Jesus told a story that revealed more than what the original intent might reveal. As Jesus was teaching his closest friends about the Kingdom of God, he was giving them different stories or parables that would put truth on display. One such story he told dealt with a manager who entrusted three servants with different sums of money. You can find the story in Matthew 25. Jesus said that the manager left a large sum of money with one servant, a smaller sum of money to a second servant, and yet a smaller sum of money to the third servant. The manager than went away on a long journey. The manager gave these sums of money to the three servants "each according to his ability." (v.15)
Now we will pause here to make an observation. Part of living in the Kingdom of God means accepting what is given to us with the responsibility to manage it and care for it according to our ability. Obviously, we do not all have equal ability, so what is given to us is not equal.
Point #1 = Jesus sees us and deals with us according to our ABILITY, not our rights or what we think is fair.
Picking back up with the story, Jesus continues to tell that the first two servants went and traded with the money they'd been given and created more wealth. In both instances, the servants doubled their manager's money. They applied their ability to generate wealth for their manager. The third servant, however, did not use his ability to grow the manager's money and, instead, hid it in fear. After a long time, the manager returned to settle his accounts with the servants. To the first two servants he exclaimed, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." (v.23)
Pause for another observation. Another aspect of living in the Kingdom of God means working. God expects each of us to work according to our ability. Again, not having equal ability, we will not all produce the same. But the manager said to both productive servants the same thing and they each received the same reward.
Point #2 - Jesus expects us to work and be productive and will reward each of us according to our faithfulness, not our net worth or how high we climbed the corporate ladder.
Now the difficult part of the story is this; the third servant did not work, therefore, he did not produce any wealth for his manager. This upset the manager and frustrated him greatly. It angered him so much that he took everything from the third servant and gave it to the first servant who already had the most money. He said to "take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents." (v.28) Then Jesus says something outside of the immediate story. He proclaims, "For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away." (v.29)
Final observation. God's idea of justice, fairness and equality is vastly different from our ideas. The servant who started out with the least, who was the poorest, is the one who looses everything and what he looses is given to the rich servant. In the Kingdom of God, what you do is far more valuable than what you have!
Point #3 - Jesus is interested in productivity and using what we have for His glory. The money in the story always remains the manager's money. It never was the servants' money. We are only stewards of someone else's resources and if we fail to produce, we fail to live.
Conclusion - The most recent attempts by our government to redistribute wealth to the less fortunate or those who cannot afford health insurance are not supported by Jesus' teaching. Some of you reading this note will find this a hard pill to swallow, but it is truth. When those among us refuse to work and refuse to produce, it is not just to take from those who have worked and produced to equalize wealth. Redistributing wealth or promoting economic fairness policies is completely the opposite of Kingdom living.
31 March 2010
15 July 2009
Divine Center
From Freedom of Simplicity (Richard Foster)
"It is one thing for God to come into us (and a very necessary thing), but it is quite another for us to come into God. In the first instance we are still the center of attention, in the second God is the focal point. When God comes into us we still have a cerain autonomy; when we come into God we have come IN. He is in all and through all and above all. This is no infantile pantheism, as if God could be captured in his creation; it is a marvelous majestic monotheism - one God from who all life is sustained. It is life out of the divine Center." (pg. 103)
What a shake up statement to the American evangelist! Our self-centered and individualistic western sentiment punches us in the gut when we recognize that it is not the individual inviting Jesus to come live in him as much as it is the individual absolving self into the Divine Center, God of all the universe. God help me to not place you in the center of my life, but to rather place myself into the center of your Life!
"It is one thing for God to come into us (and a very necessary thing), but it is quite another for us to come into God. In the first instance we are still the center of attention, in the second God is the focal point. When God comes into us we still have a cerain autonomy; when we come into God we have come IN. He is in all and through all and above all. This is no infantile pantheism, as if God could be captured in his creation; it is a marvelous majestic monotheism - one God from who all life is sustained. It is life out of the divine Center." (pg. 103)
What a shake up statement to the American evangelist! Our self-centered and individualistic western sentiment punches us in the gut when we recognize that it is not the individual inviting Jesus to come live in him as much as it is the individual absolving self into the Divine Center, God of all the universe. God help me to not place you in the center of my life, but to rather place myself into the center of your Life!
30 January 2009
Is Unemployment Really That Bad?
I was recently reading C.S. Lewis (again!) and his foresight for the end of the 20th Century and now beginning of the 21st is astounding. Allow me to quote a brief passage from Good Work and Good Works, an essay from "The World's Last Night, And Other Essays."
