Sunday, October 20, 2013

The Best Laid Plans


Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. (Romans 01:13-15, NKJV).

Having memorized a good deal of the Apostle Paul's New Testament writings, and being of the opinion that it is sometimes possible to see into the core of a man by what and how he writes about his own experiences, I suspect strongly that Paul was NOT impulsive.

He planned stuff (here, the Book of Acts and elsewhere), thought things through (the entire books of Romans, Ephesians and Philippians), and made lists (Romans 1, 2, 3, 8, 12; 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14; Galatians 5, etc.). In many ways, he appears to be the quintessential (the most perfect or typical example) planner.

Yet, he freely admits when his plans fall through, and sees these failures as coming from His Lord for a higher and more perfect purpose. He lives in his heart this verse:

A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9, NKJV).

This is a tremendous, practical, and pragmatic (sensible) model of behavior for each one of us, and it is best lived out in two simple steps. The first:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6, 7, NKJV).

And the second:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5, 6, NKJV).

Imagine a life lived in this way: decision points reached and managed with the assurance that God will work all things together for good; trials endured knowing each has its God-ordained purposes; losses accepted because there is a rock-solid understanding and faith in God's goodness and faithfulness.

This is how Paul lived, and it is the example he provided for us in Scripture.

Now it is humanly impossible to do this unless you have immersed yourself in who God is and what He is like as He has revealed in His word. For if you rely on your own image of God, you will base your beliefs on faulty information, and that is what much of the world does. They admit to a belief in God, but it is a god of their own making, not the God of the Bible.

People often pick and choose what they think they want God to be like, but if they thought it through, they would know that is the last thing they want.

For instance, if you want God to be like some kind of a wizard or magician who grants all your wishes, and ensures that all your plans are fulfilled, what you fail to take into account, is that your wishes and plans are based on the flimsiest foundation – your own thinking and knowledge.

Our wants and desires are often at odds with what is best for us. In fact, it is very likely that at one point or another in your life you will want or desire something that, were you granted it, it would be your destruction.

The best plan and approach to life is to rely on the One who knows the end from the beginning, Who knows the number of your days before there was yet one, Who knit you together in your mother's womb, and Who loves you with an everlasting love – the One Who spoke existence itself into being.

Reliance on anything or anyone else, makes no sense if you fully understand Who God is, and what He wants for you.

Remember what He says through Isaiah:

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8, 9, NKJV).

And, as is written in the Psalms,

Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works Which You have done; And Your thoughts toward us Cannot be recounted to You in order; If I would declare and speak of them, They are more than can be numbered. (Psalms 40:5, NKJV).

Here's the thing: human planning and preparation are part of good stewardship (taking care of that which God has given us for His purposes), but they are not ends in themselves. Nor is the fulfillment of our plans and preparations to be seen as a test of God's love.

He cares for us too much to allow our faulty and fallible thinking to be the sole force which governs our lives, and even if our plans are good and right and just, these may not be what is best for us at the moment.

Paul often planned to visit Rome, but always some circumstance prevented it until in God's perfect timing, and in God's perfect way, he was transported to Rome, not as a missionary, but as a prisoner, and only after being shipwrecked on the way, and bitten by a deadly snake.

Yet, even after all that, Paul understood that it was God who brought him to Rome, not the soldiers or even the ship. And it was God who prepared the way, with all the delays and mishaps, and while it may not have been the way the Apostle would have liked, that discouraged him not at all.

Why?

Because He trusted in His Lord with all his heart. So should we.

Love,

Dad

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Ignorance

Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. (Romans 01:13-15, NKJV).

The Apostle Paul uses the word translated here as “unaware” at least a dozen times in his New Testament writings. It is the Greek word, agnoeo (ag-no-eh'-o), and it essentially means not understanding (the prefix a in Greek denotes the opposite of the word that follows, in this case, gnoeo, meaning understanding).

Thus, one of Paul's primary corrective purposes in his letters is to remedy our pervasive (seeped into everything) lack of understanding.

Now there are two kinds of human ignorance: incidental and willful.

Incidental ignorance is excusable. It stems from just not having experienced or come across whatever is in view. You cannot be held accountable for that which you do not know out of incidental ignorance.

