Who do you think Jesus is?

“I'm glad you guys are doing this, because there are so many people out there who are afraid to go into a church. And they look at church people as though they are perfect or think they are perfect. And they need to understand that after we come to Christ we are all still sinners, we are all still failures, that they aren’t any different than we are.”

This was the beginning of Chances’ sermon yesterday as he shared a story of an individual who lauded our starting a church outside a church setting and why. 

The sermon went on to talk at length about the interpretation of scripture that we are not still sinners after we have accepted Christ as our Savior. 

Roger and I discussed this for quite some time immediately following the service, and even later into the day. The entire sermon was preached out of the book of Jude, next to the last book of the Bible right before Revelation. 

After discussing the topic, I circled back around to the initial conversation and told Roger that I would have looked at the man making the statement and asked him, “Well, who do you think Christ is?” the question behind the question being, "Don't you think Christ, the Jesus of the scriptures is more than enough to conquer your sin? He died for it after all. And rose from the dead. Let's talk about THAT Jesus." 

First of all, his entire statement shows his disappointment with the church overall, but also his misunderstanding of who Jesus Christ is. Not an uncommon malady in today’s society, where I find more people base their belief in Jesus on what others have told them, television shows or movies they have watched, or books they have read rather than God’s word…. the Bible or better yet, real experience gleaned from a personal relationship with Christ.

When the question I would have asked him came to mind, I thought of the scripture in the book of Colossians.

¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

²¹ Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of^[g] your evil behavior. ²² But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— ²³ if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

This is Jesus. God through Him has accomplished it all. There is nothing He can’t and hasn’t done, and won’t do for us, as His followers and children. It has all been accomplished by God, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

But listening to the message yesterday, the emphasis was once again not placed on Jesus and who HE is, but on us, and who we are and continue to be after claiming to be Christians.……

The story of Peter wanting to walk on water came to mind.

²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹ “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

When people are told to look to themselves to find their strength, tenacity, motivation, desire, anything other than Christ, they are being told to look at the wind, the waves. Not at Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

^2 [a]fixing our eyes on Jesus, the ^[b]author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³ For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary ^[c]and lose heart.

Dr. R.C. Sproul wrote in Table talk magazine several years back in an article entitled, “Preaching Christ” the following:

“If we take time to examine the sermons of the apostles that are recorded in the book of Acts, we see a somewhat common and familiar structure to them. In this analysis, we can discern the apostolic kerygma, the basic proclamation of the gospel. Here the focus in the preaching was on the person and work of Jesus. The gospel itself was called the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is about Him; it involves the proclamation and declaration of what He accomplished in His life, in His death, and in His resurrection. After the details of His death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God were preached, the apostles called the people to be converted to Christ — to repent of their sins and receive Christ by faith.

When we seek to extrapolate from these examples how the apostolic church did evangelism, we must ask: What is appropriate for the transfer of apostolic principles of preaching to the contemporary church? Some churches believe that a person is required to preach the gospel or to communicate the kerygma in every sermon preached. This view sees the emphasis in Sunday morning preaching as one of evangelism, of proclaiming the gospel. Many preachers today, however, say they are preaching the gospel on a regular basis when in some cases they have never preached the gospel at all, because what they call the gospel is not the message of the person and work of Christ and how His accomplished work and its benefits can be appropriated to the individual by faith. Rather, the gospel of Christ is exchanged for therapeutic promises of a purposeful life or having personal fulfillment by coming to Jesus. In messages such as these, the focus is on us rather than on Him.”

If you continue to tell people to focus on themselves, their lives, faults, shortcomings, and watch the wind and the water, they will continue to drown, but if they keep watching Jesus, learning who He was, is and is to come, they will not only walk on water, but become the fishers of men that Jesus told us to be.

Where is the focus, the emphasis? On ourselves, or on Jesus?  

Who do you think Jesus is?

Because your answer to that question is going to impact everything else in your life.

Hurry UP!!!

There was a time when Life wasn’t “hurry up!”

But I can’t remember when.

Generational hurrying…..that is what it is.

You push forward, and hurry. Are you running away from, getting away from something so painful you don’t want to give it time to catch you? So you keep hurrying forward, and it is generational, and you have been doing it for so long, you don’t even know why anymore, and you’ve done it for so long, that you find it hard not to………hurry up.

