No Matter the Circumstances

“And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.  And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and…”  Luke 1:41 (and a tiny bit of 42 as a teaser.)

In all the Marvel Avenger movies, we sit and wait at the very end for the teasers or tag to come up while the credits are rolling.  We sat and waited and waited in the last Avenger’s movie, until one of the staff cleaning up asked, “What are you waiting for?”  “Isn’t there a teaser coming?”  “Nope.”  “Oh.”  How disappointing!

Well, today’s Scripture, does not leave us without a teaser.  And I think that today, the Lord is “teasing” me to look not just at Elizabeth, or John the Baptist, or Mary, or the birth of Jesus, but to look beyond those things at Him.  So here I am, with Elizabeth, who, when she is greeted by Mary, and maybe she hadn’t even seen Mary yet, but only heard her voice, but that was all it took, for the Holy Spirit to cause her baby to leap inside for joy, and for Elizabeth to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  And if I keep on reading, I see that Elizabeth, upon being filled with the Holy Spirit, well, something happened in her and to her and through her.  She said stuff and knew stuff that didn’t just come from her. 

It’s not in her first words.  Anyone could have said that out of excitement to see someone.  No, actually, it IS even in her first words.  It’s all over everything she says and knows.  “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”  How did she know that there was something different and special above other women, above the natural going on inside Mary’s womb?  No one sent a letter.  Mary hadn’t talked to her earlier.  Who just told her?  The Holy Spirit.

“And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  Do you hear that?  How did she know that Mary was carrying the Lord inside of her womb?  This baby was Elizabeth’s Lord.  He was a baby and yet, he was already Elizabeth’s authority, and she was already submitted under Him?  How did she know?  Who told her?  The Holy Spirit.

“For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”  How did she know it wasn’t a gas pain or the normal movement of a baby inside a mother’s womb?  Because you can tell when the Holy Spirit is moving.  There is a knowing, that you can’t explain, but you know.  And it was at the sound of Mary’s greeting, when Elizabeth heard her voice.  She didn’t need to see Mary to know she was pregnant, or to know she was pregnant with the Messiah.  She heard her greeting and she knew, and John, inside her womb, still developing, knew.  How?  How did she know?  The Holy Spirit.

“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”  How did Elizabeth know that the Lord had spoken to Mary?  How did Elizabeth know that Mary had responded with belief?  And how can Elizabeth call her blessed because she believed in God’s fulfilment of His words.  Is she just blessed because she gets to be the mother of Jesus?  How does Elizabeth know what she’s saying?  How does she even say this?  The Holy Spirit.

I have to stop here before I get where I thought I was going today, about where the Holy Spirit takes us in the Lord and how He enables us in the Lord to do God things instead of people things.  But then I came to this word “blessed.”  Elizabeth isn’t saying that Mary was given a special opportunity and that good fortune will come from that.  She wasn’t saying that Mary had reached a stage of happiness and contentment and there would be no misfortune or hardship in her life.  Mary wouldn’t avoid death and pain.  What was she saying?

Elizabeth was declaring that Mary had claimed the objective reality of what God had done through a divine act in her.  She wasn’t basing her life on subjective feelings.  She was basing her life on the word of God as being true and accomplished as it was spoken.  When she heard the word of God spoken to her, even though it was impossible by man’s standards that she could become impregnated without the performance of a man upon his part, she trusted in the power and word of God and the working of His Holy Spirit.  She took seriously the word of God.  It wasn’t just a teaching or a recommendation or a command.  It was truth.  It was life.  It was Jesus, the Son of God, inside of her. 

She was blessed by the Lord.  She heard it from the angel and from Elizabeth.  That didn’t give her some warm fuzzy feeling inside.  It was serious stuff.  It was the stuff of surrendering your life to whatever God required.  It was trust.  She couldn’t remain passive.  She had to act “in accord with the coming kingdom,” (Bored-this is who wrote those word in quotes) with God’s will.  It wasn’t just a description of a girl that God was happy with.  It was a girl that the Lord was using and including to bring into reality His kingdom.  To be blessed is to be a blessing, because it’s only for insiders, for those who are inside God and He is in them. 

Mary was blessed because she was joined in fulfilling God’s “prophetic pronouncement.”  She knew it was more than words; that it was reality coming into being.  She knew the truth based on the authority of the One who spoke it.  She didn’t need to investigate it, or confirm it, or check it out.  She knew it was true because it was of God.  Her ideas or thoughts had no bearing on His truth.  Hers was just to take a stand with regard to God, who had spoken.  To have only shared the content of his speaking would not be to be blessed.  The blessing is in the doing, because in the doing is the being and believing, and in being and believing in God’s words, is the part of being included in His performance of those words.  That’s the only place the blessing is. 

Mary was blessed, not because she was chosen, but because she trusted the words of God.  She surrendered her life to believing those words and allowing them to take hold of her and become her way of life.  It changed life as she knew it.  It turned her world upside down, and not hers alone.  Because she joined with God and adopted His words as her way, her truth, her life, then what blessed her life in Him, turned the whole world upside down.  Her virtue exists because God’s word was her virtue.  She understood who God was and she believed.  Why?  For the mere fact that God said so. 

Can I say that?  Can I say, “Because God said so, I believe, and I will live that out in my life?”  Can I really say that?  Do I say that and follow through like Mary?  God says, “Be angry but sin not.”  Do I believe the truth of His word and then surrender my life to them?  God says, “Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.”   How about that?  What God calls sin, do I call sin and live my life in that truth?  Is God’s word my truth or do I make my own?  Am I more hungry for the temporary “blessings” of this world than I am for the blessing of God? 

