Hasten To The Word of God

Is New Always Better?

 

Responding to a young graduate’s statement that what is new should be superior to what is older, specifically newly graduated teachers and leaders.

No, new is not always as superior as we think.  There are some things that get better as they age, wine for instance.  Wine is just juicy until it ages.  Maturity does not happen at birth, which is the peak of newness.  I don't recommend eating a vegetable at first bud.  It needs time to mature into the healthy life giving fruit that sustains us.

In a similar way, wisdom, understanding and discernment take time to develop.  The gadgets we use can help us at any age.  But skill must be developed through all our experiences and collections of understanding.  I've been teaching on and off for 40 years and I am 20 times more knowledgeable and capable of delivering that knowledge than I was in the beginning.  This is not to suggest that I've "arrived" at any peak of knowledge.  Rather, no one ever arrives at the peak of all knowledge.  We only can manage to traverse the mountainsides and peer into glimpses of the depths.  Only God knows all.

It is interesting that in our youth we think we are "the bomb" of greatness and expertise.  Life is so full and we think we've experienced so much.  But as time goes on and wisdom gains a footing in our hearts, we begin to understand that the more we learn, the more we need to learn.  What we have learned becomes smaller as we see the cosmic expanse of life — and thus knowledge. Can we ever learn it all.  Will all the gadgets we create as humans ever bridge that gap and give us instant wisdom and insight such that we don't need experience.  I don't think so. 

Humanity needs its older experienced and more mature teachers and leaders.  We need them desperately.

 

 

The Woman & the Alabaster Box

In Luke 7:36-50, this story of the woman washing Jesus feet with her tears and drying them with her unbound hair is one of the most poignant stories of deep love to God for His mercy and forgiveness there is in Scripture.  Her bravery was greater than the Pharisees there.

In those days with dirt streets it was common courtesy for one’s guests to have a lowly servant at the door with water and towel to wash and dry the dirt from their feet.  It was also common courtesy to give the kiss of welcome to honored guests.  The Pharisees who invited Jesus did none of these. This begs the question of why did they invite Jesus. We have to remember that in general the Pharisees viewed Christ as the enemy, out to destroy their wealth and control of the people.  They were not impressed with Jesus’s claim to be the anointed Messiah. 

Into this picture comes a woman of poor reputation, whether as a prostitute or a beggar or something else we don’t know.  But the Pharisees knew and had no empathy for her.  So , she sneaks in behind everyone, coming up to Jesus and sits at his feet making herself like the lowly servants that wash feet.  They were all likely reclining on pillows around a low table, so that wasn’t too difficult to do.  She would be the only woman there as all the women of the house would be either in the kitchen or other rooms as was proper then. Weeping profusely she purposefully lets her tears cover his feet.  Such humility. Then loosing her hair in the midst of disdainful men, she wipes his feet dry with her hair. Taking a beautiful alabaster box of perfume (anointing for burial as she knew they would kill him), that cost a years worth of money, she breaks it and pours the entire contents all over his tear washed feet.   Such courage born of deep heart whenching love for the one whom she saw as the most important man around, was unparralled for a woman like her.  But how could she not, for somehow she knew who Jesus was.

The Pharisees considered this disgraceful, as they were concerned only with the appearances.  They only saw her outward appearance as a sinful woman.  But Jesus saw her heart.  If they could have been capable of seeing the woman as she truly was, they might have been capable of seeing better who Jesus was. 

So, Yeshua gave Simon a lesson in mercy and forgiveness to explain that he who is forgiven more loves more, thus explaining the depth of the woman’s actions of love and worship.  It is doubtful whether the Pharisees understood a word since they thought of themselves as righteous and were blind to their own sin.

I suspect we have many Pharisees in our churches today who don’t see believers as God’s anointed in training and look down on them in the same way, and see themselves as more righteous than is true.  Let us all beware of this.   Such individuals may also, like the Pharisees, not see The Messiah as He truly is either. Let's clean our glasses and see our brethen as Jesus sees us, with mercy and compassion. When we can do this we will be closer to seeing God as He truly is.

TRINITY QUESTIONS

 Looking at several areas of activities by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, we see cross over involvement.  There are those in Christiandom that would have us believe that God the Father is superior and the Son and the Holy Spirit inferior in authority and activity.  This is called Arianism.  It is also today called Eternal Subordination of the Son.  These are false pictures of the Trinitarian aspects of Elohim.

