Good News for the ‘Elder Brother’

LIVE IT!

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Do you see him there, off to the side?

It’s the big brother, the one with the piously crossed hands, the unfeeling eyes, the ‘upright’ posture, looking on unmoved as his father welcomes his filthy ‘prodigal’ brother home.

The prodigal’s unsatisfying profligate lifestyle drove him back to the Father but what about his big brother?

What’s to be done for him?

The story of the prodigal’s return is much celebrated. Songs have been composed, great artwork created, movies made, and books written, all in celebration of the returned prodigal. But what about the older brother? The story is after all, the story of two sons– “There was a man who had two sons.” What’s to become of the second son? He didn’t leave home on a wild impulse to spend his inheritance. He kept the home fires burning. He was an obedient son. He didn’t ask for much apparently. But oh the sense of entitlement he’s nurtured!

It seems to me, most of us are born with the propensity toward being either a prodigal or the big brother (sister) to one. We give a lot of thought and pity to prodigals. Their return is a cause of rejoicing in heaven and on earth! But what about the pious older brother? He’s really not very likeable. He isn’t even happy to see his brother come home. He does not share His Father’s heart of compassion. He is thinking only of himself, and with these thoughts come envy and resentment. He has stayed home, denied himself worldly pleasures, done the work, postponed the reward, guarded his shekels and perhaps even anticipated being the sole heir to his father’s remaining possessions. But here is this scoundrel brother. He’s squandered all that was rightfully his and now he’s back to beg for more. And Father’s throwing him a grand party—with whose money?! He doesn’t deserve it. Why doesn’t anyone ever get excited over me? throw me a party? celebrate me? I’m the one who deserves it. The older brother seethes with self-righteous protest, and refuses to be dissuaded or to join the celebration. Here is the really lost son. What’s to be done for him?

He too is in desperate need of the Father’s mercy. Only he doesn’t see it. He only has eyes for his own goodness. Not unlike the Pharisee who stood ‘praying’ (applauding himself) in the temple “I thank thee that I am not like other men. I fast…I tithe…” (Lk.18:11)

The younger brother had returned to the Father with a new appreciation of Home because his wealth was spent and ‘he began to be in need’. The older brother hasn’t yet come to such personal destitution. He’s still clinging to his good track record… still assuming he’s the favored son with a right to everything because he’s been ‘good’. But he is far from comprehending the Father’s heart or finding fellowship there. He turns a sullen ear to His entreaty to come join the celebration. His pride will not let him.

What does it take to bring an elder brother back to the Father?

It is no easy road for a Pharisee. Pride is an enormous stumbling stone. Compassion and a warm welcome may draw those who recognize their personal bankruptcy but not so, a Pharisee. One who has spent his life cultivating ‘righteousness’ of a sort feels little need of a Saviour. To admit failure feels like personal suicide. To remain oblivious to it requires increasing blindness and hardness of heart. What does it take to convince a Pharisee of the error of his ways?

For Saul (later named Paul) it took a blinding confrontation that knocked him to his knees and commanded his attention. Humbling. Later despite his being ‘as to the law, a Pharisee’ and ‘as to righteousness under the law, blameless’ (Phil. 3:5,6) he would profess to being the ‘chief’ of sinners (I Tim.1:15), and would claim all his merits as rubbish compared to knowing Jesus and sharing in His righteousness by faith.

For Nicodemus, it took watching Jesus’ life and having a pointed late-night conversation with Him: “You must be born again.” Later he would share the task and expense of wrapping Jesus’ body with linen and costly spices. It appears he too had come to believe and to love Jesus.

Other Pharisees would eventually find their way from arrogant self-righteousness to acknowledging their need of forgiveness. But it was no easy road.

It often called for shock treatment to penetrate their resistant veneer. Consider Jesus’ own words addressed to the Pharisees:

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Mt.3:7

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” Mt.23:27

“Woe to you, blind guides.” Mt.23:16

“You fools and blind men!”  Mt. 23:17

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?” Mt.23:33

“Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.”Lk.11:44

You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. ” Jn.8:44

Then there were Jesus’ custom-made parables. This story of a father and his two sons is the third in a trio of parables about lost and found things, about the repentance of sinners and the unparalleled joy their return brings the Father. Jesus told these specifically for the Pharisees and scribes, in response to their grumbling at how He mingled with tax collectors and ‘sinners’.