I want to be like Mary.  I want to care more about the blessing of God, not what He will give me, but that I am in Him and He in me.  I want to care more about His honor than mine, about His kingdom than mine.  Because the blessing of God isn’t about what God gives me, but about all that He is when I live in Him.  The blessing of God is being in Him, looking forward to the final completion of all His promises, and remaining in Him to be there when He has completed all His promises and I am there in Him to enjoy the fullness of His presence and the ultimate everything he has for us in His perfect kingdom.  I want to be in You now Lord, so that I will be in You then.  Help me to understand the value of Your blessing every day of my life.  I believe, like Mary, that Your word will do what it says, and that Your word has the power to do what it says.  I want to live in that power every day of my life, no matter the circumstances.

My Husband, My Lord?

“…but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” 1 Peter 3:4

Here’s my question, “Is there a hidden person located somewhere in my heart that says, ‘Hey, let’s submit to my husband!’?” According to the international Standard Bible Encyclopedia this is about where my “seat” of spiritual influences is, that place where the Holy Spirit does His work in me. “Briefly stated, it is mind, soul, spirit–God’s image in man–man’s higher nature, intellectual, moral, and spiritual.” The thing is, unfortunately, that this thinking is still in the process of being transformed, so, it can still be corrupted.
But it seems that we can counter that corruptible bent or nature by incorporating some things into our lives. What are those things that can help me counter my easily corrupted self and attitudes inside? A gentle and quiet spirit. And where does that come from? The fruit of the Holy Spirit. It comes from practicing submitting to You, Lord and practicing submitting to my husband. Why? Because the goal is to bear Your image in our marriage, the image of Christ and the church.
It’s an image of love, patience, self-sacrifice, submission, out of love for our Heavenly Father that runs out in love for others. Peter wants to help me understand what it looks like in real life so he pulls up an example from the past, Sarah.  Sarah? Well, if you ask me, that was no perfect marriage. There was the struggle around stuff with Hagaar and Ishmael. Sarah said, “Get rid of them!” Abraham didn’t want to. But God spoke to him and said, “Do what Sarah says.” So I think, how was that a gentle and quiet spirit? How was that submitting to her husband? How was that Sarah obeying Abraham and “calling him lord”?
Maybe it’s a fine, wavering line of lordship and obedience. I think of Abigail and her sour husband, Nabal. And it seemed to me that this fine woman, Abigail, was blessing her husband by her conduct in life and her business. But when it came to his decision to foolishly endanger their whole family, she “respectfully” intervened, against his decision. She even stepped up to David, who was going to retaliate against Nabal, in his anger and pride, and hear her words, “On me alone, my lord, be the guilt.” Now how is that for a submissive, quiet, and gentle spirit? “I will sacrifice everything for the life of my husband and people, AND for you, that you don’t displease God.” (My thoughts she was saying by her actions.)  She stepped in for her husband. Even when he was dead wrong. She took the blame, not for Nabal’s choice, but for her own actions. But she also humbly stepped in for David, reminding him that vengeance is the Lord’s.
What does that tell me? Submission is not blind. Submission is noble. Submission with God first is a way of “watchcaring” over those we love and are responsible for. A Submissive woman, in her gentle and quiet spirit, can be sensitive to the realities of what is really happening and what is really important. She is not guided by bitterness but by love. She knows when she must act on her own accord, even against her husband’s wishes. She knows when he will be receptive or not receptive. She knows where to draw the line of respect for him and respect for God. Her submission does not remove her responsibility to do what is right.
Abigail was actually doubly submitted here. She was under submission to her husband, a foolish and cruel man. But then she was also under submission to David. She knew who David was. She knew that David was the anointed king. She knew that he considered her life in his hands. And she approached him with that respect. But above all, she approached all with respect for God first. So, actually, she was triple-ly submitted!
My problem is that I profess to respect God, but somewhere along the way, I lose respect of person for those who haven’t respected whatever part of me I think should have been respected. I want to be like Abigail and focus on respecting You and all the lives around me, instead of respecting myself at any one else’s cost. She didn’t ask for her husband to die. She didn’t ask for her husband’s blessing, because what he was doing wasn’t worthy of blessing. She just did what was right and encouraged others to not take the place of the Lord.  Neither did she take His place.
David’s answer to Abigail? “See, I have obeyed your voice, and I have granted your petition.” David actually considered himself blessed to be “corrected respectfully” by Abigail! “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from working salvation with my own hand!” (1 Samuel 25:32,33) Now, if taking salvation into his own hands was a problem for David, couldn’t that be a problem for wives as well? Could that be something that I have to guard against? Could Abigail have taken things into her own hands in a different way? Do I?