A real advance in charity stopped us talking about "surplus population" and started us talking instead about "unemployment." The danger is that this should lead us to forget that employment is not an end in itself. We want people to be employed only as a means to their being fed - believing (whether rightly, who knows?) that it is better to feed them even for making bad things badly than for doing nothing.
Economy, economy, economy! That's all we're hearing about, all we're concerned about and all that matters anymore. We must have jobs. We must employ everyone. We must continue growing the immense wealth of the United States or the world is going to collapse and all will be lost. NEWS FLASH! The world, as we know it, is going to collapse no matter what we do. It has been written and it will be accomplished by the One who established this world and us in it. And contrary to what most may think or feel about the end of the world being such or horrible and dreadful thing, we who are being changed into the likeness of the One who created it all welcome the end of this life with open arms. Who in their right mind wants the world, as it is, to continue anyway?
So how must we live? Let us be about the work that will matter and will last far beyond the collapse of our present world. Let us be concerned more about the unregenerate, not so much the unemployed.
Must we eat? Yes!
Therefore, we must find something to do which earns us a living.
But is that our hope? No!
Our hope is in the One, Jesus, who died and gave Himself up for us, so that, we live beyond the sinful existence we now begrudgingly wade through.
So don't just make a living. Don't go to work today, job or no job, and give a half-ass effort just so you get to the paycheck. Whatever it is you find your hands doing, do it well. Do good work, not just a good work. Be not impressed with your employment. Stand in awe of the God who has rescued you and has sent you on mission to rescue others. Every one of God's children has a job whether they are getting paid for it or not. Find a way to make a living, but more importantly, live!
A real advance in charity stopped us talking about "surplus population" and started us talking instead about "unemployment." The danger is that this should lead us to forget that employment is not an end in itself. We want people to be employed only as a means to their being fed - believing (whether rightly, who knows?) that it is better to feed them even for making bad things badly than for doing nothing.
Economy, economy, economy! That's all we're hearing about, all we're concerned about and all that matters anymore. We must have jobs. We must employ everyone. We must continue growing the immense wealth of the United States or the world is going to collapse and all will be lost. NEWS FLASH! The world, as we know it, is going to collapse no matter what we do. It has been written and it will be accomplished by the One who established this world and us in it. And contrary to what most may think or feel about the end of the world being such or horrible and dreadful thing, we who are being changed into the likeness of the One who created it all welcome the end of this life with open arms. Who in their right mind wants the world, as it is, to continue anyway?
So how must we live? Let us be about the work that will matter and will last far beyond the collapse of our present world. Let us be concerned more about the unregenerate, not so much the unemployed.
Must we eat? Yes!
Therefore, we must find something to do which earns us a living.
But is that our hope? No!
Our hope is in the One, Jesus, who died and gave Himself up for us, so that, we live beyond the sinful existence we now begrudgingly wade through.
So don't just make a living. Don't go to work today, job or no job, and give a half-ass effort just so you get to the paycheck. Whatever it is you find your hands doing, do it well. Do good work, not just a good work. Be not impressed with your employment. Stand in awe of the God who has rescued you and has sent you on mission to rescue others. Every one of God's children has a job whether they are getting paid for it or not. Find a way to make a living, but more importantly, live!
09 December 2008
For The Depressed
For all of those who suffer with depression and mood issues, this time of year can be the absolute worst. I wanted to write a brief note to all of you who suffer and find it difficult to manage life through the holiday season. The long hours of darkness and short daylight hours mess with everyone's mood and can create an imbalance of serotonin. Here are some ideas for the depressed.
1. Keep your environment lit up! If you sit around in a dimly lit or dark environment you're just making things worse for yourself. You don't have to rack up a high electric bill by leaving all the lights in the house on. Just make sure whatever room your in stays lit up well.
2. Laugh a lot. Watch funny shows and movies. Read funny books and stories. Spend time with friends that can make you laugh. Laughter is the best medicine, even better than Xanex!
3. Eat bananas
4. Eliminate or limit alcohol intake. You may feel like drowning your sorrows, but resist the temptation. Alcohol can have the opposite of your desired effect and actually make it worse.
5. Talk to a close friend or family member about your blah's. If it just gets really bad, share a cup of coffee with a trusted friend and unload a little of that negative emotion. Get it out of your system
I hope these tips help you get through a typically depressed time of year. Blessings to you and your's in Jesus, our newborn King!
1. Keep your environment lit up! If you sit around in a dimly lit or dark environment you're just making things worse for yourself. You don't have to rack up a high electric bill by leaving all the lights in the house on. Just make sure whatever room your in stays lit up well.