Let’s take a look at some of the confusing areas.  In the accounts of creation in Genesis we see that both the eternal God and God the Word and God the Holy Spirit are all busy making the creation happen.  In Psalm 102:25 we see that the psalmist states that the foundations of the earth were laid by God.  In John 1 we are informed that Jesus is the Word of God and thus God (not A god) and “all things were created in and through Him”.  And the Holy Spirit is always the power through which everything is done as well as the very essence of Life than can never be duplicated. There is no superior or lessor involvement.  All the Trinity were involved in creation, though in differing ways.  (see also Isa. 44:24, Col. 1:16, Heb. 1:2 & 10)

 There are some who claim that only God is God and the Messiah was not divine.  God clearly says He will not give His glory to another (Isa. 48:11, 42:8).  Yet, in John 17:5 Jesus quite clearly says that He shares the ‘glory’ with God.  Also, God calls His Son, God, in Heb. 1, and says that all, including the angels are to worship Him as such.  In the same vein Jesus said that those who speak against Him will be forgiven but anyone who blasphemes (speaks irreverently against) the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.  

Regarding salvation we are told that no one comes to the Son except the Father draw them. (John 6:44) Then we are also told that no one comes to the Father except through the Son.  (John 3:17, John 14:6)  We are also told in many places that there is no salvation apart from God and the Messiah (who IS God clothed in human flesh; IOW 100% divine and 100% human) We also know that it is the Holy Spirit that brings us conviction of our sin (and of righteousness and judgment).  (John 16:7-8).  Regarding the eternal aspects of a lack of salvation we find that both God the Father and God the Son will Judge all peoples.  (Gen. 18:25; Ps. 94:2, 96:13, 98:9 ….. John 5:22, Acts 17:31, 2 Cor. 5:10, 2 Tim. 4:1)  I am impressed with the absolutely huge job of the Holy Spirit to influence humanity of the rightness and wrongness of our actions.  The whole Trinity takes part in the redemption of God’s people from their sins (Titus 2:14, Ps. 130:7-8)

There are so many functions and activities that all the Trinity is involved in within differing ways.  Take the subject of counsel, comforting, support and help.  God is our help in times of need who comforts us with good counsel.  Jesus is our counselor as well (Isa. 9:6).  And finally, the Holy Spirit is named as our primary source of counsel, comfort, advocate, succour, etc. as believers.  In fact, that is an honorary title of the Holy Spirit: our parakletos. (John 14:16)  So who is our counselor?  Well, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity, the Great I AM, the Elohim of creation is our good counsel, support defender, etc.

 We are also often told that only God the father hears and answers our prayers.  Yet, clearly in John 14:12-15 Christ tells us that HE, Himself will answer the prayers if we ask the Father in Jesus name.  We see it also in Rom. 10:12-13 where we must call on Jesus who will hear us.  (also in 1 Cor. 1:2, 2 Cor. 12:8-9).  It is my suspicion that Christ worded things the way that He did in order to keep us honoring the whole Godhead and not just one part.  We must not honor only Jesus and forget the Father.  I recall what happened at the mount of transfiguration.  After Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured like the sun and then Moses and Elijah appeared also, they wanted to make 3 tabernacles to honor each of them.  But God the Father set them in their place scaring the erroneous ideas right out of them, and told them to HEAR JESUS for He was HIS SON!  We must honor all parts of Elohim, none above the other.

 This is why the ancient creeds were written in order to help the average person understand the Trinity; ones who did not have a Bible to study, or the average person who just wanted to honor God correctly and wasn’t certain how to.

 

ATHENASIAN CREED EXCERPT:

“So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other; none is greater, or less than another; But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved must think thus of the Trinity.”

 

 

Is Real Faith Getting Skewed Today

 

There are a number of ways that godly faith in the God who is GOD, the REAL Messiah and the ONLY HOLY Spirit can get skewed when humans step in to contain and control.  I believe that what I’m going to say needs to be said and spread.  I’d like to see it defined concisely and plainly.  But for now I’d like us to just define it well.

 

At this time in my church, I’m teaching a series on essential beliefs of the Christian faith.  They are actually a little more than the basics because I am including the things we need to know and understand something of in order to grow and mature into the full person of God we each are meant to become.  So, the basics are centered around who the Trinity is; who Christ the Messiah is and what He did for us; who the Holy Spirit is and what He does for all of us.  This entails a huge amount of information including redemption, sanctification, repentance, forgiveness, the infilling of the Holy Spirit and so forth.  We are called by Christ and the apostles to BE the Body of Christ, to each other and the world.  Throughout all of this is a particular trust in God first and foremost in every aspect of one’s life. 

