God gave the Sign

"All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’)." Isaiah 7:14

God with us…that is astounding! The Infinite One who measures the universe with the "span of His hand" was promised to come among us. A miraculous birth would take place, the one foretold in Genesis 3:15 when God said that the "seed of woman" would crush the serpent's head.

The promise of a miraculous birth and the rescue of humanity from the curse of sin and death is embedded in the story of every culture on earth. It has been overlaid with purposeful distortion and buried in myth by the same snake in the Garden who doesn't want mankind to know that God loves us. But the fact of this promise of God is still there.

Unlike stories from Greek mythology where the gods came among men to behave just as depraved, jealous, vengeful as the rest of fallen humanity only with super powers, God's promise to come among us was to rescue us from our self-inflicted doom.

Matthew 1:20-21 “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. ²¹ And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

He will save His people from their sins. The earth is the Lord's...everything and everyone in it. Jesus...Jeshua or as we read it in the Old Testament, Joshua...God is salvation. God alone can rescue us from sin and its effects. We don't have the capacity to alter the trajectory of our fall. We, even given all our "advances" in technology, science, education and politics, are utterly helpless in making the slightest change to human nature. Separated from God, it all goes wrong because the ones utilizing science. technology, education and government are all fatally flawed. Apart from God, we are lost to what we were created for and even our best turns to dust.

History shows that our social and scientific advances have really made us no different from those civilizations who preceded us. We just have better ways to destroy one another, deceive one another, control one another, and intimidate one another. Yes, we have medicines to cure things that used to be incurable. But the very antibiotics that have healed have helped generate super-bacteria now resistant to medicine.

Jesus rescue is more than "skin-deep". He came to save us from our sins. He came to destroy the works of the devil, to defeat sin and death by His own sacrificial death on the cross. He was born to die for us and to be raised from the dead for us that we might be united to that very death and resurrection by the Holy Spirit. He came to rescue us and restore us to Himself as new creations, people with new hearts, new spirits, new purpose and perspective...His own.

He didn't leave us as orphans when He ascended back to the Father. He promised He would be with us, would give us the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to live His life and do His ministry in an ongoing way until He came again at the end of time. He said, "I am with you ALWAYS, even to the end of time." God is with us. Jesus Christ lives His Life within us.

But...and this may come as a shock...He didn't come to save us from inconvenience. He didn't come to make sure that our lives were even problem free. He didn't come so we could claim and possess all the goods and services the world demands and lusts after. He didn't come to insulate us from sorrow, loss or pain. He was Himself, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He came to save us from sin and its live-destroying, ever-decaying, always-disappointing work in our lives. He came to give us REAL life, not religious, sin-bound existence.

Jesus came to set us FREE from sin, its bondage, its slavery and control. He came to save us, rescue us and empower us to really LIVE.

Life in this world is not easy and those who would tell you that Jesus came to make your life easy are liars and deceivers. He came to make your life new. Jesus came to give you Eternal Life; Life that is now at work in all those who belong to Jesus. That Life is not some list of rules, not some formula you can, if you get it right, make work for you. That Life is your restored relationship with God and it is actively changing, healing, delivering, and restoring your character into the very likeness and image of Jesus.

He said that in this world, we would have tribulation. Why? Because the world we live in is still enslaved by the power of sin, under the power of the evil one. We bear in us the very Life that our ancient foe tried his best to separate us from. Jesus said that those that hated Him would hate us. There is a conflict, a war that we are involved in. He also said that He had overcome the world. All authority in both heaven and earth are His...and we are His...that is why we CAN go into the world and make disciples, not afraid but bold and dauntless with the boldness of God endless Love.

Being saved from sin sets us free to no longer be stuck in striving to make life work "my way". We are set free to learn to follow Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are set free from having to live in fear because we can't make life conform to our own personally conceived idea of what "perfect life" is. We've been set free to live the adventure we were created to know. We are now part of a purpose infinitely greater than ourselves with a personal call from Jesus Christ to follow Him...to do what He is doing in the world today; to say what He is saying to the people in the world today.

God is with us. Who or what can actually prevail against us…nothing and no one. Even death is no longer the ultimate foe. My body will one day wear out, but He has prepared for me a new one, an imperishable one...a body like His own Resurrection Body.

Can you see the freedom to live "out loud" that has been given to you and me? God, please make the truth of this a lived-out reality in us by your Power and Grace.

With the Holy Spirit and Fire

With the Holy Spirit and Fire

The Word of God tells us that our God is a consuming fire. Our God is Holy. There is no darkness in Him. No vestige of sin can ever be in His presence. Thank God for Jesus!

