Creation, Interrupted

Creation, Interrupted

Creation, interrupted.

I came up with this term myself.  If we look at the creation narrative in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, we see that God created the heavens and the earth.  God created the plants, animals, fish, and seas.  God created night and day and lastly God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden.  (Not in that order, but you get my point)  But what I mean by creation, interrupted is that the story was not over.  Most people would say, “Yes, of course we realize that the story was not over because through disobedience, sin entered creation.”  But the fact of the matter is that, Adam and Eve never got the finished product of creation, which was the tree of life.  Before, Adam and Eve could lay their hand on the tree of life, God banished them from the garden, as an act of mercy so that they would not forcibly eat and live forever in the state of sin.  But that is my exact point, the creation was interrupted.

I have used this example before but I think it fits.  Imagine being in an argument and the other person is not letting you get your point across and keeps interrupting you.  They cut you off every time you open your mouth to speak, never listening to your viewpoint.  And then as soon as they are done “proving their point”, they walk away.  You never are allowed the opportunity to finish the conversation.  I actually believe that this feeling of interruption, the feeling of not being able to complete something, and how it makes people angry, bitter, and disillusioned is exactly the state of humanity, as a result of being banished from the garden.  We could not finish or complete our story.  We were unable to see what eating from that tree would have done for us.

Now, whether the tree was literal, symbolic, metaphorical for our obedience to God is not the point.  Obedience to God is the point.  Through our obedience, we would have experienced the very completion of our story.  And the revealing aspect of who God actually was and is would have come to its eventual conclusion for the first humans.  If we know God as, Father, Son, and Spirit, then the Father, Son, and Spirit would have been revealed to us.  Father, Son, and Spirit were not New Testament revelations, but they are the hidden mystery before the time began.

Christ would have been revealed as would have the Spirit.  If the Word was God, and the Word created everything that is, then why would humanity not know their Creator?  The Spirit would have been the very life of God in the first humans, giving them the power of God in their lives and giving them their inheritance, which was life forever with God.  Creation, interrupted.

So, when I hear people go back to the original creation and say, “God created everything as good”, which the apostle Paul also references in 1 Timothy 4.4,

“For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude.”  I think, “Yes, but creation was not over.”  Our inheritance is not going to be God’s creation, but God himself.  That we are going to live as “New Creation”, not disembodied beings, because of the resurrection of Christ but our bodies will take upon themselves the finished creation.  Creation, completed.

I know this may sound confusing, but I am going to continue to write about this because it is our story.  Humanity desires the tree of life to live forever because death is truly an enemy.  The cross of Christ took the death that sin created, and when Jesus cried out, “It is finished”, creation was completed.

Journey to Christ

There is nothing in the world I love to see or hear than a person’s testimony of their journey to Jesus!  It absolutely excites me to see someone begin the transformation into the image of the glorious son of God.  When we encounter Christ, literally every atom and molecule in our body cries out for its Creator and King!  There is no comparison known to humanity!  Yes, I overdid the exclamation points!!

Article  (Read here)

I think it’s Great News!

Galatians, Galatians, Galatians!

In America today, the more that I read what people supposedly say about God and the gospel, the more I say, “Something about what people some people say just does not seem right.”  People are so concerned about social issues that they make the gospel about a social cause or a political situation.  But the good news is Jesus himself.  That God in his infinite kindness and mercy did not let people wallow in the mire of their lives.  Good news means that apparently I was living some “Bad news.”  Wait, why didn’t someone tell me?  No one had to tell me because when Good News came to me, I distinctly knew the difference.  It was a if I had been eating rotten fruit and tasted the freshest piece of fruit ever.  No one needed to tell me the difference, I knew it.  As a matter of fact, I talked to the Holy Spirit immediately and had a conversation which continued all the way until the next morning.  Yes, God.Is.Real.

In our modern world, this gospel has been distorted.  It is not about “receiving God’s immense grace” but about taking Jesus into my self and fixing the world.  In an easy way to explain what I am talking about is that, some people are convincing others that eating rotten fruit is fine.  But if we know God or rather are “known by God” as Paul puts it in Galatians, we will desire to do the will of him who knows us and calls us.  Jesus said in the book of John that if we know him than we will desire to do his will. We will desire to glorify the one to whom gave his life for us.  We will allow God’s precious Holy Spirit to magnify Christ in our midst, in our lives, and in our world.  And by the way, our world is where we live, not somewhere out there.  If Jesus did not seek glory or seek to “change the world”, why do we?  In reality, thinking we are “changing” anything is a myth.  Lives are “changed” when they encounter Jesus and this happens usually in the same ways it happened in the stories of the gospels, where Jesus encountered someone and touched and healed them.  They received God’s grace and in turn, received the Lord himself.