Well, Abigail’s not alone. Before her, there was Sarah, who referred to her husband as her lord, in respect. Well, what was the problem with Hagaar and Ishmael? Was it just jealousy? Or was it the fact that Hagaar and Ishmael were already showing disrespect to Abraham’s authority and to the plans of God? Could Sarah have seen something that Abraham didn’t? Could she have been protecting him though he didn’t see the need for her protection? Isn’t that interesting to think, because I remember the times in Egypt when Abraham asked Sarah to say she was a sister, knowing full well that she would probably be taken into the harem. How was that protecting Sarah? Abraham was protecting himself.
That wants to make me angry. But I have to stop myself. I have to remember that Abraham is as human as Sarah and I. I don’t condone what he did, but bitterness about it won’t help anything. What would a gentle, quiet spirit of submission have me do? Look to the Lord Himself. God has no shortcomings. God, the God of Abraham, who was the God of Sarah because of Abraham, came through for Sarah when Abraham didn’t. Thank You, Lord, that You come through for both husbands and wives! If only we would wait on you instead of them for our salvation! If only we would let you be their salvation and we would just be concerned with looking out for their best interests and respecting them for the person that you created them to be. But that won’t ever happen if I can’t submit in humility.
“…your husband will rule over you, and your desire will be toward him.” God, help me to understand this so that I can put things in the right light.  This isn’t the way You created us to be; this is the result of our fallen, sinful natures.  But since this is the way it is, help us to live in understanding of each other, and learn humility and submission again and the kind of love and caring that was there before the fall, that is even more available through the Holy Spirit now because Jesus has broken the power of sin over me!

The Value of a Vine

Photo compliments of Brittany Cunningham.

 

“’Son of man, what is the vine-tree more than any tree, the vine branch which grew up among the trees of the forest?’” (Ezekiel 15:2)

What’s the value of a vine? Actually, what’s the value of a vine in Your eyes, God? Hearing this makes me think of Jesus’ words, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser…I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” So maybe this whole vine idea wasn’t a new thing. Maybe it was God’s idea that we should find our life in Him from the start and that our purpose on earth is to bear His fruit and not ours.

Thinking of bearing fruit as a vine takes me to Genesis 49:2. Here are the words that Jacob uses to bless his son Joseph, “Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain; its branches run over the wall.” Why was he such a strong vine? Look at his life. Joseph didn’t act like an oak tree instead of a vine. He didn’t rely on his own strength. He realized that his strength, the strength of his “vine” came from God. He looked to God for help and blessing. He let God fill him with the fruit he should bear. His brothers chose to bear fruit foreign to God, but Joseph clung to that which was of God.

Israel is referred to as a vine in Psalm 80:8,9. “You have brought a vine out of Egypt: you have cast out the heathen and planted it. You prepared room before it, and did cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.” Imagine that the Kudzu vine was a good thing here. It’s a creeping vine that is native to Asia but introduced to the U.S. in the 1800’s as an ornamental and for erosion control. Only it crowds out native species. So here in the U.S. it’s not a good thing. But God chose Israel from among the nations. They were chosen to be a good vine to go into the world and bear God’s fruit to the nations around them. The thing is, they started bearing their own fruit instead of His. They weren’t submitted to the One who gave them life and planted them and gave them what they needed to bear, fruit for the good of others and not just themselves. Israel isn’t the only one that can become like Kudzu. So can we, if we can’t submit and let God have His way in us.

Israel wasn’t always an empty vine, but that was God’s pronouncement in Hosea 10:1. “Israel is an empty vine, he brings forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he has increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.” Read the next verse and we see the problem, “Their heart is divided.” It’s not just focused on God. There is something else that is to be desired. God wasn’t their King of kings. Israel was producing “foreign” fruit, not fruit of God. Israel was producing fruit based on the world around them and not the God who created them and gave them life and sustained them. And the truth is, an empty vine doesn’t have much life in it. It’s fading, no matter how strong it believes itself to be. Take the Life Source away and there goes your life.

In Isaiah 5, God talks about a vineyard that He planted and dressed. The vines were planted on a fruitful hill. It was fenced in from predators. There were no stones. The vines were the best. There was a tower in the middle and a winepress. The vines should have brought forth the choicest grapes but instead brought forth wild grapes. What can be done? The vines must be destroyed and new vines planted. The time for pruning and digging has already been tried, over and over. The problem is that the vines wouldn’t acknowledge God. “[T]hey regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands. Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge” and the ones who ought to know are famished and dried up. They call evil good and good evil and put darkness for light and light for darkness. They’re wise in their own eyes. The wicked are justified and the righteous are treated as wicked. This is not what the vine was created for. Unfortunately, this is what the vine chose.

Isn’t it so sad to have been planted of the true vine but to have chosen “other vineness”? “For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter…” (Deuteronomy 32:32) Maybe some introspection is due on the part of every believer. Maybe it’s a good thing to examine our own “vineness.” Whose vine do I resemble? What kind of fruits am I producing? Am I guilty of “other vineness” or am I producing the real and succulent grapes that I was created to produce for the glory of the One who established me in His vineyard?  After all, God asks, “Yet I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then are you turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?” (Jeremiah 2:21) Maybe that question needs to be asked today? Maybe that’s a question I ought not avoid asking myself to make sure that I am who I was created to be and not someone masking as a vine I’m not.

It’s a sad thing to have started out as a vine full of life and fruit and to end up cast down, dried up, fruitless, and in the burn pile. The truth is that none of us have to end up like that. Israel didn’t and doesn’t and neither do any of us. We can choose to submit and stay in the One who gives us life and fruitfulness. I have to remember and submit to being a branch in the Vine I come from. I must bear Your fruit and Your life must course through me. Abiding in You isn’t just about a mental ascension or acknowledgment. It’s about utter dependence. I actually must know that without You I can actually do nothing. Without You I cannot live a real life. Without You I wither and am good for nothing and no one. But abiding in You isn’t just some passive thing. It’s a wholehearted submission and dependence. It’s listening to You and agreeing with You and then doing and acting upon the things of Your heart. It’s not just hearing Your words but it’s soaking up Your words and letting them flow forth in actuality from our life like fruit on a vine. When You say love Your enemies, it’s not just words I speak, but the grapes of love come out and are sweet nourishment to my enemies. When You say, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself,” you aren’t just talking philosophy here. You want us to love as much as Christ loved and honored You and gave His life for us. Is my number one fruit to glorify You in everything? Do I care what grapes I offer my neighbor? Do I give him anything at all?