He explained first in terms of sheep, likening the finding of a lost one to the repentance of a sinner. “I tell you,” He said, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance”. What were they to make of these statements? They considered themselves righteous and worthy of great honor, clearly above needing repentance, not like these ‘sinners’ with whom Jesus preferred to keep company. They were offended. Jesus seemed to be putting a premium on repentance… not ‘righteousness’. What was He implying?

The next tale was of a long-lost coin being found. He drove it home again with this idea of all the angels in heaven rejoicing, not over one ‘righteous’ Pharisee but over ‘one sinner who repents’. (Lk.15:10)

And the grand finale was this story of a man and his two sons. (Luke 15:11ff) This time the Pharisees are symbolically painted into the picture as the ‘elder brother’ who sullenly stood by as his long-lost brother was welcomed home after squandering his inheritance on wild living. This time they too are winsomely addressed as the Father comes to personally entreat his bitter son to join the celebration also. He listens to the son’s grievances: I’ve served you these many years. I’ve never disobeyed your commands. And I’ve never been given even a goat for a barbecue with my friends. But when this ‘no-good’ son of yours decides to come home you kill the fatted calf for him!

Then the Father offers his offended son a fresh perspective, reminding him of how much more he has had all along, but somehow missed seeing: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” (Lk.15:31) How is a party and a fattened calf more enviable than living with the Father all along and sharing all He owns? How is riotous living and its bitter consequences something to be envied? How is this sullen, jealous response fitting on such a day?! It makes sense only to the self-righteous son and the story ends without indicating whether he had a change of heart. And the Pharisees to whom it was told are faced with themselves and their very lost condition.

Will they see themselves in the story and come to their senses? The story leaves me wondering which is the harder redemption? that of a sinner who has come to his senses and knows who he is, or that of a sinner deceived by his own valiant efforts into thinking himself above the need for forgiveness?

One has ‘blown it’ and is well aware he does not deserve to be called a son. He is aware of his unworthiness and has little expectation of acceptance. But still he trusts the Father and returns humbly. This one the Father welcomes home and forgives.

The other, exalted by avoidance of his particular list of ‘sins’, thinks himself worthy of sonship, sees no need of forgiveness and so remains himself estranged from the Father while he strives to be ‘good’ on his own.

He’s not much fun to be around. He’s got a nasty arrogant attitude. What a kill-joy besides! Who wants him at the party? What kind of guy is this that he can’t even get excited when his little brother comes home? Truth is, he’s miserable. He cannot live up to his own standards and he knows it. His own failure drives him to compare himself with others, to judge and to condemn. He bolsters his ego based on his own biased evaluations, turning a blind eye to his own heart. He’s not happy, and certainly not joyful. Counting on his own goodness to commend him to the Father is not working out. He needs just what that ‘no-good’ brother of his needed—forgiveness and a change of heart.

I have a great empathy for this older brother… we have more in common than I like to admit. I suspect he was born a ‘pleaser’. He learned early that avoiding disapproval was the next best thing to actually being ‘good’. Winning accolades for being such a ‘good boy’, he learned to play the game, and worse yet, to believe that he really was better than that younger brother who got all the spankings! This was the beginning of the slippery slope of pride. He chose to do the ‘right’ things, but for the wrong reasons. He chalked up his good conduct as ‘brownie points’ making him superior to most everybody else. He formulated a list of ‘do’s and ‘don’ts and a suspicion of all things pleasurable. These were usually deferred earning him more points for ‘righteousness’. And soon he was sure he was entitled to his inheritance; he’d earned it after all.

Hmmm… just my hypothesis, based on someone I know quite well.

And what’s to be done for such an elder brother? Why, the same thing that was done for the younger brother. He needs to come humbly to the Father bringing words of repentance. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son…” And the rest will be the Father’s doing—the robe of righteousness, the ring of promised inheritance, the shoes of the gospel of peace…and the fattened calf and the celebration. And I’m invited to join in because the Father has invited me too. This is the Gospel, and it keeps on being good news for me!

