Laughing at Disaster

You will be protected from the lash of the tongue, and need not fear when destruction comes. You will laugh at destruction and famine, and need not fear the beasts of the earth.

                        Job 5.21-22

Right Words, Wrong Reasoning

The Book of Job is one of the toughest books in the Bible because it’s the most blatant example of the “what-have-I-done-to-deserve-this” scenario. Everybody knows the set-up and has a vague idea—or at least presumes—that it all works out in the end. But the middle section, a long conversation between Job and three friends, is rough going. After Satan taunts God, saying He has no truly faithful servants on Earth, God retorts, “What about Job?”. Without Job knowing it, He lifts His protection so evil can run amok. Job loses everything—his fields, his livestock, his family, and his health—in a series of disasters. He sinks into an ash heap and wonders how his entire reality has shattered into shards of misery. Three of his friends drop by to commiserate with him and try to help him correct his course back to prosperous, happier days. This is where things get fuzzy

Job’s friends say a lot of right words, but their reasoning is wrong. They can’t conceive any other cause for his sudden misfortune than he’s sinned against God. They advise Job to search his conscience, identify his error, and repent. The first friend, Eliphaz, launches into a two-chapter discourse urging Job to stop living in denial: “You’ve always helped others with your wisdom. Now you don’t know what to do. Shouldn’t you trust your own advice?” (Job 4.4-6) Job’s not buying this. He’s done nothing wrong. In the next chapter, Eliphaz tries a different tactic, shoring up Job’s confidence in God’s mercy. “He’s the only One you can turn to, Job,” he says. “If you appeal to Him, He’ll restore everything you’ve lost and protect you from future disasters.” Although Eliphaz completely misjudges Job’s situation, we shouldn’t ignore his counsel altogether, because his points still hold validity.

What Else?

With each passing day, I’m more stunned by all the Jobs walking among us—people who suffer unconscionable hardship and loss through no fault of their own. And for many of them, it’s not just one hard season of getting knocked down; they cycle through traumatic losses over and over. They grow so exhausted and apprehensive they stay on the lookout for the next wave, always wondering what else will happen to pull out the rug from under them. There’s no reasoning with God or themselves about this, and suspicions rise that God’s vanished completely, He’s either stopped caring or never really cared about them, and there’s no use trusting Him. But asking what else can possibly go wrong leads to a much more crucial question: Who else can we turn to?

“Call if you will, but who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?” Eliphaz asks Job at the start of chapter 5. Uncertainty of God’s concern and power only confirms our certainty that no other power has the authority and wisdom to remedy our situation. The moment we start believing God’s left us alone is the moment we should realize He’s our only hope. Resenting God is foolish, Eliphaz explains in the next few verses, because it leads us further away from God, exposes us to greater harm, and leaves us defenseless against powers that be. What he next says in verses 6 and 7 carries such force, we should never forget it: “For hardship does not spring form the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.” What have we done to deserve this? Nothing! We are born into a world of heinous cruelty and sin, caught in the crossfire of disobedient thugs and their displeased Maker. It’s no fairer for us to endure the violence and agony of others’ arrogance than it was for Job. But, sadly, the poison existed before we came to be and rather than drown in its cesspool, we must do our all to pull ourselves out of it, trusting God’s mercy for us even when we can’t feel or understand Him.

Don’t Tell Me That!

Eliphaz continues: “But if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.” Several times in my own life, when my situation and my faith seemed to hit an all-time low for no discernible reason, well-meaning friends have dropped the “Eliphaz bomb” on me, too. “Just believe. You’ll be amazed how works things out.” I usually nodded along to avoid hearing more of the same to convince me. But inside my head, I howled, “Don’t tell me that! I can’t grasp why God’s letting me suffer. He’s not answering my questions. And you’re telling me ‘Wait and see. He’s a miracle worker?’ Take that somewhere else.” After I settled down, however, and recognized God was my only source of true help, I learned they were right. In several instances, it took years for the miracle He promised to reach fruition. But He never failed to keep His promise.

