Some individuals question the value of prophetic gifts in the body of Christ today.  Much of their  questioning comes from a mistaken view of prophetic gifts in the New Testament compared to the prophetic office of the Old Testament.  The prophets presented on the pages of the O.T. were functioning in the office of prophet who prophesied to the nation on behalf of God.   They spoke to kings and called the nation to action.  The O.T. clearly says that these men were held to account and that every word they spoke must come true if they were to serve as a prophet.  God only selected a few of these men for the office.

In the New Testament, however, prophetic gifts differ from the office of prophet and are given to many to build up the body of Christ rather than to command a nation or a king.   Paul tells us in his discussion of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 12-14, that the gift is given for the common good and is to be used to strengthen, comfort, and encourage the body.  It is a gift that must be developed and learned to be used with skill just as a teacher, an evangelist, a preacher or a musician who is clearly gifted must also grow in their gift before they reach their full potential and effectiveness.  Because of that prophecies are to be tested as prophets learn to hear the Lord and understand what he is downloading in them.

Although the gift of prophecy is not always fully developed it still has great power in the lives of God’s people and the more it is developed the more powerful it is.  I want to share with you what Graham Cooke says about the power of a prophetic word to impact God’s people in life-giving ways:

“The Father lives with us and occupies the space between the potential we have and the actual that He views in our future. A prophecy is spoken from the future back to the present. That does not yet make it real or substantial. Free will is involved. Prophecy relates to the possibility, not the inevitability, of fulfillment because the will of the individual/group has to be engaged in cooperation with the Lord in order for the word to come to pass…Sometimes people are trapped into reliving or reenacting their past….Prophetic ministry needs to enter that place gently, lovingly, and firmly to extricate the individual from a present/past lifestyle…The best way to extricate people from the past is first to show them the future. Everyone has to have something to reach out for in life…The prophetic must put us in mind of a future time in regard to our present. When our mind is able to cover the ground between our present and our future, then we are free to move on in the things of God. ‘Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past.  Behold I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?” (Isa.43:18-19)…When  people have been damaged, it is the future that can release then from the past.” (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p.114-115)

I have seen people lifted from the past and set on a new path on many occasions by a prophetic word.  The moment began with a word of knowledge revealed to the prophet by the Spirit.  It is a word about the past life of the individual that the prophet could have only known through a revelation from the Spirit. I can only believe his word about the future if he demonstrates supernatural knowledge about my past.  But the power of the moment is not in the prophet.

The power of the moment is found in the realization that God has been intimately involved in my life, even in those hurtful moments when I thought he was paying no attention at all to my pain.  His heart of concern and compassion about my pain is communicated through the prophet and his promise for the future releases me from the despair of believing  that my life is doomed to be as it has always been.  The word conveys the love of God for that person. The word breaths hope for the future into a tired and weary soul.  The word invites us into partnership with the creator of the universe to carve out a different future than I was expecting.  Prophecy is a true gift of God to his church and its truth resonates with the spirit of the person receiving it as the Spirit of God bears witness with his Spirit about what is being spoken.

If you have not done so, let me encourage you to embrace prophetic gifts.  They are not always on target or spoken well by those still learning.  But God will still speak to you through imperfect people in ways that he will confirm and that confirmation will fuel your soul for the future.  Be blessed today and ask God for a fresh word over your life.  You might even receive it from a prophet.

It is not unusual to run into people who love Jesus but avoid his church.  Many have experienced a bad moment in a church where they felt judged or rejected fifteen to twenty years ago.  Others had a friend or family member that was “wronged” by church leadership sometime in the distant pass.  Others play the “hypocrites” card and say they have no use for the church because it is full of people who project the image of “Christian” on Sunday but treat other people badly the other six days of the week.  Others reject the organized church because it is led by men rather than the Spirit or because it operates like a corporation rather than a family.  Others find the organized church to be worldly or materialistic or performance driven and so they reject all organized religion as systemically bankrupt.

