A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 5–The Body

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Faith may be immaterial, but it is bounded up with the material. Not only did Jesus sum up all things within himself by taking on a human body, but his doing so codified the very essence of faith itself: it is the meeting place of Heaven (the immaterial) and Earth (the material). The Story of God did not happen merely in people’s imaginations, but rather in recorded eye-witnessed history. The Holy Spirit does not merely repair immaterial wounds, but by His life animates the solid and tangible to life in a mystery still being unravelled by the ever-out-stretching rubber band of science. And the direction of the Christian’s life is not merely a gnostic prizing of the immaterial over the material, but the bringing of the material to its end, and making something new and alive in a material sense by the imperishable immortal power of His Life. The Christian faith is not a disembodied faith, but rather it is embodied.

In one sense, it is practical: “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26) One might say not only that the body is meeting place of Heaven and earth, like a temple, but it is the very home in which the glory of the invisible is made visible. The body is where the image of God is stamped just as much as the immaterial parts of us. Therefore, it is in our physical presence, our physical touch, our physical actions that the glory of God impacts the tangible world around us. This gives us the borrowed power to bodily impact the world for His glory that His life and goodness can flourish.

In another sense, it is archetypal. The body is not only a mystery in itself in how God in His Heavenly power makes the material come to life and grow and by its departure brings about death, but also a revelation of His intention for all reality. He intends that the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. This is seen in a group of people functioning so in sync with one another that the best metaphor to describe them is a body. Is it just a metaphor?

Faith without a body is an idea, but with a body, it is a power to effect real change in the world. The presence of God in us gives life to our mortal bodies on the other side of death, and a repurposing of every broken thing in our bodies on this side of death. And the body of this death, though sin has reigned and wreaked all sorts of havoc, has been transformed into something new: a temple of the Holy Ghost. See 1 Corinthians 6.

Let our bodies be the instruments of righteousness to God that they were created to be, (Romans 6:13) and so demonstrate how Heaven and earth are indeed going to be one again, beginning with the Holy Sprit’s abiding presence in us.

He who has ears let him hear.

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 4–God’s Breath

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If you’re still listening and looking for more, yes, there is more to being a Christian than the three previous posts. Some Christians will get a little bit nervous here. After all, You’ve got the Person of Jesus Christ, you’ve got the Word of God, the Scriptures, and you’ve got the Spirit. What more could you ask for?

In a word: direction. What do you do with all of this? Are you just . . . in? Are you a Christian and that’s all there is to being a Christian? Is it all just meeting a Person, knowing a Story, and receiving a Spirit?

No. These are just the beginning, and the root system of a tree that has only begun to grow. Tree’s don’t do Heaven all that much good, but it is through growing toward heaven that they become trees that bless more area of the earth. The Tree of Christianity begins with growing Heavenward. In other words, once you become a Christian, you need an orientation to your new life.

I have met Christians who say, “You’re saved so now, all you got to do is pray, read your Bible, and tell other people about Jesus.” This to me is unattractive, over-simplistic and non-compelling. This illustrates a life that if I have met Jesus for real, have been swept up into His story, and filled with a death-conquering Spirit, honestly feels quite anti-climactic and purposeless. What is a Christian saved for? Just to tell other people so we can all be good little “Christians” who are good and know our Bible by heart and are nice to people?

No. The Christians journey to full growth is patterned after Jesus’ journey. And look where his journey led him: to a cross. Didn’t Jesus Himself say, “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”? The life of a Christian in name only does not care to carry a cross anywhere. They’re out for their own salvation. This is no evidence of Jesus’ Spirit living in them.

I have not met many Christians who put it this way, “You’re saved, so now get training on how to carrying your cross, because one day you’ll need it.” And yet, a Christian should expect not only tribulation but persecution. Not only persecution, but opportunities to suffer along with Christ, and be obedient in the way Jesus Christ was– to death, even death on a cross.

