Where You Really Live

Where do you live?  Some people live in a house, some in an apartment or a trailer or a condo.  Some live in huge refugee camps, some in shanty towns, and some out in the open.  But the Bible says everyone lives in

Giving Grief to the Holy Spirit

It's easy for me to make my wife, The Lovely Joanne, upset.  All I have to do

The Love of the Holy Spirit

The greatest human need is to know we are loved.  And most of us try to love others as well as we know how.  Most of the time.  Unless

What Now?

Christmas is a time of tremendous joy for the McCulleys, as we look at the Son of God, who took on human flesh (that's the Incarnation) to join us to God and give us eternal life.  Sharing that joy with others is our main focus during this time.  But, we just finished putting away all the Christmas decorations and took the tree out to be turned into compost.  So, what now?  Mild depression?  Back to business-as-usual?

What now?  What is our response to the great gift of God for us, his only Son, Jesus the Christ?  There should be only one response, if we consider carefully:  to live out, in every possible way,  our true being and purpose in life as God has revealed it.  Here's a prayer from the journal of Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley, who grounded them in God in their youth:  "Help me, Lord, to remember that religion is not to be confined to the church, or [prayer] closet, nor exercised only in prayer and meditation, but that everywhere I am in Thy presence.  So may my every word and action have a moral content...May all the happenings of my life prove useful and beneficial to me.  May all things instruct me and afford me an opportunity of exercising some virtue and daily learning and growing toward Thy likeness...Amen."  (Quoted by Richard Foster in Streams of Living Water, from Donald L. Kline's book, Susanna Wesley: God's Catalyst for Revival.)

What now?  God has called us with a holy calling as his dear children (Eph 1:4) and is blessing us spiritually (Eph. 1:3).  He is everywhere, at every second, so we know God is in every moment of our lives.  We don't have to "bring God along" as we go somewhere; he is already with us. But if we're not aware of God's presence and power, we end up stumbling around in life, being aware only of our own strength, and tripped up by our weaknesses. 

Let me suggest a simple prayer to remind us of God's presence in every second of our daily living:  "Lord God, help me see you in everything and hear your direction for me.  Let your love fill me so I can love everyone in your name.  Amen."  That's a place to begin. 

What now?  Live every moment of every day being fully aware of God's love and purpose for you. 

Lights, Bible, Action!

A lot of people have trouble understanding the Bible.  It's a big book -- 1200 pages or so.  It's easy to get bogged down in the lists of people and places we don't know.  So how do we understand it?  Here's an idea:  imagine the entire Bible as a single movie.  There is a long list in Wikipedia of movies based on the Bible, but most of them take just one story or sequence or idea. How would we create a movie on the whole Bible?

We'd have to decide the central theme first.  Most people read and understand the Bible chronologically, and that's okay, but it takes a long time to get to the point and you can miss the main ideas in trying to keep the chronology straight.  My favorite idea, courtesy of Dr. Gary Deddo, is to portray the Bible as a "whodunit," a mystery.  That's really a pretty good description of the Bible -- there are lots of characters, conflicts, twists and turns of plot, surprises, and many times when you wonder what this scene has to do with the story. But when the truth is revealed, you can say "Aha!  Now I get it!" as you see all the pieces fall into place.

The central theme of the Bible is God, through the Son, creating the universe and humanity for a never-ending relationship of love.  How did God create everything?  Through the Son (John 1:1-3, Heb. 1:2).  What happened to humanity?  We decided not to trust God and left that relationship of love (Gen. 3:1-8).  How did God win us back, proving his love for us without any doubt?  Through the Son, whom we know as Jesus, coming to live among us (John 1:14, Heb. 1:1-2), giving his life for us (John 3:16-17, Rom. 5:1-10) and moving us back into a relationship of love with God (2 Cor. 5:15-21).  How will it all end up?  When Jesus returns in glory and the entire creation is restored to fellowship with him (Phi. 2:10-11, Rev. 21:1-7).  So, the central character in our movie has to be the Son of God.  The entire story revolves around him. 