 

To my knowledge there are no Scriptures that tell anyone to put strong faith and trust in Christian leaders, even if they are good, godly, faithful believers.  God almighty is to get our full allegiance, and to others we are to give our support, honor, respect and love.  This is because we are all human and thus fallible.  Even Paul praised the Bereans BECAUSE they did not just accept what he said, but chose to research the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was correct.  Because Paul was correct in what he told them, his words were made stronger when the Jews read these truths in Scripture, and therefore, many, thousands, came to believe in Jesus as the promised Messiah. 

 

Our job as hearers of those called to lead, preach and teach is to be willing to be persuaded by their words and their lives, and then to search the Scriptures asking God what to do.  (Heb. 13)  Unfortunately, today there is a stream of preachers and teachers who are teaching that everyone should be obeying leaders first and that in doing so we are obeying God. This creates a kind of spiritual insanity for the person who tries to do that.  We cannot help but see that there are leaders who teach incorrectly on some things.  Even Calvin, Luther, Wesley and other famous Christians were badly in error on some issues.  So, how does one recognize the incorrect teachers and focus only on what is of God and produces absolute faith in God first and foremost, and godly love of others?

 

Because this incorrect allegiance to human leaders is part of the foundational teachings of patriarchal hierarchy and male dominance, it has a very strong hold on many.  So, how can we get the message out to the Christian world that only God (not God AND male leaders) is to get our full faith, allegiance, trust, devotion and obedience?

 

 

Male Dominance and the Honor Shame Social Paradigm

 

Ancient Roman and Asian societies were honor and shame societies.  Their lives revolved around who was honored and who wasn’t. There were two main sources of honor: ascribed and achieved. Ascribed honor was your roots, where you came from, your family, your family achievements (wealth, reputation, etc.). Achieved honor had to do with your personal successes and achievements.  

 Aristotle, a student of Socrates (and considered a genius), developed the social construction of a society whose citizens were the wealthy and noble born men. It is interesting that Aristotle ignored Plato’s more liberal ideas of women (the Greeks liked Plato’s ideas) and chose to view them as completely inferior.  A man could become noble by his achievements as well.  If one was not male, noble born or from wealth then he was not considered honorable enough to sit in discussion and planning of the social issues or sit in judgment of law issues. He could not become a leader.  Many well-known and educated men throughout history used this same or similar pattern of thinking including Calvin and Luther.  Thus the Rabbi’s and Jewish leaders of Jesus day were greatly influenced by Socrates (469BC-399BC), Plato (424BC-347BC) and Aristotle (384BC-322BC)

 Women could be considered noble born by reason of their family status and family achievements.  However, because women were considered physically inferior and incapable of the physical and mental challenges that men exchanged between themselves, the primay honor they could gain was in serving their fathers and husbands and in certain personal feminine achievements, primarily the arts. 

 Men sought to perpetuate their own honor by marrying women who could continue their own nobility, wealth, and good family bloodlines.  This is why few men in those times (including the days of Jesus and the early church) thought it of any consequence to love their wives. They married to perpetuate their public honor and continue an honorable bloodline.  The majority of society was scrambling in a “quiet” way to outdo each other.  And in these struggles women fell to the wayside. These were the issues of women and marriage that Paul so delicately, indirectly and brilliantly spoke into in Ephesians 5. According to Mischke, it is a common theme of the honor/shame way of thinking to speak indirectly.  This way one can be directed, direct others and correct oneself without shame of error or failure. It is commonly called “saving face” in Eastern cultures today. And this I believe is what Paul was doing in Ephesians 5 and in 1 Cor. 11:2-16.

It is my belief that the entire system of male dominance we deal with in the church today is built around these ancient paradigms.  The hierarchalists don’t say outright that women cannot be leaders and cannot be equal partners with their husbands because women are inferior mentally and physically.  But they do say it indirectly and cleverly. 

 In Jesus day and in the early church the challenge Jesus’s Truth brought to the Pharisee’s power and authority was so feared, so destructive to their (may I say evil) paradigm of honor and shame that they sought to kill Jesus.  And they also sought to kill Christ’s disciples before and after Christ’s death and resurrection.  God’s Truth brings equality, mutuality, and true compassion, support and help to become like Jesus in humility.  These things, especially humility, do not walk well with a scrambling for honor.

