A Further Examination of the Gifts
In this week’s post I explored the parable of the Prodigal Son and looked at it from historical context. I ran out of room however when I was talking about how it applied to us. Today, I’d like to unpack that some more paying special attention to the significance of the gifts. Granted, the symbolism behind them is so ripe with relevance today that it’s difficult to do it justice but I’m going to give it a shot anyway.
As I mentioned last week, the four gifts, the best robe, the ring, the sandals and the fattened calf slaughtered for the feast, all signified that the son had been reinstated to his position in the family but, in universal terms, what did that mean exactly?
First, there was a sense of belonging that the father bestowed upon his son. Phrases like, “my son,” and “this son of mine,” are phrases the father throws around freely throughout the parable. The father in this parable represents God and the truth that Jesus was driving home was when a person repents and surrenders to God, the Triune God claims that individual as His own. Let’s drive that point home. If you surrender to Jesus and God is having a conversation about you with anyone in the spiritual realm, He’s saying something like, “(Fill in your name) belongs to me. They are mine.” In terms of where the rubber meets the road, it means anyone or anything getting to the person who has surrendered to Jesus has got to go through God to do it. Even at the moment of death, for the person surrendered to Jesus, God is there. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints,” is what is recorded in Psalm 116:15. It’s all about belonging. If a person surrenders to Jesus, they belong to Him. God takes that seriously.
Secondly, there’s this issue of the ring, the sandals and the feast. These were gifts that were bestowed on family members in that society. You didn’t kill the fattened calf for the neighbor’s kid, no matter how much of a class act he was, the fattened calf was saved for one of your own. Once again, the truth that Jesus was driving home was clear. The person who surrenders to Jesus is immediately adopted into God’s family with full family rights, privileges, and responsibilities. In God’s opinion, and His is the only one that matters, not only does the person who surrenders to Jesus belong to Him, they are family, unconditionally loved and unconditionally accepted.
The third thing that needs to be mentioned piggybacks off this idea of adoption and that’s the transformation that happens when a person surrenders to God. The surrendered person is treated differently by God than an un-surrendered person. Now, before anyone decides that they want to accuse God of being unfair in this deal, you might want to table that thought. I said that He treated them differently, not necessarily easier. You see, when a person surrenders to Jesus and the transformation process gets started, fundamental values change. It’s not generally an easy process, in fact, at times, it’s downright hard. “Endure hardship as discipline,” is what the writer of Hebrews wrote, “because God is treating you as sons, not illegitimate children.” Yes, when a person surrenders to Jesus, God will change them and will use any number of circumstances to accomplish this daunting task.
Lastly, and closely related to the other three points is the fact that nothing, no experience with God, no matter how difficult is ever wasted. He can redeem anything and He does so with those who belong to Him. Let me give an example. Recently a friend told me of a friend of hers who was a missionary in South Africa. The missionary and her husband were ministering to a poor community there when the woman was diagnosed with cancer. She underwent treatments and people prayed diligently. In terms of acting responsibly, everybody did everything by the book. In the end however, she did not recover. She passed away. From the vantage point of the people back home who had been praying, it looked like a tragedy. Did prayer not work? What happened? But then they talked to the people she had been ministering to and those people told them this. “We’d never seen a Christian go through death before and we needed to see that.” Those people had seen their own die many times but never a Christian and, in their words, there was a marked difference. In her death, there was hope and it reinforced in their minds, that following Jesus was worth it.
My point in all of this is this. When a person surrenders to Jesus, they instantly belong to Him. God adopts them. They are family. He never deserts them and nothing is ever wasted again. Is it a rough road? At times, yes. Life happens and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. However, the difference is that the surrendered person is no longer going it alone. God is right there with them. See you later this week
How and Why Did God Make a Guarantee Like That?
Last Thursday, I wrote a post stating that whoever sought God with all of their heart would find Him. Have you wondered about the how and why of that statement? Obviously I didn’t come up with that one on my own. Look at the wording that’s used in Jeremiah 29: 12 – 14. “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD. “You will find me,” and, “I will be found by you,” are the exact words that God used. Notice, He didn’t say, “you might find me,” or even, “it’s possible to find me.” Nope, “you will find me,” were God’s exact words. That’s a guarantee and, that being said, coming back to the original question(s), why would God make a claim like that and how can He pull it off?
Now, I like questions like this because they are easy to field from a writer’s perspective, it’s not rocket science. The how part is simple. A person who seeks after God will find Him because God has been searching for him or her first. For example, in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve had sinned and were hiding from God in fear and shame, it was God who initiated contact and put the plan of redemption in motion. Throughout the Old Testament, again and again, it’s recorded how God is scouring the earth, searching for people. He was initiating the contact. Then, there’s Jesus’ words, “I came to seek and save the lost,” or John 3:16, which basically states that salvation is open to anyone with a pulse who will respond to God. A few pages later, there’s Romans 5: 6 – 8 that states that God sent Christ to die for us while we were still sinners and His enemies. Bottom line, if we get this notion to look for God, it’s because we are responding to something that He initiated. We’re cooperating with Him. It’s like He’s texting us, relentlessly at times, and we’re texting Him back (finally!).
