It seems the world is in turmoil. As I read the headlines I see recession, war, pain and suffering, yet it has always been like that since we were exiled from the Garden of Eden. I wonder sometimes how much I am supposed to care about all this. It can get pretty depressing, in fact it is incredibly easy to fall into despair because I can't change it. I want to help, but there are limitations to what I can do. And it seems those who are in positions of power and could help, often let the ball drop. I'm hoping that when the ball comes to me I will be able to field it and do the right thing, whatever that is, but in the meantime, I am battling sadness for all the pain of humanity. Further, though I have known Jesus as my loving Saviour for more than 40 years, I have experienced such a hunger for the Lord for the last two and a half years that I thought I would die for longing.
For the last few days, though, things have brightened. Not that outward circumstances have changed, but that I have changed. I have been taking communion each morning. First I ask forgiveness for sin and make sure I have forgiven others for we must never take the Lord's supper without these disciplines. Then I ask that the bread and cup be the body and blood of my Lord to my body, that He would be truly in me. The results have been amazing. There is a peace and calm that I can't explain. The despair is gone. I still feel emotions and concerns, but the hopelessness is gone. It seems there is a pillow in my soul that prevents the happenings of the day from striking at my core. Instead my core is now stable. And the presence of the Lord is sweetly gentle and peaceable in my spirit. I am going to continue this consecration for 21 days. I will post the results.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Gospel of Mark 1:21-28
I have been studying the text Mark 1:21-28 and it has been a real eye-opener. To read of a demon-possessed man being delivered through the authoritative Word of Jesus Christ is pretty exciting stuff. I am afraid we tend to think of those things as being part of the past. We make a grave error with such thinking. I have personally known folks who were delivered from the grasp of the enemy and their experiences were not unlike what happened to the man in this chapter when the demons threw him down and screamed their departure.
We need to be honest with ourselves. We do have an enemy who wishes us no good whatsoever. If we deny this, we deny ourselves the opportunity to be rescued. It reminds me of a favorite story I used to read to my children when they were small. It was about a very small dragon that appeared in a little boy's room one day. He told his mother about it when he went downstairs to breakfast, but she dismissed it and reminded him that there was no such thing as a dragon. As the day progressed, the dragon grew bigger and bigger and even when the dragon made it difficult for Mom to go from room to room doing her chores, she still denied he existed. At last, the dragon became so huge that his limbs protruded from the windows and doors of the house and he eventually took off down the road chasing a bread truck. Now Mom had no choice and admitted that perhaps dragons really do exist. Instantly, the dragon shrunk back to his smallest size.
This is much like how we in this culture view evil. If we just don't look at it or refuse to believe it exists-well, then it just won't be there. That works when it is small, but soon enough it grows arms and legs that are long enough to carry us away and no longer are we deciding our own comings and goings! We get ourselves in deeper and deeper and wonder why we can't get out, afterall we got there on our own, shouldn't we be able to dig out on our own?
We want to pretend evil is not the result of an enemy who plans well his strategy, but instead it exists because folks don't have enough education or opportunities or money. Indeed, folks need the basics of life and we need to care for one another to see that it is so. But to think we can educate or spend the evil out of human beings is exactly what our enemy wants us to think, simply because those approaches to the problem of evil are no threat to him. If we keep trying them, even when they are clearly not working, we will be so distracted we will not pull out the real weapon that can defeat the enemy. The real weapon, as Jesus demonstrated in this account, is Himself. He is in control and His Words have the power to bind and loose.
It is essential that we not relegate our Saviour to a place of nice, loving Teacher. No one is nicer or more loving or a better teacher than Jesus Christ. But to stop there is to miss the point. Jesus is Saviour. From what is He to save us-our over-drawn bank accounts? Yes, I pray over that too-but there is so much more to Him! Without light, there is no darkness, without small, there is no large, without less there is no more, without danger, there is no saving, without an enemy who needs a Saviour?
We, the Church, need to wake up and refuse to accept the humanistic version of our faith within which our politically correct culture wishes to frame us where everyone and everything is okay if it works for you. We need to own the tennets of our faith- that we have a King who died and rose again on our behalf-because we have an enemy who wants to destroy us. He was there in the Garden of Eden and he hasn't come up with anything new in his approach nor has he changed his goal to own us in all these thousands of years.
But the Good News is this: We have a Saviour who is unafraid, undaunted, all-powerful and best of all-on our side! We have a hope, because we can call upon Him, surrender our lives to Him and trust him with our lives. After-all, the demons were afraid of my Big Brother in that synogogue, so I think I'll stick with HIM!
We need to be honest with ourselves. We do have an enemy who wishes us no good whatsoever. If we deny this, we deny ourselves the opportunity to be rescued. It reminds me of a favorite story I used to read to my children when they were small. It was about a very small dragon that appeared in a little boy's room one day. He told his mother about it when he went downstairs to breakfast, but she dismissed it and reminded him that there was no such thing as a dragon. As the day progressed, the dragon grew bigger and bigger and even when the dragon made it difficult for Mom to go from room to room doing her chores, she still denied he existed. At last, the dragon became so huge that his limbs protruded from the windows and doors of the house and he eventually took off down the road chasing a bread truck. Now Mom had no choice and admitted that perhaps dragons really do exist. Instantly, the dragon shrunk back to his smallest size.
This is much like how we in this culture view evil. If we just don't look at it or refuse to believe it exists-well, then it just won't be there. That works when it is small, but soon enough it grows arms and legs that are long enough to carry us away and no longer are we deciding our own comings and goings! We get ourselves in deeper and deeper and wonder why we can't get out, afterall we got there on our own, shouldn't we be able to dig out on our own?
We want to pretend evil is not the result of an enemy who plans well his strategy, but instead it exists because folks don't have enough education or opportunities or money. Indeed, folks need the basics of life and we need to care for one another to see that it is so. But to think we can educate or spend the evil out of human beings is exactly what our enemy wants us to think, simply because those approaches to the problem of evil are no threat to him. If we keep trying them, even when they are clearly not working, we will be so distracted we will not pull out the real weapon that can defeat the enemy. The real weapon, as Jesus demonstrated in this account, is Himself. He is in control and His Words have the power to bind and loose.
It is essential that we not relegate our Saviour to a place of nice, loving Teacher. No one is nicer or more loving or a better teacher than Jesus Christ. But to stop there is to miss the point. Jesus is Saviour. From what is He to save us-our over-drawn bank accounts? Yes, I pray over that too-but there is so much more to Him! Without light, there is no darkness, without small, there is no large, without less there is no more, without danger, there is no saving, without an enemy who needs a Saviour?
We, the Church, need to wake up and refuse to accept the humanistic version of our faith within which our politically correct culture wishes to frame us where everyone and everything is okay if it works for you. We need to own the tennets of our faith- that we have a King who died and rose again on our behalf-because we have an enemy who wants to destroy us. He was there in the Garden of Eden and he hasn't come up with anything new in his approach nor has he changed his goal to own us in all these thousands of years.
But the Good News is this: We have a Saviour who is unafraid, undaunted, all-powerful and best of all-on our side! We have a hope, because we can call upon Him, surrender our lives to Him and trust him with our lives. After-all, the demons were afraid of my Big Brother in that synogogue, so I think I'll stick with HIM!
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