Is Jesus' way hard?

Monday, May 18, 2008

Following up on my sermon yesterday, on being transformed by immersion into the Name, by joining in the Dance, Dallas Willard sums up Matthew, chapter 5, the section I was referencing as frustrating... it seems so hard to do. how can I do that? how can I get that new heart?

He has just argued that Jesus, and Paul in I Cor. 13, says it is Love that does these things (eg. acts with goodness toward our enemy). Our call is to "pursue love" (1 Cor. 14:1). To turn to Jesus (repent and believe), to be baptized (immersed in the life of the Triune community), is to embrace or take hold of love...

"Is it then hard to do the things with which Jesus Illustrates the kingdom heart of love? Or the things that Paul says love does? It is very hard indeed if you have not been substantially transformed in the depths of your being, in the intricacies of your thoughts, feelings, assurances, and dispositions, in such a way that you are permeated with love. Once that happens, then it is not hard. What would be hard is to act the way you acted before..."

When Jesus hung on the cross and prayed, "Father, forgive them because they do not understand what they are doing," that was not hard for him. What would have been hard for him would have been to curse his enemies and spew forth vileness and evil upon everyone, God and the world... He calls us to him to impart himself to us. He does not call us to do what he did, but to be as he was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him."
(The Divine Conspiracy, p. 183)

This is helpful. I still have that "now and not yet" of being permeated with love yet still having roots of vileness and evil lodged in my heart. However I am hopeful, that love is unconquerable, and those roots cannot survive... And again, as the hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" concludes, may we be "lost in wonder, love and praise."

Trinity Sunday

Prayer for week of Trinity Sunday

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

things too great (Ps. 131)

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Psalm 131

1 O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.

I am thankful for this psalm, especially today. It speaks of both a discipline and an experience. The spiritual discipline is simply getting real with oneself and one's world and God, and then making oneself calm or quiet in God. The experience of calmness and quiet and hope seems to accompany such a movement into reality.

I know this is not a guaranteed plan, that if I punch these buttons or type in this code then I'll get a certain result. But generally, and ultimately, this seems to be the witness of the prophets and poets and Jesus himself -

Stand still and see the salvation of God (Ex. 14)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart (Prov. 3)
Fret not yourself over the wicked (Ps. 37)
Be still and know that I am God (Ps. 42)
Don't worry about your life, for your Father sees and cares... (Matt. 6-7)

There are a lot of things I can't control, that are too great and marvelous for me. Among them, most immediately, the selling of our house and the finding of a job. But, obviously, I factor in to the situation: pricing our house right, sending out a good resume and following up faithfully with possibilities.

It seems to me that this all connects in with the Biblical picture of a righteous person. A righteous person rests, trusts, and hopes in the Lord regarding those things too great for him/her and does faithfully those things that are at hand, such as loving your neighbor as yourself - part of wisdom is both discerning the difference and doing love and justice. I can't make myself "right" with God, I can't make God do what I want, I can't circumcise or cleanse my own heart. But somehow, by turning, by trusting, by resting and hoping, I can place myself in the love of God (in whom I live and move and have my being), or yield or submit to his embrace, like a weaned child with its mother. This is baptism - being immersed in the love of God, saturated, irreversibly changed by plunging into a dying and rising...

I think this yielding alone helps to work a miracle inside me.

But even the grace and ability to do so is a precedent miracle.

Thanks be to God.

the dance of a new heart (1 Jn 1:3)

Monday, May 12, 2008

1 John 1:1-10

- that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
(1 John 1:3)

Saturday's OT reading was from Ezekiel 36, another one of my favorite OT Scriptures. It speaks of being sprinkled clean with clean water and given a new heart and a new spirit - even God's Spirit. And yesterday's OT lesson in church was a parallel passage from Ezekiel 11. These wonderful Scriptures evoke a similar frustration as I shared the other day about Jeremiah 31, and the promise of a new covenant and of the law being written on our hearts.

That frustration, again, is simply the honest reflection that in many ways I don't seem to have a new heart. This cry is further intensified, for example, in our Tuesday night study of the Sermon on the Mount - "how do I get this new heart?!" Or, acknowledging that I have a partial softening of my hard heart, or some newness in there, or seeds that are indeed sprouting to some degree, is there anything I can do to enhance the new life in me?