So the next question is, why would God do this? Why go to all of the trouble to chase us down, especially when none of us, left to our natural state of being, want anything to do with Him? (We may not aggressively hate Him per se. For some of us, it’s more of a passive, leave me alone and let me run my life as I please, kind of thing, but regardless of the variety, it’s still rebellion and it still leaves us estranged from God. Think of it like beer. Beer comes in a variety of flavors too but, at the end of the day, it’s still beer….unless we’re talking about lite beer. (That’s just horrible tasting water.) Back to the why though. There’s a two-fold reason for this. In the first place, it was never in the original plan for us to be alienated from God. We were originally created to live in fellowship with God and govern the earth. Using a business analogy, we were the administrators, the managers and department heads if you will, of creation. When we chose to sin, we caused a major schism between us and God, and put our ability to fulfill our destiny at risk to the point that unless God acted, we would never fulfill our destiny. God however, desired for us to fulfill our original destiny all the way down to the relational aspect and since we were obviously unable to seek Him, He had to seek us.
And the second part of the reason? It’s an over-riding theme throughout the Bible from cover to cover. God loves us, period, not because of us, but in spite of us. I love the quote by Oscar Wilde, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” He’s especially right about the, “every saint has a past” part. By the way, have you ever read the back stories of most of the saints in church history? There’s enough mud in those stories to make a pig blush and the Bible’s even worse. (Just read the stories of the lives of the Patriarchs in Genesis…..Sheesh! Those people were the best God could come up with? Apparently.) At the end of the day, God redeemed a bunch of people who were broken beyond repair and even the ones who fell into the “socially acceptable with relatively good table manners” category type of rebellion were still in sad shape too because they were still as bad off as they possibly could have been. God’s righteous standards demanded 100% holiness and nobody measured up. God loved us anyway though and, since we couldn’t search for Him even if we wanted to, He took it upon Himself to search for us.
So there you have it. God is searching for us, calling us, texting us. What are we gonna do? Are we going to answer the text or delete it? If we answer Him, He’s promised to respond. The ball’s in our court. See you Thursday.
Prayer and Surrender - Filters and Benefits
“Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” After writing last week’s post, it became apparent to me that those two sentences form the base foundation for prayer as Jesus taught it. In another post, I will talk about the name of God and the power that’s in it but today, I want to talk about the second part. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Framed in terms of authority, that sentence is both an invitation and a surrender. Without getting into a broad theological discussion, suffice it to say that when He created us, God gave us authority over our own lives to do as we please. Don’t overthink it. We can let God be God in our lives or we can choose to be our own god, it’s our choice. Now, that’s not saying that God stamps His seal of approval on anything and everything that we do because He doesn’t. There are consequences for every choice we make and it’s quite possible to anger God if we rebel against Him with our thoughts, motives, or actions. Prayer, as Jesus taught it, addresses that issue head on and aligns the chain of authority in our life exactly as it was created to be from the beginning. At its core, it’s a request for God to be in charge and call the shots. Simply stated, it’s surrender.
Now there’s a variety of implications at play here but today I want to focus on two things. The first is the idea of a filter. When we surrender to God, He can evaluate and filter our requests to give us His best. To illustrate this idea of a filter let’s go back to the Ranch. The fields on the Roach place were watered using a public irrigation ditch maintained by the local water district. It was low tech. Using gravity, water from the Methow River was diverted into a small ditch that was maybe three feet deep by three feet wide and ran parallel to the river on the hillsides above it. The farmers and orchardists would divert the water from this ditch into pipes to irrigate their fields. The ditch, however, was an open air ditch so all kinds of debris would fall into it along the way. This debris could be problematic especially for those farmers who used underground pipes on their property because it could plug the pipes. To prevent this, or at least attempt to, each farm had a big metal box right where the water was diverted from the ditch onto their property and in this box was a filter that kind of looked like chicken wire that served to catch all the leaves and branches and what not before they got in the line. In theory at least, after the water was filtered it was free of harmful debris. When we surrender to God, what we are doing is asking Him to filter our requests and answer them as He sees fit.
So why would we do that? It has everything to do with God’s attributes and His character. For the person reading this who is not familiar with this God stuff, let me simply spell it out for you. (I’m not being sarcastic. You don’t know what you don’t know. I get it. I’m just glad you’re reading this.) God is all powerful, He knows everything, and He loves us unconditionally. Another way to put it, in terms of the above stated attributes, God is everything we aren’t and we have this tendency to ask for things that aren’t necessarily the best thing for us. Have you ever wanted something really bad but somehow you never got it. It could be anything and you were obviously disappointed that you didn’t get it but later, using 20/20 hindsight, you were really glad you didn’t get it? Filters, my friend, filters.