In response to those criticisms I would say there is some or much truth in each of them.  And yet I believe Jesus calls us to love the church and be involved in the church regardless of her shortcomings. The church is the “bride of Christ” and if you love the groom you will love the bride even if she is awkward, immature, and tells bad jokes.  You will not cut yourself off from the bride because to do so distances you from the groom who is often with his bride. If you love the groom and want the best for him, you will not detach yourself from his blundering bride but will determine to help the bride grow and mature for his sake if not for hers.

The church has always been organized and imperfect. It has never been a perfect haven of love,  righteousness, or spiritual maturity.  Its leaders have never had it all together.  The New Testament is full of admonitions for believers to forgive one another as Christ forgave us.  That means that someone was being “wronged” by someone else in the church often enough that we were called to forgive, to be patient, to pray for one another, and to leave our gift at the altar until we had reconciled a relationship problem that the Holy Spirit had brought to mind. Some of the greatest leaders in the church, Paul and Barnabas, had disagreements and disputes.  The apostle Peter himself had to be called out for discriminating against the Gentiles.

Just about every letter (epistle) in the New Testament was written to churches with big problems and rampant imperfections. Just look at Corinth.  These guys were tolerating open sexual sin in their ranks.  They were taking one another to court. They were abusing spiritual gifts and abusing the Lord’s Supper and in doing so were abusing one another.  They were struggling with pride, arrogance, and selfishness and had twisted off on doctrines about the resurrection.  Their worship services were chaotic and Paul began his letter by telling them they were not very spiritual. And yet he addressed them as the church of God in Corinth, God’s holy people, and told them how thankful he was for the grace that had been given to them in Jesus. Then he engaged in helping them grow rather than rejecting them and separating himself from the bride of Christ.

I believe the glory of the church is not found only in our maturity and holiness but even more in the fact that we love one another relentlessly even in the face of our weaknesses and failures. God certainly does that for us and he expects us to do that for his church.  In that unity the power of the Spirit is displayed and we experience more of his glory.  Church members who bail out on the church because she is not what they expect her to be, abandon her to her weaknesses.  It is almost like parents abandoning their children because they are not as obedient and attractive as they had hoped.

I love Philip Yancey’s description of his church and in it I see the true glory of  God – love and acceptance for the imperfect.  It’s a bit long but worth reading.  I hope you find Jesus in it as I do each time I read it.

“A few times at my church I preached the sermon, then assisted in the ceremony of communion…those who desired to partake would come to the front, stand quietly in a semicircle, and wait for us to bring the elements. ‘The body of Christ broken for you,’ I would say as I held out a loaf for bread for the person before me to break off. ‘The blood of Christ shed for you,’ the pastor behind me would say, holding out a common cup…I knew the stories of some of the people standing before me. I knew that Mabel, the woman with strawy hair and bent posture who came to the senior citizen center, had been a prostitute.  Fifty years ago she had sold her only child…she knew she would make a terrible mother. She could never forgive herself she said. Now she was standing at the communion rail, spots of rouge like paper discs on her cheeks, her hands outstretched, waiting to receive the gift of grace… ‘The body of Christ broken for you, Mabel.’  Beside Mabel were Gus and Mildred, star players in the only wedding ceremony ever performed among the church’s seniors. They lost $150/month in Social Security benefits by marrying rather than living together, but Gus insisted. He said Mildred was the light of his life and he did not care if he lived in poverty as long as he lived with her at his side.  ‘The blood of Christ shed for you, Gus, and you, Mildred.’ Next came Adolphus, an angry young black man whose worst fears about the human race had been confirmed in Vietnam. Adolphus scared people…Then came Sarah, a turban covering her bare head scarred from where doctors had removed a brain tumor. And Michael, who stuttered so badly he would physically cringe whenever anyone addressed him. And Maria, the wild and overweight Italian woman who had just married for the forth time. ‘Thees one will be deeferent I just know.’ What could we offer such people other than grace, on tap?” (What’s So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey, p.277).