There was no way for us to ever return to the relationship lost in Adam’s fall. There was no way for us to become alive again now that we were dead in our rebellion. God made a way where there was no way. God Himself came to rescue and restore humanity to Himself. He did it because of His love, His faithfulness and His righteousness.

He made us for intimacy with Him and He will not be thwarted. He created us to know life, not death, wholeness not frustration, flourishing, not incompleteness. You who now belong to Jesus are heirs of God. You are a people called by God to display His glory.

   People are meant to see the salvation of God in and through you.

It is you being transformed by the Holy Spirit to have the character and nature of Jesus--alive and exhibited in you--that is God's "convincing conviction" for those who may call you by name. That is why Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. We can only live the Life of God by the Power of God.

John the Baptist’s analogy in Matthew chapter 3 comes from the wheat harvest. Wheat and chaff were never left together after the harvest. There was a threshing, a beating of the wheat to separate the edible kernel from the outward inedible husk. A threshing floor was always up on a hill where the wind was blowing…Holy Spirit? After the threshing, everything was thrown up into the air. The wind would blow away the useless and lighter husk and the heavier wheat kernels would fall again to earth. The process went on till all the chaff was blown away and only the grain remained. Separating the wheat from the chaff was necessary is there was to be bread for eating and seed for sowing.

When Jesus Christ came to live His life within me, His Eternal Life, I went from death to life. I was, by the Holy Spirit, united to the death of Jesus and united to His resurrection in a moment.

I became a new creation. The salvation of God made His home in me. I then began to find my life being changed day by day due to what Jesus had already done within me. A separation began to take place. In me there were habits, behaviors, thought patterns and choices I had made for years that were as empty and lifeless as chaff. The Lord was not going to allow those things to remain a part of my daily "being". I was no longer "my own" but was His...all of me.

Since that beginning, I have experienced the "threshing and winnowing" of the Lord. Sometimes the chaff comes off rather easily. Other times, my idolatry has been so tenacious that the threshing of my soul has needed to be much more intense…and rather unpleasant (Hebrews 12:1-13) I am amazed at how stubbornly I can be by holding on to things that could never give me life and peace as thought they could. I am so thankful for the patience of my God and Savior.

Over and over again He has made my blind eyes see so I might repent, turn from folly and relinquish the chaff I had been so enthralled with. God's Love for me in Jesus Christ is a never ending, never giving up, all consuming kind of Love that is so passionate and committed that He will not rest until I am full set free…

Free from anything & everything that would bind me or hinder me from knowing the fullness of life so that in Him I might flourish. His fire is intense and can never be quenched. I am reminded of the three Hebrew young men that were thrown into the fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar. The only things that were burned up were the things that had them bound.

Jesus intends to baptize all who follow Him with the Holy Spirit. That is His will for all believers. We are meant to be clothed with power from On High. We are to be anointed, immersed in the Holy Spirit because it is only in the power of God that the purpose of God is accomplished. Jesus also promises each of His followers that we will know His baptism with fire, to burn away anything that would bind us or prevent us from following Him with our whole hearts.

We make idols of almost anything...usually good things gone awry: education, money, beauty, power, sex, possessions...etc. In themselves these are not evil...but when we look to them to give us what only Jesus can provide, they become vicious, ravenous, never-satisfied overlords of sin.

Do you have anything that seems to be being "thrown up in the air"? Is there a sense that something is being shaken loose? Has the Lord been whispering, "Why are you doing that...thinking that...following that?" so that there is a lack of peace in that area of your life? Welcome to the loving threshing floor of the Lord.

Bring whatever it is and surrender it to Him. He will be faithful to separate you from whatever the chaff may be. Do not be afraid of the fire of the Lord. He gives you His Power in the Holy Spirit to be able to follow Him in obedience from where you are to what He has prepared for you to live and be.

As the Day of the Lord draws nearer, God's Word tells us that judgment will begin with the House of the Lord. The intensity of His Love is not surprising. The Lord, in His compassion, will make us ready to receive Him when He returns. I personally do not want to be clinging to what is destined for unquenchable fire, do you?

Jesus wants us living in His light now, having that light shine for all to see to light the way back to Him. Is His discipline on the threshing-floor pleasant? No. but we can rejoice in the process, the Lord loves us as true sons and daughters. We are experiencing the salvation of God in being set free.