Prayer, Bible study, and evangelism are all part of the training process of carrying your cross, but some key elements should be included as well. These I will mention for now.

  1. Being led by the Holy Spirit,
  2. Fasting
  3. Casting down anything in life to which your heart is devoted more than to God.

All that is in our lives that keeps our old-pre-Christian life alive will motivate us to get peel us off the cross the moment we get near it. The Christian-ese term for this is often called “Putting to death the old man.” But it often takes the form of sputtering attempts at being more holy, but ends up making a believer more discouraged or ashamed or entrapped in other sins.

So, we have all we need for the journey: Jesus Himself, His Story, and His Spirit and the expected destination for this journey is a nebulous word called “the cross.” I truly haven’t summed it up yet, but I’ve hinted at it. Rather than immediately answer the question “Why does death on a cross, literal or figurative, equal obedience to God?” I want to give you some time to figure that one out. Instead, I’ll review that the putting to death of the old man, in the form of fasting, being led by the Spirit and casting down all other heart devotedness. Now let me answer the question: how does one do that?

A tad-pole breathes water only until it comes up on land, then it uses its lungs as its primary source of oxygen. A Christian is like a frog. He can go back into the water, just like the frog, and live in it, but he needs to learn to use these lungs. That means instead of relying on earthly sources of life, lean on heavenly sources of life. Instead of being led by your own desires, be led by the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Instead of feasting on earthly food, drink, and pleasure, feast on God’s Word, God’s presence, and the pleasure of His presence. You’ll find alot more oxygen in God’s presence than any pleasant place in the world. Instead of letting your heart get energized in pursuit of anything in this world you love, let the heart melt for God above all, and let your affections be stirred by the Highest and greatest object of your heart’s desire. A Christian needs to learn how to do this, so that always everywhere, he will be empowered to walk in the same world, but being empowered by the Breath of God.

One more thing: remember how this is not all hokey impersonal spirit stuff? We were designed for relationship with God. Our primary, our most essential, our most important relationship is with the Lord. This is the essence of what it is to be a Christian: to live in communion with God in Jesus Christ. He who saves you, draws you to know Him more, and this relationship with Him is eternal life.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 3– The Spirit

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Talking about this part of the process is kinda like describing sky to someone underground. If someone has never seen the sky, You might depict to them, “It’s like instead of having earth over you, it’s empty. . . no that’s not right. . . . It’s like being in an open cavern where its so dark you can’t see the rock face. Except the rock is lit up, and has a bright glowing light in the middle.” But does that really do it justice? I don’t think so. Ponder the sky (not too long, as that would be unwise) and see how you could describe it to a creature having only lived underground. It’s like that to talk about the Holy Spirit.

To begin, the Spirit is not an “it.” He is a person, just like Jesus is a person. In fact, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This same spirit which raised Jesus from the dead also changes a person who is a Christian from a thoroughly corrupt human, bent on self and gives him the ability to live for Someone more worthy and more lovely than any other. He specializes in making Jesus more evident in the world. He makes the Scriptures come to life as much as Jesus’s crucified body He brought back to life, and this is the slightly weird part: he makes Jesus come alive in Christians.

A Christian is not one who just believes the Bible and tries to obey Jesus. The Bible clearly says, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to him.” (Romans 8:9) The Holy Spirit needs to live inside that person.

This sounds hokey though doesn’t it? Again with the describing the sky to one underground. No offense, it’s just that hard! Let me try again.

Right now, you are breathing in a certain type of air. Maybe it’s stuffy, or fresh. How does it smell? How cold is it? Underground people know air that is mostly cold and stuffy. The air above ground, at least out in the open, is sweet and free. In the same way, a human being naturally breathes in a cold, stuffy type of air that barely keeps him going: its a close mixture of his self-emissions which are toxic, and the collective toxicity of all other people doing the same thing. This is the “spirit” of the age, which arrests and putrefies the breath in our lungs, and causes us to scratch and claw for freedom wherever we can find it. This spirit is slavery. This spirit is living death. This spirit is against Jesus.