 The vociferous responses of the hierarchalist male dominance crowd to the teachings of mutuality, is very similar to the attempts by the Pharisees to destroy Jesus and His disciples.  We have difficulty getting along because we not only speak different languages but our approaches are opposite.  Those believing in equality want to speak more directly.  Those in the honor shame paradigms speak their beliefs indirectly so that one has to interpret and guess at what is really being said.  Hence the “equal but different” mantra that is really not about equality at all.  But they speak their anger boldly and harshly because mutuality threatens their social systems.

 But Paul chose to be all things to all that some may be won for the kingdom.  (1 Cor. 10:31-33) Thus he spoke indirectly in most instances.  Yet Christ chose to do both fairly equally.  In many instances He strongly rebuked the Pharisees who were constantly challenging Jesus critically and in judgmentalism. And in many instances Jesus wove His answers and directions in metaphors and stories.

 My hope is that considering these things we may all (including myself) better learn how and in what circumstances we can respond both directly and indirectly toward the issues of male hierarchies in todays churches in hopes of bringing and living the humility of honoring all believers.

 What say you . . . . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

•  Honor & Shame in Cross Cultural Relationships by Werner Mischke

•  Honor & Shame in the Gospel of Matthew by Jerome Neyrey

•  When Dogmas Die by Susanna Krizo

•  Woman in Greek Civilization Before 100BC by Arthur F. Ide

BE NOT AFRAID

The following is my offering to you all as a Christmas encouragement.  It may not be the usual sort of Christmas thought, but it is what is on my heart today.......  We live in uncertain times.  It is good to remember that Christ came for us and is here for us in many ways that can affect every day of our lives.


 


God sent His Son Jesus into the world to live and walk amongst us as a brother, not to condemn us or judge us but to save us and give us eternal life.  Christ came to bring healing of the body, the soul and the heart — to heal the broken hearted.  He came to free us from our personal prisons and break the chains that bind us.  Within all that is a message of a God who cares, One who cares about the stresses of our daily lives and is able to do something about it.

The power of God to do all of that and more is way beyond our experience and full comprehension.  The power of God to insert a ripple into time and creation and put the seed of God’s creation into the seed of a virgin is way beyond our full understanding as well.  God is powerful.  And God loves us with a Love that is way beyond our experience and ability to wholly grasp.

The first words that God spoke to me after I gave my life to Him were:  “Don’t be afraid. Everything will be alright”.   He spoke this to me because I felt the power of His great Love billow over me and it was way beyond anything I had ever experienced.  But God knew that I needed to experience His love in my daily life and the healing from it so He encouraged me to trust Him and receive it.  We are to stand in awe of God’s great power but never fear that He will use it against us (with the exception that if we stand against God He will be against us).

God told Abraham not to be afraid, that He would make a great nation through him.  Moses told the people not to be afraid of God’s testings.  Moses also told the people not to be afraid because God goes with them and He will not leave nor forsake them.  The Lord told Joshua not to fear for He would protect them.  

Psalm 56:4
In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?

God  told Jacob and the nation of  Israel not to fear for He would deal with the nations that stood against them, but He would NOT deal harshly with them although they would need to be corrected for the mistakes they made and will not go unpunished.  But they should not fear this. Hebrews tells us that we should not be afraid of the corrections of God for God in correcting us deals with us as a son.

In short, God came to heal us  and some of the things He may need to do in order to accomplish that may seem frightening, but we must trust Him. We must trust God with every moment, every chore, every aspect of our lives.  The alternative is far worse.  God truly has our best interests in mind.  For what God went through to get here and to do what He did strained the rules of life and death and were so stressful for Christ that He when He gave up His life to the Father, His heart burst.  So great is His love for us. To not invite Him deeply into our lives is letting something slip by us that later on we will regret.

The second time that God told me to not be afraid was after something really horrible had happened.  And I was on my knees in the dirt weeping my heart out in fear and dismay.  God’s presence came about me and with one gentle swipe the Lord wiped my tears taking all the tension and emotional pain out of me and told me not to be afraid, that everything would be OK.  I asked Jesus “now what should I do”.  I sensed the Lord was directing me to rise up and carry on for He would take care of everything.  It almost felt like He was patting me on the back with a smile the way we do a little child when we are encouraging them to go on and not worry.

And that is the thought I want to leave you with.  Trust the Lord. Trust Jesus and the Holy Spirit with every moment of your life.  He suffered much to become our Savior because of His great love for us.  Allow Him to bring you healing and direction.  Trust Him to help you become the person you were meant to be and to never forsake or leave you.  Imagine His hand on your shoulders gently steering you onward, always there with you.  That is why He suffered so much for us.  That is why He came to us as a little child and lived here on earth and walked among us in the very earth He created. God loves us beyond words. You can trust our Messiah/Savior.  