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” we’re asked in Romans 8.31. Eliphaz expands on this, saying, “He thwarts the plans of the crafty, so their hands achieve no success. He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away.” (Job 5.12-13) While we’re racked with anxiety that God’s oblivious to our situation, it’s most often the case He’s dealing with the sources of our turmoil—bringing our enemies to their knees—while we wait on Him. His first order of business is protecting us from future harm; once that’s done, our healing will last. David, perhaps the Bible’s greatest example of living on a rollercoaster of extraordinary highs and devastating drops, writes, “The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.” (Psalm 27.1, 3)

As hard as it is to accept, ours is not to know why we suffer. Hardship happens. Instead of blaming God or mistaking His timing as indifference, we’re wise to trust His Word. While we think He’s ignoring us, He’s actually protecting us. The day will come when cruel words, actions, and circumstances that torment us for so long will end. We’ll find we’re protected from tongue-lashings, unshaken by encroaching destruction, and laughing at disaster. “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees,” we read in Psalm 119.71. A life without hardship is a life without learning. Losing what we have for a season—possibly forever—is far better than having lived without experiencing God’s protection, healing, and deliverance.

Job's friends counsel him with the right words for the wrong reasons. 

(Tomorrow: Following Peace)

When God Goes Blind

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

                        Galatians 3.28 

All the Children

In Sunday school, we sang a song many of you probably sang, too: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” The song earns an A-plus for ethics, but only a C (at best) for theology by implying God recognizes ethnic differences and, ergo, they matter. Galatians 3.28 patently refutes this, saying status we confer on one another based ethnicity, class, gender, and every other demographic qualifier doesn’t exist in His eyes. All the children of the world “are one in Christ.”

God’s universal acceptance regardless of “race, color, and creed” (as they say) is an easy purchase. Indeed, when we hear nutjobs like white supremacists preach divine favoritism, the idea is too ludicrous to merit laughter. Yet knowing God doesn’t see our differences can't prevent our noticing them, which saddles us with enormous—practically impossible—responsibility. We’re required to master the skill of looking and not seeing, accepting without assuming. Some of us do better than others, but none of us, I think, succeeds all the time. We’re stranded in a culture built on stereotypes too insidious to mention. And when we meet people whose appearances fit certain molds, more than we care to admit, we’re apt to filter our impressions through reckless images, media-fed clichés, and, worst of all, fear-based myths. Once we get to know them better, we confess they’re not at all like we initially expected, meaning more like us than we first imagined. We’d spare ourselves much wasted time and avoid needless feelings of guilt and ignorance if only we could train ourselves not to see so much and know more than we first acknowledge. This is what God does.

Leave It at the Door

The Early Church wrestled long and hard about who was qualified to receive Calvary’s benefits. Jewish converts believed in Christ as the Messiah, their Savior, and many had no interest in broadening their concept of Jesus’s mission to include Gentiles. Despite Peter and Paul (especially Paul) insisting He died for all, tensions between Jews and Gentiles proved palpable in many churches. It was equally hard for free Gentiles to worship and serve beside slaves or other second-class people whom they previously were taught had no standing with deities. Granting their equal access to God with free citizens demanded a huge mind-shift for European believers. Finally, Jewish and non-Jewish societies were patriarchal, placing men as natural superiors of women. Yet with increasing regularity, spiritual gifts like prophecy, wisdom, and good works surfaced in local churches without gender preference, much to the shock and resistance of believers who couldn’t reconcile social traditions with spiritual freedom. When Paul writes unity in Christ abolishes ethnic, class, and sexual status, he’s saying discrimination serves no purpose in the Church. In essence, he’s instructing us, “When you enter life in Christ, pack up your prejudice and leave it at the door.”