Many of us might think these are not the kind of people we would feel good sitting next to in church, but these are the ones Jesus died for and his love for such as these and such as us is his true glory.  In the midst of his discussion on the miraculous gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians, Paul discussed love for an entire chapter. The implication is that the power of the Holy Spirit flows most freely where love abounds.  Many of the people I know who left the “organized church” did so because they didn’t see the Holy Spirit moving in their church but they themselves refused to love the imperfect and so left with nothing but criticism for the bride of Christ.

The glory of God is not perfect people but perfect love for imperfect people…even imperfect leaders.  Not every congregation fits every person.  God places us in different places.  But the church in all of her craziness and immaturity is still the bride Jesus died for.  Are we to stay crazy and immature?  Of course not.  But God wants us to love his bride until she is perfected rather than rejecting her because of past transgressions and current pettiness.  We honor God by loving his bride. Be blessed today and choose to love the body of Christ because it is in that love  that the Holy Spirit operates most willingly.  Be blessed.

Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. (Mark  10:18)

Most of us have heard the expression that God is good – all the time. A friend of mine says it this way.  “God is good and he’s in a good mood.”  Statements like that have developed because people, including many believers, aren’t sure that it’s true. People wonder if God is good only part of the time and only with his favorites. Or they may think that maybe he’s good (moral/righteous) but he still seems to be angry all the time. The question of God’s inherent goodness is vital.

Everything in our faith stands on the truth of what Jesus said.  God is good. It is only when we believe that God is good all the time that we can have faith in his promises.  It is only then that we can develop an unconditional trust in him. Anything less leaves us on shaky ground and yet my experience tells me that many believers, in their hearts,  are still uncertain of that goodness.

Satan’s great strategy in the garden was to undermine Adam and Eve’s confidence in the goodness of God. In his dialogue with Eve, Satan implied that God might not be so good.  He suggested that there were many good things that Adam and Eve deserved that God was withholding from their lives.  He suggested that the warning about death related to eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a ruse to keep them from becoming gods themselves. He suggested that God was a liar and a manipulator who was keeping them from the best things in life. The only evil in the Garden that day was Satan.  But Satan always calls evil good and good evil and so he accused the creator of being much less than a good and loving God.

As soon as Eve entertained the possibility that God wasn’t so good after all, she took and ate.  Her doubts about the goodness of God created distrust in the goodness of his commandments because she had begun to distrust his character.  Once we take the step of doubting God’s goodness then everything unravels.  If we can’t trust God to be good all the time then we can’t trust his commandments to be good for us all the time. When we arrive at that perspective, we will feel compelled to pick and choose the commandments of God that we estimate will be in our best interest while leaving the others alone.  We will have to serve God with reservations and maintain control over the most critical parts of our lives because we won’t be confident that he will always act in our best interest.

I’ve discovered through the years that Eve’s distorted view of God seems to be indelibly imprinted on our fallen nature so that even believers often filter out the goodness of God written on every page of the Bible and camp on those moments when his righteousness and the persistent rebellion of men forced him to release judgment on a man or a nation.  That post-sin filter from the Garden casts God as a perfectionistic, authoritarian Father who gives gifts grudgingly and only to those who have recently earned his approval. He is seen as a Father who gladly sends hardship or even illness to teach us a lesson so that we might do better next time.  He is often seen as a father who delights in “taking off his belt” and dealing out his “righteous” judgments.

When that view overshadows the true revelation of God’s goodness, our trust can only be sporadic, our expectation for answered prayers will vary with our perceived personal “spirituality and goodness,” and we will often view every hardship and loss in life as something God has “done to us.”  Obviously, our walk with the Lord and growth in the Spirit will not flourish in such a mental environment.  These misperceptions of God are the very strongholds (see 2 Cor.10:4-5) that keep us from healing, freedom, and moving powerfully in the gifts of the Spirit.

Those things are predicated on trusting that God is always for us; believing his truth about who we are and what Christ has done for us; confronting the enemy with the confidence that Jesus is who he says he is and that he will back us up with his own power and authority. To receive those gifts from God, we must at least begin to remove fleshly filters that deletes all evidence of his goodness and begin to see the goodness of God through the revelation of the Spirit.