Jesus is shown to hang out a lot in Bethany, which is about two miles from Jerusalem.  He was welcome there, so he went there a lot.  Wow!  Not too difficult to comprehend.  Jesus resides where he is welcome.  Jesus performs miracles where he is welcome and were he is received.  That is the story of Galatians.  Paul says that Jesus was welcome or “publicly manifest as crucified” to the Galatians and miracles were performed because the Galatians received the Holy Spirit, the very presence of Jesus into their assembly.

That is the story of Galatians.  In this book, Paul paints a sweeping picture of God’s immense grace and redemption in Christ Jesus.  Paul paints a short biographical picture of himself, as one who adamantly opposed the church and actively tried to destroy it.  Although he does not get into details how he accomplished the task of destroying the church, he does use the word, “violently” and violence as understood in the Greco-Roman world did not mean, “spiritual, verbal, or emotional” violence.  It meant physical violence.

But then Paul goes right back to saying in verses 15-16, 

“But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased ¹⁶ to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood…”

So here is the crux of what I am writing about.

Why did God wait so long to reveal Jesus to Paul?  If God had revealed Jesus to Paul earlier, then Paul would not have persecuted the church.  Paul would not have consented to throwing Christians in jails, prisons, or even killing them.  Paul would have served Christ, right?  Well, maybe not and here is why.

If God had revealed Jesus to Paul prior to Paul zealously applying the law to this situation, then Paul may have never know the immense grace of God.  And we can neither show nor make known anything which we ourselves do not know and experience. Paul recognized that the law in which he was applying was magnifying his own sin and not justifying him before God.  Paul could never have known that it was ONLY a sheer act of God’s grace in Christ Jesus which justified a human being.  And the fact of the matter is that Paul could not consult with flesh and blood (people) because Paul knew that this was a revelation of Jesus Christ.  And here is the most amazing aspect of it all.  Paul did not consult with anyone because the Spirit implanted the law of Christ Jesus upon his heart and Paul could attest to these same churches that they are saved by grace and trained by the same grace.  Paul truly knew that we as Christians grow in our faith by and through faith.  Faith is its own trainer.  It grows.

Paul is fairly angry about the Galatians abandoning this grace in favor of good news which tells people that they have to perform some action or work or service prior to knowing Christ.  Of course Paul would reject this.  While Paul was traveling to Damascus with order to beat the crap out of Christians, Jesus knocked him off his horse, showed himself visibly to him, and spoke audibly to him.

Please tell me what Paul did to “make” this happen.  Jesus showed himself to Paul out of grace.  Jesus then spoke to another believer to go lay their hands on Paul to receive the Holy Spirit.   Jesus even told this believer where Paul was located.  And for God’s sake, Paul could not even see.

PAUL DID NOTHING TO EARN OR DESERVE GOD’S GRACE!!

While we were sinners, while we were racist, sexist, misogynistic, bigots, Jesus died for us.  Jesus gave his life for us completely despite anything we had done.

What is Galatians?  It is a book which says, “Hey! Someone is tricking you!  Someone is teaching you that you can do something other than receive God’s grace.  Paul says, “You can neither rescue yourself, nor can you make yourself holy.”  It is a sheer act of God’s Holy Spirit, the law of the cross of Jesus Christ written upon your heart that changes your life.”

At the end of Galatians, Paul says, “The only thing I boast in is the cross of Jesus Christ.”  The most shameful act that Rome inflict upon someone else, Paul says is what we boast in.  Without the cross of Jesus, then sin does not become the enemy that it truly is.  It was sin that crucified Jesus and without Jesus taking this sin, we would never know God!

Boast in the cross!  Because Jesus has defeated our enemy and by defeating the great enemy of death, we can live as free people.

Top Ten Reasons I am a Christian…

Top Ten Reasons I am a Christian…

church politics

#10–Jesus asks questions of the ones who had just asked him questions, then doesn’t give an answer, and walks away.

#9–Jesus calls the religious leaders “Sons of hell, hypocrites, white washed walls, outcasts, hypocrites, shallow, and hypocrites”, and then dies to prove he is a true religious leader.

#8–Herod asks Jesus to perform a miracle, Jesus stares him down and Herod laughs nervously.

#7–The soldier who was arresting Jesus has his ear cut off by Jesus’ followers, then Jesus rebukes his followers and heals the soldiers ear.