I'm mulling this over this week in anticipation of preaching this Sunday, Trinity Sunday. I see some direction and encouragement in John's epistle today. He says he's telling us the story of Jesus in order that we might share in fellowship with them and the Father and Jesus. Whatever it all means, there's something extremely important about being in fellowship with the Father and the Son (and the Spirit) and with God's people. I think, or I hope, that there's something about being immersed in the community of life that can marinate my heart and keep it the soft heart of flesh God put in me.

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in eternal relationship of giving and receiving, of glorying in, and glorifying, one another, of loving and blessing one another... some have called this an eternal "dance" (eg. Larry Crabb in Connecting, I think). If I'm brought into that community, in one sense I can liken it to a line dance or a square dance, where just by taking a hand I join in. I'm not forced to do it, or threatened if I won't, but while I may not really want to dance, if I take a hand on either side I'm kind of swept into it - the fellowship, the big story, the sheer joy, all kind of overwhelms my heart and I might even get a smile on my face (!).

"Have mercy on us, Son of David."
"Do you believe that I am able to do this?"
"Yes, Lord."
"According to your faith, be it done to you ."
(Jesus and 2 blind men, Matthew 9:27-31)

Praise the LORD!
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
(Psalm 106:1)

a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34)

Friday, May 9, 2008

Jeremiah 31:27-34


"And I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts."
(Jeremiah 31:33)

This prophecy by Jeremiah is amazing and may be my favorite Old Testament description and promise of what God says he will do. He will make "a new covenant," some have said a "renewed" covenant. The "law" is still important and valid, but will come not on tablets of stone or words accompanied by thunder and lightning, with a cloud and quaking. But God will write it on our hearts, we will know the Lord, we will be forgiven - no more sin it seems to be saying.

Leading up to this promise is God's promise of restoration, of bring the people of Israel back to the land, out of their bondage, those scattered will be gathered, mourning will be turned to joy - all because

I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
(v. 3)

I guess a really honest reflection on this promise of a new covenant of a new heart from the perspective of following Jesus for about 34 years, softened to God's love and unconditional acceptance experienced through trusting God, is that I think I'm on the way, but this promise is not fully and finally come true. That new heart is in me, for sure - but in part, perhaps as sprouting seed but not as a secure, mature fruit-bearing tree. There is still an old heart, an old way that is untrusting, insecure, posturing, and fearful. A part of me that doesn't really know the Lord, and needs to be taught by my neighbor and brother... I believe that one day, in the new heavens and the new earth, the new creation (including me) will be completely new.

As Dallas Willard writes:

A time will come in human history when human beings will follow the Ten Commandments and so on as regularly as they now fall to the ground when they step off a roof..." (The Divine Conspiracy, p. 142)

The epistle reading today is Ephesians 5:1-21, which continues Paul's call for us to "put off" the old man, and "put on" the new man, and to be being filled with the Holy Spirit. To walk in the light since we are light, in the Lord. This is that baptized life. Die again to what kills, live again to what gives life...

Back to everlasting love and faithfulness. Back to God's deliverance as a sheer act of grace. Back to the restoration of what was crushed, broken, scattered because of the action of God motivated by the goodness, faithfulness, and steadfast love of the Lord. The more I believe and trust that, the more I know God's laws, God's ways, God's likeness, from deep within me.

I believe, help my unbelief.
Create in me a new heart, O God.
Keep me in and fill me with your presence.
Restore me to the joy of your salvation.
Sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.
Amen.

Say to my soul... (Ps 35:3)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008


Say to my soul, "I am your salvation."
Psalm 35:3b


This morning I was reading in Psalm 35, and I held onto this prayer of David's:
"Say to my soul, 'I am your salvation.'" - for me it's similar to that Ephesians 3 flow we looked at yesterday. I need the strengthening of the Spirit to know that Jesus is with me and in me. I need the strengthening of the Spirit and the experience of Jesus' presence to be rooted and grounded in love.

I need and long to hear God say, deep within me, "I am your salvation." Not words on a page, or a great concept or new idea. But the voice in the midst of my enemies, in the face of my fears. Aslan assuring that victory is coming. MacArthur saying, "I will return."

It's the word from heaven saying to the baptized "You are my beloved, I couldn't be happier with you."

God, please let my soul really hear and believe and know that you indeed are my salvation, that anything and everything else that I look to to save me from all that seems to threaten me is vanity and foolishness and hopeless. Forgive me for listening to all the chatter and clamor, all the noise; for willingly distracting myself with any other voice but yours. Say to my soul, "I am your salvation."

rooted and non-anxious (Eph.3:14-21)

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Psalms 97, 99, 100; 1 Samuel 16:1-13a; Ephesians 3:14-21; Matt.8:18-27


As we approach Pentecost, in these 10 days after the Ascension, our Scriptures reflect these themes. The Psalms strike a strong note of exaltation - the Lord is high over all the earth, over all the people... And the Scriptures speak of the Holy Spirit (though Matthew continues in sequence - with the mastery of Jesus over the wind and waves).