God’s Prism

The world is God’s prism. As a lens refracts colorless light into all of its hues, the world reveals the vast diversity of expression concealed in God’s light. Each of us is a point in the spectrum, one of nearly seven billion that together reflect the fullness of God. This is how it’s possible for all of us to be created in His image yet remain unique from one another. This is why Paul refutes our distinctions by virtue of our commonality—we are one in Christ. In John 9.5, Jesus says, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” meaning the fullness of God exists entirely in Him. But in Matthew 5.14, He also says, “You [plural] are the light of the world.” None of us contains all of God’s light. But joined as one in Christ, our infinite variety of ethnicity, class, and gender reveals the majestic complexity, balance, and splendor of our Maker.

The little children of the world are precious in God’s sight because He sees His vastness in all of them. The instant we approach faith without disregarding individual distinctions is the moment when God goes blind. He refuses to recognize what we see, because focusing on traits that divide us weakens His image. Denying anyone equal access to God’s grace oversteps our authority. Presuming anyone unfit for His acceptance based on what we see is the height of audacity. We were never created to resemble one another in any way, shape, or form. We were made to look like Him. Instead of differences, we must see sameness. Training our eyes to go blind just as God goes blind is the only way we’ll ever see His total fullness and glory.

They're precious in God's sight not for their diversity, but for their expression of His fullness and glory. 

(Tomorrow: Laughing at Disaster)

From Panic to Picnic

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

                        John 6.5-6

Asking Too Much

Now entering His third year of ministry, Jesus’s popularity has reached its all-time peak. Mob scenes erupt wherever He goes. Physically exhausted, spiritually spent, He and the disciples sail across the Sea of Galilee to pray privately and get sorely needed rest. They return to a seashore lined with people awaiting their arrival—about five thousand men, the Bible estimates, not including women and children. They follow Jesus to a nearby hillside, which turns into a makeshift arena. By the time they’re settled and quiet, however, the approaching dinner hour gives Jesus little time to speak. Rather than lose part of His audience to their appetites and shout above the hubbub as they leave, Jesus decides to feed them on the spot. He asks Philip where to buy enough bread to serve the crowd. True to his reputation as a half-empty-glass sort, Philip panics. “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” he answers.

Philip’s panic seems reasonable at first blush. Jesus is asking too much. But when we reconsider it, it makes no sense from someone who supposedly knows how Christ thinks and repeatedly watches Him handle impossible problems in impossible ways. Isn’t Philip aware Jesus never speaks without thinking and always has the answer before posing the question? Can he really think Jesus hasn’t done the math and weighed the options? By now, hasn’t He learned Christ often asks more than we can do to test our faith in His power to accomplish great things through us? Philip’s flimsy reaction brings to mind the hilarious question Roseanne Barr asked her sitcom son when his response was out of whack with how she ran the house: Are you new?

It’s a Start

Andrew overhears the conversation and speaks up. “There’s a boy who’s got five little barley loaves and a couple fish, but how far will that go with so many people?” Most of us would look at the lad’s skimpy lunch and say, “It’s not a lot, but it’s a start.” We’d huddle the disciples, explain the problem, and disburse them in a dozen directions to collect all the available food to combine and redistribute. We’d make a big announcement of what we planned to do and rush the people through a line, thinking it’s the only way to feed them quickly enough to get started with the lesson. We’d create a logistical nightmare as food and time ran out and a large percentage of the crowd wandered away unfed and untaught.

Jesus also looks at the lunch and thinks, “It’s a start”—but a start is all He needs. It’s unnecessary to trouble anyone else for more. There’s no reason to create chaos by canvassing the crowd for leftovers and organizing a food line when He’s already got all that’s required to feed their bodies and souls simultaneously. “Have everyone take a seat,” He says. He blesses the little He’s received, breaks it into pieces, and passes it out, telling the people to take as much as they want. After everyone’s fed and satisfied, Jesus instructs the disciples to fan out and gather what’s left. Each of them returns with a full basket.

Poised for Impossibilities

It doesn’t—or shouldn’t—take very long for any follower of Christ to realize He thinks and works with impeccable foresight. He sees needs long before they develop. He has answers well in advance of our figuring out the questions. Once we grasp the enormity of what’s happening, He often tests our faith by asking too much of us. We can be like Philip and panic, or we can learn from Andrew and say, “This is all I can to scrounge up. Take it and use it. I don’t understand how You’re going to stretch so little to do so much, but it’s Yours.” 