“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued…that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less. I don’t need to notice myself—how I’m doing, how I’m being regarded—so often.” –Tim Keller in The Reason for God, p.187.

–LS

“For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, Hear; O Lord, forgive…for your own sake, because your people are called by your name.” Daniel 9:18

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Mt.11:28-30

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Phil.3:12

Manna for now

All Sorts

The sheets are swishing in the washing machine. Toast and tea, ‘Honey Bunches’ and blueberries fill my belly. Friday’s newspaper is strewn on the living room floor. Remnants of school work–civics papers, a life science text– are plunked about the room. All awaiting clean-up. Here it is, Saturday and I’ve missed my self-imposed deadline for posting.  I’ve been thinking about manna all week… wrestling with its implications.  Considering what happens when manna is not enough. Likening that to the craze for ‘more’ that so often parades as spirituality…and studying this allegory of desert living vs. entering the Promised Land.  I haven’t resolved all the questions in my mind but I’ll offer you my thoughts for what they’re worth… (and please know, I welcome yours in return!)*

What got me thinking about manna in the first place?  It was this question of what do we hope for and where these hopes can take us that got me thinking about the Israelites in the desert.  Their hearts were set on things they did not have, giving rise to cravings that were not in keeping with God’s agenda for them at that time.  They always seemed to want more than what God had given.

Take for example the manna.  It was a miraculous daily provision perfectly suited to sustain them for their temporary travel through the wilderness.  It was tasty. It came when they needed it, in just the right quantity. It was never stale, always fresh.  But it got boring, ‘same old’. Instead of gathering it each morning in grateful awe they succumbed to craving more. “Oh that we had meat to eat!” they complained.

Is this so very different from the modern distaste for the written Word of God?  In liberal teaching it’s received with skepticism as the ‘product of human culture’ that must be rightly interpreted by those ‘in the know’ and never taken too seriously or held too dearly. Those who do are thought superstitious ignoramouses.  In hyper-charismatic teaching God’s written Word has become passĂŠ, not meriting serious study.  What’s needed is new revelation, something different, something more powerful, more relevant, more meaningful to me, today. Those who study and  rely on the written Word with zeal are called ‘Pharisees’.

But getting back to the wilderness story…why this propensity to want more?  I suppose the roots lie in our natures.  Firstly, we were made for ‘more than this’.  We were designed to live in Eden, walking and talking with God.  Instead we live in an accursed world, the realm of a wicked prince… But secondly, this craving for more is inherent in us as fallen creatures. Wanting more is part of possessing a carnal nature.  We shan’t shake it till we truly live in Paradise.  But we can deny it its desires.  We can short-circuit its cravings. 

The ‘children of Israel’ demonstrate how NOT to do this.  They entertained thoughts of the ‘good old days’ in Egypt—of the melons and cucumbers…They looked back to bondage instead of forward to the promised land flowing with milk and honey and they decided they were being treated badly.  Their discontent matured into whining and the results were disastrous.

Fire fell, consuming many. Meat was granted, but with it ‘leanness of soul’. (Ps.106:15) God saw their attitudes as ‘rejecting the Lord who is among you’. They were not merely disdaining the ‘same old thing’ for breakfast, lunch and dinner, they were rejecting the sufficiency of God’s provision. So He granted them their carnal desires. They got meat, till it made them sick! And with it came a great plague. The place became known as Kibroth-hattaavah, “graves of craving”. And their story was written down for all posterity to heed.

What if instead of bemoaning their misfortunes they had actually believed better things were coming and then set their minds on them, in patient hope?  What if they had chosen to live as if this wilderness lifestyle was short-term? What if they had set their eyes on the place God was leading them instead of the here and now?  Our desires will be fueled or controlled according to our mindsets.  “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” Rom. 8:6 What we have our hearts set on as needful for happiness will determine whether we find satisfaction or discontent in this lifetime. Fulfillment or futility.