Prideful Dangers

 As I was thinking about titling this, I considered that it is unlikely that very many people would google for articles on pride.  We generally don’t want to think of ourselves as prideful.  And therein lies the first danger.  We rarely open that closet to see if anything has collected.  We are told to check ourselves to see that we are walking in the Lord.  (2 Cor. 13:5-6)  Certainly, checking our humility factor figures into that.

Another danger of pride is that often its beginnings are innocuous and so mild that they are hardly noticeable.  Because somewhere deep inside our psyche’s we know well that we are hopelessly lost and ignorant compared to God, when God does use us and move through us to perform good deeds, it is easy to make the mistake that perhaps we are something “special” (meaning more special than others) after all. This is really not an unusual “banana peel slip”.  It happens to most all of us.  It is not easy to balance the truth that in spite of our sinful condition, God died for us and loves us enough to lay down His own life us and continues to intercede for us daily as our mediator and High Priest.  And that is why we are able to do anything good. God uses us and moves through us in spite of our yet remaining imperfections and sinful conditions. Thus, it is not because of us but because of His great love for us individually and corporately that God uses us.

And here is the danger.  The minute we think we are something special because God has used us, pride has found a hook.  If we continue to think this even if we never say it, it will affect the quality and quantity of what the Spirit is able to do through us.  This is why sometimes a person starts out prophesying, teaching, serving, helping and or preaching in the anointing of the Holy Spirit and then as the years go by, the anointing gets less and less.  One day someone realizes he or she is moving out of their own flesh and their own thinking.  And it may still sound good because we remember how the Holy Spirit spoke through us.  It just isn’t the living Rhema anointing that it once was.

 And if we are one who has a calling to do works for the Lord, whether it be serving the poor, sacrificial giving, services of help to others, teaching children or really ANYTHING motivated by the Holy Spirit, that consideration that we might be doing out of our flesh should give us a slight fright.  Why should it frighten us; because our pride hurts others.  Pride does not lift up others, it lifts up self.  When we lift ourselves up over others even in the hidden thoughts of our mind, we affect others negatively, not positively.

 So, with that thought, let’s all go into that closet, if we can remember where it is, and just take a little look.  If there is anything in there that shouldn’t be, let’s throw it out and apologize to God for allowing it.

 

Romans 12: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

Crafting Gratitude

Just before I woke up God was speaking to my soul about crafting the attitude of gratitude. Whoever is in your life is likely meant to be there by God.  It is only reasonable that we should be grateful to God and to those people who God uses to influence our lives.

Gratitude is a mental state that needs to be cultivated in the heart.  We have to be a willing participant.  Not only do we need to think it pleasantly, but we must also be bold to share it. As well it takes a little finesse and perhaps a dash of wisdom to plant and water thoughts of kindness and appreciation on the ears and souls of another person. 

In my sleeping state, Gratitude was a picture of a watering can on a design board.  The waterspout was long so that I could reach into hard to reach places.  The end of the spout had a shower nozzle so that the water came out in a shower drizzle instead of a heavy rush of water.  That is a gentler way and feels better to the recipient.  The size of the watering can was significant but not so round and large that it could not be carried about easily.  And the handle fit comfortably into my hand so that I could pour without pain.  And of course I can refill it as often as I want.

Equally important is the gratitude that is to flow from the watering can was from the Living Water that Christ said is to flow from our innermost person.

Interestingly the first place that the phrase “living waters” is found is in the Song of Solomon 4:15 , where the woman is described as a : “a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.  The next place is in Jeremiah 2:13 where God describes Himself as “the fountain of living waters”.  Also, in Jeremiah 17:13, the Lord (YHWH) is described as “the fountain of living waters”.

Christ the Messiah, says to the woman at the well : “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” (John 4:11)

And then later in Galilee, Christ tells His disciples: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.””  John 7:38  This was signifying the Holy Spirit that had not yet been given.  But now today, we have that Holy Spirit within us ready to pour through us.

Thus, living waters are viewed as pleasant and life giving, and are an attribute that is desirable to have. Keep in mind that when we water our plants our appreciation is that they may grow healthy and produce an abundance of fruit of whatever kind of plant they are. In the same way,  we want to bless our fellow believers and be an encouragement for them to become all they can in the Lord. 