Following Jesus teaches us to stay constantly poised for impossibilities. We give Him what we have and step back, waiting for further instructions. What seems practical and efficient is shortsighted and counterproductive to what He has in mind. We want to get things moving. He tells us to settle down. We want to temporarily fix the problem with a bite or two. He resolves it to everyone’s satisfaction—with plenty to spare. Philip mistakes Jesus’s question to suggest He’s looking at the problem from an ordinary perspective and proposing an ordinary solution. He should know better. That’s never the case with Christ. While Philip surveys the problem and panics, Jesus is planning a picnic.

What we manage to scrounge up may not be much. But it's a start--and that's all Christ needs to remedy the situation.  

(Tomorrow: Why God Goes Blind)

Where'd They Go?

How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up? For their rock is not is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.

                        Deuteronomy 32.30-31

Regrettable Amendments

How it must break God’s heart to hear terminology like “the Christian Right” and “left-wing Christians,” “mainstream churches” and “splinter groups.” No doubt He winces (at the very least) when we answer inquiries about our faith with denominational affiliation or where we worship. Every convened forum to debate doctrine and legislate policy surely infuriates Him. Politics never figured into God’s plan. Yet from the start, we’ve done our best to foil His intentions. The quarreling that began soon after the first 120 Christians left the Upper Room hasn’t stopped, and won’t stop until Jesus returns to unify His Church by separating true believers from impostors.

We’ve all but forgot the Second Coming and Final Judgment are regrettable amendments to the original design. Christ’s First Coming and Calvary’s verdict were meant to be final, forever reconciling our differences with God and, by extension, uniting us as equals by His grace. Two prophecies (Isaiah 2.4 and Micah 4.3) emphasize this almost word for word: “He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” Global rejection of Christ accounts for humanity’s perpetual conflicts. But what explains the Church’s persistent infighting? How can people bound together by God’s grace justify constantly battling each other?

When Believers Attack

Actually, an understandable—though hardly legitimate—reason comes into play when believers attack one another. Recognizing what that is would greatly help both sides declare peace and convert their weapons of war into tools for growth. Ironically, the very grace binding us together also tears apart. Because each of us cherishes it so passionately we’re compelled to defend and protect it. Both sides’ unyielding faith in God’s grace is a magnificent thing, undoubtedly the highest honor they offer Him. But the miracle of grace is too overwhelming to fully comprehend. It doesn’t take much thought about it to send us reeling into a drunken frenzy of misguided, graceless emotions and behaviors. We forget Jesus issued an open invitation to His well: "The Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” (Revelation 22.17) Accepting Christ's invitation to drink living water requires us to invite anyone else who's thirsty to drink with us. Unfortunately, however, many of us get so excited and greedy with grace, we want it all to ourselves. In our headiness, we actually try to drive others away. 

Let’s be honest: overindulgence in Christian fervor makes for mean drunks. We pick fights with fellow believers who, in our opinion, have no business savoring the same forgiveness and acceptance we prize so dearly. Abusing faith’s potency as an intoxicant throws us off balance, distorts our vision, clouds our minds, and releases personal inhibitions we’re taught to respect. We sacrifice all self-control to confront fellow believers who don’t look or act like us, who we don’t believe belong in our company, and who anger us by taking a seat we feel they don’t deserve. Insults start flying back and forth. Arguments break out. Everyone’s flashing ID’s and challenging each other’s scriptural rights to drink Christ’s living water. More drunks jump into the fracas, ponying up on one of two sides. People scramble to find God, as if He were a bouncer screening who’s eligible to get in and throwing troublemakers out. But God’s long gone. This isn’t His kind of crowd. Meanwhile, no one seems to care that desperately parched people see our pandemonium, hear our racket, and walk away. We’re not their kind of crowd, either.