The deep significance of this manna that God provided becomes clearer in the New Testament when Jesus likens HIMSELF to the manna that came down from Heaven. (Jn.6) He invites his followers to eat of him and find life. The manna is a type of Christ’s life given for our sustenance. No wonder rejecting it was so significant! Jesus is God’s answer to man’s need, still. There is no other source of life. There is nothing more.  What are we saying when we demand more than this? When we clamor for heaven on earth? When we pout over temporary trials? When we bank on satisfaction in this lifetime. We have already been given eternal life! This life is in the Son and it is abundant though not in the way the world defines.  We may live in poverty, traipsing about in sheepskins, hated and jeered (imagine!) but we will still be loved, indwelt by God Himself, provided everything needed for godliness.  Is this enough or must we have… physical comfort? happiness? prosperity? plenty? Something MORE?! What do we treasure most? That’s where our hearts will be.

It’s popular Christian thinking that we can ‘have it all’,  but Esau underlines the trade-off we make in so thinking.  You remember, he came in hungry from the hunt and smelled that savory pot of stew cooking.  He told himself he’d died if he didn’t have some.  There was no patient waiting for him.  He must have it now.  And he traded his future hope, his very birthright, for a pot of soup, thus meriting the description of ‘immoral and godless’, since he ‘for one morsel of meat sold his birthright’.  So silly he seems from our vantage point.  But do I too suffer from this same short-sightedness?  What do I really want?  It will show in the little choices I make day to day.

I am literally quite short-sighted, and even this part of my vision is failing with age.  This makes it hard to appreciate things far-off (without corrective lenses).  Life can become very small when we see this way.  I think this is what has happened to the Body of Christ as well.  With, post-War prosperity came a satisfaction with this world’s things.  And talk of the soon return of Jesus and of Heaven was supplanted by strategies to be whole and happy in this lifetime.  Varying strains of Christianity took this up to varying degrees and with differing emphases, but overall, we stopped seeing death as an entrance into Life and we stopped singing songs about heaven and eagerly waiting for Jesus to come back…

By contrast Jesus lived consciously to fulfill God’s plan for Him on this earth but never as if it were his only chance at life.  Then he submitted to  an ‘untimely’ death (think of all the people he could have healed had he prolonged his ministry years!).  He endured the deprivations of this lifetime and the tortures of dying ‘for the joy set before Him’. Heb.12:2 There was purpose in it all.  He learned obedience through the things He suffered. He postponed the taste of glory for the cross, humbling himself even to death. In the same way, we are called to live purposefully and faithfully now in the midst of thwarted desires and inevitable misfortunes with a mind set on the hopes of eternity.  Only with such a mindset can we hope to escape the allurements for ‘more’ that creep in on every side, even masquerading as spiritual notions.  Only in this way will we avoid falling for deceptions that always appeal to our unmet desires.

Think about it, this is the lethal draw of illicit romance, of cults, and of every false teaching. Each in its own way tells us what we wanted to hear, leads us to believe things that we want to be true, and in so doing distracts or even derails us from the purposes of God for our life in the here and now, with a view to the hereafter. 

Deception is deceptive. It looks good, sounds true, makes us feel alive—but it has nothing to offer the one who’s satisfied in Jesus. God’s provision of His Son, the Word made flesh, and His written Word, the revelation and record of His Son, will get us through the wilderness of this lifetime.  It is enough.  When the Israelites saw the flakes of manna like snow fallen from heaven they asked, ‘What is it?’  Jesus answers… ‘This is my body, broken for you.’  Take eat. Lk 22:19 ‘Whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.’ (Jn.6:57)  Here’s a hope we can count on.  And oh the places we will go!

–LS

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. I Pet.1:13

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.  And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge,  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness,  and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.

So, dear brothers and sisters,  work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
II Pet.1:3-11

“But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” II Peter3:13

[* Your comments are always welcomed, and always read  In love ]

High Hopes

All Sorts

I find myself some days lately feeling unaccountably glum. The sun may be shining, the birds calling in search of mates, buds blooming and everything running otherwise smoothly in my little world, but there’s this underlying glumness… How come?

As Rachel counts down the days till she can fly this nest for greater things, I take stock of my purpose in life! I wonder what cause there will be to get out of bed when homeschooling no longer calls us to be up and at it… What is the purpose of life without kids? That question too crosses my mind and I voice it to Jim, my voice quavering…

We’re doing a study these days on applying the Gospel to life. This week’s lesson is on idolatry. There are statements here to shake me out of just picturing gold-covered Hindu gods, into considering whether I have set my heart on idols—anything besides Jesus that I feel I must have in order to be happy, whether a thing or a person, a role or an ability. Where have I set my hopes?