While this is not strictly true in a legal sense, in that ignorance of the law is not a viable defense in court, it is fundamentally true, in that even in court your are expected to know what is and is not legal. The fact that you may not brings us to the other kind of ignorance: willful.

This is what happens when you are expected to understand something, like the law, and refuse to do so out of laziness, rebellion, or lack of diligence.

Much of human sin derives from willful ignorance. God has provided us a conscience, which is His moral law written in our very nature. It is that which prompts us to not do something that we know is wrong, and which makes is feel guilty when we do.

This conscience, and even guilt itself, is extremely difficult to explain in typical evolutionary terms, because it has very little inherent survival value, which is all that evolution cares about.

But it is a piece of cake to explain when you understand the truth: that we are not accidents of time and chance, but purposeful creations of an Almighty God, made in His image.

This means morality is part of the fabric of our existence, because God is moral.

In fact, guilt is so problematic in atheistic and materialist circles that war has been declared on it, and, like most things that require propaganda (systematic lying) to bolster justification, the supposed enemy has been renamed from guilt, to toxic shame, so that the combatants feel better about engaging in battle.

But the reality is that guilt is a gift of God to bring us to Him. And people who lack guilt are capable of almost any kind of evil.

This indicates that it is very possible to learn to willfully ignore the promptings of conscience. The more you practice, the better you become.

This is known as searing the conscience, burning it out so that it becomes scarred and insensitive. Today, we call such individuals socio- and pyschopaths, and medicate or lock them up if we catch them.

Being conscienceless is a very dangerous and damaging state of being. Someone with a seared conscience is a danger to himself and others. That is one of the things Paul fights against in Romans and elsewhere.

Denying God's existence is the most potent form of willful ignorance, for it attempts to deny the very Source of our existence, akin to claiming, as your lungs pump air in and out of your body, that you do not need oxygen to survive.

Paul's express point in these verses starts out with his acknowledgement that his plans do not always work out. And he attributes that to forces beyond his control. He wants us to be aware - to understand - that those same forces operate in our lives, as well.

Ultimately, he wants us to know that God is literally in control of everything that happens to us.

This has far-reaching implications that are worth examining, and which the willfully ignorant world refuses to consider.

For believers who understand this fundamental fact of existence, we can take a significant amount of comfort in living in the knowledge that a beneficent (good) and magnanimous (generous and forgiving) omnipotent (all-powerful) Being has His hand in each moment of our lives.

While we may plan, as Paul did, we know that it is God who directs our steps, and He works all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. So when our plans remain unfulfilled we can be assured that He has good reasons for keeping them that way.

Willfully ignorant unbelievers have no such assurance, and I'm sure you can imagine the stress that their lack of understanding places them under. If either themselves, others, or sheer happenstance governs their lives then logically, it might be better to stay home wrapped in a blanket on the couch. Or spend every instant in soul-crushing uncertainty or worry.

Again, Paul's desire for his audience (including us, 2000 years later) is to spare us from the pernicious (harmful) effects of ignorance.

I know the impact from personal experience, as I lived most of my life in unbelief. It is only after I understood the truth of my existence (that I am a sinner in need of a Savior, and that Savior is the Lord Jesus), that I was able to live without that crushing uncertainty.

So, like Paul, I do not want you to be unaware of reality. God exists. He loves you, so much so, that He sent His Son to die for your sins so that you may live forever in Heaven. He provided you His Word, so that you do not have to guess, or make things up, but so that you can know these things.

Be diligent to search these things out, because He is the only thing worth pursuing in this life. Seek Him first, and everything else you need will be added to you.

Love,

Dad

(Reprise) Dead Man: Dead Man No More

Before I knew it, my entire household was around me.

"Dad! You're bleeding! Do you need me to call an ambulance?" my eldest daughter asked, business-like, focused, anticipating and prioritizing several thousand possible contingencies, and mentally formulating the necessary procedural steps to move the most sensible alternative forward into reality.

She was like that. Good to have around in an emergency. Or anytime.

"Daddy!" her younger sister cried, crouching beside me on the ground next to the youngest and putting her hand to the wound.