The Rock

Condemning confrontational Christians makes us confrontational. We join the opposition and, therefore, oppose God’s plan and Christ’s purpose. We weren’t saved to identify with ideology, doctrine, or dogma—to side with the left or right, to be Catholics or Protestants or any other schism. Jesus died to bring us back to God and establish peace among His people. If other believers stumble around like blind drunks, tripping over themselves, stirring up trouble, and embarrassing one another, so be it. Our sole identification is with our Maker. We stand only with Him and those lucid enough to stand with Him.

That other crowd is too woozy to remember God has no tolerance for intolerance, particularly when practiced in His name. Deuteronomy says He sells them—He gives them up. Although He once priced their value equal to His Son’s life, they’re worth so little now one faithful believer can chase a thousand of them away, two people can send ten thousand packing. Notice the subtle downshift in capitalization. The Rock they claim to stand on gives them up to find another (all lower-case) rock. “Their rock is not like our Rock,” Deuteronomy 32.31 says, “Even our enemies can see that.” Numbers, politics, and opinions have no importance when we identify exclusively with the Rock. We may feel like outsiders, but doing as He says makes us a majority of one. When faith brawls flare up around us, putting as much distance as possible between them and us ends in our adversaries’ flight. One minute they engulf us with bickering and broadsides. The next finds us wondering, “Where’d they go?”

God wants nothing to do with faith brawls, and neither should we.

(Tomorrow: From Panic to Picnic)

Pure Religion

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

                        James 1.27 

Strays

Anyone who’s told anything about me before we meet most likely knows I’m a fairly ardent believer. Being prepped in advance, many raise the topic before we’re comfortably acquainted—i.e., sooner than I’d prefer. Most of them lead with a line that, frankly, drives me nuts: “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” What does that mean? And what do they expect me say? “Good for you?” Any positive reply would be disingenuous, because I don’t see a difference in being “spiritual” or “religious.” They’re both wispy smokescreens that can’t hide what’s behind them—trying to squeak past following Jesus and pleasing God by occasionally thinking about Them. I suppose being religious and/or spiritual is better than agnostic or antagonistic. But what good really comes from either? It’s like claiming to be a jock without putting any skin in the game.

It took squirming out of a lot of awkward moments to find an honest yet tactful response: “What led to that?” Most often, their answer reveals they’re strays and the term “organized religion” pops up as they explain why they left institutional faith for an amorphous, casual relationship with their Maker. “Yes,” I agree, “organized religion is a minefield. But that’s an old story. What do you believe?” After professing faith in a “Higher Power”—another grating phrase—the answer’s always the same: “I try to be a good person and show kindness to others.” Though I resist pointing it out, they’re a lot more religious than they think, since their description lines up exactly with what James says religion is.

The Three “R’s”

“Religion” gets a bad rap because it’s become a catchphrase for three different concepts—one glorious, another less so, and a third that misses the boat altogether. In fact, divergence between the three “R’s” runs so deep etymologists still argue about the word’s genesis. And—wouldn’t you know it—they fall into three camps. One group traces its origins to religionem, Latin for “respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods,” which evolved into an eleventh-century Anglo-French word, religiun, meaning, “conduct indicating a belief in divine power.” Cicero tagged another source, relegare, “go through again, read again;” while he retains supporters, they number least among the groups. The largest camp settles on religare, “to bind fast,” as in placing an obligation on humans to secure their bond with the gods. Is it any surprise the three concepts of “religion” are consistent with its three etymological theories?

For purposes of clarity, let’s distinguish the three “R’s” with modifiers, pure, studied, and organized, leaving pure religion for last. All three center on faith, yet come at it from radically diverse angles. Studied religion focuses on a spiritually centric ideal and raises its principles as pillars of belief. Adherents of this religious type seek truth through pedantic learning, sifting lives and lessons of their founders, reading ancient texts over and over for new insights. They favor the theoretical over the theological, striving for human understanding instead of accepting faith’s mysteries. Organized religion starts with a noble objective: inventing a system to protect the original ideal from corruption. But its back-door approach, stressing obligation as our bonding mechanism with God, subverts its goal by codifying behaviors and attitudes to measure faith by performance. Pure religion (religionem), according to James, reverses organized religion’s dynamic. God’s obligation to live up to His promises binds Him to us. Faith in His purity and perfection establishes our performance standards. And while pure religion incorporates the fundamentals of studied and organized religion—understanding and defending the ideal—its glory rests not in knowing or doing, but in believing.

