. These are not mere words. Watch me. You will not be disappointed.

Happy Father’s Day.

Yeah, that’d be a pretty cool card. Parents of prodigals would die smiling if this scenario ever became their own.

But in the larger story: do you see yourself anywhere in this narrative?

Yeah, and that led to the rich, young ruler who was rich because he was a good, covenant boy, and inherent in the covenant for those who kept the law was the provision of wealth. Where did he get his stuff? If you take God at His Word, then you’d have to say it came from Him. That’s what a covenant is: you hold your end of the bargain, I’ll do my part. The rich, young ruler’s shed was packed to the rafters with blessings. Yet those blessings became his undoing.

Then that led to other “stews” we slurp. Like America. It’s good to be living in the “land of the free and the home of the brave” I’ll grant you. Undoubtedly, God had much to do with people migrating here long ago, and the New World became fertile soil—centuries later—for an evangelistic push the likes of which the Old World had never seen. Some of heaven gleamed on these shores, perhaps…but heaven is not festooned with reds, whites and blues as a theme. Sorry.

America is not the “City on a Hill” Jesus referenced in His Sermon on the Hillside. This nation is not in view for 2 Chronicles 7:14. To say other is to promote nationalism, and that’s just stew. I mean, it’s good and yummy and all that, and we are indubitably the beneficiaries of faithful generations, but America—itself— is stew. It’s a rich young ruler’s portfolio.

And Esau died and in hell he lift up his eyes.

And the rich, young ruler—we would call him middle-aged (and religious)—blessed as he was, slumped away from eternal life Himself.

Don’t be a hater. I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the blessing of America. I just don’t mix stew with birthright.  I’ve never traveled outside the continental U.S. of A. and don’t think I’ve missed anything out there. I bet if I went overseas, I’d count the days until I could kiss the ground of my birth country.

Israel was blessed—by God—with meat in the wilderness but they soon became obsessed and meat stew ran out their nostrils and they choked on it. I’ll bet that stew “came back up” on Esau later that night and he regretted it forever. It probably smelled like something had crawled down his throat and died.

Some in the church are deceived by the “lie” that you can have both your stew and keep the birthright. You prayed a prayer a good while back? Did you say certain words? You asked Jesus to be your Savior? You remembered to say you believe in His death and resurrection? Oh, terrific, then! You are IN!

I have a friend who almost got up and left a recent Sunday service because the pastor actually said:

I know you won’t hear this anywhere else because other preachers don’t have the guts to say it, but I will. It doesn’t matter if you leave here today and get drunk, have an affair, kill someone or any other wicked sin. If you prayed a prayer to accept Christ, you will still go to heaven. That’s how secure you are.

The wealthy, middle-aged, church administrator asked Jesus: “Can I have You and my stuff?”

What King Jesus didn’t say in response was, “Is your pope catholic?”

He pretty much closed the discussion with “Can a camel go through a needle’s eye?”

He was told when hardship first came against the people of God there, they immediately cried “persecution!”for that is indeed what it looked like. It wasn’t until later, when the fiery trials persisted, many learned the truth: what first came to the Church was not persecution, but judgment. Their ordeal certainly seemed satanic in origin, but that would come later.

By the Spirit, those who had ears to hear, understood the times they were in and discerned the work of God among them, learned what we will likely have to learn ourselves here in the West: it is judgment that must come first. Everything that looks like Adam and earthly and unholy in the Church must be crushed; once the rebellion has been dealt with and the dust settles, what comes after will be persecution. Then the wrath of the enemy will be ripened and set itself to wipe out anything that looks like Christ, the last Adam.

Six of the Seven Churches of Revelation were given the opportunity to repent, else judgment would come from the Hand of the Christ who walked among the candlesticks. This is our time. Yes there are false prophets that go about sullying the name of Christ and His Church, predicting dates and times for judgment, but we can never let their vain rantings obscure the Truth that there is a Day we must all be ready to face. If given a choice, I’d take persecution over judgment. I think you know what I mean…

Lord, finish Your work in me. By Your grace I do not fear condemnation and eternal wrath, but I know there is still the spectre of old Adam—who is dead—still visible and this must be dealt with. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit who shows me where he still lurks and how You relentlessly move in me to reckon him dead and part ways. I love your discipline and chastening that comes from Loving Hands. I accept it as loving and for my good, and that it is the necessary process by which You will be fully formed in me. Have Your way, Lord, from now through eternity. And thank you, Lord, for my disability. You are wise and wonderful indeed! I love you…I choose You…

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances…so you will be My people and I will be your God…
I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Lord God…
(Ezekiel 36:25-28,32)

When the actor John Wilkes Booth (the George Clooney of his day) jumped from the Presidential Box to the stage of Ford’s Theater in 1865, two things happened. One, he snapped his leg just above the ankle because of an awkward plant, and two, he looked out onto the stunned crowd and shouted, “Thus always to tyrants!”