"Ow!" I said. She jerked her hand away like she'd been burned.

"Sorry!"

"Is there anything leaking out besides blood?" I asked.

"You mean like brain-matter?"

"Yeah, basically."

She looked again, critically, objectively, able to put her initial emotional tsunami aside.

"No."

"OK then, no ambulance."

I met my wife's eyes at that moment. Years and years of knowing each other - living day-to-day in each other's company, raising our daughters, bearing each other's burdens, pains, triumphs, defeats, joys, and sorrows - meant that everything was communicated wordlessly in that split-second glance.

It is an intimacy and understanding that only a long investment of time together can yield, augmented to an inconceivable depth by our shared faith in Christ.

"You should get checked out," she said with a calm that I knew she did not feel.

Our daughters made room for her next to me, something she always, consciously, sacrificially, did for them, knowing how important, and short, time was between fathers and daughters.

I am sure we made quite a tableau crouched there together in our front yard; four beautiful females of various ages and one aging, crumpled and bleeding gnome.

"I have a hard head," I reminded her.

"What happened?" the youngest asked, calmer now, the embodiment of sympathy.

"Just a rock thrown out by a dump truck," I answered, feeling less, well, crumpled with each passing second.

I went through a list of possible bad symptoms in my head: no dizziness, no nausea, no headaches beyond the gash in my temple, no shock, the bleeding was subsiding as my wife compressed a cloth against it - I don't know when or where she obtained it.

In short, I had just been knocked unconscious for what seemed like years but was probably less than a couple of seconds. I'd been through worse in my younger years.

"Are you OK, Daddy? Did you break the driveway?"

I smiled. It was what I always asked when one of them fell, or got hurt, in the course of life. It was my lame attempt to distract them momentarily from their pain, and enabled me to assess the seriousness of their injury. If they laughed or got annoyed, then I knew it was probably not life threatening.

"No," I said. "But that rock will never be the same. It's over there by the hedge." I pointed where I knew it had landed, having seen it come to rest while disembodied.

I thought that thought like such things crossed my mind daily.

"Can you stand?" my wife asked.

In answer, I lumbered upward, involuntarily groaning at the effort.

On two feet again, I adjusted my glasses, grimacing at how they now felt, misshapen on my rapidly swelling and tender face.

I remembered my experience in full. Was it a dream? A vision? An actual, objective event?

I didn't know. I didn't care, because whatever it was, it increased my longing for Heaven and my love for my Lord, and my thankfulness for all His glorious gifts.

"You're just standing there," my eldest pointed out.

I looked at her, so utterly grateful for her presence, for the privilege of having her, and all her sisters, in my life.

I turned toward my wife and my tears began to flow, and she, of all the other billions of human beings in the world, knew precisely what I was feeling without me having to say a word; another of His amazing gifts.

And I was ushered inside, surrounded by the people who cared for me the most, and I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, now and forever, that I was loved.

And whenever my work on-planet was done, however long it took to complete, there was awaiting for me a Place and a Person, where, and in whom, nothing of value or goodness was ever lost.

Ever.

© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: Dead Man on the Ground

There was no sense of transition.

One instant one place, the next hovering telephone-pole high over the lilac bushes in the yard.

Disembodiment is hard to get used to, mostly because while I knew I wasn't attached to my physical form, it felt little different from when I was, except for the lack of aches and pains, and floating in the air and all.

Below me was me.

I looked kind of crumpled up and damaged lying on the ground practically underneath the kayak trailer in the driveway. There was blood oozing out of my one temple, and my ubiquitous eyeglasses were hanging askew from my ashen face, unbroken, but badly bent.

My glasses, that is. Not my face.

It was still daylight, and the last thing I recall doing as a captive of gravity was bending down to pick up a bagged newspaper near the street. It was a newspaper, incidentally, delivered weekly, un-asked for, and unread.

How it had become my undoing, I did not know.

Then, in answer to my confusion, time unwound as I floated.

There was a loud roaring of a large, overloaded dump truck from some landscape company rumbling toward my reanimated body from the highway, arcing around the bend at the top of the hill near our house and barreling thunderously forward.

