Image-Bearers of God!

 In the beginning, God created mankind—man and woman—in His image, with a significant purpose.  This, in God’s own words, was very good.  A foundational truth of humanity is we humans are created for eternal glory and eternally glorious purposes.  But all too soon the glory is masked in sin.  We read in Genesis that Satan, in the form of a serpent, initiates a conversation with the woman.  The end result is that Eve is pulled into what I call The Garden Game.  She makes a choice to do life herself, grasping the fruit that would make her like God and independent of Him. 

 

As the man joins the woman, Adam and Eve experience fear and shame instead of the power and freedom they undoubtedly expect.  And so it becomes more and more difficult to feel significant, created for glory.  What follows in the stories of Genesis is what I call the Compare and Compete Game: Since it can be pretty difficult to feel good about ourselves as our sinful selves, we settle for comparing ourselves favorably to others.  It begins when Adam blames Eve—and God Himself, who gave her to him—for his fatal choice in the Garden of Eden.  The Compare and Compete Game continues with the stories of Cain and Able, Sarah and Hagar, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Leah and Rachel, Joseph and his brothers, and so on….And God’s glory continues to fade.

 

A few weeks ago, Andy Straubel, Windsor Chapel’s pastor, preached a sermon from James and highlighted the conflicts that arise when believers compare and compete with one another.  We grumble and complain, quarrel and covet as we pursue significance apart from God.  And the phenomenon of feeling good about ourselves by comparing ourselves to others is front and center as our world deals with inequality and injustice at the hands of racial, gender, and socio-economic differences.

 

It is becoming more and more evident to me that I am highly skilled at playing the Compare and Compete game in particularly quiet and subtle ways.  While I may not often quarrel and covet, I am very sorry to admit that it is all too easy for me to look at others from a critical perspective.  This is not my intention or desire!  I am committed to honoring and encouraging others as image-bearers of our Creator.  But if I am not vigilant, it can be terrifyingly easy for my sin nature to poke and prod me, to twist and tweak my perspective so that the first thing I notice about someone is something that is on the negative side of the ledger.  

 

As I have brought this before the Lord in confession and repentance, I have been met with an invitation to take responsibility for the way I view and subsequently interact with others.  I am consciously and actively directing my eyes and heart toward the God qualities manifested in each person I encounter.  I am learning, by persistent practice, to be quicker to notice good qualities and less quick to notice the not-so-good qualities.  This is not to deny sin, and it does not preclude the setting of appropriate boundaries on my part.  But it is an exercise in honoring my Creator as I honor His creatures.  It also honors the Lord’s desire for me, to find my identity, value, and significance in Him and not in my relative place among my peers, my reputation, or what others think of me.  

 

Our Christian faith is founded on the truth that Jesus Christ died for our sins, to save us from the penalty and power of sin.  And yet we continue to struggle with our sin nature as we wait for Christ’s coming and initiation of His eternal kingdom.  As the body of Christ, we can learn from Christ as we study the Gospels.  The Gospels are replete with accounts of Jesus looking beyond sin and the accoutrements of sin in order to touch hearts and lives with His truth and grace.  It is not that sin did not and does not matter.  To be sure, sin matters enough that Jesus died on the cross to earn our salvation from the its penalty and power.  But Jesus has demonstrated for us in the Gospel accounts that the most effective way to confront sin is by relationship, and relationship is rarely built on a foundation of comparison or nurtured by a spirit of condemnation.  As we affirm others as image-bearers of the God of the universe, we bring God into the sin picture as well, and this in turn brings confession and repentance out of the realm of our performance and into the realm of His truth and grace.  He invites us to join Him in this exercise.  It blesses others as we become more able to genuinely bless and encourage.  And it blesses us as we partake in the nature of Christ, become more like Him, and are better able to participate in His kingdom’s work.  

 

 

 

Thought For Many Days....

 Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

                                                                                          C.S. Lewis

A Language Beyond Hearing and Sight

"Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."

                                                                                         Mark Twain

The Beginning and the End

In the beginning, God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—created the heavens and the earth, land and sea, sun and moon, vegetation of all kinds, and a multiplicity of creatures.  It was good.  Then, He made man—male and female—in His image.  And it was very good.  It was very good until man chose to use his God-given free will to defy God and try to become his own master.  God’s glorious creation fell.  At the time, God promised redemption, but it would be a long time coming.  God and man, Part One.

