Do You Know God's Love?

I do not believe that we actually have a clear picture of how much God loves us. The intensity of His love is so often portrayed graphically through the prophets of the Old Testament that is really more than we can take in. No human being has ever loved another human being as God has loved us all.

He created us in Him image. He gave us life and complete wholeness with the promise of ongoing, ever increasing glory.

Then we believed the lie that we could actually LIVE life without Him...who is the singular Source and Author of life...Who is Himself very Life.

We broke the whole world. Even creation has been subjected to futility since Adam's FALL. Life began to fall apart, relationships unraveled, hatred, murder, war, famine, racism, envy, pride, lust, fear, idolatry...it has been as if a colossal & deeply infected boil has erupted and nothing is left unsoiled.

Even good things are twisted into monstrosities: food to gluttony, intellect to arrogance, intimacy to debauchery, beauty to a thing worshiped, strength to brutality, melody to cacophony, art to decadence. And as we look upon the ruin of humanity it is amazing that we have not been able to utterly deface the image of God.

There is still goodness to be known and lived, love to be shared and nurtured, kindness that expects no reward, beauty in the creation around us that is there for the beholding, without regard to merit or accomplishment. The beggar, the prisoner, the addict and those who live insulated lives of great surplus...the eyes of them all can behold the glory of sunrise, storm and sunset.

Sadly, the tragedy Adam's fall has set the stage for ongoing calamity. It's when the inevitable strikes that our ancient foe whispers that God doesn't love us. God is put on trial as if it is all His fault.

That's when the old habits, old default responses to pain and sorrow are once again presented to us as "plausible" means to meeting the gnawing needs in our hearts and lives. That stuff has NEVER delivered on its promises before, but under the cover of suffering and disappointment, the Devil makes them all look quite reasonable.

That shame cycle keeps billions of people slaves to sin, slaves to the gods of men and hearts become hard if only out of self-defense. If we have believed the lie that God doesn't love us, then we are left to ourselves and the prospects for flourishing dim quickly.

But God has made a way for us to return to Him. We can actually turn from death and be brought fully into Life in God. Something we will never be able to accomplish has been done for us.

God, Himself has come to the rescue. In His life, death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has dealt with the sum total of the sin of the human race. He has removed every obstacle and opened a way (a singular, unique way) for all people from every tribal group, ethic group, linguistic group, national group, gender group or age bracket to come home, to begin to live life as God created it to be known.

People, we need to simply get honest and acknowledge our personal and corporate abysmal failure at the enterprise of life. Jeremiah 3:11-15 is the declaration of God's heart for us. We need the honesty of Jeremiah 3:22-25.

We need to see ourselves in the crowds that mobbed Jesus. They were described as people who knew they had missed the mark and were reaching out to the first Authentic Life they had ever seen.

Little did they know that the One they were seeking had been seeking them first. Jesus came to rescue and to restore, to forgive and to reconcile us back to God, to heal and complete us in God's love.

Who is Your Master?

There have been times in my life...and this is one of them...when I have wondered at what people think is important. More importantly, what is important to God.

I remember distinctly at the age of five and again at seven that God had placed a call on my life to serve Him in some specific was. As a young boy, I attended a Southern Baptist church in Baytown, TX. I remembered an emphasis on missions there and thought God might want me to become a missionary.

At the age of 19 in 1970, I surrendered my life to Jesus' Lordship. I was a part of an interdenominational coffee-house outreach ministry to the University of Texas campus in Austin, TX. The sense of call grew and I thought I'd go to seminary and come back to pastor there in that context.

There was a thing that happened in that intentional Christian community still makes my blood run cold. God was blessing. We had the place filled with seekers both Friday and Saturday evenings for our coffee-house. Music and sharing and life-on-life witnessing to the reality of Jesus Christ was electric. People were coming to faith and we had Sunday afternoon discipleship and Bible classes attended by over a hundred people. It would be followed by worship, teaching and prayer. Signs and wonders were happening. We saw people healed and delivered from demonic oppression. Lives were being changed.

Then it happened, at a elders meeting someone commented that we were doing all the things a church (institution) does. All of a sudden the question was asked, "Well...what kind of church should we become?" I remember speaking up, almost shouting, "NO!!! We ARE the church! We just need to keep following the Lord and being obedient to the Holy Spirit. This is a distraction from the mission Jesus has called us to follow Him in!!!" I wasn't heard and there was a drifting from the focus which was meeting people, engaging them where they were, sharing and living the Gospel winsomely and authentically so they came to know and follow Jesus as well.