2. Laugh a lot. Watch funny shows and movies. Read funny books and stories. Spend time with friends that can make you laugh. Laughter is the best medicine, even better than Xanex!
3. Eat bananas
4. Eliminate or limit alcohol intake. You may feel like drowning your sorrows, but resist the temptation. Alcohol can have the opposite of your desired effect and actually make it worse.
5. Talk to a close friend or family member about your blah's. If it just gets really bad, share a cup of coffee with a trusted friend and unload a little of that negative emotion. Get it out of your system
I hope these tips help you get through a typically depressed time of year. Blessings to you and your's in Jesus, our newborn King!
18 November 2008
A Love Note
I'll never forget the first time I laid eyes on you. I took you in my gaze, and unbeknown to you, crafted exactly what I wanted you to be. From the very tip of your nose to the end of your toes I took you in and sighed a deep breath of satisfaction. You were perfect, unflawed and distinct, unlike anything I'd ever seen. I watched as you exuded life and joy, as your body moved elegantly across fields of dewy flowers. The bright warm sun glowed on your skin and the dark of evening created mysteries with your form and beauty. I stared at you and felt transfixed on what a marvelous creature you were. And then you noticed me. Your eyes met mine and you took interest. You confidently strode to meet me and my heart leaped. You noticed me.
We talked and exchanged interests, asked questions and became very quickly connected. I was absolutely taken with you. I could not get enough of you. You amazed me and made my heart delight in my newly found treasure. We enjoyed the cool evenings together, walking side by side, at times hand in hand. I made promises to you and you received them with laughter and gratitude. It seemed that the more I pressed into you and challenged you, the more life and excitement would flow from you. I thought I was possibly going too fast or allowing you to be too close too fast, but the more I forged ahead the more interested you became. I was filled with your essence until I thought I might explode. You were a masterpiece, a finely crafted piece of art, a pleasing aroma, a true breath of fresh air.
I will also never forget the evening I came looking for you in our secret place to walk with you and enjoy you once again, but you were not there. My heart sank and I wondered what might have happened. Our love and joy had been growing daily and everything was just as it was supposed to be. Surely you had not forgotten me. I thought that what I longed for in you, you also longed for in me. Was I mistaken? Could I have perceived you amiss? I yelled out your name thinking it could be a game, a flirtatious match to create longing and desire. You did not answer. I called it out again and again, looking all around trying not to worry, trying with all of my strength to not think the worst. Finally, I heard you, yet all of the hope I had been carrying just to hear your voice was dashed in a moment. Your voice was not the voice I had grown accustomed to. There was the sound of shame, embarrassment, even death in your voice. It startled me and so I cried out again to show yourself and come to me. My mind reeled with the possibilities, my love has found another, my love has forsaken me for another. Surely not! This could not be! You came to me and as soon as I laid my eyes on you I knew. This once beautiful and majestic human being had been exposed as a fraud. You had given yourself to another and the stain of your guilt had overtaken all that once was flawless and perfect. I looked at you and all I saw was stain, darkness, deceit, filth. I asked for an explanation and all I got was a shifting of blame. The worst of it was that somehow you found a way to blame me. How could I have ever caused such devastation? Yet you stumbled through your ill-conceived words making me out to have some blame in this terrible tragedy. All I ever did was love. I gave you everything and withheld nothing of myself from you. My heart was unadulterated and unswervingly yours!
The romance had ended almost as quickly as it had begun. Yet I still loved you the same. Your embarrassingly poor behavior and rejection had not changed my mind about you. Even after you left me, I still could see a beauty and attraction in you that drew me to you, yet it was buried beneath so much ugliness and dark stains. It was hard to look upon you. I had to remove myself from you. I could not stand to be in your presence because the pain of my loss was too much to bear. I told you to leave and greatly increased your shame by forcing you from my home. But what else could I do? The pain of your rejection burned within me provoking my anger. I did not want to hurt you any further than you had already been hurt, but to be with you again or see you like I had was too risky. But even as I sent you away, I was already trying to find a way to reconcile our relationship. I knew I could not be without you forever, so I began to discover; no, create a way of reconciliation.
Because of the depth and magnitude of your folly, I knew in my heart that you would never again be the same without my intervention. No matter how much I wished you could have gone back to that place of unbroken love, I knew you had been striped of your dignity and perfection beyond your ability to repair. I tried to tell you that our love was a perfect love and that I would always give you all that you needed and more. I promised you day after day after day of all the new things you would experience, enjoy and discover because we were together. But you did not believe it and so the tension and barrier between us grew. In pained me, oh how it hurt, to see you like that. And the pain in my heart would not go away, because even though your longing for me faded, my longing for you never did. No matter the pain, no matter the difficult long road, I was determined to win you back.