I know why she hurried. I know why she didn’t want to get caught; why she ran from the memories and the sorrows. They would be overwhelming, and overcoming, and heart wrenching and heartbreaking, so she kept hurrying and kept going, and didn’t look back unless she had to. And the tears and the anger they always came when she did, so she just kept moving, and busy, and hurried, and drug us along behind, until we had been trained to catch up with her, and even surpass her. And that same urgency was ingrained in us. 

I do it still.

And I don’t even know why.

When I think of “the back then”, the “behind me”, I cry too, but not so much from the sorrow, but from the hurry that blurred my vision, and robbed me of………….more than I can list.

“Time waits for no man.”  So we hurry…….

Because of this hurrying, I do not have the capacity to see so many things; I’m blind. I don’t have the capacity to hear so many things; I’m deaf. I don’t even feel so much because the senses are dulled from the speed that has propelled me forward for so long, that I can’t stop. Stopping, it actually feels so wrong I can worry myself sick with the idea of doing it.

I have so much to stop for though, to relish, to steep in, but that urge inside of me, that constant inner push is there, and I can’t make it…..STOP!! It’s a feeling in the pit of my stomach that makes me feel guilty when I sit down and read in the middle of the day, or just sit outside and admire the color green, and the sounds of the birds, and the warmth. That inner churning deep down in my belly that

 WON’T. LET. ME. STOP.

If I put my feet down to slow down this ride, I’m sure they would wear right off. Then I’d be footless, which would only complicate my ability to keep moving and hurrying. It’s awful.

The rest of the world is doing it too, and to have friends, you sort of have to do it ...hurry and keep up. In so many ways, we are all hurrying and trying to keep up.

I don’t know if it is because of my time in life, or what, but I am tired of hurrying, and I grow wearier of it every day. The guilt that comes with sitting will just have to burn in my belly and my brain until it burns a hole, or goes away, cause I am finding I simply haven’t got the physical ability to hurry anymore, even though my mind is still miles and miles, if not years ahead.

My sister said she wants a brain transplant to enable us to stop….so many of those things that we are hurrying to get done, or get to. We both chuckle, because at our age, we sort of know what that might entail, and yeah, well no. But we agree, it would be good if there were a switch.

So maybe the beginning is being aware of the hurry; the rush, maybe that is where it begins to stop.

Maybe….

The Forgetfulness of God

A great many of us start out each year with the plan to read through the entire Bible. I have been reading my Prayer Devotional Bible again this year. It is not exactly set up with a “read the Bible in a year” reading plan, but I have done it as such several times. There is a devotion for every day of the week, with a general historically based one for the weekends. Obviously, all the devotions are geared toward inspiring your prayer life.

This is a Bible that does not have a mark in it, which is unusual for me, I mark up my Bibles, with notes, and references, etc., but not this one. Perhaps that is why when I read it, because there is nothing to distract me on any page, certain words and passages just pop off the page at me. I keep my notes and thoughts written in a little notebook on the side.

Every day has brought a revelation above and beyond the days devotions. For example: when I was reading in the book of 1^st Samuel, I did not get past the first chapter when I came across the phrase in 1^st Samuel 1:19  “and the Lord remembered her”, in reference to Hannah’s deep desire to have a child.

My quirky brain immediately thought, “What? Did He forget her?” 

Now I have to admit, that when I thought that I chuckled to myself, because I know from reading the rest of the book that God doesn't forget anyone, He may forget our sins, but not us.

Don’t you feel sometimes that God has forgotten you though? I have been in Hannah’s position, wanting a child, and not being able to conceive, and I remember those years when it seemed that every other couple we knew were having children……and we were not. Yes, in all honestly, I felt forgotten. The ceiling had become lead and I felt my prayers were not getting through, and I knew that somehow I had been misplaced and possibly forgotten in God’s grand design. So when I read this I did chuckle, because like Hannah, God remembered me too.

He has remembered me so many times since then, I am certain I can’t remember all of them, and the list of the times He has would be endless.

So as I continued on in the story of Hannah, I was reminded of God’s faithfulness, of His incredible memory, and the blessed fact that He is also able to forget the very worst of us and our lives. I am thankful for a Savior who stood in the gap for me so that when God sees me, He has forgotten my sins and sees only Jesus.

“For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And I will remember their sins no more.”  Hebrews 8:12 

The Good Mother

One of the last conversations my Mother and I had was when she was lying on the hospital gurney after falling and breaking her leg.
She had decided to discontinue dialysis, as the logistics of continuing within the confines to the Dr’s protocol just seemed too much to bear; moving her to Wichita, being in bed all day, not to mention recovering from a surgery she might not survive, and possibly having a stroke through it. It just made it seem an unnecessary continuance of what seemed to her an already complicated existence. She was 88 years old, had been on dialysis for three and a half years, and was weary of it all. Once the decision was made, the realization that her life would end was finally the reality she had been preparing for.