Or, try this. Sometimes, we pray for things that fall under the category of, “you had the audacity to ask God for that!?” An example that I can think of to illustrate this comes from King David in the Bible. (He’s one of the important kings in the Old Testament.) Paraphrasing, he prayed this once for an enemy that he was angry with. “God, make the man’s wife barren and while you’re at it, make her a widow too!” An honest prayer from the heart? Perhaps. And no, while we’re not told how God fielded that one, there’s no indication that He granted it either. Like I said, filters.
The second thing though that I want to discuss is actually an amazing benefit. When we surrender to God and pray with that attitude, it opens up opportunities for Him to bless us. One of the lies about God that has been circulating since the beginning of time is that He’s holding out on us, that He’s stingy. He’s not! He’s a giver, not a taker. Let me give you an example. Recently, in my own life, finances have been tight and Dianna and I were praying about that. We weren’t wringing our hands or anything but in a spirit of surrender, we said, “God, we need more money, especially for the long term.” That’s just where we were. About a month or so after we started praying for this, Dianna, who was working part time without benefits, got a text from a supervisor who works in another part of campus asking if they could meet. In the meeting, Dianna was offered a full time job with benefits. All we had been asking for was more money. God not only gave us what we asked for but more. He’s a giver, not a taker.
In conclusion, if we are going to pray like Jesus prayed, especially on a regular basis, we have to surrender to God. It just goes with the territory. To do it any other way just won’t work. Have a good week.
(Author’s note: This post had more to do with a regular regimen of prayer, not necessarily a prayer offered up in a crisis when, all of a sudden, you find yourself in the middle of an emergency and the only appropriate thing you can think to say is, “God, help.” That’s a whole different matter.)
Husbands Love Your Wives
Today’s blog is primarily for husbands. The rest of you are more than welcome to hang around but they are my target for now. As a disclaimer, I am going to cherry pick the verses I quote in that I will be quoting a verse and then skipping down to another verse that’s recorded in the passage but I will stay true to context.
In Ephesians 5 and 6 Paul devotes 24 verses, multiple paragraphs depending on the translation, on how relationships are supposed to work. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” are his exact words. The bottom line is that it’s a lordship issue and these are Jesus’ marching orders for how relationships are supposed to work. As a general rule, we are to submit to each other, not necessarily because of the other person but primarily because Jesus is telling us to. He’s calling the shots.
Then Paul starts explaining what this is supposed to look like in the real world. He takes the idea out of the lab, sticks blue jeans on it and puts it to work. Yes, he does start with an admonition for wives to submit to their husbands as their leader. And then he talks to us men. “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean……A man should love his wife as he loves his own body……He feeds and cares for his own body, just as Christ cares for the church.”
Men, the main question we need to ask ourselves is how did Christ love the church? He died for it, literally, on the cross. He sacrificed Himself for it. Before that, He washed the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper without complaining as an example of how we are to submit to each other and serve each other. Men, we are not the king of the castle, we’re the slave. Do the dishes, vacuum the floor, keep a short honey do list not because it’s a limited list but because we get it done in a timely manner.
How do we feed and care for our wives? Aside from the obvious, let’s go somewhere else. Care for her emotionally and spiritually. Feed her soul. Listen to her. Talk to her about what she wants to talk about. Take interest in what she’s interested in. Ask questions. Laugh with her. Let her into our world. Be gentle and cut her some slack because God does that for us every day. And pray for her regularly. Ask God to bless her. And while we’re at it, pray this way for ourselves. “God, love my wife through me. Give me an understanding of what makes her tick. Let me see her the way that you see her. Enable me through the power of your Holy Spirit to love her the way that You want me to love her.”
Lastly, think back to our wedding vows. Did we promise that we would love her and cherish her? Do we even know what that means? Let me give my definition. If I love Dianna it means that I accept her, put her best interests ahead of mine, and that I do it cheerfully and unconditionally. And the cherish part? On the road of life, it means that I spoil her rotten on the trip. As far as I’m concerned, there’s not a king of the castle but there is a queen and it’s her.
Okay guys, I think I’ve given you enough to think about for one day. Oh yeah, and Dianna and I have been married for 39 years. Catch you later.
Scripture references today: Ephesians 5:21 - 6:9
The Thieves Involved in the Crucifixion
Two things jumped out at me last week as I wrote the article, “Yeah, But What About My Past?” and both had to do with the analogies that have been applicable from Day 1.
First one had to do with the thief who wasn’t there, Barabbas. Up until about three hours maybe before the actual crucifixion, it was Barabbas and not Jesus who was supposed to be the man nailed to the middle cross, a fate that he would have deserved. However, from his perspective I suppose, he got lucky. The crowd, incited by the Jewish leaders, demanded his release and Jesus took his place. I have to think that even Barabbas was surprised by that one, on two counts really. In the first place that his name would even be thrown out as a possibility by the Romans for release and secondly, that the crowd would actually take him. But that is what happened and suddenly, he was a free man. Where he went from there, we’ll never know. It’s his fifteen minutes of fame as he faded out of the picture.