Moments earlier, he had aimed a pistol at close range behind President Lincoln’s left ear and fired a round into the great man’s head. The bullet traveled a bit crossways and lodged behind the President’s right eye. By 7:30 the next morning, the sixteenth president of the United States lay dead on a bed too short for his legs.

I have a would-be tyrant aping me, called my “flesh”, the carnal mind, the sinful disposition. I, along with many others, call it “self”. It cannot be trained, tamed or ignored. The only way to deal with it is to execute it. Sadly, it won’t stay dead. And if you commute its sentence, it grows larger and casts monstrous shadows over one’s soul.

Self is the ego. It wants to be stroked and coddled, fed and worshiped. Some are so enamored with the self/flesh/ego, they have written lyrical anthems to honor it. ‘Ol Blue Eyes sang one when he did it “my way” and Walt Whitman opted to “celebrate myself” in his egocentric “Song of Myself”.

Another dared pull up the bootstraps of self and fend off any notion of Another who might deem to take over. You may have seen the movie that takes its appellation from the famous soliloquy; I haven’t, only because the title wards me off.

Invictus.

“Unconquered.”

In 1875 William Ernest Henley lost his leg to tuberculosis at the puerile age of 25. From his hospital bed, out came paper and pen, then the splash of self’s regurgitation soiled the fresh, clean page.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

“Head bloody, but unbowed”

“My unconquerable soul.”

“I am the captain of my soul…”

Sends shivers down my spine, how about you? Some slough it off as self-determination and resolute courage in the face of adversity, but I refuse to hyphenate. These are the damnable heresies of self.

In his book Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service, Stephen Seamands illustrates the danger of putting self in the captain’s chair:

Someone once gave Wilfred Grenfell, the great early-twentieth-century medical missionary to Labrador, a powerful new motorboat so he could better navigate among inlets and islands along the coast and respond quickly to those in need. Soon afterward he received an emergency call in the middle of the night from someone who needed immediate medical attention. So he set out in the new boat toward the island where the person lived.

Grenfell knew its location, but in the blackness of the night he was forced to navigate solely by compass. Soon he realized he had embarked in the wrong direction, for when he expected to be nearing the island, no land was in sight. Instead, he was heading out into the dangerous open sea, so he reversed the boat and fortunately managed to return home safely.

The next day when Grenfell checked the compass on the boat, he discovered the problem. Whoever had fastened the compass to the boat had run out of brass screws and had used a steel screw to finish the job. That steel screw attracted the magnetic tip of the compass needle to itself. The night before, Grenfell hadn’t been charting his course by the magnetic North Pole; instead his compass had been charting its course to itself.

You want some hyphenation? Try ego-centeredness. Or self-reference. Call it what you wish, but please call it nixed. Even our gospel has been defectively charted in the direction of self, insisting that the Plan of Salvation is all about me, that I am in the center; the end-all-be-all of the gospel is myself, my getting my sins forgiven, my getting saved and my getting to heaven. No it’s not. Those things are included, of course, but the full course of salvation is that God gets what He wants.

C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.
(Mere Christianity, p167)

When “myself” becomes “Himself” there is salvation. Someone once quipped about marriage: “The Wedding Day is about two people becoming one. The rest of marriage is deciding which one they will become.” Salvation already decides that: to be “conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom 8:29). There ain’t no self plus Jesus in the Kingdom. It’s only Jesus.

What are your selfless thoughts?

Here is an exercise for you aspirants of theology. Search out the significant differences between the sin, sin and sins in the Greek New Testament. I assure you, it has been the glory of God to hide these matters in plain sight. And it has been the glory of the sons of His Kingdom to search them out. What is found in such a search will deliver us from the incomplete gospel that would only save us from our sins…and the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus, His disciples and Paul preached that truly brings Life.