I have met so called Christians who are so stifling and stodgy, haven’t you? Even if it’s from breathing bad vapors, or by refusing to take a deep breath of fresh air, “Christian” air in churches often feels dead. These are not walking the paths of life.

The paths of life are like breathing in fresh air. The Holy Spirit is like this too. With him, there is no ceiling looming over your head, but rather a perpetual light glowing in your mind and heart, radiant with joy and . . . forever. The world changes in your eyes because you are given eyes to see and a new heart to appreciate it. The Holy Spirit inspired the prophets to write a living book. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of that very living Person whom you have encountered. And this spiritually being real allows for some very awe-inspiring things to become real for you as a Christian. Jesus and you are together always: which means if He is in Heaven seated at God’s right hand, guess where you are too? And Jesus is still on the earth showing His love, His truth, and His power through his representatives: Christians.

Dare I pose the question: How does one get the Holy Spirit?

I hope this is enough of an answer to get you started: Can I take the analogy far enough to say, “Follow the surface dwellers to the surface.”? Come out of your burial in the death of the natural life, and come up to the surface, and walk in the sunlight of God’s love.

Do I need to remind you that you are broken irreparably, dead, breathing poison in and out? After saturating in the Story, have you seen just how messed up you are, and how messed up Humanity is? This is also the Spirit’s doing, because he paints the whole world in light of Jesus Christ. If you cannot see your sin, chances are you’re still breathing the wrong stuff.

He who has ears let him hear!

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 2– The Story

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And for those still listening, where to after “Listen to Jesus”?

How to make sense of all the lies, the doubts, the ruined way of things? How to sort through the ruins of religious beliefs that were once glorious temples to the familiar and the sacred?

Well, the for starters, the building materials were probably not all bad. It was just put together in a certain way that eventually left the Holy Spirit out. T. Austin-Sparks talks about how once Christianity becoming crystalized: turned into an institution that fits the times and pleasures of the people who founded it. In my words, it is like taking a living tree and making it into a dresser drawer. To put it cleverly: to “crystalize” Christianity is to un-Christ-alize it.

Christianity can become like every other religion of the world, if it crystalizes, even if it crystalizes around a person. To guard against this, the story of the person, like a crown situating a diamond, situates the truth of Jesus, but it must never situate it so rigidly that the many facets of the diamond cannot shine His variegated light. The story gives plenty of room for the whole Gospel to swallow a person up the way the ocean swallows up a diver.

Christianity is not a set of rules that helps a person become better if he follows them, otherwise it would be like any other religion. It is situated in a real-life story interpreted in the framework of relationship between God and Humans. It’s a story that invites us to interpret our lives by it, and invites us to become a part of it. For the Christian, Israel’s history, interpreted by the prophets is our history.

What gave a prophet the right to interpret Scripture? How can I trust these so-called prophets to tell me the story in a way that won’t mess me up? Who is to say that as soon as Prophets wrote the Scriptures down, it was just “crystalizing” it again?

That’s a great question. From my own personal experience with the Bible, the more I’ve read it and learned the layers of meaning accessible at any level to which a seeker may dig, the more I see a living intelligence behind the intelligence of the authors. There is plenty of fascinating connection between the whole Library of the Bible which tells an intricate and thoroughly rounded out story, which leaves room for its readers to take part. The treasures of these layers are suited to the hearts that seek them, as if the Scriptures itself could talk directly to each person who is honest and listening.

If a person is going to reconstruct their faith, one has to start with and never leave the person, and the second place to start building is the Book. The Book has guidelines for how it must be read–culturally aware, on its own terms, multiple times, with a group of people. All of these ensure a more rich and correct way of reading it. And not just reading it, but hearing it read to you, and not just listening to it, but chewing on it. The Bible is thoroughly interesting, with many different flavors: emotional, matter of fact, narrative, art, poetry, song, numbers, records, visions, history and more.