God’s Metrics

James boils down God’s metrics for pure religion to two basic principles that mirror Jesus’s distillation of all religious law: love God and love others. He says the religious person whom God accepts must care for everyone. In Biblical times, a husband took everything with him when he died—his name, his property, his rights, and so on—forcing his widow to rely on her children and the mercy of others. It was worse for orphans, whose loss turned them into the streets to beg for their survival. Throughout Scripture, “widows and orphans” serves as a euphemism for those unjustly rejected and overlooked, and repeated commands to see to their care essentially means loving without prejudice. Pure religion teaches us no one is unfit or undeserving of compassion, which gives us no legitimate excuse to hate or neglect anyone.

In keeping with Christ’s command to love God with our entire heart, mind, and strength, James insists we stay clear of pollutants that impede our love for Him. 1 John 2.16 breaks worldly pursuits into “the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does.” Everything on these lists “comes not from the Father but from the world.” Satisfying unhealthy appetites, valuing what we see more than trusting what we can’t see, and usurping credit for God’s blessings diminish our capacity to love Him and spoil our religion. We want to be religious. We must be. Wan stabs at “spirituality” won’t cut it. But we also want to be the right kind of religious, the pure kind. Study is important, but not enough. Protecting Christ’s ideals is vital, but conformity to manmade standards alone undermines His purpose. Only by loving God and everyone created in His image will He accept our religion as pure and faultless.

God's religious purity standards: loving everyone ("widows and orphans") and resisting anything that lessens our love for Him.

(Tomorrow: Where’d They Go?)

Postscript: Tech Trouble and a Terrific Blog

All comments are forwarded to my personal email, alerting me the instant they’re submitted for approval. (Wish I didn’t have to do that, but every so often a black-hearted flamer can’t stop him/herself from unleashing a torrent of homophobic bile undeserving of anyone’s attention.) Of late, Earthlink is dumping anything sent via gmail, including comments from those of you with gmail accounts. I don’t know you’ve commented until I sign onto Blogger or get a spam report from Earthlink, which frustrates me by delaying my response. Often comments from other providers arrive after your comments and get answered before them. While I’m trying to get to the bottom of this issue, please don’t misinterpret this as anything beyond what it is—tech trouble.

Now, on to something far more interesting. T, a prized reader here, publishes a terrific blog, Breathe Beautiful, comprised of short, haiku-like poems illustrated with atmospheric photographs, accompanied by understated music. Her topics are very personal, often discreetly alluding to relationships and situations that prompt a rich variety of emotions, positive and negative. While faith isn’t the focus of Breathe Beautiful, the oscillations of life that T writes about so beautifully will remind any believer of its importance. Her blog is unique and fascinating, often challenging, and always worth visiting. Realizing I could never fully do it justice, here’s a shot.

Be Sharp

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

                        Proverbs 27.17

Something to Consider

The Hebrews letter is written for two main purposes: to instruct Jewish converts how to live by faith instead of conforming to code and inspire them to stay confident in their belief. God’s unmerited favor and the meaning of grace go beyond their religious experience and understanding. They live in a culture governed by Law, making them vulnerable to relapse into what they’ve always known. Because of this, the writer underscores why it’s unwise for any believer to go it alone. Discouragement comes too quickly and stays too long when there’s no one to help lift you out. The writer says, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another.” (Hebrews 10.24-25)

Although we live in nominally Christian communities, our situation closely compares with that of Hebrews’ original readers. The majority of our family, friends, and neighbors are content with being cultural Christians—i.e., accepting Jesus’s principles without practicing them. They’re governed by Christianity’s concept of a personal relationship with God, which many misconstrue as placating Him with lip service while living on their own terms. Our decision to follow Jesus in earnest puts us in the minority and often isolates us. It’s unwise to go it alone, which makes spurring one another’s commitment to Christ and reaching out to each other for encouragement something to consider seriously.

