Word of God
"For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."Hebrews 4:12-13
-
Exit Strategy
One day I was striving forward, kicking stones and leaping over obstacles. I trudged through the unfamiliar jungle, whipping my machete back and forth to cut down the forbidding overgrowth that tried to hold me back. I could hear the rushing water of our meeting place, though I was still a long way off. I could picture the deep green pastures there beside the freshwater stream.
Equipped with purpose and power, knowing that my Master waited there for me, having prepared an unbelievable picnic spread under sprawling trees and a tapestry of wildflowers, I fought through the chaos with the knowledge (not just hope) that He was there and that we would soon be together and delight in one another’s company with food, drink, conversation, and laughter.
But it was getting dark, and I was still quite a distance from my Master’s presence. I continued slicing my way through the branches, but I was becoming exhausted and thirsty; and I began to feel alone knowing I was deep in a treacherous territory where bands of thieves reside and where vicious beasts prowl waiting to devour me. It got to the point where I had to take more and more frequent rests to gather my strength while trying to remain vigilant. At one point, however, when I was most weary and very slow to get up, it’s then that I heard a strange yet familiar voice speak to me and begin to share with me a gentler, simpler path through the dangerous unknown.
-
True Crimes
For many, the concept of committing a “sin” is a tough thing to grasp. Before I knew Jesus, I’d heard tell of those who professed to be sinners and attempted to convince others of their morally superior perspective.
At that time, the basic concept of sin didn’t mean anything to me. It was used in the context of having broken some secret rules, or at worst, having committed some kind of crime against God. But to me, these always seemed like victimless crimes, since He was God and surely anything I could possibly do wasn’t that big of a deal. Of course, once I was exposed to the Word of God in the book of the prophet Isaiah, this sin idea began to gain traction:
Look, the Lord’s hand is not too weak to deliver you; his ear is not too deaf to hear you. But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God; your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers.
Isaiah 59:1-2 NET But still, the term sin itself didn’t mean much, and I confess that, even after 20+ years, it still seems rather powerless to me. While many of us may have diminished the term’s true effect without realizing it, recently I discovered that I had.
-
Second Skin
“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” Mark 2:22 NIV
Did you realize that as reptiles grow, they shed their skin to allow for further growth? This is because, unlike our skin, a reptile’s doesn’t grow as they grow. Instead, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles must shed their skin regularly as their old skin is outgrown. (Technically, humans shed their skin too, at the rate of about 50 million cells a day.)
So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away – look, what is new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17 NET
As Christians, when we speak of being a new creation, it is important that we see ourselves as “reborn.” When we believe, we are as newborn infants, having restarted from a place of wonder and childlikeness, wholly dependent on the One who gave us rebirth. Having begun again in these new skins, we find ourselves in a constant state of spiritual growth, even as we continue in the constant state of physical decay in which our earthly bodies must endure.
-
New Beginnings
In my book, The First Communion: The Making of the Last Supper I show how intrinsically connected the Last Supper, and by extension the Lord’s Supper, is with the celebration of Passover. God had selected this very specific event to tie into His plan for salvation, as the first Passover was the first iteration of this plan designed to culminate with all of what we celebrate now on Resurrection Sunday (Easter).
While we realize that we are ultimately celebrating both the Last Supper and the Resurrection each week we gather at church for worship and communion, this Holy Week provides an opportunity for us to extend over the course of seven days that which we normally share in the course of a few hours. It is in this vein I share with you this excerpt from chapter 11: Six Days of Preparation.
-
The First Communion
A couple of years ago, I got in my head the idea of investigating the true meaning and purpose of Communion (The Lord’s Supper) beyond my own elementary understanding of it, and ignoring the different traditions that surround it. Sure, we all understand and appreciate this mirroring of the Last Supper on the night before Jesus’ death on the Cross, and how sharing in it as a church body reminds us of that Cross and the suffering Jesus underwent on our behalf.
We get it. But for me, this wasn’t good enough, because the way the Catholic church teaches and practices it, both in substance and form, differs from how the Lutheran church teaches and practices it, which differs significantly from how the non-denominational (often evangelical) and other Protestant churches practice it (without much instruction)—not to mention the frequency of its practice, be it daily, weekly, monthly, special occasions, or never.