It’s been said that there’s more to events such as this than meet the eye and, in this case, it’s true. It wasn’t luck that got Barabbas released, it was manipulation by the Triune God and the stakes were much higher than anything either the Romans or the Jewish leaders had in mind. Jesus, the God/man who had never sinned was taking on Himself the sin of the entire world for all time and paying the price for it. All hell for all eternity condensed down into three hours was what it was and He took it. You know that was my rebellion He paid for that day. Hell, that was my destiny. I wanted nothing to do with God, certainly didn’t want Him messing with my life and Jesus took the penalty for my insubordination on Himself. Like Barabbas, I received the opportunity to go free.
Then there’s the two thieves that weren’t so lucky that day, the one on His right and the one on His left. Unfortunately for them, Pilate only let one guy go each year and this year it was Barabbas. They were stuck paying for their crimes and in the middle of their excruciating agony as they hung on their crosses, each man got an up close and personal view of watching Jesus die. Both originally reviled Him but one man changed his mind and asked forgiveness. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus assured the man that that day he would be with Him in Paradise. The other thief, he stood pat. By his silence he said, “Nope, Jesus. I don’t want you or your leadership in my life even now.” And Jesus loved him enough to honor that request.
You know, one of those two thieves represents every one of us although it varies from person to person. For me, I identify with the thief who changed his mind, ended his rebellion against God and asked for forgiveness but I know others who identify with the thief that stood pat. I had a friend in college for example, who, when confronted with Jesus, flat turned Him down. When asked why, he said, “Control. There’s no way I’m giving Jesus control of my life.” To my knowledge, he’s never changed his mind. So how about you? Which thief do you identify with? Or perhaps, which thief would you like to identify with? The one who surrendered to Jesus or the one who stood pat. The ball’s in your court. Catch you later this week.
Mercy Extended
Something that dawned on me last week as I wrote about Matthew’s calling was the special emphasis that Matthew seemed to place on the grace and mercy that God extended to him.
One of the things that is evident in the story is that it’s clearly an example of the grace and mercy of God being extended to a person who didn’t deserve it. Now for the purists out there, yes, you are absolutely correct. Anytime God calls anyone it’s an example of grace and mercy extended to someone who doesn’t deserve it (including us) because none of us deserve God’s grace. However, some of us are more aware of that fact than others and I suspect that Matthew fell into the first category and was extremely grateful.
See if you don’t agree. In the account of the banquet at Matthew’s home when the Pharisees called out Jesus and He responded back, all three accounts agree that Jesus told the parable that only the sick need a doctor not the well and that Jesus had come, not to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance. Matthew, however, added something else. He recorded that Jesus also said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Now, Matthew’s account of this event is autobiographical and often in an autobiography, the writer will deviate from the normal script of the story and tell things that were especially significant to them at the time.
Consider how the events played out. Jesus was eating with Matthew’s friends, tax collectors and sinners. In cultural context, this was a clear sign of friendship being extended to those people who were excluded by the religious authorities of the day. Furthermore, Jesus stuck up for them in the face of the same religious authorities, something that no one had done for these people…..ever. This had to have been an eye opening experience for Matthew at the time and later, when he actually recorded this event from a post resurrection perspective, I suspect that he was even more grateful. Think about it. Here he was, a tax collector for the Romans, destined to spend eternity in hell and Jesus, the Son of God, his Creator, reached out to him in mercy and accepted him as a friend. Amazing grace.
Now the question that we need to ask is, are we any different from Matthew? Is there anyone alive who doesn’t need God’s grace, who doesn’t need a savior? Is there anyone out there who has met God’s standards? For those of you reading this who are reading this and are having a theological problem with this question, change the question then. Is there anyone alive who has met their own standards of behavior from the time of their birth or have they done something where they have had to say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?” Okay, that’s just about everyone living on the third rock from the sun. Next, try this question on for size. Are our standards higher than God’s, the one’s written in the Bible, the Ten Commandments, “you shall not lie…..ever….even if it’s financially beneficial for you to do so at your garage sale.” (That’s not fair? Dude, I’m just the messenger.) The bottom line is, we’ve all fallen short of our own standards so face it, that makes us sinners and in need of God’s grace. And yes, Romans 14:23 actually backs me up on that assertion. “For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.” (“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. Put the gun down, I’m just the messenger. No that last sentence wasn’t a verse in the Bible, I’m just allergic to bullets.) Seriously though, we’re none of us any different from Matthew or his friends. We’ve all fallen short and we need a savior.
By the way though, I only quoted half of Romans 6:23. The first half does read, “The wages of sin is death,” which is spiritual separation from God. The second half says this though, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Salvation is an act of grace on God’s part and He’s offering it as a gift to us, but, we have to act on it. Matthew had to get up out of his tax collectors chair and leave his former way of life behind and follow Jesus. We have to do the same thing. He won’t force us, we have to follow. Ball’s in our court. What will we decide? See you next time.
