Timeless Grace

When Jesus was crucified upon the Cross He took upon the sins of humanity past, present and future. 2 Corinthians 5 states, "He died for all. . .". If we are to believe this to be true we must also conclude that God was completely gracious to every human being ever. "All" surprisingly in the original Greek means "all."

So I come then to a conundrum: what about the Amalekites, the Midianites, the Philistines, and every people that God destroyed? How do we stomach that? Was God complete grace to them too? I understand that these people were destroyed to make way for Israel and due to their own wrong-doing, but total destruction doesn't seem the right course. I think about the lives of the men, woman, and children that made up these people and I cannot come to the logical conclusion that they were all somehow pure evil. No, I believe that they were human as much as I am and thus a subject of God's grace. But where is this grace?

I submit to you that God was gracious to them just as much as He is to us today after Christ's death and resurrection.

1 Peter 3:18-20
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

This illustrates a story of grace. It depicts the Son, after His crucifixion, going to the countless lost souls or "spirits in prison" and telling them of what He had just done: died for their sins. For if He indeed died for all of humanity, past, present and future, this must be true.

When I look at the lives of these people caught in genocide I see a different story now. I see one of God giving them chances to change, to bow to Israel's expansion, to turn to God, yet refusing. I see their deaths but then I see a victorious Savior coming and explaining that they have yet another chance to accept Grace.

Today I see a Son who defeated Death in every moment in history. God did not just save those who came after Christ, He defied death to be Grace.

Romans 8:38-39
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A Liturgy for Purpose

  Purpose defines one’s perspective of existence. John 15:13’s “Greater love has no one than this, that someone would lay down his life for a friend” is even perceived as basic in the light of Eternal Glory (i.e. Agape Love). Giving everything is reasonable, if not minimum, when faced with the realization of what He has given.

Purpose aligns us with the vision of seeing His Kingdom come, His Will be done. It’s equally exciting as it is epic. To think that we live and breathe to see that mission realized. All and everything we do should be to “Prepare the Way” for Him to come.

     We are the Voice crying out in the Wilderness. Just as the Prophet Isaiah spoke of John the Baptist being that voice (Isaiah 40:3), so too he spoke of us, the Church. And you think that your pain and hurt are without reason? Matthew 3:4 says: “Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.” In the same way, the anguish and hardship you bear in equally as important to His coming as your passion and zeal is.  It is an amplifier for our given purpose towards the Coming Glory.

And please understand me, when I speak of “His coming” and “making a way”, I speak not just of the Rapture and His descent from Heaven as spoken of in Revelation; I also refer to making a way for Christ to come to hearts now. I point towards the lives you currently live and the ministry you are walking in today.

  You were born to be lighthouses to the raging sea of humanity. And we live in hope that we might pass on to be among the sea of glass (Revelation 15:2) before the Lamb who sits on the Throne. To reflect His Light forevermore as we finally gaze into His Face.

You were created as ambassadors of the Almighty, speaking with the tongues of One far greater. You are servants. You are children.

You have a divine purpose to live out. Matthew 22:14 (ESV) says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Stepping into your purpose qualifies you to be chosen and continuously choosing His plan for your life sanctioned you for intimacy with your Creator. We live in this purpose through the simple, yet profound declaration made by John the Baptist in John 3:4 (ESV):

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Desperate Hope

Daniel 9:19

O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”

We are not strong and secure beings.

We're born imperfect, fragile, breakable.

Or rather, we're born malleable.

But to be fragile or changeable, that is generally considered a weakness, a lack of conviction or strength.

What if we lived with a realization that we don't have the answers, the strength, or the foresight and that's okay.

"For Your own sake..."

I don't think it's about us being smart.

I don't think we were sent to earth to hoard knowledge in hope of becoming wise. Nor were we sent to feel everything and understand everyone.

We have a place, and that is a position of reliance, of desperation.

Daniel was wise, strong, handsome, intelligent, and as close to an ideal example as you might find in the Bible. The Word never talks about his weaknesses, throughout every trial he performs near perfectly.

But Daniel was desperately reliant on God. He never trusted in his own ability, only ever the greatness of His God.

We were not made to achieve strength, we were made to accept it.

I want to choose surrender every time, because I've found that's the only thing that works. Not my intellect, but my messy submittion.

The Lion's Den: Christ is Enough

Daniel 6, the passage of Daniel in the lion's den, is well known to most Christians.
Right now, instead of focusing on him in the Lion's den I wanted to look more at his responses beforehand. Three times a day he would open his windows to Jerusalem and pray. This was his time for seeking God.

When life hit him hard (the other wise-men trapped him through the law passed), he continued in his pursuit of God.

Daniel believed something very crucial here: God is enough

God is truly and actually all we need. That was his firm understanding.

And if Christ is all we need, then anything else but simply God Himself is an added blessing.