4 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Paul makes one initial petition that is the foundation for the rest of the prayer, out of which all his other requests flow - all the other deep and broad and lofty remaining prayer requests:
(1) that they would be strengthened with power through the Father's Spirit within.

From this strengthening comes the knowledge and experience of Christ's presence with and within us, which secures us by this rootedness and establishing in his love, and empowered to begin to grasp this love which is beyond getting a handle on... and even, with all the saints, to be filled with the fullness of God.

For me, personally, the part of this prayer I come back to again and again, is that I be rooted and established in God's love. It is my insecurity, my shallowness, that undermines me again and again. Thus I grasp for complements, get blown around by criticisms, and blown away by failure.

There's a term in "family systems theory" called being a "non-anxious presence." It's what I long for and pray for - but it can only happen by being deeply rooted and firmly established in love, which will only happen through the strengthening of the Holy Spirit and the conscious awareness of the indwelling presence of the exalted Christ.

good works

Friday, May 2, 2008

Psalm 85, 86; 1 Samuel 2:1-10; Ephesians 2:1-10; Matthew 7:22-27

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
(Eph. 2:10)

I have said, half-joking, a lot lately that my calling is to redeem "works" for Christians. To help us not cringe or immediately backpedal with caution whenever we hear the word. Clearly, Paul states that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works - which is interesting because it's Paul's writing elsewhere that has led to the theology and preaching that, in a nutshell, faith is good, works are bad (because you will trust in them, not in the Lord...).

For example, even this verse immediately follows his classic statement that "by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship..."

So,
saving faith, that boasts in the Lord,
this grace that is a gift from God,
this deliverance by God alone out of the way of sin and death,
is all to work a new creation in us,
the purpose of which is good works.
That is, to be like God. To be like Jesus.

[These good works, I believe, include how we do our jobs today, our work... no matter how mundane, how "secular," how seemingly unrelated to anything particularly Christian...]

Our other Scriptures today do bring balance to this verse:
Psalm 85 says that steadfast love and truth meet, that righteousness and peace kiss. There is this beautiful tension - love and truth, righteousness and peace. Seeming opposites coming together in fruitfulness.

Hannah prays in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 declaring the goodness and greatness of God in raising up the poor and bringing down proud princes. God's goodness and greatness is seen in God's good works. The works flow out of who he is.

Finally, in Matthew 7, we hear Jesus warning people that their "mighty works" done in his name are meaningless (they are not good works, but bad and condemning) if they don't know him. If they haven't built their whole lives upon his teaching, and were only punching a ticket to present one day.

Again, we see that it's all of a piece. There is clearly a wholeness, a unity of life in God that God has designed us for. From the motivations of our hearts to the words of our mouths, from the meditations of our minds to the works of our hands - one reinforces the other, or flows in and out of the other.

Saturated by the Spirit, invaded by the Word, living and dancing in the community of the Trinity - God, give us grace to walk out that which we've been baptized into, to nurture the life you've planted in us, to follow you in the good works you still design and desire to do through your people to touch and change your world. Amen.

Ascension Day

Ascension, May 1, 2008

Hi, a blessed Ascension day to you!

I noted today in reading Daniel 7 that as the vision unfolds where one like a son of man comes before the Ancient of Days and he was given authority, glory and sovereign power and all the nations of the earth worshipped him. Then it says that:

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away,
and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

This reminded me of a phrase Peter repeats twice in his first epistle (which we looked at recently). In 4:11 and 5:11 he says "to him be dominion for ever and ever." Now it is a different word in the Greek OT and 1 Peter, but still I'm thinking about "dominion," about the exaltation of Jesus, and the kingdom of God.

Jesus has begun his rule. Though we may struggle, though there is still much evil in the world, though the devil still prowls around like a roaring lion, the resurrection and ascension of Jesus promises us something in its face. There are still casualties as the first fruits of victory has happened, but the final establishing of his kingdom with wrongs being righted, evil being ended, and his people raised to everlasting life in the new heavens and new earth. But the guarantee is sure. "He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end..."

Let us serve him, do good, share and show the good news, and advance his kingdom every day with the assurance that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).

He is exalted, the king is exalted on high - I will praise him!