So my challenge to share with you today is what kind of gratitude will you pour upon others through what delivery system.  What is the form and shape of your gratitude.  And how will you deliver it.  How often will you water others with your gratitude.  And will you fortify it with a bit of Scripture or wisdom from the Holy Spirit.  And will you pour willingly and deeply from your heart.

 

May you craft your gratitude wisely.

A FULL INHERITANCE

It is important to read the Scriptures studiously with an eye for context as well as sensing the intent of the author.  The ending of Galatians 3 is often dismissed as merely saying that Paul is saying that all could come to Jesus.  But anyone always could come to become Jews and honor God through the Law.  There was never any restriction on who could or could not come to believe in the God of the Jews.  There were never any restriction on who could believe in the coming Messiah.  Even the despised Samaritans looked forward to the Messiah. In fact around the time of Jesus, Herod’s Temple (destroyed in 70AD) had a huge outer court specifically for believing gentiles. 

 

What Paul was saying is that everyone, by the Spirit (Gal. 3:1-4) in Christ would be full inheritors and full heirs according the promise to Abraham, based on faith.  This would effectively remove all the walls and divisions that the Law and the Jews on their own raised between people.  In Herod’s temple unlike the earliest temples, there were dividing walls between women, gentiles and unblemished Jewish males.  Unmaimed Jewish males were the only ones who could come into the court area outside where the priests served.  Only Levitical priests were allowed in the first outer court and the inner court.  Only the High Priest was allowed in the Holy of Holies.

 

In Ephesians and in Hebrews we are told that all can safely approach the throne of God (the Holy place), and that all are recipients of the most Holy Spirit of God.  No more walls of restrictions and limitations.  All are to be full inheritors.  The Law and its divisions, as well as the Jewish leaders and their added divisions are of no more consequence.  Through Christ faith has come and our differences though still there, no longer matter.  It is the Holy Spirit who will decide who is to have what gifts and ministries (1 Cor. 12).  We are no longer ‘under guard’ or ‘under a tutor’.  There is only one High Priest to be in our lives and that is Christ who now sits at the right hand of the Father.

IN the Beloved

We are studying Ephesians and are in chapter one this morning, specifically looking at verses 6-10.  The following is a quick look at a few phrases that Paul uses in this section.

"In the Beloved" is an amazing phrase.  How many of us would call Christ "the beloved'.  It expresses a degree of adoration and intimacy that is unusual.  "I am my beloved's and He is mine". Isn't that from Song of Solomon? Our modern misogynist and patriarchal crowds could say some unkind things about that. Yet, I believe we should love God from the depths of our innermost person as the apostles give us examples of.

And speaking of kindness, vs. 6 says that God has made us accepted in Christ. The kindness and unmerited mercy of God is that He sent us His Son, and the Son came to us while humanity was in the midst of depravity.  God comes to us all the time when we are spiritually ugly to behold. How many times do we reach out to someone in sin and grant them kindness and mercy. Think of the worst sins that a person could participate in and then ask ourselves whether we would die to save that person from himself.  Of course, we cannot do what Christ did, but we can pray for one another, speak the truth to one another, and do undeserved random acts of kindness, and forgive one another.  If we follow Christ's example we see that sacrificing self for the benefit of others and doing things that promote the welfare of others is the way we should be living.  "Christ came NOT to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many".

"IN Him" we have redemption is another tweek on our perception.  When we think of Christ dying for us, we don't think of being IN Him in order to benefit from His incredible sacrifice.  Yet, that is exactly what we do in baptism.  We die in Christ and are resurrected IN Christ; resurrected to real spiritual life.  So, yes, IN HIM we find our salvation in everything.  This is something to think about when struggling.  The best thing to do is run toward the Lord and get close and closer to Christ in our turmoils.  Yet so often we see people question God for allowing something bad to happen instead of realizing sin is something that humans do themselves and to each other.  God is our escape, healing, forgiveness, and place of love and understanding.  The only wise thing to do is the remain IN Him and snuggle in deeper.

"The mystery of His Will" is indeed all about us. I can see the beauty in the world, the earth and the animals.  But humanity became perpetuators of destruction. Perhaps, part of the mystery of God's creating us is this ability to choose that He has given to us all knowing that we would misuse it.  But His will is that we come to dwell IN HIM. Elohim wants intimate pure holy communion with us freely, not by compulsion.  And the only way to do that was to let us go our own way, learn and suffer from it, and then suffer in sacrifice in order to provide a way back to Elohim's presence by purifying us in His sacrifice.

This is a love that is barely comprehensible, and surely worthy of the phrase "the Beloved".