Being a healthy vine has everything to do with learning submission. God cares that I learn to render “tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom is due, fear to whom fear is due, and honor to whom honor is due.” (Watchman Nee) The life of the vine is in it’s submission. Choosing my own life, my own law, is classified as lawlessness by God, after all, He is the Creator of law, what do we know about it? Do I choose to restrain Your law and hold back Your grapes or do I help Your law and bring forth sweet fruit. We all have something lacking in us, only You fill it up. It’s useless to try to fill it on our own; we can’t do it.

I have the choice like Israel to rebel, but look where it leads. It’s a rejecting of grace and riches. It’s choosing poverty of spirit and life. But I also have the choice to surrender my life to You in love and worship and devotion.  It’s my choice if I want to live in the vine and bear Your beautiful fruit or not.  Seems like a no-brainer to me.  I want to learn to abide in You.  I want to be a vine bearing Your fruit.

Humility and Image Bearing

Photo credit goes to NASA.

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.”  1 Peter 5:6

I woke up this morning to a dream.  That’s unusual for me, to dream at night.  A couple years ago I asked the Lord to let my brain be quiet at night and give me rest and He has ever since, well, except for one night when I asked to be allowed to dream again and it was not a good dream, so I asked that He please let me go back to quiet rest!  Maybe I dreamed this morning because we just watched Star Wars.  But then why would I wake up with a verse on my mind because of it?  “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.”

My dream was a battle of good and evil.  It was me battling an evil source.  But I wasn’t doing it on my own.  It was an evil source I used to be afraid of.  But I wasn’t afraid anymore because something was different about me.  I wasn’t battling on my own.  I was battling in the power of Someone else.  It was the power of the Lord and I was fighting for Him, or more upholding, and He was fighting for me and in me and putting things into perspective.

And I don’t remember the whole dream, but I remember thinking about how we view ourselves, and sin, and pride, and the effect of the lack of humility on whether we have victory in Christ or not.  And I’m starting to wonder about the depth of what this verse means.  Because I think that my walk and anyone’s walk with the Lord is absolutely tied in to our humility or lack of before You, Lord.  So, in that case, it’s imperative that I understand what You are suggesting here.

Now, the truth is that You didn’t necessarily orally speak these words to Peter to say to us.  But, Peter was so influenced by Your Spirit in his life that he had come to know this truth.  Peter had learned, well, even was still learning, the importance of humility in his own life.  He’d seen the fruits of learning to give up his own way and own thoughts and submitting himself fully into Your hands and Your power.  He’s seen how You were in Him in ways he had never imagined and how You were changing him more and more every day.  He had learned so much and was still learning to cast, to throw forcefully, all his cares and anxieties and distractions on You and to accept Your answer, Your way of taking care of things.  He learned and was still learning that he mattered immensely to You and that the way You wanted him to handle the things of his life mattered immensely to You and that You were fully capable of handling them all the right way for him.

So am I learning that?  Have I really begun to learn that as much as I ought to?  I mean what does this humility that You desire, Lord, in us look like?  Peter tells us it looks like me caring about feeding the flock of God.  I ought to care about nourishing others in You.  I ought to care whether my brothers and sisters in Christ are being encouraged in You or not, and I ought to be a part of that encouraging.  I ought to care if I have a lost brother or sister out there who doesn’t even know he/she is a brother or sister to be.  I ought to willingly care for them both, not because I ought to, but because I am genuinely concerned for them.  They ought to be on my mind and in my heart.

Humility is not being holier than thou.  It’s not lording my knowledge over anyone else.  It’s living an example.  It’s walking Your walk and not just talking Your talk.  I must be an example to the flock and an example in and among the flock.

Now, here’s an interesting thing.  Peter encourages the younger believers to submit to the elders.  Sometimes, oh how we grasp onto that thought of the younger submitting to the elder.  But we miss the next sentence that follows.  “Yes, ALL OF YOU be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility.”  So maybe to understand humility, I must also understand submission, who I am called to submit to, and what that submission looks like.  For the warning is that Peter has learned that God resists the proud.  How did he learn that?  Through his own pride and the consequences thereof.  And Peter has learned also the blessing of how God gives grace to the humble.  How did he learn that?  He humbled himself.  Peter is speaking from experience here.

So why are we to humble ourselves?  Because we are followers of Christ and a disciple is not above his master.  “And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him…” Philippians 2:8,9  Our Lord and Savior humbled Himself.  I am called to humble myself.  I am called to submit fully to God just as He did.  I am called to submit to man where appropriate, just as He did.  And imagine that, the God of the universe, Creator of these mere men, submitting to them in love for their benefit and to His pain and suffering.  Imagine that!  This is what we are called to, whether we are men or women.

This type of humility changes our lives.  It’s not what mere men do.  The Greeks abhorred this idea of humility.  But God adores and establishes it.  Who will I side with?  Skip Moen restated this humbling in this way, “The road to glory passes through humbling ourselves and the way to humble yourself is to be obedient unto death.”  Am I humble, truly?  Would I be obedient unto death?  What am I to be obedient about?  How far am I from this truth, from this humility?