As you moved on from me, from us, I would occasionally come by and watch you from a distance. Oh, how I missed you! I watched and remembered our love and what we once had. I watched as you stumbled and struggled without me there by your side. Darkness had enveloped you and your wretched appearance was worsening. Only when I could bear it, I would whisper to you in the night as you slept, or disguise myself and show up on your doorstep just to try and remind you of me. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time I walked away angrier and saddened by your continual rejection. I knew very early on that if our love was to be rekindled, reconciled, it would be my battle to fight. So, I continued to drop hints to you of my presence with you when you were unaware of me. I kept whispering to you in the night, watching you from afar, and I kept trying to point you back to when we were together and what it meant for the both of us. It seemed that the more I would try and come back to you and get you to remember the way it was, the more I would be rejected and worse, even ignored. I knew what you did to yourself was irreparable and would continue to devastate you, even beyond recognition from how I first saw you. I have never stopped weeping for you and longing for you!
No matter how much you continually denied me, I never completely left you. I may have hidden from you and kept myself from you, but it was for your own benefit. Had I revealed myself fully to you in your weakened and darkened state, your guilt and despair for seeing what you had given up would have done you in for good. I had to take my time and be delicate with you if I was going to have a chance at winning you back. Through all of my lonely nights as I would stain my pillow with tears and dream of you, dream of your nearness again, think of our once impermeable love, I became more and more determined to wait patiently for your return. Finally, the day came when my plan would be set in motion and we could once again share the love we once enjoyed. I showed up on your doorstep and came into your house, but not as the one you once knew. I came shrouded in your darkness and misery. I put a cloak around me that had been stained by your terrible betrayal of me. In total humility, I identified myself as the betrayer. I made you to believe I was one, like you, who had destroyed love and adulterated myself with another. But the truth is, I was still your first love, hiding behind your curse.
It tortured me day after day that you did not recognize me, the real me. All you kept seeing was one like you, a miserable tortured soul covered in filth and wickedness. I would say things to you that I used to say when we were together in love, but even that did not cause you to remember. I tried telling you stories of the beautiful places we had been together and the wonderful things that we experienced together, but I was so bound by my disguise, by this blackness that I surrounded myself in, your blackness, that you remembered nothing. Occasionally, I would see something in your eyes that told me you longed for me and my heart would come out of my chest with excitement. But it was short-lived and fleeting, and your darkness would once again consume you and blind you from me. It was absolutely unbearable, at times, living around you like that. What hurt the most was when you would speak to me and treat me like the one whom you left me for. I would watch as you helplessly gave in to your lust for that other lover and I would have to get away, alone and just cry. I wanted to give up so many times. The pain was unbearable and crushing. But my love never changed, even though your love was long gone. I continued to stay with you even while I was being crushed under the tremendous weight of my covering. I knew this weight of mine was carrying me to a hellish end. I kept seeing it come closer and closer as the days passed. My love for you was carrying me into the worst imaginable suffering ever known. Yet I knew that this suffering was my only chance of you returning to me.
The day came that I had dreaded for so long. All the whispers in your dreams, all of the unexpected interruptions of your life, all of the secret words and messages I had been sending you were pointing you to this day. I hoped for all I was worth that my final message to you on this dreaded day would wake you from your nightmare and bring us back together. I knew that decision was ultimately out of my hands, but even the smallest hope that you would return kept me steadfast in my quest for you. This day was the day that everything you did to me, your rejection of my kindness, your floundering about with other lovers, your trampling under foot my blessings was coming back on you to kill you. I had seen it coming from the moment I came looking for you in our secret place and you were not there. I knew then, that you were headed for eradication, non-existence, absolute misery in loneliness. Your new lover owned you the moment you turned from me and this deceiver was prepared to finish you off for good. But I still loved you!
This false lover came looking for you to finish you off, but I stopped that liar. This evil trickster knew I had been trying to win you back forever and nothing had worked to capture your attention. As this madness incarnate came to end you for good, I approached the both of you while you were together. You were standing there oblivious to the destroyer you called lover and even more oblivious to me, your true love. I knew it was coming, but did nothing to stop it. You came over to me and with deceit in your eye kissed me on the cheek. The searing pain in my heart with your nearness yet blackened and betrayed heart was unbearable. I wept and wept inside my cursed shell. You gave me to your lover, the destroyer. He had secretly told you that I must go and it was up to you to turn me over. Only you had that power to give me up and that is exactly what you did. You were the one that deserved death and yet you selfishly turned your death on me. I believe you knew it was me, but you could not let your heart be true.
