Lent Day 36: Thankful for the cross

If you could relinquish some part of your life, what would you give over to death? Would you be willing to lay on the line your health, finances, relationships, or reputation? Christians emphasize the peace of God but we know living out that peace will cost us everything.

Jesus gave everything up for us. He was not called the Man of Sorrows without reason.

I'm thinking of the horrors and benefits of dying today, after listening to radio reports about the increasing persecution of Family members (Christian believers) in India. They are being driven from their villages, maimed, and killed for the sake of the gospel.

Are you and I willing to forsake all for our faith in Christ? That's always been the way of the cross. Following Jesus means identification with a bloody price that reconciles us to God but alienates us from those who hate Him.

Among all the parties and candy and Easter eggs, let's not forget the awful beauty of the cross. It point to the path of denying self to love God and others beyond reason, beyond human logic––because of faith and hope in the resurrection power.

Read more:

*The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. Numbers 6:26

*And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7

*I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Galatians 2:20-21 NIV

Moravian Prayer: May the Lord bless us and keep us, lift up his countenance upon us and give us the peace that surrounds us and emanates from our hearts. In the name of Jesus. Amen. 

The point of prayers

A friend wrote me yesterday after a year filled with the life and death of those she loves. "I've been asking myself all year what good it really does being a Christian our WHOLE lives when its the end that seems to be the important part and during our life the "best" we can hope for is peace in our spirit. I don't want to devaluate that, because I know those who have no peace, suffer greatly, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say... "

I do understand what she wrote. Some days, as the apostle Paul wrote, if all we had was this life, we'd be hopeless and helpless:
"Unless Christ was raised to life, your faith is useless, and you are still living in your sins. And those people who died after putting their faith in him [would be] completely lost. If our hope in Christ is good only for this life, we are worse off than anyone else.

"But Christ has been raised to life! And he makes us certain that others will also be raised to life. Just as we will die because of Adam, we will be raised to life because of Christ. Adam brought death to all of us, and Christ will bring life to all of us" (1 Corinthians 15:17-22) 

The good news is that Christ bring hope to this life as well as the next. Though life's grief washes over us, God's goodness sustains and helps. His pilot's hand remains steady on the rudder of our little lifeboats, no matter how tempestuous the storms.

I lay awake in the night, thinking of the pain our daughter endures and the surgeon's report. Her operation went well. But, because all the steroids taken to manage arthritis, her bones have become so porous that he didn't know if they would support an ankle replacement. What next? I thought, as the radio played a worship song, "God is good, God is good, His love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good..."

My feet are healthy. I looked at them this morning, wiggling my toes and flexing my ankle. I thanked God for health. W and I are grateful that we can run up and down stairs to get things for Kirsten. We're glad our walks invigorate us rather than causing us great pain. Our straight wrists and elbows bend easily and our shoulders rotate so we can reach high into the air.

Today, looking into the fog outside my window, I know God is near. Though there's not much about him I understand, I am confident that he could touch Kirsten and those others who suffer this Christmas. His word could heal completely without added effort on his part of theirs. The days ahead, uncertain though they seem, nestle in a file of the future, labeled, "He gives his beloved rest."

How does his peace settle your day today? Let his goodness be the point of your prayers.

Read more?

*Yet I am confident I will see the LORD's goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD." Psalm 27:13–14 NLT

*[Paul wrote,] But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:7-11 NIV

God's surprises

Reading through the Old Testament is spirit-changing. Many of our assumptions are shattered as we study humanity from its origins through the interaction of God among us. 


So often Christians read the stories of Jesus and the writings of Paul, John, Peter and other apostles as though the New Testament sprang up without a precedent. However, in the OT, human nature parades all its ambitions, vanities, and pretensions. We have situational ethics at their best and worst... and it seems like not much has changed from then until now. Technology advances. Human nature remains unchanged.


Take for instance the story in 2 Kings 11-12 of Joash, one of the kings of Judah who served God and transformed his culture. When he was little, his mom went crazy and killed all her sons. Joash's nurse kidnapped him and hid him until he was seven years old and crowned king of Judah. Joash came under the mentorship of a priest named Jehoiada, who taught him the ancient paths and reminded him of God's laws. "Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him." (2 K.12:2)


When his adviser died, Joash went off the rails and sold off the treasures from God's house as a bribe to an invading king. His son provoked a war with Israel that killed many of his own people. Judah still sacrificed on the high places, though God's warnings in the Law were clear. In secret, sacrifice to idols and violence to appease gods of other nations continued, with resulting lawlessness and corruption.