If God is good by nature, then he can only do good things.  He can only treat us in good ways.  He can only send us good gifts and he can only want good things for us.  If he is good by nature then he never lies, never breaks promises, never manipulates, and never discards us.  If he is good, then he opposes evil and delights in helping us overcome the enemy in our own lives. If he is good he always meets our needs and always does what is best for us – even when we can’t see it in the beginning.

Is God good?  Jesus said he is. Is Jesus good?  If you said yes then remember that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father (see Heb.1:3). Once I commit by faith to the proposition that God is good all the time, then my eyes will begin to see his goodness in everything.  I will not blame him for the consequences of my own bad decisions or the bad decisions of Adam.  I will not blame him for the works of Satan and I will not have to stand on my head to explain why a good God would seemingly do such bad things – because he doesn’t.

If you honestly struggle with the goodness of God in your life then take Jesus as his word.  Choose to believe that God is good and always wants what is best for you. Then ask the Holy Spirit to begin to enable you to see his goodness in everything and to discern where God is interjecting his grace and goodness even in tragic circumstances created by sin not by God.   Look for his goodness.  Confess his goodness. Confirm his goodness. Celebrate his goodness.  It will change your life and open the doors to your healing, freedom and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life. Be blessed by his goodness today.

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,       I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:15-20)

This is a text that I often go to when ministering freedom and healing to broken and oppressed believers. Most of us continue to live with our brokenness because we don’t truly understand who God is, what he has provided for us, or who we are in Christ.  Through the years you have probably known someone that continued to live in a hurtful, abusive situation year after year. Perhaps they were in an abusive relationship or a job where they were underpaid, overworked and never appreciated.  They clearly hated their situation and it was clear that it was taking a toll on them emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  And yet, they would not take steps to free themselves from the relationship or to seek different employment.

I have visited with a number of individuals in those situations.  Some finally made the break after they became absolutely desperate.   I asked them why they had stayed in those hurtful situations so long when everyone they knew encouraged them to get out.  Inevitably the same reasons always surface.  One reason was fear of the unknown.  As bad as their situation was, they knew what they had and feared having nothing at all if they left the relationship or the job.  Most of us would believe that nothing was better than what they had, but fear that the future might hold something even worse kept them where they were.

Others viewed themselves in such a way that they truly believed they didn’t deserve anything better.  The messages from their past had convinced them that they were worthless, low achievers whom no one would ever love or value.  Their abusers or unappreciative employers reinforced those beliefs so they thought life would never offer more because they didn’t deserve anymore.  So … they stayed.

The third reason was that their mothers or fathers had modeled that life for them by continuing in abusive relationships or staying in dead end jobs with a sense of resignation that the world would offer them nothing more. These abused and oppressed people in some way believed that what they were experiencing was “the norm” because they had watched their parents endure it all the years they were growing up.  In some subconscious way they probably sought out what their parents had modeled because that was familiar.

Our spiritual lives can be the same.  Many believers continue to live with a sense of insignificance, a painfully negative view of themselves, oppressive thoughts, addictions, and general sadness because they believe there are no real alternatives for them or because they simply don’t deserve more in this world.  Some even believe that God has visited their misery on them so that continuing in their pain is a way of “paying for their sins” even though Jesus had already paid for every sin.  Many have simply taken on an identity of pain, rejection, and failure.  They can’t imagine being anything or anyone else and so they stay in that place for decades.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul affirms their faith and love and his excitement about their newly found life in Christ. He then lets them know that he has been constantly praying for them and asking God to give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. He says that he is praying for the Spirit to give these believers both of those gifts so that they might know God better.

We can come to know God through study, teaching, conversations, etc. to an extent.  But if our faith and understanding of God stay at an intellectual level then God remains a concept more than a person. We tend to know about God rather than knowing God.  Revelation deposits truth in our hearts – in our core being – and that is where profound change and healing occur.  Wisdom is knowing how God perceives people and situations and acting in accord with God’s view of things.  To know how God thinks is a huge step toward knowing God. To know how he feels about people, especially ourselves, is also a huge step toward knowing him.   Paul is really asking God to reveal both his mind and heart to the believers at Ephesus so that they might truly get to know him.  And as they say, “To know him is to love him.”  To know his love for us is also the most healing thing in the universe.