Flesh-me hardly seemed to notice.

At precisely the moment I bent down to pick up the offending newspaper, a fist-sized, decorative, polished river stone used in expensive landscaping bounced out of the careening truck's cargo bed and headed unerringly toward my head.

It looked like a primitive projectile shot from a mechanical dinosaur.

I watched the rock, which at this point was traveling at the same velocity as the speeding truck, strike my temple as if aimed.

I went down like a felled gnome.

My body hit the gravel driveway in a bleeding, crumpled lump. This made me very sad, floating there, like my best friend had just been badly hurt.

That is apparently the moment I transitioned from life to death. Or was it the other way round?

I realized that the impending reentry into my physical shell was not going to be fun.

It was going to hurt, and I looked forward to it not at all.

Then I heard footsteps on the gravel driveway running toward me from the house, and a panicked cry from my youngest child.

"Daddy!" she screamed.

...and I opened my eyes from the ground, reawakening with a start that sent shockwaves through my brain.

"Ow!" I croaked weakly, as she knelt down next to me on the stones, trembling in fear.

"I'll be fine," I said, trying to smile as I turned my battered face towards hers, rolling slowly over onto my back.

I managed to hold her as she burst into sobs of relief.

"I thought you were dead, Daddy!"

"It's OK, Sweetheart. It's OK."



© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: Dead Man at the Center of Existence

I had seen and walked through the outskirts of Heaven, and looked over the edge of its Balcony into time and space, and into the past and present of the Planet below, but nothing I had seen, or could imagine, prepared me for what I experienced next.

How do you describe the indescribable?

John, in Revelation, gives us a glimpse of the utter magnificence of the City of God as it comes down out of Heaven and appears in materiality, and his description provides a sense of its reality impinging for the first time upon our own.

The terrible beauty of his words paint an almost incomprehensible image of grandeur and immensity; a single city half as big as the Moon, composed of precious stones and materials of such extravagant proportions as to leave us breathless.

Yet, I did not see the City as John saw it. I did not come that close.

But my experience was nonetheless transforming, for what my eyes did not see, my heart understood, and I was overwhelmed with the conviction that here, in this place, in the very Center of Existence, everything was of such solidity, and of such substance, and of such eternality that everything else - everywhere else - was mere shadow.

This was the essential glory from which everything else derived.

From this moment on I will know what it means to be alive.

From this moment on I will know what it truly means to exist, for I have been shown the swirling, immeasurable depths of pure creative power, and have caught a glimpse of the consuming fires of the glory of our God.

And the most amazing realization of all, was that this raw, and wild, and raucously powerful strength, so untamed and infinitely uncontainable in any dimensional space, is that same power which is expressly embodied in the Person of my Lord Christ - for in Him is all this fullness of the Godhead.

He is the image of this Glory.

That this One became a creature like us in order to share with us all that He is, to show us His intent and love for us, to be one with us, is the greatest, most incomprehensible gift of all.

To be loved by such a One is unthinkably grand and magnificent and glorious.

And then, the vision of my heart was gone, and I stood for what I knew to be the last time on the Balcony of Heaven.

"He gave you all that you could withstand," my companion said. "Even the smallest bit more and you would have been undone."

I nodded, not willing to speak.

I was not grieved, exactly, for I knew that my destiny was to live forever in this realm.

And I was not exactly impatient, for what is a few more passing years on-planet when all eternity was my ultimate reward?

But I was… wistful.

I did not want to leave, but I understood how little what I wanted at any particular moment had any real significance in comparison to His gracious, eternal purposes for me.

Who was I to do more than just place absolutely everything in His hands?

Who was I to do anything other than absolutely, unquestioningly obey His loving will for me?

After all, I was, and had only ever been from birth, a Dead Man.

A Dead Man whom He had made alive.

© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013


(Reprise) Dead Man: Dead Man in the Sky

The physical Universe in all its vastness was before me. I saw it as if outside it looking in, and it was incomprehensibly big.

There are no words for the scale of size and distance involved, and yet at the same time, it looked like a little thing from my perspective. Weird and glorious all at once.

"What would you like to see?" he asked me.