Do I submit to the extent You did, Lord?  Do I daily and moment by moment make myself low, poor, and needy?  Do I even see myself as low, poor, and needy?  Does it bother me to make myself a slave for the benefit of others?  Do I spend my time with the sick?  Do I spend my time with the abused?  Do I spend my time with the rejected?  Do I spend my time with the poor?  Do I spend my time with the desperate?  Do I really care?  You did, Jesus, and You still do.  You cared so much, You became one of them.  You became one of us.  Unless I’m one of those humble souls, I don’t have You.  Unless I understand my lostness, I can’t be found.  You came to seek and to save the lost.  You chose to live amongst the lost, to walk in the form of a lost one without being lost so we could be found.  Imagine that!

If humility looks like that, if it looks like Your actions, am I really following You?  Do I really care about the condition in the rest of the world?  Do I really care about people?  Do I really want to hug that little kid with snot all over his face because he can’t afford medicine.  Would I eat food that a leper prepared and hug them and shake their hand.   Would I enter that jail?  Would I care for the homeless by serving them?  Would I go wherever You asked?  Would I even care to keep thinking about those You ask me to serve beyond my time with them?  Would they still be on my heart so much that I was compelled to continue to meet their needs, that I thought of them day in and day out, that my heart longed for them?

Would I care more than tears about the children who are dying of worms or pneumonia because no one will help because their parents have no money?  Would I just send money every now and then?  Would I just ask people to pray when I got home and when I was about to go again?  Would I just be as content being home and back to normal or would home and normal start to lack something?  Would safety cease to matter?  Would sending a check not suffice?

Peter learned that You, Jesus, were calling him to live like You.  After all, we were created to be Your image bearers in this world.  That’s more than a reflection in a mirror.  That’s when You shine forth from within and without.  Your image is the whole picture, it’s the real deal of who You are.  It’s whether we are the real deal in You or not.  You, the God of the universe touched the rotting and the sick and the sinner.  You drank from the same water, slept on the same ground, picked food from the same field.  You went to the bathroom the same way they did, wherever they did.  Imagine that!  My God used the bathroom because of His love for us!  How humble is that for God?

My Jesus was a man of power.  Yet He chose to use His power to give us value and worth and dignity.  He chose to use His power to win us back, to serve us, to love us, to be with us, to adore us, and to teach us to do the same.  He had no reason to respect us, yet He did.  He had no reason to honor us, yet, how honoring is all of this!  Can you imagine that?  He listened.  He heard.  He held his anger.  He loved faithfully.  He touched.  He spent time.  He did it all for our benefit because He loved us that much.  We didn’t deserve any of it.  Not one bit.  Am I getting the picture of what humility looks like and what it ought to look like in my life?

Humility can be defined partly by Paul’s words in Philippians 2:3, “in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”  You know, I’m pretty sure by the original words and language used here that this is a radical idea.  This is about letting the other’s authority be held above your own.  This is about valuing others more than you value your own life.  Isn’t that what Jesus did?  He valued us more than his own life.  Do I value others that way?  If not, then don’t let me fool myself into thinking that this little light of mine is shining.  Jesus’ light isn’t little.  His light shines in a radical way and all the darkness in the world can’t hide it.  Maybe it’s time to examine myself and ask myself, “How’s my light shining?  Who are people seeing?  Am I glorifying the Lord or myself?  Who do I look like, anyways?”  And maybe it’s time that I fully humbled myself under the mighty hand of God and looked forward to His timely exalting.  Jesus didn’t spend His time at the mall.  I don’t want to either.  I want to spend my time where You spend Yours, Lord.  I want to continually learn to humble myself under Your mighty hand.

Gird Up Your Loins Like a Man!

Picture credit to The Art of Manliness and Ted Slampyak

“For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”  Matthew 5:20

Being familiar at all with Jesus’ walk on earth, this whole statement seems to not make sense coming from Him, I mean, considering that most of the scribes and Pharisees had a major problem with Jesus and considering Jesus was often calling them hypocrites.  Here were the “religious” people of the day.  These were the kind of people who would go in the Temple and pray out loud for everyone to hear and say, “Thank You, Lord, that I’m not a sinner like that one over there.  You know all the good things I do.”  Well, at least that’s how You tell it, Lord.  And then on the other hand there’s the tax collector, who goes into the Temple and beats his chest because he knows how unworthy he is.

But here You are, saying outright that the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, the righteousness of man is not enough to make me acceptable to enter Your kingdom, to enter into an eternal relationship with You.  Unless my righteousness superabounds beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees, I haven’t got a chance.  And I don’t.  I absolutely don’t have a chance on my own.  Because on my own, all the righteousness I could ever muster up could only at its best equal that of the scribes and Pharisees.  Because on my own, all the righteousness I could ever muster up from myself would just be that- my own righteousness, and that just doesn’t cut the cake.

I live in a world where somehow we’ve entered the mindset that we can establish our own righteousness.  Unfortunately, that’s an idea straight from hell.  It’s not a new idea either.  You, God, even accused Job of doing this.  “Then answered the Lord unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said, ‘Gird up your loins now like a man: I will demand of you, and declare you unto me.  Will you also disannul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be righteous.'” (Job 40:6-8) There is only one who establishes righteousness.  You, God, have set the standard and it is so much higher than ours.  Now, some of the world, maybe a lot, has absolutely no zeal for God.  And it’s not surprising that they don’t know or care about Your righteousness, Lord.  But Paul pointed this out about another group of people, and it applies even today.  “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.  For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”  (Romans 10:2-3)  But what is righteousness?