Paul goes on to say that he has asked the Father to enlighten the eyes of their hearts that they might also perceive what they have in Jesus.  In short, Paul declares that they have hope, riches, and power in Jesus.  They have hope because God has a future for them that is full of life and blessing if they will trust him enough to receive it.  They have the riches of heaven available to them if they will receive his promises by faith.  They also have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and that created the universe working on their behalf. Most of us have read those truths and promises in scripture and would say we believe them.  But for many of us, the belief is an intellectual position rather than something we have “written on our hearts.”

The work of the Spirit is revelation and revelation writes truth on our heart.  When we get the truth in our hearts it changes things.  Believers who stay in their brokenness and oppression don’t know God, who they are in Christ, or the riches that are theirs if they will pursue them.  They hear these truths but haven’t received them in their hearts.  They need revelation.  They need an experience with God, a fresh and personal word from God, or a teaching to explode in their hearts.  They need the Holy Spirit to give them wisdom and understanding to know what God has just done in their lives and to receive it as a gift from him.

I believe that we need to pray Paul’s prayer constantly for ourselves and for those who are struggling in their faith. We desperately need divine wisdom, the revelation of God’s truth, and for the “eyes of our heart” to be opened so that we might fully understand everything that is ours in Jesus as well as the power our Father is willing to wield on our behalf. When we grasp those things we can let go of the present and step into the future. We can exchange the devil’s view of who we are for the Father’s view of who we are. We can lay fear about the unknown aside and trust that God already has it worked out in marvelous ways.

Today I pray that God will give you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation that you may know him better and that he will open the eyes of your heart so that you may know the hope, the riches, and the power that are yours in Jesus Christ.  I hope you’ll pray the same for me.  Be blessed.

As you know, symbols are important in scripture.  I was reading in Matthew this morning and looking at the familiar story of Jesus being baptized by John in the Jordan River.  It’s important to remember that John’s baptism was a call to repentance from sin. It carried the symbolism of cleansing as John administered baptism to the hundreds and thousands who were being touched by his preaching.

Because it was a baptism of repentance, John objected when Jesus, the sinless one, came to be baptized.  However, Jesus insisted that John immerse him in the muddy waters of the Jordan to “fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus insisted on obeying the command of the

Father to be baptized because Jesus was not only the chosen representative of God but also of man. Jesus submitted to baptism as our representative not because he needed to turn his heart toward God but because we needed to turn our hearts toward God.

The Jews were not unfamiliar with symbolic washings in water. The priests were washed as a sign of cleansing before entering the temple to minister.  Gentiles who came to faith in Jehovah and converted to Judaism went through cleansings by immersing themselves in water also as a sign of purification. These ceremonial cleansings were performed by the priest or the convert by squatting down in a pool of water until they were completely covered and then rising on their own. But now John was administering baptism.  For the first time, cleansing was not something a man could do for himself by his own efforts but it was something he must receive at the hands of another.

As Jesus was lifted from the water, Matthew tells us that the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove and remained there. As I read that, my mind always goes back to the Genesis flood when man had become so alienated from God and so saturated with evil that God determined to destroy man except for Noah and his family.  As the flood receded from the earth, Noah sent a dove out from the ark to see if he would find a resting place or return because the water still covered the earth.  The first time Noah released the dove he returned.  The second time he came back with a fresh olive leaf in his beak and the third time he was sent out, the dove did not return because the judgment of God was passing away.

For millennia, the sign of peace has been a dove with an olive branch in his mouth.  It was a sign that God has made peace with man.  Noah and his family were able to step out of the ark and receive the blessing of God once again on dry land. Matthew gave us a picture of Jesus standing waist deep in the Jordan with the sign of peace resting on him.  Through Jesus, God was making peace with man once again. When Isaiah spoke of the coming Messiah, he called him the “Prince of Peace.”