Could this glum sagging of joy mean that I’ve been counting on something other than Jesus for my joy? Have I let my calling come become my God?

Take this statement for instance:

“Every self exists in relation to values perceived as making life worth living. A value is anything good in the created order—any idea, relation, object or person in which one has an interest, from which one derives significance…These values compete…in time one is prone to choose a center of value by which other values are judged. When a finite value has been elevated to centrality and imagined as a final source of meaning, then one has chosen…a god…One has a god when a finite value is…viewed as that without which one cannot receive life joyfully.” Thomas Oden, Two Worlds: Notes on the Death of Modernity in America and Russia, IVP,1992, 94-96

Over all these years I’ve found significance and life purpose in my calling as a mother schooling her own children at home. I’ve found great satisfaction in it despite the overwhelming challenge at times. That’s all about to change. The sense of loss leaves me feeling glum some days. The unknown prospects looming seem alternately intimidating and exciting. Today, I’m excited. New ideas are brewing…new hopes.

But that’s just it, my point. Hopes. What are my hopes? Must I really just scramble for another temporary job description in order to restore my joy? Or is this my opportunity to make sure my hope is ultimately set in God and whatever His calling and purposes are for my life at any given stage. If I’m counting on anything else, there is reason to feel deflated!

What do I want, besides ‘just’ God? And how badly do I want it? Health, ‘successful’ children, a comfortable income, freedom from pain, longevity, eternal youth?! Are these my expectations? If my hope is set on any of these, as needful for joy, it’s misplaced.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” Solomon said. False hopes, like false gods, will never satisfy. They’re all temporary. They will always leave us heart-sick. Change comes and knocks them out from under us. Then what? Only God is a rock unchanging. David points us in the right direction as he confronts his own glumness:

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. Ps.42:11

As believers we are people destined in this lifetime to live on hope, to set our minds on things above, not the stuff of here and now (Col.3:2). Our salvation itself is vested in a future hope, not yet seen. We don’t have it all now. We aren’t intended to. I’ve been memorizing Romans 8 little by little with Rachel and we’ve come to the verses on hope—strong reminders that the best is yet to come—the glory, the Kingdom, the redemption of our bodies—these are all future tense. Meanwhile creation groans, we groan, and even the Spirit groans on our behalf. And we wait, eagerly, and patiently, sustained by the inseparable love of God.

And in this waiting we seek the interests of the Kingdom first and we seek God’s heart, in hopes that He will make His desires our own and conform our desires to His. And this mother’s heart imagines what it would be to have the grandkids near enough to pop by Grandmom’s house and feed the chickens, pet the dog, have a cookie from that never-empty tin atop the fridge, or make some “Heavenly Biscuits” together… Wouldn’t it be great to make an alphabet book together and have first reading lessons, or just to sit and read beautiful picture books…* and I share with God my hopes, but refuse to set my heart upon them. I will trust Him with whatever my future holds. Herein is peace, and purpose. Yes, and joy! Because cultivating a patient, meek and thankful heart, deeply contented with whatever God provides is likely the best prophylactic for idolatry.

I close with Martin Luther’s thoughts on idolatry:

“All those who do not at all times trust God and do not in all their works or sufferings, life and death, trust in his favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep this [First] Commandment, and practice real idolatry…” from A Treatise on Good Works, PartX,18

–LS

 

 

“…we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in his hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Rom.8:22-26

P.S. I still regularly check out picture books from the library, a habit I can’t quite give up. For those of you blessed with children near at hand, don’t miss reading this week’s find:The Gardener, by Sarah Stewart. illus. by David Small. It’s  a perfect story for springtime. See more here.

Seeing clearly

All Sorts

New vision

I came home from my recent travels to a new pair of glasses, a fresh prescription designed to give greater clarity, reduce eye strain, and help my eyes work together more effectively…

I’ve been adjusting now for a week.  Though sharpening my distance vision, this new pair of glasses has significantly reduced my close vision, hindering my ability to read, to write, to study things close at hand.  In short, frustrating my ability to do the things I am most passionate about!

Disheartening.