So, just for fun, how about outlining a script of the Bible's story?  The question is, how would you begin your version of this movie -- with Genesis 1?  John 1?  Hebrews 1?  Revelation 21? The story of Israel? The birth of the Messiah?  The end of the story in Revelation?  Really, you can begin the movie anywhere you want, just so you focus on the central character. That's what the Gospel is really about.

And how about you?  Do you understand it?  Have you realized how God has planned to love you, from before he made the earth (Eph. 1:3-5) and is right now pursuing you as the one who loves you more than anyone else?  Right now is the time for you to face that awesome truth -- that security and peace beyond all others -- and dive headlong into his love!

Face to Face (part 4)

Many people read the Bible and conclude there are two Gods -- a distant, demanding and judgmental "angry sky god" in the Old Testament, and a gentle, loving, compassionate and sacrificing Jesus in the New.  They want to hide from the old, angry one and get loved on by the new one.  Behind that idea is the unspoken concept that Jesus sneaked down onto the earth when the Father wasn't looking, figured out a way to save everybody by standing in the way of the thunderbolts the Father aimed at sinners, died on the cross and then had to get resurrected so he could explain the whole thing when he went back to heaven.  (The Father, according to this idea, had to forgive Jesus his sneaky insolence, because of the good result.)

Not so.   John 1:1 says the Word, who became Jesus (that name means "God saves") was 'face to face' with God from the beginning.  John 3:16 says "God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son..."  John 4:34 says "My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me."  John 5:19-20 says "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing...For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing."  And in John 8:29, he says "And the one who sent me is with me—he has not deserted me. For I always do what pleases him."  


Jesus speaks of the intimate contact and love between him and his Father in John 17.  Verse 24: "you loved me even before the world began!"  Verse 11, "Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one."  Verse 21, "I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you."  

There is no other God for us to know than the one we see revealed in Jesus.  In John 14:9, he says "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!" And in 17:26, "I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them."  What love is that?  17:23 says "I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me." 

There's the real kicker.  Knowing God is not some sort of five-page essay test, and if you don't get a high enough grade you're out.  Instead, when we look to Jesus, seeing and trusting him to bring us into that intimacy with the Father, we also get to see the Father, face to face.  When we do, we will begin to see the depth and magnificence of the love of the Father for the Son from eternity (John 1:1 and 17:24, see above); and we will come to see that the same exact love is given to us, for free, because of Jesus.  

Look at Jesus, and get face to face with the Father.  It changes everything!

Daddy

The picture many of us have of God is often one of a stern, harsh ruler, ready to 'take us out' at our next infraction. Some see the OT God as some sort of angry authority figure, balanced out by his really nice and loving son Jesus. The angry God sent the Son, the idea goes, to be punished because of us -- sort of like the vicarious 'whipping boy' employed by royalty when the prince messes up.

But we need to remember that God is one (Deut. 6:4, etc). So there is no difference between the God of the Hebrew scriptures and the God of the Greek New Testament. Whether we think of the Father or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, the passions and love and desires of God are the same.

Jesus referred to God as his Father. To do so in a personal sense was unheard of in Israel's thinking. Observant Jews of his day would not have dared claim God as a Father. But Jesus did!

He told us to pray to "Our Father" in a personal way (Matt. 6:9). So he was opening up that relationship of love and acceptance, tenderness and grace, on a personal level, for the first time.

The Father wants us to experience that relationship with him, not just learn about it in some sort of classroom way. Paul uses some OT verses to construct a new thought in 2 Cor 6:18: "And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." The Father is serious about being our Father, and he wants us to accept our status as his children. He thinks of us as his children, and he wants us to think of him as Father.

Those of us who are fathers know how much we want to be Daddy to our kids. We desire to be close to our children emotionally, to have a deep relationship with them. That's just what the Father says to us also. His love for us was so strong that, before the universe existed, he knew he would have to sacrifice his own self, through the Son, to bring us into intimacy with him: “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life"(John 3:16).