In the fullness of time, God the Father sent His only begotten Son Jesus to earth, in human flesh: God incarnate.  Jesus spent three years proclaiming that He—the Son of Man mentioned by the prophet Daniel—had come to initiate the redemption of the fallen world.  At the end of those three years of public ministry, Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sin of Adam and Eve and their descendants.  The Apostle Paul describes it this way: “But the free gift is not like the transgression.  For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.”  (Romans 5:15).

The incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of God’s promise of redemption after Adam and Eve fell.  But just as the story of creation and the fall involved both God and man, so does the story of redemption.  Our redemption has been purchased by the blood of Christ.  But.  Man—each man, each woman—has a role to play in the redemption story.  We can access the redemption paid for and offered by Christ only by faith.  We must make the choice to make Christ our Lord and Savior, to recognize that His way is better than ours.  This is, in essence, an invitation to return to the Garden of Eden and make our choice: to abide in Christ or to pursue our own way…. God and man, Part Two.

Jesus Christ is indeed the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  He is our beginning: He created each of us, forming our inner parts in our mothers’ wombs.  He is also our end: He will be our Savior, or our Judge.  

The moment we choose to become bond-servants of Christ, to be saved by faith in His grace, we begin our path toward heaven.  We can rest in that salvation, depending on Christ’s faithfulness even as we struggle with our sin nature.  Again, the Apostle Paul assures us that He will perfect the work He has begun in us (Philippians 1:6).  Paul also exhorts us to partner with His Holy Spirit: “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”  (Philippians 2:12-13).  This is one of the New Testament’s great mysteries.  At the very least, it is an invitation to pursue Christ as our Omega, our eternal end, choosing moment by moment to make Him our Lord and Savior.

Struggle in a Life of Faith

"We can't do away with a sense of struggle in the Christian life.  Struggle is biblical, and authentic desire is often rooted in struggle....Struggle, in fact, is prerequisite to surrender because it necessarily signals that a battle has raged before the raising of a white flag."

                                                                            Jen Pollock Michel
                                                                            Teach Us to Want

The Masked Man and the Masked Woman

We are living in an entirely unexpected time.  Masks have become a required component of our public wardrobe.  I don’t know anyone who likes, or wants, to wear a mask.  But the whole mask thing gives us a good bit to ponder.

The invasion of the Covid virus has generated a good bit of controversy as to how seriously we need to take it.  Some see it as no more than a bad flu, though the mainstream view is to take it far more seriously.  Along with the diverse opinions about the virus itself and how to best respond to its presence, there are diverse opinions about masks.  On the one hand, some people regard mask wearing as personal protection and then extend that perspective to regard mask wearing as a symbol of fear, and optional.  On the other hand, others view masks as a necessary and appropriate means of participating in community health.  Regardless of your perspective on the matter, wearing a mask carries with it a good bit of Biblical support.

Medical professionals have made it quite clear that the purpose of the wearing a mask is not to protect ourselves nearly as much as it is to protect others from our own virus particles should we be housing any.  And from that viewpoint, Christians have a vested interest in mask wearing.  It is now what love looks like.  In his letter to the Philippian church, the Apostle Paul tells his readers to regard others as more important than themselves.  We believers now have a unique opportunity to choose to wear an uncomfortable and stifling mask as a way of caring for others; more particularly, our mask wearing honors our Lord’s regard for the weak and vulnerable.  And if we apply Romans 14 to this situation, we would use our freedom in Christ to regard the weak from a position of humility rather than superiority.  

There is yet another Christian aspect to mask-wearing.  Since the point of wearing a mask is to help us keep our germs to ourselves, a mask can be a symbol of our taking responsibility for our “stuff” and not inflicting it on others.  In a world of blame and shame, of the good offense as the best defense philosophy, taking responsibility for our germs—literal and metaphorical—is also a most appropriate and powerful way to love others.