In short, “Chew Bible-Gum!” You’re going to get that bad post-flavor taste in your mouth chewing Hallmark movies, news stories, pop-novels, blog posts, and even classic literature runs out of flavor eventually. You will experience only ever increasing flavors, and the flavors will also . . . how do I put this delicately . . . reveal what you’ve got in your insides. It will paint pictures of the most glorious and disgusting parts of you. It takes courage to give the Bible the authority to examine you.

Start in the Gospels, reading about Jesus, then go into the Old Testament and see Jesus’s rich cultural heritage in which it is not too hard to find each of us, nor to find One very persistent Hero who will fight the hardest battles to win back the heart of His beloved.

And not to make this too self-focused, but His beloved means you.

He who has ears to hear let him hear!

A Guide to Reconstructing Christian Faith Part 1: The Person

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A volcano–pagan-rooted name for a mountain of fire–the ultimate natural agent for reconstruction at least at the outset.

All of earth is not solid, but sustains life floating above a sea of fire, which regularly resurfaces this terrestrial home.

Is the truth really that different?

Historical, evident, specific, general, absolute, situational–you may smash a rock to atoms, but the Truth? Can you build it on a shifting foundation of fire?

No. The Truth may have been viscous and immaterial at first, but it has become material. It upholds all things by its existence. Things that really exist, are because the Truth is. But Truth is become material, and when it did, it did not become a rock, or a planet, or any element. It became Human. Jesus Christ revealed that deeper than objective reality there is a personal reality.

Now this has led many to question the solidity of truth. Perhaps it is merely whatever melts the heart into whatever shape I would take according to myself. But no. There may be a strain of the pattern of true humanity recognizable in us, but equally recognizable is that our humanity is so thoroughly misshapen. It takes fire to melt, but it takes a mold to be recast. And the fire of the Word of God became real in a person: Jesus Christ.

This is the basis of so called “Christianity”: not objective truths which philosophy arranges per cultural speculation, but a Person living today in relationship with others. The bedrock of our faith is a real person.

Could it be that many who are, as some put it, “deconstructing their faith” do so because they are missing the Person? Or that Christianity has been an egg shell with no living creature inside it? Having been taught Truth as if it were an impersonal thing, for fear that the personal would cause a person to drift away from what is not in keeping with their own caprice, have we merely traded an “all consuming fire” for a ideological idol of invisible stone? What is the alternative?

The beginning point of reconstruction is Jesus, anointed by God. “Listen to Him!” Not in the sense of hear what he has to say, but chew on it, do it, and become it. You’ll have a house built on the rock. He is the foundation. See 1 Corinthians 3.

We seek so many proofs before we trust, but really it is faith which is the decision to obey before all the proofs are given. This is the real terror that drives many deconstructionists away from the faith. They would rather be their own master, lost in a room with only the voices to which they would rather listen to, than the One who is proven to be the supreme Person by his rising from the dead. Do not seek to dodge His call. He is the “Truth.” He Himself calls himself that. Get to know him and see that he calls you to walk a narrow path.

Many on the “Christian” road today are lost. There is a broad path and a narrow path of what is culturally called “Christianity.” I say truly, there is a broad path of by-name Christianity that still leads to destruction. The difference between a Christian on the narrow road that leads to life and one on the broad path that leads to destruction is this: one is out to gain life for himself. The other is out to . . . oh why is it so hard to even articulate this? It’s like the twisted weakness of sin in me refuses to let it out. Lord grant me the grace to even say it. The second has already lost his life and seeks now only to live for the One who is truly worthy of all blessing, honor, glory, and power. Can I say it more clearly? The narrow path of Christianity is the path walked by the Prophets leading to Christ, and the Apostles leading from Christ. The narrow path of Christianity is the way of the Cross, which Jesus called people to carry, not around their necks, but upon their backs. The narrow path of Christianity expends the self for Jesus with joy. The broad path seeks to expend Jesus for self with pride and avarice.