Paul said “the sting of the death is the sin” in 1 Corinthians 15:56 (Young’s Literal). The definite article in the original implies a particular sin, the sin of all sins. It is this sin that men embrace all the way to hell. 

When Jesus came to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness, the Baptizer exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” He did not say, contrary to how the verse if often misquoted “who takes away the sins of the world.”

Jesus didn’t zero in on sins when He went to the cross—although they, too, were rendered powerless, praise be!—He came to do away with, once and for all, the sin that brings about the death. Sins (plural, without definite article)  are, put simply, berries on the tree of rebellion, but God made provision through Christ to go to the root of mankind’s problem.

Which is…

…the nefarious nature to rebel against the authority of God and His Kingdom which is, ultimately, His reign. THE sin is man taking the throne. It is Adam casting his vote for himself and ruling God out of office. It is the created being casting himself in the lead role and leaving the Creator God on the cutting room floor.

Say what you wish, but the sin is not just evident in an unregenerate world of hell-bound men today, it is also the Great Plague of the professing church, mostly evident in those places on the map where there is little or no persecution, where abundance is greedily scarfed down by portly epicureans, and where the Gospel has been watered down from its original, robust recipe and abridged into the costless, cross-less, insipidly banal concoction it is today.

We need to beat our breasts like the tax collector who said, ”God, be merciful to me the sinner!”  Did you catch that? THE sinner! This is far removed from the bromidic confession we so often hear through the so-called “Sinner’s Prayer”:

“Dear God, please forgive me for my sins and make me Your Child, and take me to heaven when I die. In Jesus’ Name, amen.” 

Short, sweet and not too deep. That’s the contrast to what Biblical salvation offers through the Gospel of the Kingdom. This modern, watered-down version doesn’t allow for King Jesus to mount the Throne and for man to be dethroned. It is little more than a help-me-stop-doing-the-things-that-will-send-me-to-hell-Lord, because it does not let the axe fall to the root of the tree.  It replaces the Gospel of the Reign with a Gospel of Heaven.

This is why we have such a hard time with the teachings of Jesus and even explain them away with some devilishly dispensational doctrine. We cannot accept the Sermon on the Mount as anything more than principles to be followed, rather than what the Life really looks like. We say it’s not for us but only for the Jewish audience to which it was addressed and what will only resurface in the Millennial Kingdom. And so we opt out also on “forsaking all” and “denying self” or “laying not up in store” along with “turning the other cheek” and “forgive lest you be unforgiven.”

We preach against drunkenness (and we should), against lust and sexual sins (and we should), and against witchcraft, murder and sedition—check, check, and check—but until the sin of man-as-his-own-god is dealt with, even those who call themselves disciples will become THE sons of perdition.

Church as usual, a powerless, Cross-less entity is a mass of people who have gotten some berries knocked off their bushes, but the bushes still stand. The living, breathing Gospel that is the power of God unto—unto, mind you—salvation (Romans 1:16), mightily knocks the tree over, pulverizes it and cremates it in the holy fire of God.

Those who believe UNTO salvation are not a cleaned-up bunch of Adamites, reformed from our old ways, getting by the best we can until Christ takes us to heaven, but are grafted into the Tree of Life, a heavenly race of people who only get that way by going “from faith to faith” (Romans 1:17), believing and submitting to His reign all our lives. In the roll call of faith seen in Hebrews 11, don’t scurry past one of the most important verses in the entire context of that chapter:

“These all died in faith(fulness)…” (Hebrews 11:13)

 The writer goes on to use three participles that quantified their life of faith (by the way, in Greek, the words faith and belief are the same): “having seen”, “having welcomed” and “having confessed” that they were not of this earth, but of another realm. This is the Church Christ is building. Living stones who live by persistent faith, people of THE Realm.

THE sin has met its match. It’s match is Jesus who is THE Christ. Are you submitted to Him? Is He your King? Many say with their lives, “We will not have this Man rule over us!” Even if they confess with their lips they accept Him, one sad day Jesus will confess to them,

“I never knew you, depart from Me, you who insist on governing yourselves.”
(Matthew 7:23, my paraphrase)

Can He actually say that to church members? And not just the churchy, but people who gave their lives for the work of the church? How, in God’s Name, can that be?