Sam
copyright 2019 by Sam Roach
In this week’s post I explored the parable of the Prodigal Son and looked at it from historical context. I ran out of room however when I was talking about how it applied to us. Today, I’d like to unpack that some more paying special attention to the significance of the gifts. Granted, the symbolism behind them is so ripe with relevance today that it’s difficult to do it justice but I’m going to give it a shot anyway.
As I mentioned last week, the four gifts, the best robe, the ring, the sandals and the fattened calf slaughtered for the feast, all signified that the son had been reinstated to his position in the family but, in universal terms, what did that mean exactly?
First, there was a sense of belonging that the father bestowed upon his son. Phrases like, “my son,” and “this son of mine,” are phrases the father throws around freely throughout the parable. The father in this parable represents God and the truth that Jesus was driving home was when a person repents and surrenders to God, the Triune God claims that individual as His own. Let’s drive that point home. If you surrender to Jesus and God is having a conversation about you with anyone in the spiritual realm, He’s saying something like, “(Fill in your name) belongs to me. They are mine.” In terms of where the rubber meets the road, it means anyone or anything getting to the person who has surrendered to Jesus has got to go through God to do it. Even at the moment of death, for the person surrendered to Jesus, God is there. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints,” is what is recorded in Psalm 116:15. It’s all about belonging. If a person surrenders to Jesus, they belong to Him. God takes that seriously.
Secondly, there’s this issue of the ring, the sandals and the feast. These were gifts that were bestowed on family members in that society. You didn’t kill the fattened calf for the neighbor’s kid, no matter how much of a class act he was, the fattened calf was saved for one of your own. Once again, the truth that Jesus was driving home was clear. The person who surrenders to Jesus is immediately adopted into God’s family with full family rights, privileges, and responsibilities. In God’s opinion, and His is the only one that matters, not only does the person who surrenders to Jesus belong to Him, they are family, unconditionally loved and unconditionally accepted.
The third thing that needs to be mentioned piggybacks off this idea of adoption and that’s the transformation that happens when a person surrenders to God. The surrendered person is treated differently by God than an un-surrendered person. Now, before anyone decides that they want to accuse God of being unfair in this deal, you might want to table that thought. I said that He treated them differently, not necessarily easier. You see, when a person surrenders to Jesus and the transformation process gets started, fundamental values change. It’s not generally an easy process, in fact, at times, it’s downright hard. “Endure hardship as discipline,” is what the writer of Hebrews wrote, “because God is treating you as sons, not illegitimate children.” Yes, when a person surrenders to Jesus, God will change them and will use any number of circumstances to accomplish this daunting task.
Lastly, and closely related to the other three points is the fact that nothing, no experience with God, no matter how difficult is ever wasted. He can redeem anything and He does so with those who belong to Him. Let me give an example. Recently a friend told me of a friend of hers who was a missionary in South Africa. The missionary and her husband were ministering to a poor community there when the woman was diagnosed with cancer. She underwent treatments and people prayed diligently. In terms of acting responsibly, everybody did everything by the book. In the end however, she did not recover. She passed away. From the vantage point of the people back home who had been praying, it looked like a tragedy. Did prayer not work? What happened? But then they talked to the people she had been ministering to and those people told them this. “We’d never seen a Christian go through death before and we needed to see that.” Those people had seen their own die many times but never a Christian and, in their words, there was a marked difference. In her death, there was hope and it reinforced in their minds, that following Jesus was worth it.
My point in all of this is this. When a person surrenders to Jesus, they instantly belong to Him. God adopts them. They are family. He never deserts them and nothing is ever wasted again. Is it a rough road? At times, yes. Life happens and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. However, the difference is that the surrendered person is no longer going it alone. God is right there with them. See you later this week
How and Why Did God Make a Guarantee Like That?
Last Thursday, I wrote a post stating that whoever sought God with all of their heart would find Him. Have you wondered about the how and why of that statement? Obviously I didn’t come up with that one on my own. Look at the wording that’s used in Jeremiah 29: 12 – 14. “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD. “You will find me,” and, “I will be found by you,” are the exact words that God used. Notice, He didn’t say, “you might find me,” or even, “it’s possible to find me.” Nope, “you will find me,” were God’s exact words. That’s a guarantee and, that being said, coming back to the original question(s), why would God make a claim like that and how can He pull it off?
Now, I like questions like this because they are easy to field from a writer’s perspective, it’s not rocket science. The how part is simple. A person who seeks after God will find Him because God has been searching for him or her first. For example, in Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve had sinned and were hiding from God in fear and shame, it was God who initiated contact and put the plan of redemption in motion. Throughout the Old Testament, again and again, it’s recorded how God is scouring the earth, searching for people. He was initiating the contact. Then, there’s Jesus’ words, “I came to seek and save the lost,” or John 3:16, which basically states that salvation is open to anyone with a pulse who will respond to God. A few pages later, there’s Romans 5: 6 – 8 that states that God sent Christ to die for us while we were still sinners and His enemies. Bottom line, if we get this notion to look for God, it’s because we are responding to something that He initiated. We’re cooperating with Him. It’s like He’s texting us, relentlessly at times, and we’re texting Him back (finally!).