Paul continues, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes.”  Let me think about this in more straight forward language.  I’ll borrow from the Complete Jewish Bible.  Their zeal “is not based on correct understanding; for, since they are unaware of God’s way of making people righteous and instead seek to set up their own, they have not submitted themselves to God’s way of making people righteous.  For the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah [Jesus], who offers righteousness to everyone who trusts.  For Moshe [Moses] writes about the righteousness grounded in the Torah that the person who does these things will attain life through them.”  Paul also says that righteousness grounded in trusting says, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”

“Oh,” you say, “I read the Word and I’ve hid it in my heart.”   Just remember that the demons and Satan himself have the Word memorized and it’s ingrained in them too.  But they certainly aren’t righteous.  They live according to their own will and not God’s.  They live according to their own pleasure and not the delight of the Lord.  And they certainly don’t delight in You, Lord.  They are refusing to submit themselves under the goal of righteousness.  What is the goal?  Well, it’s a Who and not a what.  The goal is Jesus.  The goal is surrender to God’s way, to God’s plan, which totally throws our own righteousness for a loop.  The goal is trust in Jesus Christ.  See, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

So what does it mean when I hear, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”  It means that I have surrendered to God’s plan by surrendering my life and desires to His Son, Jesus Christ.  It means that I am learning moment by moment what His desires are and then surrendering my own desires to submit and delight under His.  It means that Jesus abides in me and I in Him by the power of His resurrection and the work of His Holy Spirit within me.  His word comes out of my mouth because He is flowing out from within.  He has given me a new heart with new desires.  He has changed my whole idea of righteousness and is continually molding it to make it more and more like His.  And it’s not something that happens on the outside.  He supernaturally changes me.  He supernaturally opens my mind and heart to agree with Him and to desire His way more than mine.  This is His righteousness that superabounds above the righteousness of man, even above that of the scribes and Pharisees.

This is righteousness in excess.  When the world mistreats me, because of this righteousness, I can continue not changed by the world but living above the world’s standards.  It’s a righteousness that takes me over the top.  It’s more than full.  It goes beyond every expectation.  It’s better than carrying a load for an enemy as far as asked.  It asks to carry it the whole way.  It’s over and beyond every expectation.  And it’s only found in agreement with You because it takes Your power in us to fulfill this.

I’m not going to define righteousness.  I think if we really are seeking, we know what it is.  It’s hard to define exactly, but we know what it really looks like.  And God, You didn’t just set the example for us in Jesus; You are righteousness.  See, it’s not about being right or doing the right thing.  It way exceeds that.  Let’s just look at Your example.  You created man.  We belong to You.  We owe You our allegience.  You said, “Don’t do that.”  Why?  Because You wanted us to retain our special relationship with You because You loved us and cared for us.  There’s nothing wrong with You desiring that same love back from us.  See, You chose to love us and lavish Your love on us.  Your desire is that we lavish that same love back on You.

But we don’t.  We take that lavish love, and think there is something better.  We turn away. We choose our own way.  We lavish our love on ourselves and other things.  We prove over and over again we don’t deserve Your lavish love.  We deserve Your wrath by the way we treat You with such disdain.  But in Your righteousness You do what is most right for us.  Think about it.  You don’t go against Your character, You uphold Your holiness, but You go beyond the limits of every expectation to make a way for us to not be condemned even though we deserve it.  You take all of Your standards, which are so much higher than ours, and You satisfy them all, for our sake, for my sake, in the person of Jesus Christ.  He exceeded the requirements because I couldn’t and wouldn’t.  He overflowed with You.  You “overdid” it in Him.  Jesus became more than enough righteousness for me.  He became so much more than enough for me, that some was left over.  And that left over is enough to enable me to live in You, to love Your way, and to be made righteous in and by You.

For God made Jesus to be sin for us.  This God man who never sinned, payed our price, our punishment.  And He did it so that we could live in the righteousness of God through faith in Him.  He’s the one that makes us righteous and He’s the one that increases the overflow of His righteousness in us.  It’s His righteousness alone in us that brings glory and praise to God.  Like Paul prayed for believers in Philippi, I want to be found in You, Lord, not having my own righteousness, but having the righteousness through faith in Jesus, that righteousness which is of God by faith, so that I will know, that I will experience, intimately, You and the power of Your resurrection and the fellowship of Your sufferings by being conformed unto Your image.  I want to gird up my loins like a man, submit, and let You be God in my life. Girding up my loins takes some thought and preparation if I’m a little boy, but by the time I’m a man, it ought to be automatic and a part of who I am.  So let my submitting to Your will, to Your righteousness, be so automatic in my life and prepare me for life and the battles ahead.

Walking It Out

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.” Matthew 3:13

Did you ever stop to think about the absolute absurdity of this scenario?  Jesus- God- coming to John to be baptized?  Why was John baptizing people?  “I baptize you with water for repentance,” are his very own words.  It was a symbol of repentance.  So stop and think about that.  What did Jesus, who is and was God, have to repent about?  Scripture tells us He was without sin.  So why in the world would Jesus come to John to be baptized for repentance?

This really baffled John too.  He wanted to stop Jesus.  “I need to be baptized by You, and you come to me?”  John knew there was a difference between the baptism he was conducting and the baptism that Jesus would perform.  He had already told the people, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me [Jesus] is mightier than I…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  He knew that Jesus would be the one to judge even him, so how could he baptize his own creator and judge?  How ludicrous!