What is important to the Lord? Is it robes or liturgy? Is it pomp and structures? Is it fancy names and the need for others to affirm us as membership-holders in a specific part of Christ's Body, the Church? Is it hymns and a pipe organ, praise songs led by a rock band with music lyrics projected up on a wall, is it numbers and programs?

Is it processions, altars and accoutrements, coffee-houses, ware-houses, tents, bricks and mortar, pews or folding chairs, banners or bare walls?

In themselves, none of those things is wrong, but neither are they authenticators of what it means to truly follow Jesus. Our human tendency is to drift, over time because of fashion or trend, so that main thing stops being the main thing. Going back in history to utilize an earlier form does not guarantee a "better product". A heart changed by the Holy Spirit, however, does.

Is what I am doing clearly leading a person to be engaged by Jesus, or am I unintentionally putting obstacles in their way. Have I unwittingly filled the "Walk-Way" with things I have become enamored with but which could somehow potentially obscure a clear vision of who Jesus Christ is?

I am an Anglican Priest, but that, dear ones is NOT the main thing. The main thing is being a follower of Jesus Christ. The main thing is being led by the Holy Spirit to cooperate with Jesus to do what HE is doing and to say what HE is saying regardless of whether some Anglican prelate somewhere acknowledges me as legit. I am a man under authority, hear me clearly.

But I want to make sure that when people hear of us, they first hear that we are followers of Jesus Christ, that we love what God loves and are committed to Him and the glory of His name above all else. History shows me that what was a move of the Holy Spirit in the past can quickly become institutionalized. That is Satan's work. Since he can't stop a move of the Holy Spirit, he tries to institutionalize it, formalize it, and circumscribe it so it becomes subtly led by form or title or structure with little need for the Holy Spirit at all. Religion carries its own inertia!

In Jesus day it was illegal for the Hebrews to charge interest on financial loans made to their fellow Jews. They thus found a way to subvert the Law by charging interest on commodities like oil and wheat. Interest was 100% on oil as it could be diluted and 20% on wheat. What had become important was not the honor of God's name, but making a profit. Their focus had subtly switched from finding their security in God to finding it in profit.

Jesus says in the Gospel this Sunday (Luke 16:1-13) that we need to be using our money for that which is lasting. The swindling steward was not rewarded for his dishonest dealings with his master’s goods. What he did when he knew he would be out of a job is that he cancelled the "interest" he was supposed to charge on behalf of his master. In so doing he made his master seem "righteous" in the eyes of his customers and he also made other beholden to him.

Jesus makes a stinging statement in the Gospel that the children of this age are shrewder in their dealings with the world around them than the children of light. Those who belong to the world operate on worldly principles that tend to selfishness and self-protection. The children of light, those who belong to Jesus, need to be living from God's perspective, not mans.

Who is our master? We can serve only one. The Pharisees, who had impeccable work ethics, loved their money. They had subtly switched their allegiance from dependence upon God with a grateful heart for His giving them the ability to provide for themselves and their families to money itself. It is subtle. One I am in submission to and the other I control. Money was their master.

There are other masters out there clamoring for our allegiance. People's approval and validation of us can be so important that we will do spiritual gymnastics and tie ourselves in religious knots to try and prove that we are legitimately a part of the denominational "club". Is my security and confidence in mission and ministry grounded in Jesus or in being a "member in good standing" with a certain denominational context? What motivates me? Who is my master?

Being faithful in little things trains our hearts to be faithful in big things. Honesty in small things trains our hearts to be honest in big things. Jesus made it clear that God's law was not up for grabs, not subject to being morphed by culture or human engineering. The main thing will always be the main thing.

We are God's children. Our reliance on Him is all things as our Eternal, Everlasting, Almighty Father is to saturate our lives so that His will supersedes all other "wills". The honor of His Name is paramount. When we live with Jesus Christ as our Master, we will not compromise our hearts. If how I represent myself as a follower of Jesus is not clear, then people watching me may not merely stray from the truth, but become the prey of an ancient adversary whose intent it to keep them cut out of the herd...the flock of God.

We steward these lives. They have been given to us by God. It all belongs to Him: time, relationships, money reputation, abilities, choices, etc.  We belong to Him. He given us a life to live. He has given us innate gifts and abilities. In this new life, He has by the Holy Spirit, also given us supernatural gifts and abilities that we might follow Jesus and continue to do His ministry His way.

Who is our Master? How we answer that question will mean either life in all its fullness or continued brokenness simply overlaid with religiosity...people seeing Jesus or people wandering, spiritually lost in the fog.