Because they would not “hear and do” but rather PRESUMED and BRAGGED. They followed their own initiative rather than living by faith which, in its biblical definition, is hearing God and obeying Him. These were products of THE sin, pure and simple, not those who, by faith, would inherit the kingdom.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man
who built his house on the rock.” 
(Matthew 7:24)

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?
“Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like:
“he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.”
(Luke 6:46-48)

Jesus said, “I will build My Church” (Matthew 16:18). His Church is on a Rock that is our confession that He is the Christ, the Messianic King, who reigns in the hearts of those who have repented of, and are constantly repenting of, THE sin.

May You, O God, shepherd me to Your private pastures, with cooling waters and fresh, vital springs…draw me into Your Life and introduce me to the reality of practicing Your presence. I ask for Your baptism to flow down over me and drown me in grace. I know well that there is “more” and I aim to go after it. As the deer pants for the waterbrooks, I want my soul to pant after You. Not just words, here, but heart and passion and desire. Rush to me, O God. Call me away. My spirit accepts the invitation to Rise Up and Come Away!

Lord, show me the deepest things, the deepest parts of You. Take me there and may the five sanctified senses in me experience You to the fullest. I yearn to hunger for Your Word again! To meet with You in the closet at our daily appointed time where we can embrace and linger in the air of closeness.

Take me higher! Make my feet as hinds’ feet and walk me upon the craggy heights! Take me from the congregation and draw me to the pinnacle of Your desire for me. All that You have for me is my desire. You are most glorified when I am most satisfied in You and I want and wish to glorify You. May this life hold no attraction for me; I pull from it even if its talons hold on for dear life and rip me apart. May the claim of my life become: “the world is crucified to me and I to the world!”

Put a holy dissatisfaction in me for the things of this world. I do not desire its accolades and acceptance but Yours alone. This is the cry of my spirit! My soul follows far behind at times and has for a long time, but I cannot go on in complacency and indifference. Stir me, Lord. Stir my heart for the things that matter to You and may the crevasse that I have allowed to come between us be bridged by Your gracious invitation to come along and follow hard on Your heels.

I pray for a heart of integrity, hands of skill, a voice of impact, the eyes of Elisha, the baptism of the Spirit and the tongue of the learned. For an inoffensible spirit, unconditional love and the fear of God and not man.

In Jesus’ dear Name, Amen.

Far too many in the professing church today are hoping in a false security for all their eternal wants and wishes. Because they prayed a prayer, lifted a hand at a pastor’s behest during an invitation or filled out a decision card, they feel they are “in” and that’s all there is to it. There is no coming under the reign of Christ. They live as they good and well please. The Gospel of Heaven has replaced the Gospel of the Reign of Christ in the modern church.

When John the Baptist came preaching an “at-hand” Kingdom of Heaven, it was clear to him that a characteristic of a Kingdom citizen was one who was continually brought under the Lordship of the Son, the King of that Kingdom, Jesus the Christ.

“He must increase; I must decrease.”
(John 3:30)

The interesting thing about that passage is its Greek construction. The first phrase is a present active reality. “He must be increasing.” Simply put, the Baptizer knew this about the Kingdom economy: its citizens MUST be seen flourishing in the Life of Christ and He must be seen thriving and thrumming in them. The Good News is, this is not something we can work up on our own.

In the second phrase, the mood switches to the passive, morphing the words into these: “I must be BEING decreased.” I cannot break myself nor can I bring holiness to myself. It is the Lord’s doing.

Be forewarned. Those who would follow Christ are ripe for the anvil since we are all rife with self. Paul of the Damascus Road once shouted with his reed: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection (He must increase) and the fellowship of His suffering (I must be being decreased)…”

And still, still after years of hammering and hurting, scraping and scouring, being cast down, cast out and cast off, this hearty old apostle could say at the end of his days it had been “a good fight.” How can you kill a man who’s already dead?

When young Gypsy made Christ Lord of all His Life, it stuck. He made it his life’s pursuit to know Christ.

Eternal life is not gained by the mere lifting of a hand but with a life that abides in His Love (John 17:3). And it is a restful abiding, to be sure. Our work is only to yield (though that seems like hard labor in a prison yard at times as self is so unrelenting!). But His work is to deliver us all the way from Egypt and to Promise.

And one day, maybe a few hundred miles from this moment, or just a few perhaps, may we also turn to a would-be inquirer with glowing face and smiling eyes and give witness to a life well lived.

A life that, by God’s needful grace, never loses the wonder.