So the next question is, why would God do this? Why go to all of the trouble to chase us down, especially when none of us, left to our natural state of being, want anything to do with Him? (We may not aggressively hate Him per se. For some of us, it’s more of a passive, leave me alone and let me run my life as I please, kind of thing, but regardless of the variety, it’s still rebellion and it still leaves us estranged from God. Think of it like beer. Beer comes in a variety of flavors too but, at the end of the day, it’s still beer….unless we’re talking about lite beer. (That’s just horrible tasting water.) Back to the why though. There’s a two-fold reason for this. In the first place, it was never in the original plan for us to be alienated from God. We were originally created to live in fellowship with God and govern the earth. Using a business analogy, we were the administrators, the managers and department heads if you will, of creation. When we chose to sin, we caused a major schism between us and God, and put our ability to fulfill our destiny at risk to the point that unless God acted, we would never fulfill our destiny. God however, desired for us to fulfill our original destiny all the way down to the relational aspect and since we were obviously unable to seek Him, He had to seek us.
And the second part of the reason? It’s an over-riding theme throughout the Bible from cover to cover. God loves us, period, not because of us, but in spite of us. I love the quote by Oscar Wilde, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” He’s especially right about the, “every saint has a past” part. By the way, have you ever read the back stories of most of the saints in church history? There’s enough mud in those stories to make a pig blush and the Bible’s even worse. (Just read the stories of the lives of the Patriarchs in Genesis…..Sheesh! Those people were the best God could come up with? Apparently.) At the end of the day, God redeemed a bunch of people who were broken beyond repair and even the ones who fell into the “socially acceptable with relatively good table manners” category type of rebellion were still in sad shape too because they were still as bad off as they possibly could have been. God’s righteous standards demanded 100% holiness and nobody measured up. God loved us anyway though and, since we couldn’t search for Him even if we wanted to, He took it upon Himself to search for us.
So there you have it. God is searching for us, calling us, texting us. What are we gonna do? Are we going to answer the text or delete it? If we answer Him, He’s promised to respond. The ball’s in our court. See you Thursday.
Prayer and Surrender - Filters and Benefits
“Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” After writing last week’s post, it became apparent to me that those two sentences form the base foundation for prayer as Jesus taught it. In another post, I will talk about the name of God and the power that’s in it but today, I want to talk about the second part. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Framed in terms of authority, that sentence is both an invitation and a surrender. Without getting into a broad theological discussion, suffice it to say that when He created us, God gave us authority over our own lives to do as we please. Don’t overthink it. We can let God be God in our lives or we can choose to be our own god, it’s our choice. Now, that’s not saying that God stamps His seal of approval on anything and everything that we do because He doesn’t. There are consequences for every choice we make and it’s quite possible to anger God if we rebel against Him with our thoughts, motives, or actions. Prayer, as Jesus taught it, addresses that issue head on and aligns the chain of authority in our life exactly as it was created to be from the beginning. At its core, it’s a request for God to be in charge and call the shots. Simply stated, it’s surrender.
Now there’s a variety of implications at play here but today I want to focus on two things. The first is the idea of a filter. When we surrender to God, He can evaluate and filter our requests to give us His best. To illustrate this idea of a filter let’s go back to the Ranch. The fields on the Roach place were watered using a public irrigation ditch maintained by the local water district. It was low tech. Using gravity, water from the Methow River was diverted into a small ditch that was maybe three feet deep by three feet wide and ran parallel to the river on the hillsides above it. The farmers and orchardists would divert the water from this ditch into pipes to irrigate their fields. The ditch, however, was an open air ditch so all kinds of debris would fall into it along the way. This debris could be problematic especially for those farmers who used underground pipes on their property because it could plug the pipes. To prevent this, or at least attempt to, each farm had a big metal box right where the water was diverted from the ditch onto their property and in this box was a filter that kind of looked like chicken wire that served to catch all the leaves and branches and what not before they got in the line. In theory at least, after the water was filtered it was free of harmful debris. When we surrender to God, what we are doing is asking Him to filter our requests and answer them as He sees fit.
So why would we do that? It has everything to do with God’s attributes and His character. For the person reading this who is not familiar with this God stuff, let me simply spell it out for you. (I’m not being sarcastic. You don’t know what you don’t know. I get it. I’m just glad you’re reading this.) God is all powerful, He knows everything, and He loves us unconditionally. Another way to put it, in terms of the above stated attributes, God is everything we aren’t and we have this tendency to ask for things that aren’t necessarily the best thing for us. Have you ever wanted something really bad but somehow you never got it. It could be anything and you were obviously disappointed that you didn’t get it but later, using 20/20 hindsight, you were really glad you didn’t get it? Filters, my friend, filters.