I was tortured, beaten, mocked, humiliated and made an object of horror. I was stripped naked and bare, completely alone in this misery of death and blackness. I choose this for myself. This was your end, not mine, yet I could not let you be the one to be destroyed. I loved you too much! I struggled under the gravity of it all coming down on me. It was so tempting to throw off your wretched black robe, this shroud, and just walk away. I was the one who loved unconditionally and faithfully. I was the one who never gave up. Yet, I was the one who bled and bruised. Your deceptive lover had his way with me and was all too happy to destroy me. He knew the truth about us and our love and he knew the only way to have you completely was to get rid of me. And he convinced you to turn me over. So I bled and suffered. I gasped for air. You pitied me and offered to medicate my pain, yet I refused. I suffered completely alone and completely aware. I thought of all our times together. I thought of what could be, but was not. I thought of the painful rejections and avoidance. And I breathed my last!
At that moment, all I prepared for you, all that I had done for you, all that was good and right left in our love was gone. You knew it was gone. You hid in shame for your deceit and lies. You tortured yourself with regrets and what if's. You laid awake throughout the night wondering what you had just let yourself be a part of. The black shroud of your shame and undignified humanity clung to you even tighter. You realized that this deceiver that you lusted after and gave yourself to was going to destroy you the same way he destroyed me. You thought you had saved yourself, but all you did was remove me so as to make a quicker end of yourself. But I could not let that happen.
I removed the dark shroud and threw it away from myself. I had endured it long enough and I ended all that it stood for and all that it represented. All of your deceit and lies, all of your unfaithfulness and adulterous escapades, all of your evil and filth, all of your guilt, all of your stained soul was eradicated in that moment. Because I remained truthful and honest, I remained faithful and true, I remained good and pure, I remained innocent and unblemished, I had the power to throw off your guilt with mine. I put on a fresh garment, one stained with my own blood yet shimmering with white light and brilliantly fresh and good. Life, real life, came coursing back into this new garment and I came back to your house! I knocked on your door and when you opened it I hid myself, my true self, from you. I just wanted to look at you as you were, still in your filthy guilt-ridden rags, one last time. Because I knew once you saw me, the real me, there would be no end to our rejoicing. I could let you see me as I am now, because now I can remove your black shroud too.
Will you let me remove the shroud and step back into our love again? Haven't I given you every reason to accept my gift and be one with me again? Is there anything I have not done to bring you back to me? Yet, you must choose. After all, true love is chosen. Will you choose me like I have chosen you. If you will chose me again, if you will have me, I will come live with you and promise to prepare for us an even better place than the first. I will guarantee it by giving you a new spirit and a new heart just like mine. And once that place is prepared we will go there together and I will give you a new body to go with your new heart. We can be in love again like it was in the beginning. I love you! Love me too!
Yours forever and ever,
Jesus
We talked and exchanged interests, asked questions and became very quickly connected. I was absolutely taken with you. I could not get enough of you. You amazed me and made my heart delight in my newly found treasure. We enjoyed the cool evenings together, walking side by side, at times hand in hand. I made promises to you and you received them with laughter and gratitude. It seemed that the more I pressed into you and challenged you, the more life and excitement would flow from you. I thought I was possibly going too fast or allowing you to be too close too fast, but the more I forged ahead the more interested you became. I was filled with your essence until I thought I might explode. You were a masterpiece, a finely crafted piece of art, a pleasing aroma, a true breath of fresh air.
I will also never forget the evening I came looking for you in our secret place to walk with you and enjoy you once again, but you were not there. My heart sank and I wondered what might have happened. Our love and joy had been growing daily and everything was just as it was supposed to be. Surely you had not forgotten me. I thought that what I longed for in you, you also longed for in me. Was I mistaken? Could I have perceived you amiss? I yelled out your name thinking it could be a game, a flirtatious match to create longing and desire. You did not answer. I called it out again and again, looking all around trying not to worry, trying with all of my strength to not think the worst. Finally, I heard you, yet all of the hope I had been carrying just to hear your voice was dashed in a moment. Your voice was not the voice I had grown accustomed to. There was the sound of shame, embarrassment, even death in your voice. It startled me and so I cried out again to show yourself and come to me. My mind reeled with the possibilities, my love has found another, my love has forsaken me for another. Surely not! This could not be! You came to me and as soon as I laid my eyes on you I knew. This once beautiful and majestic human being had been exposed as a fraud. You had given yourself to another and the stain of your guilt had overtaken all that once was flawless and perfect. I looked at you and all I saw was stain, darkness, deceit, filth. I asked for an explanation and all I got was a shifting of blame. The worst of it was that somehow you found a way to blame me. How could I have ever caused such devastation? Yet you stumbled through your ill-conceived words making me out to have some blame in this terrible tragedy. All I ever did was love. I gave you everything and withheld nothing of myself from you. My heart was unadulterated and unswervingly yours!