This coming Sunday is the very last Sunday in the Season of Pentecost. Pentecost is the longest season in the Church's liturgical year. The reason is that we need to be reminded that we are a people waiting, actively waiting. Our waiting is a walking in the Spirit, empowered to continue to do the ministry of Jesus till He comes again. we are God's workmanship, St. Pauls states, created in Christ Jesus for good works that we are meant to do as a matter of life and call from God. Our waiting has a purpose and it is anything but sitting around "clock-watching" as we wait.

 

We are waiting for a promise Jesus made to be fulfilled. We know it will be fulfilled because Jesus made it. His promise was to come again and to receive us to Himself. He will, in the blink of an eye, transform our mortal bodies to be like His own eternal Resurrection Body. He take us to the Home He has been preparing for us, at last to be with Him forever.

 

His first coming was in great humility. The Sovereign over all creation laid aside His glory, not His Deity, and became a man...full man and yet still fully God. When He comes again, it will not be in obscurity. Every eye will see Him when He returns. He will come as the Conquering King of kings and Lord of lords. He will come revealing Himself as He has eternally been. Almighty God the Son. He will come in power and infinite glory. All injustice will be redressed. All evil will be done away with forever. Death itself will die and the grave will know utter defeat. Sin will be obliterated. We will see fulfilled in us the promise of God that having begun a good work in us He will bring it to completion, perfection...the perfection of Grace!

 

This last Sunday of Pentecost is known as Christ the King Sunday. Our Kind has eternally been King. He was not a heir in waiting, He did not replace another dynasty. There has never been another King. His Throne is from everlasting to everlasting and shall never pass away. Earthly kings come and go. Dynasties flourish and then are gone like the morning dew. Some are overthrown to be replaced.

 

Our King will never abdicate, never be threatened by some celestial coup, is not subject to any Parliament and is answerable to no one. Our King is eternally holy, just, good, merciful, kind, patient, loving, gracious, perfect, omnipotent (almighty), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere at once. He is to wise to ever make a mistake and to good to ever do anything wrong. He alone is the objective reference for what is True...eternally True.

 

This is our King. His Name is above every name, both in this present age and in the age to come. At His name every knee will one day bow and every tongue, tribe, nation and people group will proclaim that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

 

The Gospel this Sunday is the record of Jesus Crucifixion. The lectionary reading is not a mistake. "...so take Thy Cross, O Lord, and reign!" go the words of a hymn. Jesus said, "If I am lifted up, I will draw all people to Myself." His death on the Cross settles an ancient question: "Who has right to me?" By His death, He has tasted death fully for ALL humanity. He died the death we deserved, drank the infinite and holy wrath of God to the dregs and broke the power of sin to keep us slaves to futility and eternal death. Jesus is the King who by right of creation has right to all we are. By right of Redemption, He has right to all we are. His right to rule is not opressive,,,EVER...it is a liberation of Love and Grace for all who will believe and receive the Good News that our King reigns! 

 

Knowing this makes our active waiting, active ministry and active mission anything but optional.

 

Waiting with you,

 

Fr. Mark+

What's on my mind?

Well, it's how much God loves you all. It's not some kind of neo-romantique sort of thing. It is a love that sees you as you really are...right to the core. It's a love that does not mince words. It sees you where you hope no one will ever see you. This love knows you fully and loves you with a love that is not bound by time and is not due to any thing you have done or not done.

God's love for you is honest, perfect and true. There is no flaw in it. It cannot be quenched by tragedy or trial or pain or suffering. It cannot be quenched by fear or indifference or even hatred. God's love for you is complete, lacking nothing.

This love is not a set of philosophical or theological propositions. This love was incarnate and became a man, worth an infinite number of human beings...even as the artist is worth more than an infinite number of his works...God became a man because of His infinite love for the crown of His creation: humanity. Jesus Christ was the singular,  unique and perfect man. There was no internal dry-rot, no envy, jealousy or pride. There was no variance from goodness found in Him. He was without human brokenness. His worth was more than an infinite number of human beings.

He was the only One who, being both God and man could stand in the place of all humanity for all time and receive in Himself the full measure of the consequence of the brokenness and rebellion of the human heart known as sin. He alone could bear the sin of the whole world and the infinite just punishment it deserved. Jesus became sin...the very state of being that separates all mankind from the life God intended us to live and know.

Jesus became sin, my sin, your sin. He bore my shame, your shame so that we would not have to be covered in it. He became sin to destroy the disease of sin. He lived the perfect life we could not live,  died a death we could not die, to pay a debt we could never pay to give the life God intended us to live.

I am thinking about how much Jesus loves you...all of you. An infinite price has been paid to rescue us from the prison of self-centered-dead-ended existence. God has demonstrated His love for you and me in time, in history through the willing sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a Roman cross where He settled humanity's debt, once and for all time.