As she looked at me through tear filled eyes, her comment to me was “I just want to know that I’ve been a good Mother.”

I found myself grasping for words. My mother would now begin the process of “actively dying”, as hospice puts it, what could I say that would put her mind at ease, allow her to slip peacefully and rested into the next stage of her journey?

I remember telling her some things, comforting things, all the things I thought she would want to hear. Cutting her the break that I thought she needed to hear, that we girls all knew and understood that she had done the best she knew how, that we loved her, and were proud of her, that she was and had been in her own way, with-out-a-doubt, one of the best Mom’s around. I don’t really remember too much about the conversation, I knew it was important to put her mind at ease, to comfort her, I didn’t want to screw it up. Apparently, I said and did the right stuff because she took a deep breath, hugged me, gave me a kiss, and launched into directions on what color lipstick she wanted put on her after she was gone—“not that bright red stuff!”

Her question has stayed with me though. Isn’t that the question that every mother asks herself thousands of times in her life of raising children? Even after they are grown and making families of their own, and become mothers themselves; you still ask yourself, “Have I been a good Mother?"

Over the past year, I’ve felt quite confident that I was NOT a good mother. After all don’t we gauge our success as mothers on our children’s behavior, the choices they make, and the way they “turn out”? When they make mistakes, and poor choices don’t we assume that somewhere along the line WE messed up?

Have I been a good mother?

Sure. In some ways, like my own mother, I’ve been the best I knew how. Within the confines of my knowledge and experience I was the best Mother I knew how to be. I did what I thought was the right thing to do by my children. Don’t most Mothers’?

In other ways, I’ve messed up royally. I’ve said the wrong things at the wrong times, I’ve let them down when I should have lifted them up. I’ve doubted when I should have had confidence. I was there when I shouldn’t have been, and vice-versa. In some ways, mothering is a crap shoot, there are so many variables in the mix, success or failure are never guaranteed. Even God, the first parent, has had kids that if behavior and choices reflected on the parents, let’s just say, didn’t reflect well on Him.

Let’s face it we judge by performance, our performance, our kids’ performance, and our neighbors’ performance. And like any performance, when someone does well, we cheer and hoot, and when they get up there and forget the lines, and screw up the scene, we cringe for them, and sometimes giggle and laugh, (especially when they are little), but we still judge the performance. Did they know their lines? Were they prepared?

Mothering isn’t a performance. The lines haven’t been written, and let’s face it, can you ever prepare?

I’ve thought about my Mothers statement over and over again during the last year. She would have probably cut me a huge break over the events that have taken place in my family this past year. Don’t get me wrong, she would have struggled with it, but it seems that in her last days, she was still wondering about this Mothering thing; just how to do it, trying to find the definitive answer to the “getting it right” question. Her question has given me hope, because I’m thinking that if at 88 years of age she still didn’t know if she had gotten it right, I’m pretty sure I don’t know either. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.

Why?

I find myself asking "Why?" a lot to this situation I find myself in.

Why would these things be happening?

Why is this happening to US?

WHY? WHY? WHY?


Job ask why too and God never told him.He answered his questions with questions and basically told Job--"It's not ABOUT you!"

I wonder how Job felt when he finally walked through the gates of heaven and saw the replay of his life. Found out that because of his blameless and upright life, and because he feared God, God had basically allowed Satan to reek havoc in his life?

Do you suppose he felt embarrased and ashamed of his behaviour during it all? Was he feeling a little sheepish at his own wailing and knashing of teeth?

The old story of the tapestry woven by the great weaver comes to mind. We only see a small part and it looks dark and ugly, till He turns it over, and we are awed by the beauty of the entire picture, and the way the dark colors set off the lighter ones. Together they make a beautiful picture.

We don't see the whole picture. Generations down the road, when we're no longer even here and maybe even forgotten, the "glory of God" will be revealed and it will all make sense.

In the mean time I've got friends, some like Job, who in their well meaning will offer advice and insight into what they know nothing about.

But I will seek God and continue to look to Him and Who HE is, and pray that His will, and His way will come to work in our lives through this situation. I will look to the blessing of my God for who He is and worship and praise Him!