"Everything," I said.

"That would take forever," he answered, and smiled, "even in its current imperfect state."

That was the point of the Universe, I knew - a playground of materiality for God's children; a place of infinite variety, complexity and beauty - all for us. Was this hubris on my part?

No, it is immeasurable grace on God's part.

It was easy to lose sight of that fact on-planet. From the surface looking out, our beautiful, but broken, Big Blue Marble seemed small and insignificant in comparison to the immense celestial sea in which it floated. But what does comparative size have to do with importance.

Our world is like the egg of the Universe. It is the place from which redeemed life will reach out and populate the sky. That was His plan from the beginning.

"Our Father is extravagant in His preparations for Eternity," my companion told me. "You have no idea how much He values us or what He has in store for His children. He made all of this with us in mind, so that He could delight in our delight."

"He is... astonishing" I said, marveling at the magnificence before me.

"Precisely," he agreed.

"It's easy to imagine we don't mean much of anything, but we really mean everything, don't we?" I asked.

He nodded.

I understood then that we had lost the assurance of our importance and value at the Fall of Man, and have been trying to get it back ever since - looking everywhere and believing just about anything except the truth.

Not because He hid it from us, but because we rejected Him and therefore we would not see.

It all made a kind of tragic sense, like a rebellious child refusing to believe in a parent's love because doing so would obliterate the child's illusion of being the center of his own existence. Returning that love would entail an acknowledgement that the child was not what he thought he wanted to be - his own sovereign.

Rebellion against God is the ultimate selfishness; the pinnacle of willful blindness. Given the facts, it is insane.

"The Father wants each of us to have all this, but we can't without being in Him - the very source of Life itself. Unless we abide in Him, we can have no life. It's simple, actually," he said. "Even a child can understand it."

"Especially a child," I agreed.

A moment more of taking in what was before me brought something else to my understanding: if this gift of Everything was made just for us, what must it say about the Maker and Giver?

"Exactly," he replied, reading my thoughts. "If it would take forever to explore and come to know Creation, how immeasurably more satisfying will it be to come to know the Creator as He truly is in Himself?"

In essence, by being presented with the entire Universe, I was perceiving merely His fingerprints on the fabric of His handiwork - the forensic evidence pointing to the One True Cause: Him.

And in my mind, or perhaps echoing across all Creation itself, I heard that Voice say yet again what it all meant.

“AND THIS IS ETERNAL LIFE, THAT THEY MAY KNOW YOU, THE ONLY TRUE GOD, AND JESUS CHRIST WHOM YOU HAVE SENT."

"There is more," my companion said.


© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

Monday, October 14, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: Ah! Lord God

It was all becoming unbearable for me, this viewpoint of the world seen from the outskirts of Heaven.

There was so much sin and pain and evil so clearly visible from this vantage point that was otherwise easily overlooked on earth. But not seeing was impossible from here.

I could only imagine how continually despicable we humans appear before our holy God, with all our bloody history splayed out before him like some gigantic butchered beast.

That He refrained from boiling the planet in rage was beyond me. That He continued to love our species was inexplicable. We are so hopelessly mired in willful ignorance and purposeless rebellion. How can He stand us for even a nanosecond more?

"Ah! Lord God," I said feeling older and more tired than I could ever remember feeling. And within that groan was wrapped crushing discouragement and shame.

Aside from the tsunami of innocent infant deaths, and a few occasional flashes of light from this or that believer dying and making the blessed transition to this place, all seemed utter darkness below.

I felt the weariness of ages descend upon me and I wanted, above all else at that moment of despair, to retreat forever into the protective and idyllic heart of this sacred realm.

"Not yet, my son," He said gently. "It is not time for your Homecoming. There is need for you below still, and when your life is done you will surely enter My rest. But fear not, nor be discouraged, nor grow weary in doing good. I AM your Lord and King. I AM all that you will ever require. I AM He who holds all time and space in My hands, and there is nothing that can stand against Me or My desire."

As He declared these things, the weight of weariness lifted. My focus (and with it, my hope) began to shift away from the world below and back onto Him.

And that was His point, of course.

That has always been His point.