But here is Jesus’ answer.  “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”  And John consented.  You know, I never thought about it before right now, Lord, but when You said that it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness, who was the “us” You are talking about?  Is that just about You and John.  Does that mean that the two of you need to do what’s right before God and others?  Or was that us there spoken for my benefit and the benefit of every follower of You?  When I read those words, should I read them as though You submitted to every act of righteousness because that’s what’s fitting for me to do too?  Were You talking to all of us who would listen?  Were You talking to all of us who watch?

So the One who needed repentance the least, walked through the symbolism of repentance before those who would follow Him.  And I remember those words again, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”  So the One who is the Authority over all, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, submitted to both human and spiritual authority.  You submitted to God and You submitted before man to do that which glorified God before man.  The Sinless One valued our need to submit in repentance before God and man by going through baptism for our sake.  You put Your stamp of approval on the the words John was speaking and the reality of the need for a repentant heart and life.

Sure, You command us to be baptized.  And You set the example for us here.  But that’s not all this is about.  It’s not just about believers submitting to baptism.  It’s about You showing the truth of John’s words from God.  Don’t you think this is strategically planned here?  I mean, John is lighting into the Pharisees and Sadducees who were coming out to his baptism.  Why were they coming out?  Were they there to be baptized in repentance or were they just there to watch and critique him?

He certainly didn’t seem to think they were there to repent.  He warns them about their lives and how their lives ought to show the repentance they proclaim.  It seems they were trusting in their ancestors and traditions instead of in God.  But their idea of good fruit and John’s idea of good fruit were not the same.  And it’s even prophetic how John says, “God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”

“Children for Abraham.”  “Children of faith.”  “Children who live in and by and according to faith.”  That’s all about what You were showing us here, Jesus, when You submitted to baptism.  It’s all about submitting to the will of God.  It’s all about knowing His word in such a way that I know what pleases Your heart, what delights You, and choose to delight in that.  It’s all about wanting Your righteousness as much as You so it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks.

Is that how I feel and respond?  Would I act in such a way that might “mark me” as a sinner before others?  Would I care more about what others think or what I deserve than I would about delighting in You and obeying You?  Because, as I look at it, You are the Rock and I am a stone from that Rock.  And as the Rock rolls, so ought I to roll.  Do I?

I think of John that day, speaking to all gathered around, the “sinners” and the “teachers.”  I think of You, Jesus.  And I think of that baptism and those stones that You are able to raise up which brings me to Peter’s thoughts.  ” So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.”  Repent.  Repent about how we treat God.  I mean, it’s not just about how I treat others.  Do I deliberately act against You?  Do I lie about my response to You or my feelings for You by saying one thing and doing another?  Am I a hypocrite with my life?  Do I envy what others have in You because I don’t?  Do I act like I believe You, but slander You with my life?

But Jesus, You knew how good God was.   And because Peter knew, because he finally tasted it too, he tells us we don’t have to be that way toward You any more.  We can repent, following Your example; following You.   “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.  As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.’  So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.’  They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:1-10)

Jesus was sent to walk out the righteousness of God in and by His life.  He sends me to walk out the righteousness of God in and by my life in Him.  Is that how I walk?  What does my life look like?

The Great Shoot Out

“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes.”  Romans 10:4

Remember all those old cowboy movies where there would be a showdown in the end?  You’d have the good guy who represented law and order, facing off against the bad guy, who was the absence of law and order.  They would shoot it out to see who would get to stay in town because “This town isn’t big enough for the two of us.”  And that’s pretty true, where there is law, you can’t have chaos, and where you have chaos, you can’t have law.  And maybe in the old western movies, if they had chosen to throw us for a real loop, they could have ended the good guy’s life and law with it, but I’m so grateful that there is a law that will never end in that way.

Paul, in Romans 10, is sharing his concern for the nation of Israel to place their trust in You, Lord, as their Lord and Savior, to see You as the promised Messiah and fulfillment of God’s prophecy.  And Paul makes this statement:  “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes.”  So was there this Biblical shoot out between You, Jesus, and the law in the Old Testament?  Did You put an end to the Old Testament law?  Was the world not big enough for the two of You?

As Paul would say, “Absolutely not!”  What if that word “end” didn’t even mean end like we think of?  What if it doesn’t mean “terminate”?  What if it means that something has been brought to the point that was aimed at, or that the goal that was set out was reached?  What if it signifies the termination or culmination of what was started?  What if it implies the uttermost result or purpose of the original intent?  Would that change how I feel about the law of righteousness?  Would that change how I feel about the law?

My question is, if You never change, which Scripture tells me is true of You, then how could Your law change?  Isn’t Your law just an extension of Your character so that I can come to understand You from the basis of my humanity?  I mean, You certainly didn’t institute the law for Yourself.  You didn’t need it.  I needed it to know You, to understand You, after sin perverted my whole knowledge of You.  So the law was always intended as a tool to get me back to knowing You and back to You.  But the law was created in two parts.  I think I’ll call them the first and second parts, because that’s what they are.  It’s not an old, archaic law that was replaced by a new law in Christ.  There was a first part for a divine reason, and a second part for a divine reason.

So, Paul is concerned about the salvation of the nation of Israel.  And what he says here about Israel’s zeal can be true of many people and can apply to many of us today.  “They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”  See, a lot of us have a zeal for God.  We want to be pleasing to God.  Most of us would like to spend eternity with You, Lord, in heaven.  We want to do what’s right.  We want to be good enough.  We follow doing good.  We’re even adamant about it.  So what’s the problem?  Knowledge.