I am thinking about how God has done everything necessary for you and me to be completely reconciled to Him and to enter back into life that will never end, life that can't be taken from us, life that can only become bigger never smaller.

I want all of my friends...not simply the "virtual friends" of this social media, but the one I can call by name, say "Hi!" to from  my front door, pass a coffee to at Starbucks, greet in the supermarket or wave at from my car...to know this love...not merely "know about it". This love, this life is meant to be known, meant to be lived. It is a gift meant to be received. It has your name engraved on it. It is offered simply but if received will profoundly transform your living into more goodness than you can imagine.

This is not about religion. It is about the relationship you were created for. Jesus Christ did not come, live, die and be raised from the dead to establish a new world religion. He came to rescue humanity and restore us to the relationship that was shattered in Eden's garden when mankind believed the lie that we needed something more than what God had already given. The sorrow, death and decay that decision brought has been eclipsed by and consumed on our behalf by Jesus Christ.

I beg you in the name of Love, to turn and be reconciled to God. He is not angry. He is waiting for you to come home.

That's what I'm thinking about...FYI.

Years ago Yolie and I drew up a "Last Will and Testament." It needs to be updated since our son is now an adult, but it was pretty simple. If I die first, Yolie gets everything and then when she dies, John-Mark gets the whole enchilada. It also was written in the reverse. If we both died at the same time, our son inherited all we have.

The thing about a will is that is only goes into effect after the "will-maker" takes their last earth-breath. One has to die to bring the will "to life" for all those who are listed as heirs.

We separate the Bible into two sections. One is called the Old Testament and the other is called the New Testament. Actually, it is a seamless text, God's Word recorded through human history revealing His nature, His purpose and His will to all humanity. In 2 Corinthians 1:20, St. Paul states that ALL the promises of God, His revealed will, are "Yes!" in Jesus Christ. The full Will of God is found in Jesus.

To bring to "life" all the promises made in the "Will of God," Jesus had to taste death for the whole human race. He had to bear in His own human body on the cross the full weight of the sin of all people, for all time. He experience the complete and just wrath of God against sin seeing it as only God can and experiencing its utter desolation as only God could...in His real, physical body...with His real human emotions...with His real human mind. He had to die for us so that the Will of God would go into effect for everyone who would simply believe Him, receive Him and follow Him.

When I die, my will will go into effect, but my family cannot expect anything else from me. My physical being will have ceased to effectively function in any way as far as the day-to-day world is concerned. I'll be dead. No one will be able to count on me again. My effectiveness as far as anyone here on earth is concerned will have come to an end.

Not so with Jesus...I know that MY redeemer lives! The One who died for me conquered death and was raised from the dead to live forever. He tasted death once and for all...for all.  Death can no longer exert any control over Him. He has vanquished death. He lives eternally now, Jesus Christ, in His Resurrected Body.

He is the ONLY "will-maker" who ever lives to bring to bear all the promises of God's Eternal Will in the lives of those who become heirs of God, joint heirs with Him by grace through faith. Our God is the Living God. We do not serve and follow a mere memory. We serve a Living Savior.

He is in the world today. He lives His very life in you, Christian. It is His will that where you go, His kingdom, His rule authority, truth, blessing and work continue...through you!

If you belong to Jesus Christ, eternal live is already at work in you. It is transforming you day by day. From the inside out the Holy Spirit is working to reproduce in you the life, character and nature of Jesus Christ. THAT is your heritage. Having begun a good work in you, He will bring that work to completion.

We live in a world that has become more and more profoundly blind because they have refused to love the truth: they need rescuing and God has already done the rescuing to be received as a gift. It you are not hungry, you will not seek food. If you are not thirsty, you will not seek water. The world is full of people ripe for deception. They believe they are OK...good people...at least they have people they have graded as worse than they perceive themselves.

They do not really know that God is the living God, active, merciful, forgiving, just and loving. How in the world will they ever come to get a glimpse at the eternal wonder of our God? I'm glad you asked the question. The answer God has for them is meant to be lived out through you. To hear about God's love through you, to see the life of God being lived through you, to be able to examine over time the reality that, "DANG! IT'S TRUE!" and to touch the reality of the Living God in you...that is their hope. God lives through you and He draws them to Himself through you.

They will see that God does love imperfect folk, does forgive to the uttermost and does care intimately and specifically because they will see it in you as you follow Jesus. Jesus is going to live His life in His power in His authenticity and winsomeness THROUGH YOU!!!