"What I have shown you is only a small portion of all the evil that takes place when I and My Father are denied. The perverse twisting and torture of life without Us is a tale of horror, the fullness of which, you could not bear now. I have given you only the barest glimpse. But I would have you learn this: that when all you see is darkness, your eyes, My son, are in the wrong place. You must be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil.

"And know this also: I AM coming for those I have purchased with My blood. And I AM coming to repay the evil done by all those who willfully refuse to know My Father and Jesus Christ Whom He has sent. Be assured, I AM coming soon, and then every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that I AM Lord, to the glory of God, My Father."

Though He said this calmly and quietly, I felt all existence tremble at His words.

I knelt before Him in worship and awe. One refrain echoing marvelously in my mind: I AM all that you will ever require!

When I looked up again, I was alone on the Balcony.

Instantly, an overwhelming longing drowned my heart. To not be in His presence caused an ache that I would not have imagined possible.

"Ah! Lord God!" I cried out once more. "Do not leave me!"

I felt someone approaching from behind. It wasn't Him - I knew without looking.

I felt a strong hand on my shoulder, gripping me firmly, somehow transmitting complete understanding and compassion without a single word. I understood who it was, then.

"It's you," I said to my companion.

"He has not left you alone," he reminded me. "He will never leave you alone. He is with you always."

And I felt the comfort intended by those words, and while it alleviated my grief, it made the longing for His Presence that much sharper.

"Everything is so empty without Him," I said very softly, almost to myself.

"You are never without Him,” he reminded me gently, as if speaking to a forlorn child.

“He died for you and always lives to make intercession for you before the Throne of God. And now you will spend the remainder of your days below as He intends, eagerly awaiting His return... Or yours."

"I am to go back," I said. It was a statement, not a question.

"In a little while," he agreed with that smile of his. "But first, He has provided you a parting gift, for He loves you with an everlasting love…"


© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Mutual Faith


For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established-- that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. (Romans 01:11-12, NKJV).

The world often unites against Christianity in mockery or slander, and most often this happens in group settings. It's relatively rare for such attacks to occur one-on-one. Usually, there is more than one perpetrator, and each one seems to draw strength, encouragement and boldness from the others.

Why then do we think it strange that this same encouragement and emboldening is to happen inside the faith? I have heard it said, and you will likely hear it too, that all “we need is Jesus”. That is not strictly true, for He designed His church to need not only Him, but one another.

Granted, and without doubt, He is the chief cornerstone, the foundation, and without Him there is neither hope nor purpose in anything, let alone a functioning and vibrant church. But He has made us for fellowship with Him and with each other.

That word fellowship is fascinating. It is koinonia (koy-nohn-ee'-ah) in the Greek, and may have first been coined in New Testament writings. Interestingly, the thing about Hebrew and Greek, the two primary languages of the original manuscripts of the Bible, is that new words are easily constructed by stringing old words together. The result is not just a compound word, like “somehow”, but a brand new word with potentially richer meaning than any of its components.

Koinonia is one of those instances. It takes a lot of English word to convey the full sense of its meaning: fellowship, communion, communication, distribution, contribution, association, community, joint participation, share, intimacy, and collection.

In short, it is that special relationship we have with Jesus Christ, and each other, fueled by a potent mixture of faith and love. It is unique to the church. It was meant to be.

And like all things in our human arsenal of spiritual survival in this life, that fuel must be replenished on a regular basis, not because it runs out or gets depleted, but because we leak. That is part of the price we pay in our spiritual battle between our flesh (the old fallen nature), and our new nature in Christ.

Now, Jesus made it pretty simple for us in this regard. Through prayer, immersion in His Word, and fellowship with each other, our tanks are refilled.

That is why in Hebrews we are exhorted not to neglect the assembling of ourselves together in order to stir up love and good works... and be encouraged by our mutual faith. (By the way, that phrase “stir up”, is also the same Greek word used to describe a bubbling volcano, which is a whole other study!)

It is not that we need an “echo chamber” of chants and magical incantations to invoke our faith, which is often how those outside the church think of us. No, it is in fact, the diametric opposite (complete and utterly different – like the two opposing points on the diameter of a sphere).