I don’t know about you, but as I grow older I long more and more for peace – peace in my environment but even more for peace within.  Peace is a fruit of the Spirit that I want more and more but it only comes when I am certain that I have peace with God. That certainty only comes through faith in what Jesus has done for me and that my heavenly Father welcomes me and delights in me even in my imperfections.

As Christmas day came and passed, there were still wars and terrorism raging in the world.  Israel was retaliating against sniper fire from Muslims across their border.  Car bombs were still exploding in Bagdad and Egypt. Threats were still being issued against Christians in hostile nations and believers were still being beaten for their faith in China.

The world continues to seek political solutions to war, poverty, and racism.  But you can’t give want you don’t possess.  The problem is that man has no internal peace.  He is restless, angry, bitter, and unforgiving in his fallen nature. All those feelings manifest in war, murder, divorce, or seek to be medicated by drugs and alcohol.  The solution is still and only Jesus, the Prince of Peace.  When I have truly made peace with God through his Son, them I can make peace with men. Through Jesus, God has offered each of us the olive branch – his peace.  That is really what all men are seeking to find without knowing what it is.

The dove landed on one man – Jesus.  He did not land on many or on several.  He landed on one. No man can come to the Father except through his only begotten Son.  We will need to remember that in 2014.  There will be more wars, greater calls to accept the legitimacy of many faiths as roads to salvation, and more promises for political solutions. But only Jesus is the Prince of Peace and the holder of the olive branch from heaven. I want to seek him more and more and point others to him as well. I encourage you to do the same in this coming year. Be blessed today in the peace of God through Jesus Christ

John Bevere begins a chapter in his book. Drawing Near, by saying, “The fear of the Lord is the foundation of intimacy with God.”  He goes on to say that the church has lost the “fear of God” and so has lost the presence of God in much of what we do.

That statement launched an hour of great conversation in my Thursday morning men’s group that meets at 6:00 a.m. every week.  It usually takes us 15-20 minutes and at least two cups of coffee for things to get rolling but the idea of the fear of God and what that means seemed to energize us right away.

The truth of Bevere’s statement hinged on the meaning of “fear” for each of us. If we only meant that we shuddered at the voice of God as the Hebrews shuddered at the base of Mt. Sinai, then our fear of the Lord might hinder our intimacy rather than promote it.  As you recall, as God settled on the top of Sinai in smoke and fire and spoke with a thundering voice, the Hebrews began to question having a relationship with this God.

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. (Ex. 19:16-19)

When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.  (Ex. 20:18-20)

In my men’s group we discussed the death of Nadab and Abihu for offering “strange fire” and the death of Uzzah who took hold of the Ark of the Covenant in David’s day. We also got around to Ananias and Saphira who died suddenly in the Jerusalem church for lying to the Holy Spirit.  Each of those events were sobering and if left alone would push us away from the presence of God rather than drawing us in for a moment of intimacy.

On the other hand, in scripture, God also called certain men his friends and often went out of his way to meet with them and even share his heart with them.  Jesus said that he no longer calls us servants but friends and the writer of Hebrews tells us that we can approach God’s throne of grace with boldness in time of need. We are called children of God and are affectionately called “his saints.”  So what do we make of these extreme positions?  On one side it seems that coming into the presence of God is a very fearful and risky thing while on the other side we are invited to “sit in his lap,” so to speak.

Bevere had made the point in his statement that the fear of God was foundational to intimacy.  Fear of God, then, is the beginning point for an intimate relationship, but it is not the end. More than anything, God relates to us as a Father.  Earthly fathers who love their children also seek a balance between respect and familiarity and often have to work to maintain the balance.  We never want our children to tremble when we enter the room, but we also want them to obey us when we get serious. If they do not “fear” us or at least fear our discipline, then they will play in the street whenever they feel like it and place their lives at risk.

We have all had the experience of playing with our children and in the midst of that intimacy (playing promotes intimacy), we find our children being disrespectful or ignoring some hard and fast safety rules that still apply even though we are playing.  In those moments, we have to call a timeout and remind our children that we are not just a playmate but we are still their father. That seems to be the tension in scripture that calls us to a middle ground between the fear of Sinai and the familiarity of “Abba” father.