The BBC reports today that 40 children and 74 lamas have been excavated at a temple in Peru, where human sacrifices similar to Aztec rituals were discovered. The children's hearts had been cut out, and supposedly the lamas, buried on top of the youngsters' bodies, helped transport them to the afterlife. My heart broke to think of the mothers crying for their children, the family beds lying empty after the kids were killed. And such a heinously high cost brought no peace or satisfaction to the people.


Our hearts are ever wandering, says the hymnist. And so it is. In every civilization, humanity seeks our own way to fulfillment and justification from sin. The more sophisticated the society, the more brutal its payment required to appease the gods it worships, whether spirits or self. We can't pretend we are exempt in the West: those of us who serve Capitalism often suffer ill health, ulcers, and estranged relationships as we serve our master Mamon (money and power) with overtime, uber-competitiveness, disregard for the environment, and our fierce determination to succeed at any price.


The NT, which many of us know better than the old, affirms our the need for redemption and freedom from sin (the condition of broken relationships with God and others,) and sins (acts of punishment resulting from our broken relationships).


My meditation today was on the God who constantly seeks wholeness and fully-realized humanity, in relationship with himself. I felt like weeping, considering my own penchant to leave the God I love. Inside we are ruined, undone, turning our backs on the joy and friendship God offers, seeking it in desperate futility elsewhere.


In contrast to God's beautiful and righteous paths, we keep trying to figure out life so we don't have to obey and follow God's ways. The exercise instructor kept telling us this morning, "How good you are, to do this exercise for yourselves. Just think, you are taking time to heal your own bodies," etc. Yeah, yeah, fine. Good for us for stretching and working out. But what profit is there to bodily exercise, if we are deluding ourselves into thinking any finite efforts can buy us grace and peace?


Even in the most trying circumstances, God introduces hope and glorious freedom into our frailty and bondage. Touches of genius remind us that our own efforts are not all there is. Another BBC video spotlighted a blind, autistic young man (32) who can play anything on the piano that he hears once. Art, life, and songs of praise erupting... perhaps because Derek is broken enough that he cannot help but worship with his body through the songs God has implanted in him.


As leaves turn color and we enjoy again the splendors of autumn, let us remember that dying produces great beauty for all to enjoy. Leaving self behind to live for God brings love and harmony into our relationships, releasing us from self-consciousness and self-aggrandizement, and setting us free to be fully human.


I thought this morning how surprising and MARVELOUS it would be to live even one day in full alignment with God's purposes for me. Oh Lord, let it be so... today. Amen.


Read more:

*"The blessing of the LORD makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it." Proverbs 10:22 NLT

* Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.


But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. James 1:21-25 NIV

Eternal peace or insecurity?

My husband is writing a paper on the idea of "once saved, always saved," an issue that seems contentious at worst, confusing at best. How nice to have a theologian in the house - his work and passion to know God inspire me to a closer walk with God, too.

I read Scripture this morning, still mulling over last night's conversation about some theologians who want to give us peace in following Jesus. They so passionately want us not to fear that we'll "lose our salvation" that they are willing to say, "If you've ever made a commitment to Christ, you're safe, no matter how badly you behave thereafter." ("Hell be damned, I'm gonna live like the devil because I'm in!") Other teachers are so worried of us sinning that they say, "If we fall away, we deceived ourselves and were actually never saved in the first place." ("Holy insecurity!")

Yet I read in God's Word:
         Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father-to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him.  So shall it be! Amen.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." Revelation 1:4-8 NIV

Here's what I understand:

• God, holy and magnificent above what we can grasp, is utterly terrifying to humanity.
• Our Maker restored the possibility of a relationship between us, based not on our merits or works, but on his amazing provision through a Sacrifice that satisfies his justice and demonstrates his love.
• Woohoo! We are free; we live in harmony and beauty; we are pardoned from anything we have done or will do. (Yeah, my heart is dancing with joy!)
• When he comes back, we will understand the past, present, and future grace and peace he extends to us. THAT will be a celebration unlike any other for those who love him. (In contrast, the realization will be an unthinkable horror for those who rejected him.)
• It's an honor to live as God's kings and priests among our fellows, inviting them by words and by peaceful, moral, exuberant lives, into relationship with our God.
• God will examine how we lived and reward us in absolute justice, according to our choice to live in him or spurn his friendship.

Am I insecure? Can I lose intimacy with God like a letter I drop on the way to the post office? Nope, I'm safe in the hands of a mighty Lord who keeps me. However, he expects me to press in, to align with his character, and to serve him and others as his emissary. He also lovingly allows me to walk away and reject him, even when that means I deliberately choose to end our relationship.

We choose Life! To THE ONE, who was, is, and is to come, be glory, honor, power, dominion, authority, praise... over all, and in you and me... as we worship with right living and joyful retelling of his goodness. AMEN.