There is no part of the Will of God that you are left out of. The One who dies to bring that Will to life, ever lives and He is living in you by the very power that raise Him from the dead. THAT is the ground of our hope.

I know that my Redeemer lives and that at the last day he will stand upon the earth and my own eyes shall see Him and I will know Him...He will be no stranger to me!

Called and Equipped to Lay Our Lives Down

Called and Equipped to Lay Our Lives Down                     

There was a word from the Lord given to a priest in Tanzania several years ago. It was a word of rebuke from the Lord. This word was confirmed by all the leadership of all the Christian denominations in Tanzania. The Lord said that His church was not using the gifts he had given to it to do the work of ministry.

Some were using only one, maybe two, but others were ignoring God's gifts of the Spirit. Persecution was going to come so that the church would see clearly its need for all God had provided.

The Lord speaks in Joel 2:23-32 that He will pour out His Spirit on all people, young and old, male and female and that they will receive dreams from Him, prophetic word to speak from Him. They would receive power from on High to do the work of God's Kingdom.

The work of God can only be done by the power of God. We are not sufficient in ourselves to think of anything as "coming from ourselves". Jesus Christ is our sufficiency. God would not pour out His Spirit on the church in power as He did on Pentecost IF the church did not need this anointing to live and continue to do the ministry of Jesus.

Peter quotes the Joel passage on the Day of Pentecost. It came to pass. It is here. It is necessary if we are to really follow Jesus. The Lord would not pour out the power of the Holy Spirit on His church IF we did not need all He had to give to be effective in His Kingdom's mission.

God does not give superfluously. He gives with purpose and expects us to join with Him, to receive all He has to give in order to do all He will ask us to cooperate with Him in.

When Jesus rescues a person and makes of them a son or daughter of God, He gives each believer a spiritual gift (Romans 12:6-8). That gift, as we yield to the Holy Spirit and are clothed with power from on High, provides a foundationary motivation, a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives as we follow Jesus. Being gifted and empowered by God, we can begin to function in ministry (partial list in Ephesians 4:11-13 & 1 Peter 4:10-11) with the expectation that the Holy Spirit WILL manifest Himself through us (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) to meet the ministry need at hand.

We see all these things manifested in the life and earthly ministry of Jesus. The mission and ministry that the church has been given is nothing less than the ministry and mission of Jesus. He meant it when He said, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." (John 20:21) Our call to mission and ministry has everything to do with Jesus. It is not about us, or making a "name" for ourselves. It is about Jesus becoming known through the lives we live and the grace He extends through us in the Holy Spirit's power. We have nothing to boast in, but everything to rejoice in.

The Pharisee in Luke 18:9-14 didn’t believe he needed anything from God. In fact, he was boasting about how much God should be really pleased with His performance. He is a clear example of the church of the Laodiceans in Revelation 3:17-22. They felt they needed nothing from the Lord. They were just fine, thank you.

Much of the church, especially in the West has this notion that because we have the Canon of Scripture and can prove from it that Jesus is who He said He is, that we can do kingdom work.

The disciples after that first Easter evening had all that insight. Jesus had opened their minds to understand EVERYTHING written about Him in the Law, Psalms and Prophets. But He told them to WAIT in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on High. They were to receive the same anointing for ministry that Jesus had at the Jordan River. The work of God can ONLY be done in the power of God with the gifts He provides. It is not by human might, human intellect or human resources that the Kingdom of God is made manifest!

We need everything Jesus has provided. Otherwise WE begin to take credit and WE take the glory to ourselves/denomination that belong to God alone. To deny yourself, you must rely on Another. You will never be your own salvation, rescue or life- transformer. You have to deny the satanic lie that you can any part in your salvation! To die to self, you must live in the Power of the Resurrection. Only by the Holy Spirit’s power can you stop trying to draw life giving from a broken cistern and drink from a river of Living Water

To lay your life down, you must live the Life God gives you. God replaces your death with His life. He baptizes you in the Holy Spirit so you have the power to follow Jesus in true humility.

Jesus drew His identity and worth solely from His Father, not from the responses or reactions of others around Him. He knew who He was because His Father told Him. God has told you who have put your trust and faith in Jesus Christ that you are His heirs; that you are joint heirs of Jesus and that He intends to live through you as He did through Jesus.

Can you do that apart from what God provides? Unequivocally NO! Do you need His power, His gifts, His anointing, and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit? Unequivocally YES!

So…what will you? Will you admit the truth that you need all that the Lord has provided for you to REALLY LIVE the life He has given you? Will you humble yourself? Will you answer the door…Jesus is knocking, ready to come fill you with His fullness and power so that you might live in humility and truth!