Mutual Benefit

An enormous spectrum of knowledge and experience exists between us—along with a bounty of gifts, talents, and life skills. It simply makes good sense to avail ourselves to what each of us can offer and make what we have available to others. Regardless where we are in our walk with Christ, we know believers further ahead of us and others not yet where we are. We look for advice and inspiration from those out front; we offer the same to those behind us. In either case, both parties gain mutual benefit by seeking one another out. As Proverbs teaches us, we sharpen each other in the same way that iron bars hone their edges. We approach sharper, stronger Christians for help with smoothing our contours to reflect God’s love and Jesus’s example more perfectly. We also improve substantially when less seasoned and confident believers look to us for help. Upholding one another in the faith always results in profit to either side, just as two pieces of metal end up sharper and cleaner after they’re rubbed together.

Monitoring Damages

When we’re apart, we can’t escape harmful exposure to corrosive elements and influences. Unattended, they eat away our substance, blunt our effectiveness, and discolor our appearance. It’s our responsibility to monitor damages we undergo very closely and reunite quickly with other believers to rub them out. This asks tremendous humility to identify the flaws and failures we need help with. James 5.16 exhorts us to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” The longer we keep to ourselves, putting off coming clean so we can become clean, the higher our probability of growing duller, weaker, and less pleasing to God.

Very rarely does someone abruptly decide to quit following Jesus and revert to his/her old ways. Such a dramatic break constitutes utter craziness, as Solomon explains in Proverbs 26.11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Far more frequently, once-fervent Christians grow indifferent by gradual neglect and withdrawal from fellow believers. Fear of exposing their failure turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as concealing it ultimately leads to doing it and there’s no hiding failure after it happens. No scripture I know counsels us to be aloof, afraid, or ashamed with one another. Time and again we’re told to be incisive, fearless, and bold. We can’t be sharp and stay sharp on our own. For that we need to spur one another to love and good deeds, to encourage one another, to pray for and with each other.

Whether we need sharpening or we’re asked to help sharpen another, we come out cleaner, stronger, and more incisive in the end.

(Tomorrow: Pure Religion)

Postscript: Weekend Gospel

Thou Art a Shield for Me: Psalm 3 – Byron Cage & Purpose

Gospel aficionados around the world know Byron Cage as “the prince of praise.” Backed by his nine-member group, Purpose, he has carved his own niche as a superb singer and songwriter focused completely on drawing listeners into a spirit of worship. While most other leading gospel artists are inimitable, Byron’s calling requires him to be widely imitated by less accomplished musicians. Dozens of his songs are now praise-and-worship standards in churches of every size and spirit. Here he sets Psalm 3 from the King James Version in a lilting, pop-infused melody that resolves with a genuinely moving coda: “Thank You for lifting my head.” And evidence of Byron’s global impact becomes obvious by this video being originally broadcast in Brazil (ergo the Portuguese subtitles). Slightly mellower than normal, yet too marvelously rich to be missed. Enjoy!

Truth That Lasts

For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.

                        Psalm 100.5 (NJKV)

Essential Knowledge

Psalm 100 calls us to worship with gusto, to shout for joy, worship with gladness, and sing joyful songs. It invites us to meet God with praise and thanksgiving, because He’s good, His mercy knows no end, and His truth outlasts time. It’s a short poem—only five verses long, its admonitions comprising the two opening verses and the two closing ones. Nestled between them in verse 3, however, we find a marvelously concise definition of “His truth:” “Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” It seems too basic to demand much thought. Yet the Psalmist doesn’t insert the verse as a passing recognition of Who God is and why He’s worthy of worship. If that was the case, he’d say, “The LORD is God,” and leave it at that. He says, “Know that the LORD is God, know where you came from, and know who you are.” This is essential knowledge not to be treated lightly.

Who Is God?