#6–When cornered by two groups of people, Jesus asks a question of one group which is the exact thing the other groups hates, then walks away.

#5–Jesus became for people what God had always desired, fellowship with them.

#4–Jesus never asks anything of us which he did not already accomplish and then gives us a Helper to accomplish it.

#3–With one word, Jesus…

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Dying churches

This was simply my response to an article from a consultant as to why churches in America are dying.  Here is the article, with my response at the bottom.  peace.

Dying Churches

My response:

I like Hauerwas but disagree with the statement that “the church in America is dying because God is punishing her for subordinating the radical witness of Jesus in America.” I think a better way to describe it might be Dallas Willard’s statement that “in some churches, God simply stands aside while we pursue our interests, our agenda’s, our lives.” Jesus is present where he is welcome, like in Bethany in Israel. Other times Jesus was present but was not received. In Bethany, Jesus was lavished upon and we see Jesus returning there over and over again because the people loved his presence with them. Miracles happened, people’s hearts were opened, and we can see genuine warmth and love in Bethany. I think Jesus traveling around in Israel should be seen as a “representation” of some our churches. In certain places, the people simply did not believe. As Stanley Hauerwas has said, “the church grows through witness and conversion”. When people do not know Jesus and experience his grace and forgiveness, this ignited a passion and we should ALL say, “Yes! That’s what this is about!” Just a thought. good article.

The problem with theology

The problem with theology.  The word theology in its simplest form comes from the integration of two words: theo (meaning God) and logos: (meaning word).  Therefore the main thrust of theology is to bring God into words.  But what happens when the word becomes God?  I say this because if we truly believe in the incarnation of Jesus, meaning that God took the form of Jesus and lived, breathed, and dwelt among us, then how can people simply believe that we take Jesus (a person) and make this person simple into the form of theology?

Theology seems to be more concerned about proper thinking than it does about the human person and the way that we live as God’s people.  When Jesus encountered a person 2000 years ago and when he encounters a person today, I have yet to see any reaction that equals the reaction of complete and utter silence before the living God.  Theology as bringing God into words suddenly becomes null and void.  There are no words to describe the very presence of the risen Christ.  There are no words to describe the immense love which fills the human heart to overflowing.  And yet, I write this with words to describe an experience which must be devoid of words.  As I read the stories of Jesus, the ones to whom Jesus encounters over and over again, experience something which is indescribable, yet transforms their lives and compels them into an eternal life which exemplifies God’s forgiveness.

Theology must reflect the transformed life because words have so much power.  But what is more dangerous than words is a life which declares Jesus without a personal encounter with the living Christ.  I use the term “Christ” as the “anointed Lord”.  This is not to say that the process of Jesus becoming Lord in a person’s life does not take time.  Jesus can do whatever he chooses with whomever he chooses.  That is my exact point.  Jesus if Lord and if I am to declare this truth, then I must at some point know that his Lordship is greater than my words.

John Wesley and the Spirit

John Wesley.  I love John Wesley, but I just have to take a few moments and scratch my head at the United Methodist Church and other churches which stem from the Methodist movement of John Wesley.  Why am I scratching my head.  Because at some point, we must begin to acknowledge that John Wesley was completely finished in ministry prior to his baptism in the Holy Spirit.  And could we begin to to acknowledge what this event actually was.  It was the baptism in the Spirit, of which the entire New Testament demonstrates. In 1738, John Wesley went to a meeting in London and this is the event:

“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

So John Wesley had the inner witness of the Spirit which he had been seeking.  John Wesley had desired to know but it took him to basically lose all assurance in his ability to gain or earn God’s blessing.  John Wesley had said prior to going to this meeting that he believed he was all but finished in ministry.  He had been kicked out of every church in London (also because the elites in London did not like hearing about sin), but John Wesley had no where else to go and then Aldersgate happened.  John Wesley said that after this event, he immediately began to forgive people that he had harbored bitterness toward.  He said that the confirmation in his life was that he was truly loved by God.

So, instead of preaching the gospel where this same Spirit is received with grace, we point people to John Wesley and his experience.  Instead, we should look at the example of John Wesley and desire it for ourselves.  John Wesley’s experience has no power to do anything for me today but demonstrate the reality of Jesus.  It is Jesus who transforms hearts through the revelation and witness of the Spirit.  John Wesley was baptized in the Holy Spirit.  John Wesley was a “Holy Ghost rollin’, tongues speakin’, casting out devils believin’, man of God!”  So, in essence, John Wesley was a Pentecostal and so was the Methodist movement.