We need the encouragement of our mutual faith so that the cacophony (loud and chaotic noise) of our own flesh and the world, is subdued by the triumphant chorus of like-mindedness in Christ. It is not ritual, incantation, or litany that we seek, but the quiet testimony of lives lived in loving submission to our Lord and Savior.

In 1st John, one of the benchmarks of being in the faith is that we “love the brethren”. This is John's way of saying that there is something about believers that bind us together beyond the ties of blood, or custom, or geography or ethnicity (common national or cultural traditions). And that something occurs almost instantly in many cases.

We who love and believe in Jesus have something so fundamentally powerful in common, faith in the Lord, Himself, that it transcends every other conceivable difference, and knits us together like cells and organs in a physical organism.

That is why the Bible calls us “the body of Christ”.

Remember this when your mood, or your circumstances, or your sin, or your doubts, incline you to remain isolated from other believers. That is a mistake.

It is like treating an illness by exposing yourself to greater concentrations of the infecting agent. In this case, our own fallen nature.

We are designed by our Creator to first need Him, and then each other.

Love,

Dad

Monday, October 07, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: The Fires of Molech

I was once more beside my King, overlooking the planet below from a vantage point outside time and space.

I watched His ageless face as He stared downward, and whereas before I had felt His eyes like fire burning through me, now they took on the appearance of fire. There was a smoldering divine anger that seemed to intensify with each passing second.

"Soon," He said aloud, I am sure for my benefit. 

I knew without doubt what He was referring to; that Day of Judgment that was coming.

I then followed His gaze to try to see at least in part what He was seeing. And I noticed again the trails of intense light streak upward through the atmosphere, and I knew that these were souls departing from physical bodies and entering into the afterlife.

As I watched, their numbers increased exponentially, quickly becoming a broad, expansive wave of radiance lifting off from the beautiful but defiled planet below.

These were deaths, I knew, but why so many, so suddenly? And there were none of those wells of darkness intermingled indicating the departure of unbelievers into the place of torment. All these were heaven bound.

"Come My children," He again said aloud. "Come to the place I have prepared for you."

Then He turned to me with those eyes of fire and spoke in a voice unlike any I had heard Him utter before. I began to sense a dreadful storm approaching; an overwhelming conflagration of divine judgment.

"Who are those coming in such numbers to Heaven?" He asked me.

"Lord, you know," I replied, unable to answer any other way.

"They are My children being slaughtered each day within their mothers' wombs. The little ones who are sacrificed by the millions to the false gods of pleasure and convenience and commerce. These are My children being ripped apart without mercy before birth, or burned with salt and acid. Those who are guilty of such abominations are as the defilers of old who built the high places of Baal which were in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, who caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause their nation to sin."

As He said this, in a voice suffused with suppressed wrath, I also sensed something else; a grief that if fully expressed would shatter the Universe.

And I watched the wave of light ascend to Heaven, ashamed and undone that I was of this people.

This was my world and my nation that condoned such horror and evil and called it good; that reduced the magnificent miracle of divinely created life to something banal and worthless, disposable in the name of individual freedom and personal rights, like so much unwanted garbage.

This was my world and my nation that vilified those who would dare declare this as sin and unborn human life as precious.

This was my world and my nation that was increasing its condemnation with every passing moment; with every helpless murdered infant.

I was horrified, and knew with unshakable certainty that the just and devastating judgment that was soon to come would be undeniably righteous, and irrevocably final.

I was amazed once more that my Lord would have forgiven this world and this nation even now, after such slaughter of innocents, if its people would just humble themselves, repent, and ask forgiveness.

But I knew also that most would not, and thus this world and this nation was doomed.

And my gratitude to my Lord intensified that much more, for His mercy in dying for the sin of this planet, and making escape from His coming holy wrath possible through faith. For I knew with unshakable certainty that I was as inherently evil as all the rest, but was washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb.

And while I understood the wrath to come was terrible, I longed for the evil below to be judged, and stopped.

Forever.
© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

Sunday, October 06, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: Perfect Love

As quickly as I resurfaced on the Balcony, as if to draw a deep breath, I was plunged again back into the underworld of earthly life.