As I await my new order—yes, reading glasses! (argh! has it come to this?!) I juggle Jim’s glasses on and off my nose,  enduring eye strain, complaining, avoiding reading and considering how much it means to me to see close-up clearly.

Ha! now that I’m forced to think about my ability to SEE, I recall my New Year’s choice of a word to live consciously with.  It was January 11 and I was asking myself: What would it be like to live for a whole year with this word, “SEE” in focus? Would I learn to see more clearly, more fully, more like God sees?

Well, and here I am, constrained to find things to do that don’t require constant close vision—Perhaps there is a lesson here somewhere for a gal prone to be introspective and caught up in the close-at-hand and to lose the big picture perspective? 

I’ve been busy in the kitchen, tried my hand at grinding my own wheat for fresh ground whole wheat  bread, my own popcorn for cornbread…I’ve tried out a new pasta attachment and churned out light wheat spaghetti and spinach rigatoni that resembled mini saguaro cacti…I’ve stoked the tandem for dozens of miles on some brilliant sunny afternoons…I’ve fashioned little paper pots and planted the annual tomato and basil seeds…and I’m even trying a little landscape painting…

And this was the week for the big news—my last-born has been accepted at the bible school of her choice!  It’s for real; she’ll be leaving us in the fall for the hills of Texas. “It feels so good to be accepted!” were her words and the excitement that entered with the mail kept us from applying ourselves to anything academic for the rest of the day!  Whole new vistas have opened up with this news of acceptance. Practical things like passport applications, flight reservations, shopping and packing lists, immunizations, drivers’ tests;  and fanciful imaginings—what will it be like to fly alone? to live and study with  like-minded peers? to be on her own so far from home ( and money!)  And these broad new visions have radically redirected our focus from the narrow academic trail.  All because she’s been accepted.

This reminds me of something, a  quote I just read that underlines the extreme significance of comprehending the grounds of our acceptance before God.  And I quote:

“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives.  Many…have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification…drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience.  Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.”

These words were written thirty years ago by Richard Lovelace*, a professor of church history with a heart to see revival as a way of life in the Body of Christ. They ring as true today.  Seeing the Gospel front center in both my near vision as I bumble through my days and in this glorious far-reaching reality of acceptance with God no matter how I falter—this will change the way I see things, and people! and every facet of life now and always.

If it be true that God delights in His children with all His being, not based on their performance but on their radical reliance on what Christ has done on their behalf…ought this not to be the lens through which I learn to see?  Yes, I could use this new prescription, away from things close to myself, to the grand vista of life in Christ, as prescribed by His grace—“who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works…” Titus 2:14

I welcome the relief from this eye-strain caused by focusing so closely on me that I miss the Big Picture—HIM!

–LS

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.   Titus 3:4-7 

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*Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (InterVarsity Press,1979) p.101  as quoted in Tim Keller’s Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything (Zondervan,2010) p.27.

Refueling

All Sorts

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Home again after travels to and fro. Too many days with too little manna.  The world looms large, its prospects bleak.  My own place unclear. What will be next?  Where is the strength for it?  My fuel tank on empty, energy reserves low I run to my Father requesting to see as He sees, to be filled up with His love and a sense of His purposes for my life, my day, this moment…

I turn to His Word and begin reading Daniel and am reassured that His is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever, no matter what else is awry in the world.

“The God of Heaven will set up a Kingdom that shall never be destroyed—it shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever…”(Dan.2:44)  Oh, this is good news.  World news these days is none to reassuring.  Knowing where it’s headed is.

I find it remarkable too  that God chose to reveal to a pagan king what was to come, the ‘rest of the story’ that we still await in our generation.  He not only gave Nebuchadnezzar a vision in the night but through Daniel, God reminded the king and all future generations what he had seen and what it meant.  God is in control. No Kingdom threatens His.

I am reminded of Psalm 139:  “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.”  This too is reassuring as I get re-oriented to the home routine after being hither and yon for a couple weeks.  God is not thrown off kilter by red-eye flights, or days and nights far from home, or world news or even family news.  He’s got it all in hand while at the same time being intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Incredible. 

“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.  He changes times and season; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.  To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might…” Dan.2:20-23

–LS