We know what God looks like, because He created us in His image and likeness. Therefore, how we choose to “see” Him can’t be wrong. God has no gender (despite grammatically defaulting to the masculine for neuter personages). He has no genetic ethnicity, orientation, traits, or physical features because He has no origin. He always was. John 1.1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Since nothing preceded Him, He inherited no identifiable characteristics. Being none of the things we envision Him to resemble, He’s all of them. So I imagine a patient Patriarch. You see a nurturing Mother. Someone else pictures an awesome Being—for lack of a better analogy, something like an “all-powerful Oz.” We’re all correct. Yet the vast diversity of how God is seen doesn’t alter the truth of Who God is. That remains the same for everyone. That’s what the Psalmist urges us to know.

“God is spirit,” Jesus tells the woman at the well, “and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4.24) When we pray or meditate or worship, it’s vital we look past the God we “see” to reach the God we know. His true nature defies description and boundaries of space, time, and logic. Thus, we approach God fully prepared for Him to respond in atypical, extraordinary ways. He receives our praise as only He can. He hears our prayers in their entirety, understanding every word—including those left unsaid by conscious omission or inadequate insight. He filters our requests through His infinite knowledge and inscrutable wisdom. And His actions flow out of a bottomless reservoir of unconditional love. “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” Paul writes in Romans 11.33. We need to know the Lord is God.

Who Are We?

The Psalmist answers this question without qualification. We are God’s handiwork. “It is He Who made us, and not we ourselves.” This truth is double-edged, slicing through self-doubt on one side and cutting down pride of self on the other. God created us as He desired us to be, shaping our makeup for His pleasure and purpose. Eons before our biological conception, each of us existed in His mind. In Jeremiah 1.5 He says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” We must never mistake our Maker’s creative process for improvisation. He doesn’t need to throw things together on the fly, since all creation waits at His command. What’s more, God isn’t an “idea guy” who comes up with a concept and walks away. He’s a hands-on Creator Who pays obsessive attention to every detail. That’s why we have no business doubting who we are or allowing others to denigrate how we’re made. If we or anyone else is displeased with us, all complaints should be directed to the Manufacturer—Who, by the way, never fails to accomplish His intentions.

We take pride in our making while checking any notions we’ve made ourselves. Our job is realizing everything God created us to be, not creating something to boast about on our own. Just as we know a Chagall mural or Rodin sculpture when we see it, our authenticity—physically and spiritually—rests on God’s inimitable signature. In Isaiah 43.7 God identifies us collectively as “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Family and friends call us by our given names, but our Creator knows us by His name. He brands us to offset any confusion about belonging to Him. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. We need to know who we are.

Human progress spawns perishable truths. As each generation’s understanding increases, previously sacrosanct knowledge gives way to new discoveries—the flat world becomes round. This produces a lamentable side effect. No cherished belief is immune to debate and doubt. For example, America’s Founders built their nation on certain “self-evident truths,” including universal equality and inherent rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it appears these ideals aren’t as obvious today, when ‘round-the-clock, point-and-click dismantling of long-held ideas raises uncertainties about truth. While our truth shifts over time, God’s truth endures because He endures. He is God. He made us. We are His people. This is truth that lasts. Knowing it does not—and will not—change changes our perceptions of Who God is and who we are. It changes us.

The truth of Who God is and who we are never changes. Knowing that changes us.

(Tomorrow: Be Sharp)

Personal Postscript: Thank You

I must apologize for taking longer than anticipated to get back in the groove here. My Achilles’ heel is always expecting things to take less time than they require. But I can’t let this moment pass without thanking all of you for your prayers and expressions of support. Just knowing we were in your thoughts gave Walt and me tremendous strength and comfort.

The sorrow of death brought about unexpected resurrection of several torn relationships. Watching relatives who once shunned Walt embrace him with genuine affection and respect was miraculous to behold. Before we left, he said, “Well, at least I won’t have to go back after this.” By the time God finished fixing the situation, however, we came home with plans to return for several upcoming family events. Psalm 30.5 says, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” While we can never replace Walt’s mom, God honored His Word—and your prayers—by giving us a new day. We are forever grateful to Him and you for these blessings.