Reconstruction is not chaos. It is willingness to be lost, so that you can be found, or as Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 3– “to become a fool that one may become wise.” But if one in search of wisdom references all according to his own heart, he is just as much a fool as he was at first. After all “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool” (Prov 28:26) even if the divine fire warms his chest.

So then how does one go about it? This is the starting point of how to find the truth about what real Christianity is: “Meet Jesus.” Talk with Jesus like He is there, and you’ll discover that He is, or you are not oriented toward Him. In encountering Jesus, you will find the answer to that which your faith questions.

Where does one meet Jesus? With someone who has been changed by Jesus. Next time you meet someone who calls themselves a Christian, ask them, “Would you say you’ve been changed by Jesus, and if so, how?”

He who has ears to hear let him hear!

Omni-scient or Omni-quaerens?

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I hope this can generate some healthy clarifying discussion without causing heretical divisions.

I have known most of my life that God is all-knowing, but a childish question that often comes upon the first discovery of this truth is the question, “How does He know everything?” The simplest response is “Because He’s God, and that’s just who God is. He knows everything.” This is not satisfying to me as an explanation. I want to understand what it means for Him to be all knowing. I also don’t want to make sections of the Bible fit my conception of God knowing all. Rather, I want to let the Bible be the prime informant, and the Holy Spirit be my prime guide to understanding this about God.

Anyone who talks about God flirts with heresy, a cardinal evil which is to be avoided at all costs not only for the detriment it causes to the heretic, but to all who are confused and misled by him. So why bother to reexamine the nature of God’s knowledge afresh? For me, I am motivated because doctrine separated from conversation with Him grows stale as a result of the deceitfulness of sin. Our hearts grow hard as we “figure things out” about God. Yet, are we not most like Christ when we are humble? Is Christ not imaging God best when He is being fully human? Humanity reveals God, just as the character of God reveals humanity, (Just as the Imaged and the image) and it is in relationship that these questions are answered in the way the heart needs for them to be answered. After all, if we wish to have a solid bed-rock faith, the confident assertions of theologians are not enough for many seekers to ground us in something so all-encompassingly real as God. We should ask questions and search things out, for this is the glory of a ruler. (Proverbs 25:2)

On the one hand we have the doctrine that God is omniscient—“All-knowing” that there is nothing that is not encompassed in his infinite knowledge, and therefore lacking nothing that anyone would teach Him. I have found it interesting that Scriptures that are cited for this do not express exhaustive knowledge so much as a privy position to all knowledge. 1. He knows the deepest secrets of all hearts. 2. He has understanding that is infinite. 3. Nothing is hidden from His finding out. Does this automatically mean He has exhaustive knowledge? The only passage that seems to say this explicitly says, “We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him, in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.” ~1 Jn 3:19–20. How should we consider this in light of other passages of scripture?

On the other hand, we have a God who seeks things out. In Latin this could be expressed by the phrase omni-quaerens: “All-searching-out.” Genesis 18, Genesis 22, The Lord’s messenger expresses that the Lord is looking into things. He sees, and in the moment interprets the value and meaning of what He sees before Him, and He responds to it in an un-premeditated way. Could this same type of “(now I know)” also be applied to passages in Genesis 3 and 4, when God asks Adam, Eve, and Cain questions? Could this be a clue to how His knowing all things works?

When we put both of these together, we see both a God who knows all, and a God who discovers. There is a tension that He who knows the end from the beginning is able to express fresh, genuine, present response to a situation as it unfolds. This is a beautiful mystery, which somehow keeps in play both His eternity and His intimacy; His immensity and His immanence; His being higher than Heaven and deeper than the deepest thought; His being the crafter and basis of the craft of every human heart, and the one who turns each heart over to delight in or disdain the aspects of His creation gone awry. Is one picture more accurate to God? Both are present, and to relegate one to a lesser place of importance leads to a misappropriation of the nature of the One whose image we bear!