Stop trying…

Stop trying.  I will say it again, stop trying.  Stop trying to live a good life.  Stop trying to be perfect.  Stop trying not to sin.  Stop trying to love people.  Stop trying to live the example of Jesus.  Stop trying to care for the poor. Just stop trying to be and do whatever it is that we think will please God.

Seriously, stop trying because it is not working.  I say this with the utmost love in my heart for people and for the body of Jesus Christ, the church.  I also say this because I am tired of seeing people striving to put on a show for God.  God is not duped, God is not fooled.  We can not do something to earn God’s favor.  If the gospel has transformed us, we can not “add” anything to it. Point blank!  God completely accepts us, loves us, and will complete the work he began in us.  It is those who truly do not know God’s love deep in their hearts who strive to earn it.  The problem becomes when these people have access to influence other people.

The church was and always has been shaped and formed around the Spirit’s revelation of Jesus Christ and him crucified.  The Apostle Paul says to the Galatian Christians, (My paraphrase), “Stop trying to create for yourselves a perfect world where you feel justified and righteous.”  “Stop trying to work toward some type of inner fulfillment by doing certain tasks and trying to live moral lives because it is not working.”  Paul then says, “As a matter of fact it is harming and destroying the good news of Jesus.” Read Galatians

Paul then says that the Galatians came to know the truth of the good news because it was revealed to them by the Spirit of God. They believed by faith because the Spirit revealed to them Jesus the Christ.  Paul then says that they became the people of the living God by the Spirit but they are attempting to perfect themselves (or become righteous) by doing certain tasks. But Paul says, “If you (Galatians) literally did NOTHING to get it or deserve the good news but simply received it, then how on earth can you work toward becoming anything but a people shaped by the Spirit of bountiful grace?

Paul says that as soon as they Galatians started to implement ways toward being righteous, they actually lost their freedom and have once again begun the downward descent toward slavery and bondage.   Paul speaks as if he is actually afraid for the Galatians that they will once again become in bondage to sin.  Paul then says that this is not just a “changing of the gospel” but is actually “NO GOSPEL AT ALL!” and anyone (including an angel from heaven) who preaches or teaches this gospel, including Paul, “let that person be accursed.”  And by the way, he says, “Let them be accursed”, twice. Accursed means, ‘to be damned’.

The good news of Jesus Christ can only be “received” not “gained” and definitely not “earned”.  So what is this “good news”?  The good news is that Jesus took upon himself the bondage to sin and died carrying our unbelief in God to the cross, the most miserable form of death. Our mistrust or unbelief caused the death of Jesus, but the victory is that Jesus rose from the dead for death could not hold Jesus.  In Jesus’ death, he buried this unbelief because it was the fear of death which drives or compels sin.  Jesus conquered death and the grave and when we believe and receive this gift of forgiveness, we entered into a new relationship with God which NEVER ends because death and the grave could not hold Jesus and it will not hold us either.

This was revealed to the Galatian Christians but somewhere along the way, they threw away this gracious act of God and began to believe and teach that they must “add” something to grace.  But think about it!  How can anything be added to grace?  Grace is unmerited.  Grace is undeserved.  Grace is not grace if I can earn it.  If I can work for it.  Why is this so incredibly dangerous?

Because the people who teach this will of course put themselves on the side of grace but they will make their efforts or their works determinative for who can be inside grace and who can be outside.  So when Paul wrote Galatians, certain Jews had come into the Galatian church and of course they used their standing, “circumcision” as determinative for grace.  So all those who had no circumcision were on the outside looking in.  The Apostle Paul was furious about this.  No seriously, he was mad!

Paul said that this is not grace and actually works toward shutting out other people who otherwise could come into relationship with GOD!  This is not any laughing matter.  This is serious.  This is why Paul says, “Let that person be accursed” if they are teaching or preaching this.

I hate to say it, but this is so prevalent today.  There are so many instances where people are shut out of the experience of forgiveness because they are taught or to “try” to live in such and such a way.  They are taught that God is on the side of this group of people and therefore, you must align yourselves with them in order to receive the blessing of God.  Galatians would say, “That is not true!”  A person does not need to align themselves with anyone or anything but Christ alone!  And when the gift comes to them, we should always be shocked to the core at whose eyes are opened to the freedom of forgiveness and reconciliation with the God of the universe.  We should always say, “I didn’t see that coming!”

Grace is always counter cultural to everything we think we know.