While I knew it wouldn’t be particularly useful for me to investigate those disparities, I did think it valuable to discover its true origins, according to Scripture, and try my best to understand the history and tradition behind the origins of the Last Supper (and Passover) itself, while discarding the traditions of the evolving Christian church beyond the first century, being able to examine more intimately how and why the first century Church believed, taught, and practiced it.
-
An Anchor (It’s Not a Square Peg)
When I was a kid, I didn’t really understand any of the things shown to me in the Bible. I was too young, and I really just didn’t care to understand, to be honest. Let’s face it, I was a kid. Years later, however, after finally understanding and accepting Christ, I began to see Scripture for the truth it is, and time and again I could see God’s faithfulness shine through those powerful words, from beginning to end.
Over time, I began to truly see Jesus in Scripture, learning the reality that Jesus is indeed the Word of God John 1:1-3, and statements such as “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,”
John 14:6 began to make more sense when I understood that no one can come to know God the Father except through “the Word of God.” And that the “Word of God” is the way, and the truth, and the life. -
Knowing the Word
Often we find ourselves in a place where we understand, at a rudimentary level, a need for knowing God’s Word, in one degree or another, for a number of reasons. But ultimately, there is no way to really do that without actually reading His Word, whether visually or audibly. Everything we want to know about God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, comes from His Word. But for many of us, that Word only comes to us via a sermon or Bible study.
When we allow the Spirit to convict us in this, it stirs the desire to “want to” develop a habit of reading His Word with greater frequency. Yet not just for the benefits that He has already proven come from doing so—such as peace, understanding, and spiritual growth—but because we do desire to better our relationship with Him.
-
I Am Free!
I am free.
I have been freed from the chains of the law. When I try to uphold the law and live according to the law—for the purposes of accomplishing the law—it leads to death
Romans 6:23 . The Apostle Paul spoke of this, and explained that it is through knowing the law that we are aware of our sinRomans 7:7 . But as it happened in the first century church, the moment that we attempt to live according to the law, we become bound to it. And once we are bound to the law, we are no longer free!Jesus has saved me and freed me from the law. While this does not make me lawless, it has given me the freedom to live a new life apart from the law. This is the very nature of the things that Paul taught. Jesus says that only through following his teachings—by obeying his commands—can I know the truth
John 8:31-32 . And only then can I truly be free from the very law that condemns me.Psalm 119 says,
“I run in the path of your commands, for you have broadened my understanding.”
Psalm 119:32 God revealed to me the plainness of the fact that, with God’s commands, I have boundaries. But these boundaries mark off a very large path! And within those boundaries, the path is leading on without obstacle, and I can run freely in it. The laws are the boundaries, not chains; not burdens. Only because the boundaries are visible, am I given the freedom to live, to work, to love, and to play within that space.
-
The Briefing
Jesus, the Man
While Jesus was unquestionably “fully human” and “fully God”, we must recognize that being fully human did, in fact, bring significant limitations. While Jesus was clearly connected to God, it was also a requirement of his humanity to be disconnected from God at the same time.
Jesus received his power from the Father, but Jesus admitted that there were things the Father knew that were hidden from the Son:
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Mark 13:32 While in human form, Jesus was not the Father, and had the requirement of consulting with God throughout the day, often late at night or early each morning in prayer. His mission was his ministry, to proclaim the Good News, to seek and save the lost, and to train others to lead the church when he was gone.
Luke 4:42-43, Luke 5:31-32 It is this example of prayer
Luke 5:16 and, most importantly, the reason for prayer, that concerns us.We see Jesus’ ministry take him from here to there, but he was not everywhere! We see his human limitations at work. He never transported himself nor his friends to other places, but used his human abilities to conduct his ministry of teaching, serving, training, and healing.
-
The Spirit of Choice
“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious . . .
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Galatians 5:19, 22-23 Have you ever wondered why you never seem to have an abundance of the aforementioned “fruits?” Why do we find that these promised blessings are always just out of reach, while we continue to struggle with that ol’ sinful nature, never quite seeming to grasp all of that wonderful fruit?
They are sometimes referred to as the “gifts” of the Spirit, but, while this is somewhat true
Hebrews 2:4 , that’s not the context of what Paul has written in the text we see above. In the current context, Paul is emphasizing the clear differences of how we “chose” to live when we were slaves to sin, in contrast to the choices available to us now with the Spirit of God as our master.