The same God who asked where Adam and Eve were in the Garden, was the same God who promised ahead of time what would happen to the seed of the Woman and the seed of the serpent. The same God who told Abraham the way things would be for Abraham’s Seed in Genesis 15, is the Same God who expressed “new” knowledge when Abraham sacrificed his son Isaac. Is this just anthropomorphism– talking about God in human ways but not really encompassing his True nature–or is His true nature revealed in His image of Humanity on earth, specifically in the person of Jesus Christ?

Here is where I think the conversation leads: The same God with all power and love who promised the future to be, also adjusted his course of action in response to the failure and successes of the humans with whom He partners. This, I think is key to plumbing the depth of this mystery. After all, how can an all-knowing God say He will do one thing, and then change His mind when there is a human to intercede? Surely this does not point out a deficiency in the character of God, does it? Is this just a mystery that has to wait for heaven to be entered? Or is there something here as to a clue to the relationship between Christians and God, faith and prayer, the Trinity with the church, and the intended plan of the One who was perfectly represented in Jesus of Nazareth?

Lord, grant me audience before Your throne. There is a sense in which You, O Lord, know all. What are You seeking? Do You not seek to unveil to us Your designs and desires as you invite us to step along side you and see things from Your perspective so that we can rule and reign with You one day? Is it not also for training and development You ask? Furthermore, is it true that You search out the truth of something, as G. K. Chesterton said, because You never tire of the truth? Truth is always fresh to You. Could it be that every time you see the result of a test, you rejoice to perceive that truth afresh?

Furthermore, are we most like You when we know all details in full, or when we search things out? Humility is not merely an earth-bound beauty which You do not possess is it? It isn’t possible that the earth You made could have a beauty that could not be chiefly arising from Your own person. Humility is as fundamental to Your own nature as it is to true Humanity.

Lord, grant that I approach with the utmost fear and trembling, not because you have a cold compendium of knowledge, but because you are ever attentive to each detail of my own heart and the heart of every other human. Though You have no need for anyone to teach You, You still search things out to discover and to respond, and You delight in that which You have made. Such knowledge is too high for me. May I never seek to teach You anything, for all truth is sourced in You, as Paul said. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.” ~Ro 11:33–36.

Finally, Lord, grant that Your Spirit who searches out Your heart and mine, may guide me into all of Your truth summed up in the person of Jesus Christ. And let me discover this as You do, that I may share in Your delight!

A Great Sinner with a Great Savior

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Tired of the superficiality? The lostness? The emptiness? The loneliness of self-preservation? The discontent of self-service? Well, I sure am. I am a self-righteous glory hound, who needs the shining faces of others beam at me to keep me warm, all the while being a pale, sickly, cold-blooded reptile of a viper’s brood. I am moving through life cultivating my own career, possessions, connections, and trying to maintain the confidence that I should have as a man and head of the household, all the while feeling like I’m the imposter. I am sodden with unkind thoughts about others, arrogant thoughts about self, and the temptations to taste forbidden morsels, all the while being hungry–nay starving– for the good nourishment I should seek from God alone. I have delighted in humiliating violence done to others, and thereby shown the color of the fabric of my own violated soul ready to perpetuate the cycle of brokenness which has come against me. I have kept so many only at the distance that can give each of us a temporary respite from our bleak existence, but not really expose either of us to the unbearably penetrating light of intimacy through which Christ shines the most restoratively. I do so much for God and others putting them to good work for my own comfort, my own joy, my own happiness. I despair of self and cry out “God save me.”

