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The Seeing-Eye God

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Photo by Pixabay

Several weeks ago during my morning quiet time, I prayed for God to show up somewhere and make Himself evident. I talk to Him most days, and I believe in Him, but sometimes, I need a little handholding and reassurance. And I was going to the ophthalmologist that day for what I believed would be a diagnosis that I did not want. So I was feeling a little insecure.

I went through my morning, met a friend for a business lunch appointment, and then went to my eye appointment. I had been there two weeks earlier and was asked to return. Another round of pupil dilation, a couple of tests, and then the doctor came in to review things. He looked over papers twice, looked in my eyes, and then declared that everything was good. He blamed the mistaken condition on a machine that gave an inaccurate reading last time. “Your optic nerve looks fine today. Come back in six months–good-bye.“

Hours later at home after my pupils had come back to their normal setting, the significance of my day suddenly dawned on me. God had literally “shown up” today. He was there in my eye appointment. Now I know that He doesn’t or can’t go about healing every medical condition (I still have some of those), however, I had asked to SEE Him today. I had to laugh at the way it transpired. He is the creator of symbolism.

 As I have been reading Luke 11, I realize that asking is important, whether God acts or my eyesight just gets better. Verse 9: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you ”(NIV). I believe that He delights in surprising us and reminding us of His love. So I am emboldened to ask for more.

Thankfully, my perspective on life has very little to do with my optic nerve. Yet I filter everything that I view through the lens of God’s love and my faith in Him. “If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life well-lighted as your best-lighted room” (Luke 11:34-36, MG).

Read more at the source: The Seeing-Eye God

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.

Soul Sifting

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Photo by Pixabay

I have a rather unromantic confession to make: The best day of my life was not my wedding day. In fact, it has nothing directly to do with my wife or marriage. It’s not a magic moment, a party, or any celebratory moment either. The best thing that ever happened to me was losing it all on a normal day five years ago.

You see, the best day of my life was the day that I lost a job. It was a well-paying, high-profile job. It meant that I was somebody. It was the center of my identity, the source of my pride and the pedestal upon which I proudly stood. And on that wonderful day, I lost it all. Over the course of the next year, working random jobs of mowing grass and at a youth detention center, I continued the losing process: financial standing, pride, and even the will to live at one point.

One year to the day of losing that job, I was going nowhere but in debt, was completely depressed and felt there was no hope for me. The proverbial “rock bottom” was my forwarding address and I was there for about a month of absolute hell on earth. Relationships had gone sour. I was alone and lonely. I felt no love, no hope and no destiny for someone who had made a living telling people about the meaning of life and their eternal purpose in God. Now that same God was a distant entity unconcerned with my present disaster of a life.

But I was not alone in feeling alone. Apparently, it’s a common place for those God has chosen to live, at least for awhile. At the famous last supper with Jesus and his disciples, Peter speaks up wanting to be the greatest in the kingdom and so willing to declare his devotion to his Rabbi. And Jesus responds with a stunning line: “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat” and that Peter would end up denying Jesus that very night.

And it happened, just as Jesus said. Peter denied he even knew his leader and friend and he ended up feeling shame. Such shame that he wept, lamenting over what had happened. One minute, things were great and he was willing to do anything and the next, he was broken over his own spiritual condition.

But I wonder if Peter would say the same. I wonder if that was the greatest moment of his life. There’s something in the broken moments that remove all of the “self” and allow me to see life for what it really is. It was only after Peter realized he couldn’t follow Jesus in his own strength that he became a great leader testifying of the life that Christ lives through us.

The same can be said for Paul, the apostle formerly known as Saul. His blindness made him see. Struck down on the Damascus Road, Saul was on his way to persecute more Christians and God had another thing in mind. It was in his state of brokenness that God was able to show him the true way of life. It is the path through brokenness, the sifting of the soul, that enables us to truly live. It is death that leads to life. Our attempts at being something for God are for nothing if we have not travelled the road of the broken. It is the path that Jesus walked and He continually calls us to do the same.