But even though wearing a mask can be a contemporary way to demonstrate love, there is still a part of mask wearing that bothers me.  God is the God of truth, and when Christ walked on earth as God Incarnate, He strongly denounced any form of hypocrisy, pretense, and self-righteousness.  The Gospels are full of accounts involving the redemption of ragged sinners, misfits, and outcasts.  The woman wishing to be healed by merely touching Christ’s robe encountered a Lord who rejected her desire to be anonymous, wishing instead to initiate a genuine, personal, real relationship with her.  Wearing a mask carries a historical connotation of hiding something, of pretense, of not being completely honest and transparent: everything that Christianity is not.

So, what can we do about the inherent tension in wearing a mask?  There is no one perfect, universal answer.  I would suggest that a good part of practicing Christianity as we wear a mask involves our thought-life as much as anything else.  If you are like me, I fumble to get my mask secured well enough behind my ears to not slip off, and I become hot and claustrophobic quickly.  It is easy to get cranky!  But if I set my mind to the association between wearing a mask and loving others, I will be in a much better position to treat others with patience and kindness as I wear my mask and deal with those around me.  And if I remain mindful that my mask is for safety purposes and not a screen to hide behind, I can intentionally be genuine and authentic in my words and behaviors.

There is no doubt that this is a time of uncertainty, anxiety, and suffering.  But it is also an opportunity to love others, and in doing so, to invite the Holy Spirit to conform our character to that of Christ in order to love better and more deeply.  May we wear our masks to God’s glory.

Temporal Trials VS. Eternal Truth

In these days of Coronavirus lockdown, time has taken on new dimensions in our household.  Without the rhythms of everyday life out in the world, we are finding it quite easy to lose track of time.  The uniformity of our day-to-day lives that is associated with our virus-imposed seclusion has created a sense of suspended animation that seems quite contrary to linear time.  As the world continues to fight Covid-19 and restrictions remain in place, it is easy to feel that life will never change.  

But the good news is that eternity has nothing to do with Covid-19; the virus has no place there.  The Apostle Paul tells us at the end of I Corinthians 13 that only three things remain: faith, hope, and love.  And while Coronavirus news may dominate our lives at the moment, we would be well served by considering that when all is said and done, it is faith, hope, and love that will define our reality.  At the moment, I would like to take a brief look at faith.

The author of Hebrews describes faith as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  It is a settled and secure position that rests on a firm foundation.  The world offers many possible alternative faith foundations: government, science, the intrinsic goodness of people, community, and a generalized spirituality are popular examples.  But the Bible tells us that reliance on such worldly powers will certainly and eventually lead to disappointment rather than fulfillment.  

If we want a faith that will in truth provide the unseen things that we hope for, we must choose our foundation carefully.  In the Gospels of Matthew (Chapter 7) and Luke (Chapter 6), Jesus uses the analogy of the foundation of a home to teach his listeners the importance of an unmovable spiritual foundation: Just as it is important to build a home upon a deep, strong foundation, it is vital to build our spiritual foundation on a solid and immovable base.  In the spiritual realm, it is truly a matter of eternal life and death.  What we believe is what we will have to cling to when storms and trials come.  C.S. Lewis has this to say: “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.  It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box.  But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice.  Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?”  

While science, government, and the good will of people and community may well be used by God and may help in the midst of this pandemic, they have little to offer in regard to eternity.  If we want to live by eternal values, we must build our faith upon the only truly trustworthy foundation.  We must indeed be sure that our foundation will resist the worst of storms, that our rope will hold us as we dangle from it.  The Apostle Paul makes this observation:

Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  But if there is no resurrection of the dead not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith is in vain.  Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of Go, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in dead in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. 

It is of the utmost importance that we build our faith on a real, unshakable foundation.  How can we be sure?  We return to the words of Paul:

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep….thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The bedrock truth of Christ crucified and Christ risen becomes the foundation of our faith.  We can bet our eternal kingdom on it!  

And once we have our firm eternal foundation of faith in place, we can live in the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen in the here and now.  Even though we continue to battle an unseen virus among us, there are other unseen realities of an eternal nature that deserve our attention as well.  Here are just a few:

John 14:2—"In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.  If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

John 16:33—"These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

                                     

Philippians 1:6—For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

As we find ourselves living in unprecedented times, we will need to find our hope and confidence, choose the foundation of our faith, every day, moment by moment.  May we choose wisely and encourage others to do so as well!