Or, try this. Sometimes, we pray for things that fall under the category of, “you had the audacity to ask God for that!?” An example that I can think of to illustrate this comes from King David in the Bible. (He’s one of the important kings in the Old Testament.) Paraphrasing, he prayed this once for an enemy that he was angry with. “God, make the man’s wife barren and while you’re at it, make her a widow too!” An honest prayer from the heart? Perhaps. And no, while we’re not told how God fielded that one, there’s no indication that He granted it either. Like I said, filters.
The second thing though that I want to discuss is actually an amazing benefit. When we surrender to God and pray with that attitude, it opens up opportunities for Him to bless us. One of the lies about God that has been circulating since the beginning of time is that He’s holding out on us, that He’s stingy. He’s not! He’s a giver, not a taker. Let me give you an example. Recently, in my own life, finances have been tight and Dianna and I were praying about that. We weren’t wringing our hands or anything but in a spirit of surrender, we said, “God, we need more money, especially for the long term.” That’s just where we were. About a month or so after we started praying for this, Dianna, who was working part time without benefits, got a text from a supervisor who works in another part of campus asking if they could meet. In the meeting, Dianna was offered a full time job with benefits. All we had been asking for was more money. God not only gave us what we asked for but more. He’s a giver, not a taker.
In conclusion, if we are going to pray like Jesus prayed, especially on a regular basis, we have to surrender to God. It just goes with the territory. To do it any other way just won’t work. Have a good week.
(Author’s note: This post had more to do with a regular regimen of prayer, not necessarily a prayer offered up in a crisis when, all of a sudden, you find yourself in the middle of an emergency and the only appropriate thing you can think to say is, “God, help.” That’s a whole different matter.)
Husbands Love Your Wives
Today’s blog is primarily for husbands. The rest of you are more than welcome to hang around but they are my target for now. As a disclaimer, I am going to cherry pick the verses I quote in that I will be quoting a verse and then skipping down to another verse that’s recorded in the passage but I will stay true to context.
In Ephesians 5 and 6 Paul devotes 24 verses, multiple paragraphs depending on the translation, on how relationships are supposed to work. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” are his exact words. The bottom line is that it’s a lordship issue and these are Jesus’ marching orders for how relationships are supposed to work. As a general rule, we are to submit to each other, not necessarily because of the other person but primarily because Jesus is telling us to. He’s calling the shots.
Then Paul starts explaining what this is supposed to look like in the real world. He takes the idea out of the lab, sticks blue jeans on it and puts it to work. Yes, he does start with an admonition for wives to submit to their husbands as their leader. And then he talks to us men. “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean……A man should love his wife as he loves his own body……He feeds and cares for his own body, just as Christ cares for the church.”
Men, the main question we need to ask ourselves is how did Christ love the church? He died for it, literally, on the cross. He sacrificed Himself for it. Before that, He washed the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper without complaining as an example of how we are to submit to each other and serve each other. Men, we are not the king of the castle, we’re the slave. Do the dishes, vacuum the floor, keep a short honey do list not because it’s a limited list but because we get it done in a timely manner.
How do we feed and care for our wives? Aside from the obvious, let’s go somewhere else. Care for her emotionally and spiritually. Feed her soul. Listen to her. Talk to her about what she wants to talk about. Take interest in what she’s interested in. Ask questions. Laugh with her. Let her into our world. Be gentle and cut her some slack because God does that for us every day. And pray for her regularly. Ask God to bless her. And while we’re at it, pray this way for ourselves. “God, love my wife through me. Give me an understanding of what makes her tick. Let me see her the way that you see her. Enable me through the power of your Holy Spirit to love her the way that You want me to love her.”
Lastly, think back to our wedding vows. Did we promise that we would love her and cherish her? Do we even know what that means? Let me give my definition. If I love Dianna it means that I accept her, put her best interests ahead of mine, and that I do it cheerfully and unconditionally. And the cherish part? On the road of life, it means that I spoil her rotten on the trip. As far as I’m concerned, there’s not a king of the castle but there is a queen and it’s her.
Okay guys, I think I’ve given you enough to think about for one day. Oh yeah, and Dianna and I have been married for 39 years. Catch you later.
Scripture references today: Ephesians 5:21 - 6:9
The Thieves Involved in the Crucifixion
Two things jumped out at me last week as I wrote the article, “Yeah, But What About My Past?” and both had to do with the analogies that have been applicable from Day 1.
First one had to do with the thief who wasn’t there, Barabbas. Up until about three hours maybe before the actual crucifixion, it was Barabbas and not Jesus who was supposed to be the man nailed to the middle cross, a fate that he would have deserved. However, from his perspective I suppose, he got lucky. The crowd, incited by the Jewish leaders, demanded his release and Jesus took his place. I have to think that even Barabbas was surprised by that one, on two counts really. In the first place that his name would even be thrown out as a possibility by the Romans for release and secondly, that the crowd would actually take him. But that is what happened and suddenly, he was a free man. Where he went from there, we’ll never know. It’s his fifteen minutes of fame as he faded out of the picture.