The romance had ended almost as quickly as it had begun. Yet I still loved you the same. Your embarrassingly poor behavior and rejection had not changed my mind about you. Even after you left me, I still could see a beauty and attraction in you that drew me to you, yet it was buried beneath so much ugliness and dark stains. It was hard to look upon you. I had to remove myself from you. I could not stand to be in your presence because the pain of my loss was too much to bear. I told you to leave and greatly increased your shame by forcing you from my home. But what else could I do? The pain of your rejection burned within me provoking my anger. I did not want to hurt you any further than you had already been hurt, but to be with you again or see you like I had was too risky. But even as I sent you away, I was already trying to find a way to reconcile our relationship. I knew I could not be without you forever, so I began to discover; no, create a way of reconciliation.
Because of the depth and magnitude of your folly, I knew in my heart that you would never again be the same without my intervention. No matter how much I wished you could have gone back to that place of unbroken love, I knew you had been striped of your dignity and perfection beyond your ability to repair. I tried to tell you that our love was a perfect love and that I would always give you all that you needed and more. I promised you day after day after day of all the new things you would experience, enjoy and discover because we were together. But you did not believe it and so the tension and barrier between us grew. In pained me, oh how it hurt, to see you like that. And the pain in my heart would not go away, because even though your longing for me faded, my longing for you never did. No matter the pain, no matter the difficult long road, I was determined to win you back.
As you moved on from me, from us, I would occasionally come by and watch you from a distance. Oh, how I missed you! I watched and remembered our love and what we once had. I watched as you stumbled and struggled without me there by your side. Darkness had enveloped you and your wretched appearance was worsening. Only when I could bear it, I would whisper to you in the night as you slept, or disguise myself and show up on your doorstep just to try and remind you of me. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time I walked away angrier and saddened by your continual rejection. I knew very early on that if our love was to be rekindled, reconciled, it would be my battle to fight. So, I continued to drop hints to you of my presence with you when you were unaware of me. I kept whispering to you in the night, watching you from afar, and I kept trying to point you back to when we were together and what it meant for the both of us. It seemed that the more I would try and come back to you and get you to remember the way it was, the more I would be rejected and worse, even ignored. I knew what you did to yourself was irreparable and would continue to devastate you, even beyond recognition from how I first saw you. I have never stopped weeping for you and longing for you!
No matter how much you continually denied me, I never completely left you. I may have hidden from you and kept myself from you, but it was for your own benefit. Had I revealed myself fully to you in your weakened and darkened state, your guilt and despair for seeing what you had given up would have done you in for good. I had to take my time and be delicate with you if I was going to have a chance at winning you back. Through all of my lonely nights as I would stain my pillow with tears and dream of you, dream of your nearness again, think of our once impermeable love, I became more and more determined to wait patiently for your return. Finally, the day came when my plan would be set in motion and we could once again share the love we once enjoyed. I showed up on your doorstep and came into your house, but not as the one you once knew. I came shrouded in your darkness and misery. I put a cloak around me that had been stained by your terrible betrayal of me. In total humility, I identified myself as the betrayer. I made you to believe I was one, like you, who had destroyed love and adulterated myself with another. But the truth is, I was still your first love, hiding behind your curse.
It tortured me day after day that you did not recognize me, the real me. All you kept seeing was one like you, a miserable tortured soul covered in filth and wickedness. I would say things to you that I used to say when we were together in love, but even that did not cause you to remember. I tried telling you stories of the beautiful places we had been together and the wonderful things that we experienced together, but I was so bound by my disguise, by this blackness that I surrounded myself in, your blackness, that you remembered nothing. Occasionally, I would see something in your eyes that told me you longed for me and my heart would come out of my chest with excitement. But it was short-lived and fleeting, and your darkness would once again consume you and blind you from me. It was absolutely unbearable, at times, living around you like that. What hurt the most was when you would speak to me and treat me like the one whom you left me for. I would watch as you helplessly gave in to your lust for that other lover and I would have to get away, alone and just cry. I wanted to give up so many times. The pain was unbearable and crushing. But my love never changed, even though your love was long gone. I continued to stay with you even while I was being crushed under the tremendous weight of my covering. I knew this weight of mine was carrying me to a hellish end. I kept seeing it come closer and closer as the days passed. My love for you was carrying me into the worst imaginable suffering ever known. Yet I knew that this suffering was my only chance of you returning to me.