To such a man like me, the Jesus’ saving work on the cross reaches. Jesus waits at the center for me to leave the surface and come to meet him here. The lostness is simply the effects of the curse of those who refuse to use the cross as true north. Every human’s destiny– everything in his life– is utterly lost and meaningless without being situated according to the cross of Christ. The emptiness springs from this too: we seek out “drinking fountains” from which the water will not satisfy, when the only thing that will truly satisfy is the living water of the truth of the good news about Jesus: that He is the real King, whose subjects become his brothers and his friends, and who will lack no good thing for the rest of their lives as they reign with Him forever and ever. The loneliness springs from the longing to be known by one who could reject you but instead wholeheartedly embraces you aka Jesus Christ. No one has or will know you more thoroughly and love you more deeply or affectionately. The discontent is swallowed up by the heart’s abandon to the one who served not for himself but for me. Because He served me fully, I have no need to serve myself. Because he did all for me, I can do all for Him and for others. This is a truly great Savior!

Every damnable offense which I have done– The cross has payed the penalty, satisfying justice on my behalf forever.

Every brokenness which I incurred at my own hand or the hand of others– The cross has broken that brokenness and created something new from it.

Every spiritually powerful abomination which the Devil has utilized for my utter destruction– The cross has humiliated it and made known that it is defeated utterly.

Let yourself come to the rightful end of your own efforts: despair. Come to the end of yourself. Only there at the end can you look up and find that Jesus is The Great Savior who is able to save a Great Sinner like me. If he can save me, he can save you too, just cry out!

Home

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What do you think?

An invitation. I open it, and it’s a blank card inside the envelope. It glows with golden light.

I answer, taking the feather pen from the inkwell and I begin to write:

I think there are a lot of worldly thoughts on my mind: responsibitlies, opportunities, future difficulties, present uncertainties. Of what are you uncertain? Simply the strangeness of living in a place that doesn’t feel like home, for so long: a restlessness. But what is supposed to feel like home? The place I grew up, or the place I long for that is furnished with the perpetual furnishings of fellowship, light, and truth? Is it because I have wandered like a bird from the nest, or that I am flying beneath an open heaven, free and wind-borne. Or is it that I am just in between homes? My first home which felt like home because I was loved and where I belonged, and my everlasting home which will feel like home because I am loved and belong there. It is a bit like being a tree in strange soil, a cat in a new house, a planet on the colder part of its orbit. A wanderer I once aspired to be. Now, all I want in life is home.

Do I go back? Shed the growth which God hath wrought, abandon the quest to gain more than could be if I stayed? Do I attempt to stop the movement of the glacier sliding ever towards equilibrium, or try to teach the tides to play catch up? Do I let the fire die by leaving off the stoking and letting the heat slowly diminish back to ashes? This I cannot do, for much is before me still to do.

Do I run forward? Pass each milestone like a mile marker on the interstate? Do I bury my head in the end, seeing only what is possible in the age to come? Shall I take the helicopter up to the mountaintop? Shall I read the the final chapter of the novel rather than let the story unfold. Do I cast my thoughts ever to the distance, neglecting the present reality? Such a decision would, doubtless, spoil the journey.

It is windy up here, flying like a sparrow over a vast countryside as the sun sets. Home is where the winds of change are warmed by the present love of the ones with whom we share our lives. Therefore, though I am wandering, let us wander together, so that as we too live between homes, we can keep our hearts ripe for the feast that awaits us when our tired limbs have carried us the last league. For now, as we settle into the cadence of our footfalls, let us put an arm out to steady one another, and in good time, we will be home together.

Mountains of Fire

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Written for a devotional compiled by friends going into the mission field:

Mountains of Fire

“He looks at the earth, and it trembles;
He touches the mountains, and they smoke.” ~ Psalms 104:32

A volcano borrows its name from Roman mythology. In The Old Testament they were called a “mountain of fire.” These vents for gas, gigantic clouds of ash, and blazing liquid flame beneath the surface are testimonies of God’s glory. With tremendous horn-blast, surface hardened rock, black and lifeless, is split in two by the wonderous engine of rebirth to lay out new earth and sky with its recycled elements. The theophany of Yahweh to his people at Sinai, was very fire mountain-esque. It was God’s introduction of His Law as the bedrock of their Covenant, the revelation formed in stone written with the finger of God, yet breathed with a holy breath of God’s own intimate person. What else in creation combines all these elements: molten earth, powered by subducted water, burning with white-hot fire, and fuming with various organic compounds to change the air. A magnificent testament to the living, breathing, groaning of creation as it continues the work of creation of renewed land being formed.