Read more at the source: Soul Sifting

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.

Contemporary Pioneers

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Photo by Nrico, Flickr Creative Commons

Sometimes we’re tempted to think that the glory days of pioneers exploring new frontiers is a thing of the past. After all, when was the last time you saw a true pioneer?

If you cannot think of any, maybe it’s time to redefine what a pioneer is and does.

Note to self and anyone else reading these lines, pioneers are not required to drive covered wagons and travel the Oregon Trail.

What do pioneers look like today? Typically, they look like everyone else. They live in normal houses, drive to work in regular cars and wear everyday clothes. But this is usually where the similarities end.

Instead of thinking like average people, pioneers dare to dream and question why. They go places in their reasoning that most have never imagined. The word “no” has no place in their vocabulary. In fact, as far as they are concerned “no” means “yes.” Reality is a primer for future possibilities. Nothing is set in concrete.

It is the pioneers who create new technologies, discover disease cures, create new expressions of art, write new songs, forge positions of compromise to pass critical legislation, and risk their lives to extend help to those held hostage by the forces of poverty and ignorance. True pioneers are not distracted by praise, personal attacks or political pundits. With laser-like accuracy their focus is riveted on fulfilling their life mission.

Jesus is a Pioneer when it comes to our salvation. Paul says we should be, “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). NIV

Who do you think of as a twenty-first century pioneer?

Read more at the source: Contemporary Pioneers

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.

Hell What?

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Photo by Dreamstime

I don’t think there’s anything within Christianity that has bugged me more than this incredible belief that people will burn forever. How on earth did we become comfortable with God acting in ways we ourselves would never? If Hitler had been spared the self-inflicted gun wound to the head, and been captured, would any court of law have sentenced him to thirty years of torture and deprivation? Are you kidding me?

And yet more than nine out of ten of us Christians tote this idea about God spanking us all forever without batting an eyeball. How on earth did we get to this point? No parent would retain custody of their kids if they spanked them for thirty minutes… but God is going to punish us physically for millennia? God who cares deeply for us? It’s enough to make me want to heave. What a crazy way to view the Being who calls Himself LOVE personified.

Not only does eternal burning hell not make any sense to the common human instinct, no matter how warped by evil. Us getting roasted forever does not jive with the basic teachings of the Bible. First and foremost, Jesus said he took the wages of our sin, which of course the Bible refers to as being eternal death by being crucified. Well then if Jesus took what I have coming and fully took my place, then why didn’t or I should probably say isn’t Jesus still burning in Hell right now?

If the cost of my sins is eternal hellfire, and Jesus took my place, well then you do the math… it’s not that complicated. Jesus has got to get what I had coming—all of it. Otherwise it’s like the guy who’s getting shot for betraying his country and his dad steps in to take his place and instead of shooting the dad, they just put him in prison for a few years. Make sense? No. Fair and just? No. Inconsistent? Yes.

If Jesus is going to take my place by dying one long afternoon, fine, but then don’t tell me that if I reject Jesus taking my place I get more than a slow painful death that takes a few hours. Anything more and Jesus hasn’t done what He says He did. He didn’t take all my sin and it’s consequences… not at all… and He can’t take credit for being my stand-in at all.

Then there’s that text I just quoted part of a few paragraphs back, you know, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Death is the wages of sin; life is the gift of God. This text parallels a hundred more in the Bible, and is very clear on two things on where death and life come from. God gives life as a gift. To burn forever, God is going to have to keep giving me the gift of life so He can hurt me over and over again. That is the human equivalent of you taking me to the ER so that I can be patched up before you return me to your basement to beat me up, again and again and again… forever.

I could go on all afternoon. We could talk about what death is… since that is what sin is said to cause—not eternal burning. Or how Jesus in Revelation says that those who reject life will be thrown into the same lake of fire that the Devil and his angels and then death itself are thrown into—so does God keep the Devil, his angels… and death itself alive forever? What?