The day came that I had dreaded for so long. All the whispers in your dreams, all of the unexpected interruptions of your life, all of the secret words and messages I had been sending you were pointing you to this day. I hoped for all I was worth that my final message to you on this dreaded day would wake you from your nightmare and bring us back together. I knew that decision was ultimately out of my hands, but even the smallest hope that you would return kept me steadfast in my quest for you. This day was the day that everything you did to me, your rejection of my kindness, your floundering about with other lovers, your trampling under foot my blessings was coming back on you to kill you. I had seen it coming from the moment I came looking for you in our secret place and you were not there. I knew then, that you were headed for eradication, non-existence, absolute misery in loneliness. Your new lover owned you the moment you turned from me and this deceiver was prepared to finish you off for good. But I still loved you!
This false lover came looking for you to finish you off, but I stopped that liar. This evil trickster knew I had been trying to win you back forever and nothing had worked to capture your attention. As this madness incarnate came to end you for good, I approached the both of you while you were together. You were standing there oblivious to the destroyer you called lover and even more oblivious to me, your true love. I knew it was coming, but did nothing to stop it. You came over to me and with deceit in your eye kissed me on the cheek. The searing pain in my heart with your nearness yet blackened and betrayed heart was unbearable. I wept and wept inside my cursed shell. You gave me to your lover, the destroyer. He had secretly told you that I must go and it was up to you to turn me over. Only you had that power to give me up and that is exactly what you did. You were the one that deserved death and yet you selfishly turned your death on me. I believe you knew it was me, but you could not let your heart be true.
I was tortured, beaten, mocked, humiliated and made an object of horror. I was stripped naked and bare, completely alone in this misery of death and blackness. I choose this for myself. This was your end, not mine, yet I could not let you be the one to be destroyed. I loved you too much! I struggled under the gravity of it all coming down on me. It was so tempting to throw off your wretched black robe, this shroud, and just walk away. I was the one who loved unconditionally and faithfully. I was the one who never gave up. Yet, I was the one who bled and bruised. Your deceptive lover had his way with me and was all too happy to destroy me. He knew the truth about us and our love and he knew the only way to have you completely was to get rid of me. And he convinced you to turn me over. So I bled and suffered. I gasped for air. You pitied me and offered to medicate my pain, yet I refused. I suffered completely alone and completely aware. I thought of all our times together. I thought of what could be, but was not. I thought of the painful rejections and avoidance. And I breathed my last!
At that moment, all I prepared for you, all that I had done for you, all that was good and right left in our love was gone. You knew it was gone. You hid in shame for your deceit and lies. You tortured yourself with regrets and what if's. You laid awake throughout the night wondering what you had just let yourself be a part of. The black shroud of your shame and undignified humanity clung to you even tighter. You realized that this deceiver that you lusted after and gave yourself to was going to destroy you the same way he destroyed me. You thought you had saved yourself, but all you did was remove me so as to make a quicker end of yourself. But I could not let that happen.
I removed the dark shroud and threw it away from myself. I had endured it long enough and I ended all that it stood for and all that it represented. All of your deceit and lies, all of your unfaithfulness and adulterous escapades, all of your evil and filth, all of your guilt, all of your stained soul was eradicated in that moment. Because I remained truthful and honest, I remained faithful and true, I remained good and pure, I remained innocent and unblemished, I had the power to throw off your guilt with mine. I put on a fresh garment, one stained with my own blood yet shimmering with white light and brilliantly fresh and good. Life, real life, came coursing back into this new garment and I came back to your house! I knocked on your door and when you opened it I hid myself, my true self, from you. I just wanted to look at you as you were, still in your filthy guilt-ridden rags, one last time. Because I knew once you saw me, the real me, there would be no end to our rejoicing. I could let you see me as I am now, because now I can remove your black shroud too.
Will you let me remove the shroud and step back into our love again? Haven't I given you every reason to accept my gift and be one with me again? Is there anything I have not done to bring you back to me? Yet, you must choose. After all, true love is chosen. Will you choose me like I have chosen you. If you will chose me again, if you will have me, I will come live with you and promise to prepare for us an even better place than the first. I will guarantee it by giving you a new spirit and a new heart just like mine. And once that place is prepared we will go there together and I will give you a new body to go with your new heart. We can be in love again like it was in the beginning. I love you! Love me too!