It’s been said that there’s more to events such as this than meet the eye and, in this case, it’s true. It wasn’t luck that got Barabbas released, it was manipulation by the Triune God and the stakes were much higher than anything either the Romans or the Jewish leaders had in mind. Jesus, the God/man who had never sinned was taking on Himself the sin of the entire world for all time and paying the price for it. All hell for all eternity condensed down into three hours was what it was and He took it. You know that was my rebellion He paid for that day. Hell, that was my destiny. I wanted nothing to do with God, certainly didn’t want Him messing with my life and Jesus took the penalty for my insubordination on Himself. Like Barabbas, I received the opportunity to go free.
Then there’s the two thieves that weren’t so lucky that day, the one on His right and the one on His left. Unfortunately for them, Pilate only let one guy go each year and this year it was Barabbas. They were stuck paying for their crimes and in the middle of their excruciating agony as they hung on their crosses, each man got an up close and personal view of watching Jesus die. Both originally reviled Him but one man changed his mind and asked forgiveness. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus assured the man that that day he would be with Him in Paradise. The other thief, he stood pat. By his silence he said, “Nope, Jesus. I don’t want you or your leadership in my life even now.” And Jesus loved him enough to honor that request.
You know, one of those two thieves represents every one of us although it varies from person to person. For me, I identify with the thief who changed his mind, ended his rebellion against God and asked for forgiveness but I know others who identify with the thief that stood pat. I had a friend in college for example, who, when confronted with Jesus, flat turned Him down. When asked why, he said, “Control. There’s no way I’m giving Jesus control of my life.” To my knowledge, he’s never changed his mind. So how about you? Which thief do you identify with? Or perhaps, which thief would you like to identify with? The one who surrendered to Jesus or the one who stood pat. The ball’s in your court. Catch you later this week.
Mercy Extended
Something that dawned on me last week as I wrote about Matthew’s calling was the special emphasis that Matthew seemed to place on the grace and mercy that God extended to him.
One of the things that is evident in the story is that it’s clearly an example of the grace and mercy of God being extended to a person who didn’t deserve it. Now for the purists out there, yes, you are absolutely correct. Anytime God calls anyone it’s an example of grace and mercy extended to someone who doesn’t deserve it (including us) because none of us deserve God’s grace. However, some of us are more aware of that fact than others and I suspect that Matthew fell into the first category and was extremely grateful.
See if you don’t agree. In the account of the banquet at Matthew’s home when the Pharisees called out Jesus and He responded back, all three accounts agree that Jesus told the parable that only the sick need a doctor not the well and that Jesus had come, not to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance. Matthew, however, added something else. He recorded that Jesus also said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Now, Matthew’s account of this event is autobiographical and often in an autobiography, the writer will deviate from the normal script of the story and tell things that were especially significant to them at the time.
Consider how the events played out. Jesus was eating with Matthew’s friends, tax collectors and sinners. In cultural context, this was a clear sign of friendship being extended to those people who were excluded by the religious authorities of the day. Furthermore, Jesus stuck up for them in the face of the same religious authorities, something that no one had done for these people…..ever. This had to have been an eye opening experience for Matthew at the time and later, when he actually recorded this event from a post resurrection perspective, I suspect that he was even more grateful. Think about it. Here he was, a tax collector for the Romans, destined to spend eternity in hell and Jesus, the Son of God, his Creator, reached out to him in mercy and accepted him as a friend. Amazing grace.
Now the question that we need to ask is, are we any different from Matthew? Is there anyone alive who doesn’t need God’s grace, who doesn’t need a savior? Is there anyone out there who has met God’s standards? For those of you reading this who are reading this and are having a theological problem with this question, change the question then. Is there anyone alive who has met their own standards of behavior from the time of their birth or have they done something where they have had to say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?” Okay, that’s just about everyone living on the third rock from the sun. Next, try this question on for size. Are our standards higher than God’s, the one’s written in the Bible, the Ten Commandments, “you shall not lie…..ever….even if it’s financially beneficial for you to do so at your garage sale.” (That’s not fair? Dude, I’m just the messenger.) The bottom line is, we’ve all fallen short of our own standards so face it, that makes us sinners and in need of God’s grace. And yes, Romans 14:23 actually backs me up on that assertion. “For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.” (“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. “For the wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23. Put the gun down, I’m just the messenger. No that last sentence wasn’t a verse in the Bible, I’m just allergic to bullets.) Seriously though, we’re none of us any different from Matthew or his friends. We’ve all fallen short and we need a savior.
By the way though, I only quoted half of Romans 6:23. The first half does read, “The wages of sin is death,” which is spiritual separation from God. The second half says this though, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Salvation is an act of grace on God’s part and He’s offering it as a gift to us, but, we have to act on it. Matthew had to get up out of his tax collectors chair and leave his former way of life behind and follow Jesus. We have to do the same thing. He won’t force us, we have to follow. Ball’s in our court. What will we decide? See you next time.
Sam
copyright 2019 by Sam Roach