Such a magnificent demonstration of God’s glory grants insight into God’s character in His image here on earth. The World that we know is living not on the foundation of a dead and cold shell, but a living and dynamic underground which moves and determines much of life here on the surface. Even so, just as the World is based in this fiery reality, the human being with a body is animated by a living spark of God’s divine fire. And just as fire-mountains, raised by the internal pressure of the old to be re-expressed in new ways, are vents for the world below to cry out for the redemption of God, so we too groan within ourselves, as the holy fire of God is at work within us to make new not only our own lives, but the life of everything around us.

Therefore, what is a better metaphor to describe a prophet? As Leonard Ravenhill said, “[A Prophet] has a heart like a volcano, and his word is fire.” A mere mound of human form, raised up by the revelation which fills him to manifest God’s glory according to their secret history together. He becomes the message, and as he roars with release he descends into the aftershock, content to have been fully expended for the pleasure of the One who loves the world and makes all things new, he is established forever as a monument in the landscape of the working of God for both judgment and renewal. And what was his qualification for such an important role? Availability. He was simply there to listen, to wait, to let God’s word have its way with him. “Would that all God’s people were prophets,” (Numbers 11:29) Moses cried.

What can God do through one simply willing to wait upon Him, like a servant on his master? He will move the mountains with his faith. (Matt 21:21) This is our victory that overcomes the land, (1 John 5:4) and God will once more be glorified as the Living God, (Deut 5:26) the all-consuming fire. (Heb 12:29) Until the day when He remakes the land completely, the elements burning with intense heat, (2 Pet 3:12-13) and there is a new heaven and earth, where this no longer any chaotic wasteland of death known as the sea. (Rev 21:1). Do you not know that most of the mountains of fire that exist today are under water? What more of His glory shall we see?

What Do the Eyes of Faith See? (C&R)

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These are perspectives found in Hebrews 11 that strengthen God’s people to suffer and overcome resulting in the obedience of faith to the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

The Eyes of Faith see these things:

  1. Vs. 3–“The word of the unseen God is what orders the world that is seen around us.”
  2. Vs. 6–“God exists, and He rewards those who diligently seek Him.”
  3. Vs. 10–“We seek to live in a city that has an actual foundation designed and built by God.”
  4. Vs. 11–“Our God who promised is trustworthy.”
  5. Vs. 13–“While we wait for God’s distant promises, we are now strangers and exiles in the earth.”
  6. Vs. 14-16–“We do not seek our own country, but a Heavenly one.”
  7. Vs. 19–“God is able to raise the dead so as to keep His promises.”
  8. Vs. 24-25–“I’d rather be God’s people and suffer than be royal and enjoy sin’s fleeting pleasure.”
  9. Vs. 26–“The reproach of God’s anointed one is worth more than any treasure of the world, because of its reward.
  10. vs. 27–“Because I see what is unseen, I endure not fearing the wrath of the king others see.”

A way to use this tool: each of these calls and responses can be done with the family gathered at the table after dinner, read from a list posted nearby, and discussed at length. Each is a deep well of what faith is about. They are meant to generate questions, and discussion, and to give words to confess together with believers in Jesus Christ what we believe about the gospel. Chiastically they unfold by theme: the Unseen-ness of faith, the Reward of of faith, the Citizenship of faith, the Promises of faith, and the Eternal Hope of faith.

May God strengthen your faith in He who is unseen, that through Christ you may enter into greater reward, as Spirit in-dwelt citizens of an unshakeable kingdom, trusting in God’s promises both now and forever. Amen.