Grace

Grace

I knew what to do, yet I did not do it.
I knew God, yet my life did not show it
I knew the truth, yet I lied when confronted
I knew God, yet I pretended to be something

I knew what to do, yet I stood and looked angry
I knew God, yet my life seemed so empty
I knew the truth, yet I selfishly pretended
I knew God, yet I did not know the ending

God knew what to do, and loved me anyway
God knew me, and made straight my broken way
God is the truth, so my lies were buried deep
God knew me, I am his child to keep

God knew what to do, he sent his awesome son
God knew me and filled me up with his love
God is the truth, and I do not need to pretend
God knew me, amazing grace, the end.

But no I still can’t dunk

As a young man, I remember the greatest hindrance in my mind to following Christ was the fact that I felt as though I would “lose” something, or that Christ would demand that I give something up if I followed him.  I know many young people have this fear and I will admit, it can be crippling sometimes.  I was so scared that Christ would take away my ability to have fun or I would have to be somber or serious all the time, like so many religious folks. But an interesting thing happened when I committed my life to Christ.  Through the sheer grace of our good, kind, generous, amazing God, he called my best friend to also enter into a relationship with Jesus at the same time as me.  Nothing boring about that!  And immediately after we had prayed, I was filled with the Holy Spirit, and experienced a joy which surpasses understanding, nothing stagnate about that.  The incredible weight which had burdened me for so long was lifted off my back and I was free to declare his praise.

But this whole experience is quite amusing when I think back, because yes, I lost something, but the funny part is that it was the exact thing that I was afraid to lose.  What I was afraid to lose was the weight of having fun and filling my life with pleasure.  Having fun had gripped my life, moving me constantly from one event to the next, causing my grades to drop, causing my mind to never fully engage, causing other people to not take me serious, and causing me to continually seek to fill its voracious appetite.

And anyone who has ever been enslaved to having fun or having a good time can definitely relate.  It’s that overwhelming desire to fill one’s life with the next best thing.  Here is an example. I personally love to play basketball, but it’s that over desire for basketball that gets inside of us and drives or compels us to perform.  When we compete, losing becomes a question of identity because our identity is wrapped up in the feeling of exhilaration which is released usually when we win.  So, losing is not an option.  And when I am not playing, I imagine playing, when I am not imagining playing, I am watching videos about playing, and when I got bored with watching the best “NBA dunks”, I found “other” outlets to release that feeling of exhilaration.  My treasure was revealed in my heart and it sure was not Jesus.

The Scriptures say that Jesus came to destroy the power of the devil and although the devil never forces anyone to do anything, he does stab or poke or antagonize that overly sinful desire in us to fill our lives with whatever will please us.  The devil antagonizes our flesh or sinful desire and if we follow our lusts, we end up constructing a world without God, causing us to become ‘little gods’ who no longer have to trust in the provision of our Father.  The Apostle Paul tells the Galatian Christians to “Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” (Galatians 5.16)  When we walk in the Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus transforms our desires and breaks the power of sin off our lives, so that we can truly see clearly. The clarity of thought comes from a heart which has revealed that its treasure is Jesus Christ.  And the Spirit of Jesus Christ is still at work in the earth and we must trust what God is doing.  When we “Walk in the Spirit”, our lives become a blessing for other people and we seek their interests, rather than our own.  When we are compelled by something other than the Spirit of Christ, we seek to fill this compulsion, which is always self-seeking or to glorify itself.

I use the illustration of basketball because last Sunday, I was home after church and I had some spare time, which does not happen much these days.  I have not played basketball in a long time and had the thought to play.  In the new city where I live, I have not seen that many games, so I was not sure where to go, but a specific park in the city came to my mind.  I knew that there was a court there, but I had not seen people playing there.  So I went to this park and upon arrival there were three other people shooting around.  I thought, “Nice, we can at least play a 2 on 2 game.”  But approximately five minutes after I arrived about 15 other people showed up and within another twenty minutes, I was playing a full court 5 on 5 game.  And some of the players were excellent, making the game fast paced and very enjoyable.

The point is that the weight of sin always desires to enslaves us, forcing us to continue a practice even when our hearts desperately want to be free from compulsion.  The power of the Holy Spirit can literally break off the power of sin in our lives, freeing us from its bondage.  The beauty of Christ is that he gives us the desires of our hearts without the enslaving power of sin.  I could not have planned a better basketball game and when the game had run its course, I left feeling not enslaved but fulfilled.

And when we are fulfilled in Christ, everyone else around us recognizes the difference.

Be blessed.