God has already made that move. We already belong to him as his children and he yearns for us to have that same intimacy with him. That relationship already exists, whether we see it or not. But the experience of it is up to us. How about it? Will you run into his arms and call him Daddy? It will change your life forever.

Perfect Love?

Loving others is important -- I think just about anybody on the planet would agree with that. Are you good at it? I'd like to believe I am, but I'm too fickle, too human, to love well, even most of the time. And to love perfectly? Out of the question, unfortunately.

John, the apostle who may have known Jesus best, says in his first epistle, 1 John 4 verse 18, that perfect love drives out fear, and fear is linked to punishment. Well, since my love isn't perfect, won't I get punished by God for that? I've beat myself up for decades on that one, trying to make my love perfect (and failing).

But that isn't the love John is describing here. It's not our love, but God's, that is perfect. Verses 9 and 10 say that "God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us..." So God's love is perfect, but how do we get his love?

John outlines God's love through the whole chapter in this way: Starting in verse 7, he says "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God." Well, this love must be something special, not just romantic love, or fondness for a pet or for chocolate. Verses 9 and 10 (I quoted those just above) define the love he's talking about: a love that sacrifices what you want, with the good of the other higher than your own good.

In verse 15, he says "All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God." The Greek word for 'confess' in this verse means to recognize, face and admit, even to promise. It's commonly used in the New Testament to describe people's statement of allegiance to Jesus Christ.

What's with this "God living in them, and they live in God" stuff? In verses 2, 4, 6 and 13, he describes the Spirit of God and that it is the Spirit's work of living in us that produces God's love in us. Our loving like God depends on the Holy Spirit "who lives in" us (verse 4) -- not on our own effort. How do we 'live in God' then? By belief in -- allegiance to -- Jesus Christ, we have the promise of "eternal life" (verse 9); not just in the future, but since our life comes from him, we can say that we live 'because of him' and our lives are 'wrapped up in him' already in the present moment.

How do you know if you have the Holy Spirit living in you? Typically, from the time of baptism, although scripture also shows the Spirit drawing us before then. It gets down to this: if what John says about God's love, and our loving others, makes sense, if you know that you love this way (which is beyond yourself) and you desperately want to love more and know God's love more, that's the Holy Spirit's work. If you don't care, then the Holy Spirit hasn't gotten through to you yet.

But -- if this love is what your life has been missing, now's the time to pursue it. God has loved you since before he made the universe, but you can only experience his love by admitting how much you need it and asking him for it. How 'bout it? Why not now?

Prayer and the Pray-er (Prayer #2)

A friend told me this morning that he'd been praying for me. I was touched by his generosity with his time, and encouraged that someone was talking to God about me (in a positive way!)

Which brought to mind the question of what our prayers accomplish. Again, as we talk about prayer we're discussing how we talk to a Being who already knows more about the situation than we can tell him, about a friend or family member he already loves infinitely more than we do. So as we pray, are we convincing God to do something good for this person for whom Jesus has already died?

My best understanding, as of May 27 2008, is that prayer for the good of someone else does several important things:
--Reminds me to love that person, since God already does
--Keeps that person in my mind during the week, rather than simply saying that I care about him or her, but forgetting all about their needs later
--Allows God to bring to mind things that I can do for that person, over and above prayer
--Encourages that person, when he or she learns how many people are praying and concerned about their needs
--Shows me my un-Christlike attitudes about another person.

There are probably more, but those are pretty powerful already.

When I actually wrestle with God in prayer over the needs of a friend or family member, I have to work through some of those parts of my thinking that aren't like God. Praying through those things is like taking the flour and other ingredients from the cabinet and working them slowly into the dough that will be good bread; in this case, finding places in the Bible that help me see the mind of God, especially as revealed through his son Jesus, and working that into my thinking to replace the selfish ideas and motivations.

Jesus said "the Kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." (Matthew 13:33). That works on the macro-level (that is, all through the world) and the micro-level (all through me).

Good prayer, like good bread, takes work. But it's worth every second. Why don't you give it a try? And let me know how it comes out.