I recognized the moment instantly. It was early in the morning of the last day I remember on planet.

I held my youngest daughter on my lap as she wept broken-hearted, and not for the first time, over the loss of someone she had loved dearly for nearly half her short life, and who was taken away from her without reason or warning or cause.

"Why, Daddy?" she asked me plaintively. "Why did that happen?"

What could I say to her? How could I explain when the whole thing made no sense to me as an adult? What possible reason could I give her that would satisfy her young broken heart?

"What did I do wrong?" she whispered desperately, barely able to voice her question through the flood of tears that cascaded freely down her sweet innocent face.

"Oh, honey!" I said, as I pulled her closer. "You did nothing wrong! This is as far from your fault as it is possible to get!"

She shook with sobs then that fractured my soul as I comforted her as best I knew how.

"Why did Jesus let this happen, Daddy? Doesn't He love me?"

And at that instant, a deep vitriolic fury nearly engulfed me.

The deadly and horrible desire to exact mindless vengeance against anything and everything that could so hurt this child's heart ignited like a holocaust within me. It was all I could do to remain quiet and let her grief work itself out as I continued to hold her and stroke her hair.

But I knew I was powerless to remedy anything, and that my anger would avail nothing, and would only intensify her heart's pain, no matter what my intentions.

God help me! I cried out silently, as I watched the scene replay from the recent past. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs at the unfairness of it all, even from Heaven.

I could look below no longer. The inflamed nerves of emotion were too exposed, too raw.

I looked up at Him who died to save me.

"Do you know why I have commanded that you love your enemies?" He asked me gently. "Do you know why I have decreed that you bless those who persecute you, and do good to those who hate you?"

I could not sufficiently marshal my thoughts to answer. The image of my heart-broken daughter obscured all rationality, and instead of responding as asked, I wanted to cry out to Him like she did, Why did you let this happen, Lord? Don't You love me?

He smiled sadly, this benevolent God Who Weeps, and I knew beyond all doubt that He did indeed love me and my daughter, and all His children, more than I could even begin to comprehend.

"Because," He continued, answering, "hatred is a burden too costly to bear. It eats at you from inside out and destroys the most precious part of you and scars your soul as no other sin can. It binds you in chains that strangles your life, and enslaves you to bitterness. It is a crushing weight that prohibits your from soaring in the joy that I long to give you. It forces you to exchange My liberty for a prison entirely of your own making, and blinds you to the truth that will make you free. It is as murder, and defiles all it touches." 

"If you allow hatred and anger to darken your heart, it will harden you to My goodness and grace, and you will know neither peace, nor joy. I would not have my children suffer so. Forgiveness and love are the most powerful weapons at your disposal; freely given you through Me.”

Do you think, Dead Man, that I care for you less than you care for your own child?" He asked.

His voice was gentle and filled with compassion, but His question took the breath from my lungs and made me tremble.

"Forgive me, Lord," I pleaded yet again, unable to say more as I repented in dust and ashes.

"The trials that come your way in life - yours, your daughter's and all who name me as Lord - are in My hands. They come from Me. They are meant to refine you, in the crucible of suffering if necessary, because I am more concerned for your character than your comfort. Your holiness is of far more value to Me than your mere happiness. I intend for you far more good and joy than you can ask or think. Do you believe this?" He asked.

His eyes now pierced through me like fire, burning away all pretense and delusional pride, instantly vaporizing whatever paltry, self-serving conception I had of fairness or justice or of what I or my daughter deserved.

I could do nothing but fall on my face in abject realization of who I was and in Whose Presence I had thought to remain upright. How could I dare to stand before such a One as He? Holy. Righteous. A Consuming Fire.

Then, after yet another timeless interval where I had neither the strength nor the courage to move, He lifted me to my feet once again.

"Do not fear little one," He said, His countenance less terrible and awesome, His voice filled with love. "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you a Kingdom that will never fail, and for you to live in His Presence in fullness of joy forevermore."

And I knew, with more certainty than ever before, that He works all things together for good to those who love Him.

That, so unlike mine for Him, His love for me was perfect.

© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013