Yours forever and ever,
Jesus
30 September 2008
We Are Americans
I'm listening to all the Representatives and Senators talk about this hot topic of "Bailout" or "Rescue Plan." Something I've heard today and I've been hearing for a long time is that these so-called Legislators keep referring to me as the "common" or "ordinary" citizen. I've had enough of it. I'm anything but "common" and "ordinary" as are my fellow Americans. There is an air of superiority and condescension when you read between the lines of what these oligarchs keep repeating. As they write law they develop an attitude that they are above the law. The lack of regulatory common sense law that these hand puppets have been avoiding has come back to bite them in the "you know what" and they continue to have the audacity to refer to us as "common" and "ordinary." Where is the humility of a public servant? Where is the integrity of those who can refuse the bribery and handout from Wall Street bigwigs? Why can't we find some "ordinary" citizens that can truly represent the interests of their constituent bosses? It is you and I, the backbone of American independence and productivity that makes this nation great. It is our long hours, ingenuity, honesty and sacred honor that drives the economy. How dare we be looked down upon by the power-drunken lawmakers as the poor regular Joe who has to be talked down to so we can understand this complex financial problem? We're not stupid kids and you're not our parents. You work for us, so you better listen up. You're about to be fired. The way we'll fire you is by voting you out. If that doesn't work, because we're not blind to the voter fraud schemes going on behind the scenes, than we can call for a referendum on each and every one of you, Republican and Democrat, from a grassroots effort. Bottom line - We are lifelong voters, concerned and aware citizens, hard-working Americans and we are the government. We will not be talked down to and we will not sit by and watch our country be auctioned off to the highest bidders. We are anything but "common" or "ordinary." We are rare and extraordinary. We are Americans!
18 August 2008
Why a Thorny Crown?
A thought occurred to me last night. I was sitting on my back patio
enjoying the cool evening and doing some praying and meditating. I
watched as the bright moon shone over the east horizon. I marveled at
the stars billions of light years away imagining the day I might be
able to travel there. I also began thinking about the extensive curse
of sin. All over creation, in humans, in the sky, in culture, in
technology, in the ground, in the entire universe, in everything there
is a curse. It is like a heavy, dense and pervasive dark blanket in and
on everything. As much as the cool air felt refreshing, the night sky
proclaimed God's glory, the birds and bugs chirped their praises to
their Maker - I kept thinking how distorted and distant it all was from
God's original plan for us. Then I remembered some of the things God
said right after Adam and Eve sinned and brought this curse on all of
creation. He said to Adam that the ground would produce thorns and
thistles making it difficult and irritating to work the ground. The
thorns poke and prick and cause bleeding and cutting. Thorns cause
irritation under our skin and can lead to infection and rash and all
sorts of nasty, unpleasant and annoying consequences. I love blackberry's,
but I hate picking them. Why? Thorns!
Now as I thought about all of this I asked the Holy Spirit to speak to
me and tell me what the importance is of the thorns. Why thorns? Why
these sharp, poison-tipped, irritations? He responded to me with a picture.
I saw in my mind the crown of thorns being thrust into Jesus head,
penetrating his flesh and skull causing a rush of blood followed by
swelling, pain, burning. The thorns were not piercing his hands or feet.
They were not scratching his legs or arms. They were not pushed into His
torso or back. They were pushed violently into his head. The head that
dreamed dreams and had wise thoughts. The divine head that spoke such
tenderness and hope. The mind of the Savior, Jesus, who had his eye on you
and me from before we were conceived. The mind of Jesus was pierced with
poison and pain from a terrible symbol of our disobedience and rebellion,
the thorn. He took on the mental anguish and torture that we humans brought
on ourselves. His death was sufficient to not only forgive our sin, but the
stripes of torture on his back provide physical healing to our bodies, and
the punctured thorns in his head provide mental stability and wholeness. His
mind was pierced and tortured for you. The poisonous thorns of sin's curse
satisfied God's wrath against us and our depravity, making a way for us to be
whole and clear-headed again.
So, it was not by coincidence that the thorn produced by our rebellion against
God was the same instrument used to contaminate and painfully wound the head
of our Redeemer. The head is the seat of knowledge, wisdom, function and
personality. It is the control center of our bodies. It is the storehouse of
memory and intelligence and the symbol of honor and dignity of the human being.And it is the same place where our Savior was violently and mockingly gouged for
our benefit. Because of this godly wrath upon Jesus, there is provision for our
mental well-being to be restored. For all who suffer with mental, intellectual,
personality disorders, the thorns of our disobedience have thrust upon One Man
all our insufficiencies and lack of mental well-being. And this One Man, Jesus,
conquered for all time our deformities of well-being and replaced it with a
renewed mind. Be encouraged and inspired by your King. He has won the day and
given it to you!
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