Yes, and we could talk about how He calls himself love, and that He values our freedom so much He’s let this planet spin on, despite the misery and confusion we lavish on ourselves, and how this kind of “you’re free to choose your destiny and I’ll love you no matter what you choose” could possibly make anybody feel free if there’s that mammoth BUT I’LL PUNISH YOU FOREVER clause at the end. I’m sorry, it just doesn’t make any sense at all. Not even to me, a fallen, sinful, selfish person who rarely succeeds at pure love and has a load of personal issues. If I loved you and you decide to hate and reject me, what is the loving thing for me to do? Make you pay for your choice as long as you live? Hold a grudge and play out revenge for 80 years? Even I know the answer to that.

God didn’t create suffering, doesn’t like it and died in my place to release me from it. And this same Guy is going to keep people alive to punish them forever… and for no apparent reason—we all know that punishment as children was to get our behavior in line. So God is going to punish when it’s too late for us to choose any different or better?

If the billions of people on planet earth who want nothing to do with God are ever going to change their minds, and want to love Him, you can bet all the money in your bank account that it’s not going to be because they’re terrified of Him. Perfect love casts out fear is what the Bible teaches, and that it’s kindness that leads us all to turn to God.

I know that an eternal burning hell is not part of who God is, first it’s not kind, and second it’s not perfect love because is sure doesn’t cast out fear. Sounds a lot more to me like the Devil’s dream for all of us.

Read more at the source: Hell What?

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.

Jesus the Lobbyist

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Photo by Pixabay

You’re a lobbyist?

You’d almost have better luck putting “Top Used-Car Salesman” on your resumé. Politicians, especially those with an ambitious eye on a comfy white house in our nation’s capital, make sure we all know they’ve never been a lobbyist, never been influenced by a lobbyist, never even met a lobbyist. They cast their votes based on just the facts, ma’am, and not on golf junkets proffered by influence peddlers from Big Pharma or Freddie Mac bankers. Hey, for all they know, a quid pro quo is something you order at a seafood restaurant.

The surprising thing, then, is that the Bible proudly describes Jesus as being a lobbyist! If any man sin, John writes in his first epistle, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. The Living Bible paraphrase has a decidedly K Street flavor with this rendering: There is someone to plead for you before the Father. And whether we view our Savior as a lobbyist or a very effective defense attorney, the end result is the same: he offers to peddle his influence regarding a rather weighty decision . . . our eternal destiny!

Hebrews 4 adds to Christ’s curriculum vitae by lauding him as our high priest – and in Bible times the priest was an advocate on behalf of sinners seeking absolution. If we sign with him, we find a Friend who is not only sympathetic with our travails, but who empowers us to approach the throne of grace with confident boldness.

The biblical concept of propitiation – the turning away of God’s wrath – has maybe given frail Christians the idea that we do need a powerful lawyer to stand before the bar on our behalf. But this ignores the wonderful truth that Jesus Christ and his Father are united in their desire to redeem and restore us. The late John Stott comments in his standout book, The Contemporary Christian: “Whenever we have cast Jesus Christ in the role of a third party” – a lobbyist, if you will – “who intervened to rescue us from an angry God, we have been guilty of a travesty which stands condemned, since it is God who loved the world and God who took the initiative to send his Son to die for us.” Remember the wonderful hymn? “O Jesus, blest Redeemer, sent from the heart of God.”

Whenever we confess a sin, or imagine ourselves going into that great galactic courtroom, or even just whisper a prayer, we need to bear in mind that the things Jesus wants, God wants too! John unravels his own “lobbyist” metaphor by having Jesus say to his disciples in John 16: I don’t need to send God a basket of fruit on your behalf . . . because the Father himself loves you!

So instead of reading Scripture as saying, “We have an advocate with the Father,” let’s envision both their names on the same corporate letterhead. And now, “We have an advocate with the Father.”

Read more at the source: Jesus the Lobbyist

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Spiritual applications.

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