To lose an awesome respect for God and the mindset that he his still holy can move us to a place of being cavalier about the commands of God.  We can begin to take advantage of his grace and treat him with a bit of disdain.  Not only is that offensive to a holy God but it also begins to place us at risk because we become careless with sin.  In a sense, we begin to play in the street.

Children initially obey fathers out of the fear of discipline. As they grow, they begin to obey out of love and respect which still stand on a foundation of healthy fear that was laid years earlier.  I have often thought that we can’t truly love a person we don’t respect – especially in marriages.  When we are mature that respect is built on the qualities of character of the other person, but when we are children it begins with a healthy fear that keeps us out of the street.

If we forget the holiness and the discipline of God, out intimacy will suffer.  Unrepented sin will creep in and create separation between us and the Father.  We will become careless with his commands, which says something about our hearts for we are told, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.”

As the perfect Father, God seeks a balance between fear (awesome respect for who he is and his authority) and familiarity and comfort in his presence. The Hebrew writer tells us that our God is a consuming fire while at the same time inviting us to approach his throne with absolute confidence.  We can do so because of Christ and his blood that washes away our sin. That sacrifice purchases a positional relationship with the Father, but God wants much more than that. He wants intimacy, friendship, and even playfulness.

However, in the midst of that let’s not forget that he is holy and the creator of the universe.  That balance keeps us in a place where we can enjoy the presence of God.  The more respect we maintain for the Father, the more familiar he can be with us because we will not take advantage of that familiarity or become careless with our lives.  It would seem to be a healthy regimen to regularly reflect not only on the love and grace of God but also his power, authority, and holiness.  Be blessed today.

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.     He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (Jn.1:3-13)

I wanted to spend a little more time on John’s theology of Jesus in chapter one of his gospel.  I love the phrase, “In him was life and that life was the light of men.”  In the writings of John, the term “life” or “eternal life” speaks more about quality than duration.  For him, eternal life is the quality of life a man has in connection with the Father rather than eternal existence.  Those who find themselves in torment will have a never-ending existence but John would not call that “life.”

When he looked at Jesus, he saw something that he had never seen before.  He saw a quality of life that he had never imagined. It was a life in close and intimate fellowship with the Father.  There were qualities evident in the life of Jesus that had not been seen since Adam walked in the Garden.  Think of the things people saw in Jesus that arrested their attention.

The most obvious was the power available to him because of his relationship with Jehovah. As Jesus touched the lame, the blind, the lepers, and even the dead they were instantly returned to health and life. Demons were driven from their victims with a single command. Jesus tore at a few fish and a handful of bread and fed thousands. He commanded storms, walked on water, and changed water into the best wine at the wedding.

He also taught as no one had ever taught before.  He taught with the authority of one who knows, rather than one who speculates. Instead of quoting great Rabbi’s he spoke what the Father was giving him at the moment.

He exuded a security and a peace that is available only to those who know the heart of the Father and know the love the Father has for them. Jesus himself said that he gave peace, but it was not like the peace the world gives. Jesus had three years to save the world but never seems in a hurry, never worried about his next meal, and never spent a moment concerned about the approval of men.

He prayed in such a way that his disciples, who had heard thousands of Jewish prayers while growing up, felt like they had never heard anyone pray before.  They asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Jesus also dispensed love and grace in ways that no one had seen before either. Moved with compassion, he touched broken lives with his love and grace in a way that invited people to trade in their old way of life, full of sin and brokenness, for a new life where grace and forgiveness ran deeper than the river of sin that had been gushing through their lives.

Those who saw Jesus saw that life and that life was the light of men.  If you’ve ever been lost in the dark you know how welcome a light is.  Suddenly, that light gives direction and hope. Suddenly you know in which direction you should be walking or driving and the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness are chased away.

The life Jesus modeled shows us that there is something else, something more, something worth pursuing with all of our hearts. It also gives us hope that there is a heart in heaven from which all of that flows.  The life we see in Jesus echoes the atmosphere of heaven.  In that life we sense that there truly is a place filled with love, peace, and security.  A city where sickness, death, and the demonic have no power and no place.