Israel and many of us don’t really KNOW who we are dealing with.  We’ve put You into our little boxes for so many years, even in the church, that we can lose sight of who You really are and what You really want.  We wind up knowing about You, even when we really know a lot of Scripture.  But we’ve come out knowing a lot of facts about Scripture and facts about You without really KNOWING YOU and discerning the intents of Your heart.   It’s like we think we know You without ever really acknowledging Who You are and what You know.  Yet we think we know it.  And call it knowing You.

But Paul continues: “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”  See, the problem is that we don’t really see or recognize or percieve Your righteousness though we think we do.  We are calling something righteousness, just like the nation of Israel did, but it’s our own “righteousness” that we’ve established.  It has nothing to do with submitting to You, Lord, and submitting to Your righetousness.  I mean, how many times have we heard people say, “How could a loving God do that?”  Well, what about a righteous judge who is also loving?  Would that make a difference?  Wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson that cut out parts of Scripture that he didn’t agree with?  Well, news flash here, this has been going on since before Paul wrote this truth today.

Sometimes we ignore what we don’t want to hear.  Sometimes we don’t have enough information.  But this isn’t because we don’t have the intelligence to understand.  But it’s not intelligence that can bring us there either.  I mean the scribes and Pharisees and Sadduccees and Thomas Jefferson had lots of intelligence going for them.  So what was the problem?  Maybe the whole problem lies in “submission.”

Paul said “they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”  Lord, You don’t have to line up with me or my thinking.  That was Mr. Jefferson’s problem.  He wanted a God who lined up with his thoughts.  I suppose he invented a couple neat things.  But You way surpassed that in just Your creation of the universe and of man.  Why would You ever have to line up with his thinking?  What are we thinking when we think that?  Isn’t that absurd?  But submission is a hard thing for us.

The Greek word is “hupotasso.”  Who wants to subordinate themselves under someone else when we can be in charge, or at least seem in charge?  Who wants to obey someone else, when you can be the one giving the orders?  Who wants to be subject under someone else?  Subjection, that’s a scary word.  Submit, submit, submit.  Does it give you the shivers?  Is it a scary thought to not be in control?

Let me ask a question.  How did Moses give us the law of righteousness?  Hmm.  God wrote it down on two tablets of stone.  Why did You write the law on two tablets of stone first, Lord?  Was that to teach me that I couldn’t be righteous on my own?  I had to keep trusting in the sacrifices You instituted because I wasn’t sufficient and I could never attain to sufficiency on my own.  And then You completed the picture for us.  You didn’t rewrite the picture.  The goal of the law was always faith.  With the first covenant under Moses, men were to trust in the promise of Christ through the sacrifice, that He would bring the law to pass in our hearts.  Jesus, You didn’t rewrite anything, You just brought it all together.  You were the goal from the beginning.  But believing is more than acknowledgement.

So Christ is the goal of the law of righteousness to every one that believes.  And what keeps someone from believing?  A lack of submitting ourself to Your righteousness.  If I want to be Yours, if I want to know You and be known by You, I must submit to Your ways.  I must submit to more than Your ways.  I must submit to You and under You.  I must line my thinking up with Your thinking.  I’m the one who must change.  And I must live in You.

I can’t go to You.  I must let You come to me.  So, God, You did that.  You did it Your way.  You sent Christ to do what I could not.  I must be willing to accept Jesus, Your way.  I must let the God of Heaven’s Armies come down and minister to me.  I have to let Him instill Your word in me.  “The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith…”  I have to be willing to let You put Your word in me.  But sometimes we only want what we want.  That needs to change.  Lord, I want Your word in me.  I want You in me.  I want to think like You and live like You and love like You.  My way stinks.  It just doesn’t cut it.  But the more of Your way I experience, even when it comes with pain or hardship, I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

See, it’s all about Your work, Lord, and not ours.  But it is about our submission.  Paul said that understanding this would lead to knowing You.  Because as You begin to write Your word in our hearts, instead of just in books or tablets of stone, then we can know You for ourselves and experience You.  Your work in our hearts gives us the ability to confess with our mouths that You, Jesus, are Lord, my Lord, and Lord of all.  And with that working in our hearts, we come to believe in our innermost being that God raised You from the dead just as He promised and just as Scripture said.  And You lead us to salvation in You.  Because You do this work of righteousness in our heart that brings us to know and believe and live out our lives in You.  And the beautiful thing is that this has always been Your goal for each of us.

“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  You have always been speaking to us.  But it’s not enough to just listen.  I must listen and decide, and I must listen and submit.  Faith only comes when we submit.  It’s not like putting on a set of headphones unless those headphones control our every action.  Lord, You are the goal.  And You must be my goal in everything.  And I’m still working on what that looks like in my life and thank You, Lord, for the people You are placing in my life to help me walk this road with You.  And I can’t imagine not having Your fire burn inside of me.  I pray that You’ll allow me to share Your fire with others.  And, I’d be more than overjoyed if You continually increased Your fire inside of me.  And one more thank You, I am so grateful that You put Your word and Your Spirit inside of every believer so that when I spend time with You in Your word, I hear You whisper in my heart, and as I walk with You, I feel Your presence, and I even know You’re there when I get to spend times intimately with You with other believers.  That’s so much better than anything carved in stone.  I’m so grateful that it was always Your intent to have Jesus write Your law in our hearts.  There is nothing like being alive in You!