The life people saw in Jesus was a light directing them, calling them, and filling them with hope.  The amazing thing is that his life is available to us. As the Holy Spirit conforms us to the image of Jesus Christ, our lives should begin to emit that same life and hope to those still walking in darkness.  Paul said that, as believers, we should shine like stars in a dark sky.  I marvel at the men and women who centuries ago ventured out on seemingly endless seas in tiny boats with only a hand-held sextant and a basic compass to tell them where they were and where they were going. Sometimes they were driven by storms for days never seeing land or a single star to give them a heading.  When the clouds broke and the night sky was clear, they found hope and direction from those lights shining in the darkness.

My hope is that we (myself included) will pray harder and press-in harder to know the life that John saw in Christ so that others may see Jesus in us and that life, then, can be a light for them giving direction and hope. Remember, you are the light of the world.

Jeremiah is sometimes known as the weeping prophet for the tears he shed over Israel,  but iI believe t was God weeping through him.  In Jeremiah 3, we are given a profound insight into the heart of God.

          During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord. The Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.

           Go, proclaim this message toward the north: “ ‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt— you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me,’ ” declares the Lord. “Return, faithless people,” declares the Lord, “for I am your husband. I will choose you—one from a town and two from a clan—and bring you to Zion.  Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.  (Jer.3:6-15)

In this passage you hear the cry of God’s heart toward Israel, his unfaithful love.  This is an amazing passage because in it we discover that God divorced Israel because she had committed adultery with a stable of foreign gods through her idolatry. And yet, God’s heart still yearns for her like a jilted lover.  More than that, he is willing to take her back and bless her again if she will just return and acknowledge her wrongs.

More than once I have sat in my office and listened to a heartbroken spouse whose husband or wife had committed multiple affairs and showed no repentance or remorse for what they had done. When these men or women have asked me how to get their spouse back, my first thought has always been. “What is wrong with you that you would want them back?”  My next thought is usually that the person sitting in the chair across from me must have no sense of self-worth or self-respect to take someone back who has repeatedly given themselves to others in tawdry one-night stands in cheap motels and office couches,

But when I look at God, his cry for Israel to return is not a symptom of low self-esteem or some expression of co-dependence, but rather an expression of a God with an undying love for his people. I am amazed at how unrelenting God’s love is and when the apostle John tells us that, “God is love,” this is what that looks like.

How often did Israel rebel?  How often did they kill the prophets and finally the Son?  How often did they thumb their nose at their creator and run after foreign Gods? God’s love truly is unfailing – not just for Israel but for each of us.  He is the Father in the story of the prodigal son. If his relationship with Israel is any indicator, the prodigal could have drifted away again and again and the Father would have still longed for his return and celebrated the sound of his voice at the door once again.

It’s not that God is indifferent to our unfaithfulness. Discipline was still the order of the day for Israel and for us if we wander.  But the heart behind the discipline is the miracle.  It is a discipline tempered by a relentless love that calls us back from the edge of disaster – always.

We all wander from the Father at times, if only in our hearts or our priorities. Some of us walk away for years and violate his values over and over.  But there comes a time when we think about returning and the enemy always whispers, “He won’t have you. You’ve gone too far. He despises you for what you’ve done and you don’t want to hear what he’s got to say to you!” That is a lie.

The Father’s heart always cries, “return.” Acknowledge your guilt and it is forgiven. After adultery and murder, at the moment King David declared, “ I have sinned against God,” his sin was taken away. At the moment the prodigal began to confess his failings, the Father stopped him and restored him to the family with a celebration.  We never have to be afraid to return to the Father whether we have been away for a day or for years.  He is waiting.  His love has not failed. There is no need to hide or excuse or justify what we have done. Just say it and ask for forgiveness.  God is always ready to give that and more – because he has always loved us and always will. He has always loved you, and always will. If you have been away, go home.  He is waiting with the embrace of a father longing to hear your voice.