Family, friends, finance, and any other blessings, all of that is not necessary.

By saying, "I am enough," God is saying that we were designed to be able to live even if we only have Him.

Now, God gives us all of that other stuff because He wants to bless us. But, the point is that He is all we need.

Daniel understood this. And God was enough for Him.

We don't see his three friends in this passage coming and patting him on the back saying, "It'll be okay," and so on.

No, all Daniel had was God. Yet that was enough.

So the point of him going into the lion's den wasn't to show his courage or trust. No, it was revealing that in every step Daniel knew that God was enough and in that, that God can overcome.

So if that understanding is had (that Christ is enough), then being in a lion's den, standing before kings, being alone, any problem we face really, quickly loses it's power because a rescue isn't based upon our courage but God being enough

And He is.

Sides of Perfection

God is perfect.
And as humans, that really aggravates us.

Let me explain. I'll use the best possible example to exemplify this: the Church.
We have our opinions, we have our hopes, we have our dreams and what we do with all of that is transplant it into attempting to define God, who (if you didn't know) is indescribable.

There is a natural paradox that occurs when humans come into relationship with their Creator God. They try to seek Him and know Him yet He is unknowable. They long to learn who He is and explore the vastness of His character and yet they can never truly know the fullness of His expansive nature. Thus the paradox of Christianity.

Due to this lack of ours (or rather the fact of our mortal and human nature) we fall to choosing. We come to choosing which side of God's perfection we most prefer and thus disunity abounds. For God is indeed perfect. Just as He is perfectly merciful He is also perfectly wrathful. He is in Jesus both the man of sorrows who knows the pain of the entire world and simultaneously the man who embodied the very reality of joy. He is always perfect, in everything. And we don't know how to deal with that.

So we choose a side. From denomination to denomination, from congregation to congregation, from person to person, we choose which side most pertains to our opinion and mindset. Some choose to focus on the perfection of God's love whilst shunning the reality of His vengeful anger. Others look primarily to the wrath of God and find themselves transfixed on God through fear, yet they fail to allow God as their Friend to come further into their hearts.

Due to the vastness of God's perfection there are countless sides that are taken within the Church and thus disunity and division occurs from the pride in our human nature. As we choose sides we are profaning the very perfection of God that we commit to pursue. God is perfect, which means that both sides and all aspects of His perfection are just that: perfect. There is no bias. There is no favoritism. God's perfection is in perfect balance. Unfortunately due to our choosing of sides on the expanse of God's perfection, we dispel so much of the perfection that God would bring into our own lives and into His Church.

We as the Church must come to want all of God, not just the sides that we prefer. As each Christian and human comes to this place and submits their pride unto God to accept all of His perfection, then unity like none ever seen before will erupt in the hearts of God's people and the peace that passes all understanding will be given room to move over all of us more and more.

Matthew 5:48
Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Future/Past

In our individual speck of existence we come to the quick subconscious or conscious misconception that well; it's about us. The fact is, that's not true. It's never been about us. Creation, existence, the universe, it may be for us, but it certainly is not all pointing to us.

There's an interesting term that's been floating in my head recently:
Being "Kingdom Minded."
To be "Kingdom minded" means to put the work of God first and foremost in your life. It means to prioritize the Lord and His plans first. When God becomes number one priority, everything else, all your hopes and desires, you begin to see them appear where you didn't expect them.

Matthew 6:33
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

This "putting of the Kingdom of God first" is the exact opposite of what human intellect and intention will encourage you towards. The flesh cries out for your own life, for your own good. And that might look like focusing just on God working in your life, which isn't bad, but if that is your biggest priority, you're doing it wrong. That is verse saying, put the Kingdom of God first. After that, then the rest will come. It's a chronological path. If this, then that. The steps have to be followed for completion.

God always has the best for you in mind, which is why He is building you for the future, not just this moment. That's why we go through hardships! That's why life is simply horrible sometimes, it's because God sees (unlike us) more than just today and he wants so desperately to get us there.

It's so easy to think that God is "mad" or "angry" at us, but on the contrary, everything He has ever done for us has been out of concern and care for us. Every single action, every single anything, that was for you. And we miss that. All we see is the lack, the disappearance, the invisibility, and in reality (the reality that we often miss) He is building us up and bringing us closer to who we are called to be in Him.

But all of this starts with realizing it's not about us.
It's about Him. And He is Everything.

"And You,
You are my first
You are my last
You are my future and my past" - Future/Past, John Mark McMillan 

The things of God are so much higher than we can understand. He Himself is beyond us. So we must place our eyes, our hopes, our everything upon Him, because only He can hold and carry it all. 

Job 36:26a

"Look, God is greater than we can understand."

Cast Your Cares

In our walk, there are troubles all around. They beat down at our door and scream for us to allow them footing in our lives and hearts.
In this past season, problems, struggles, and hardships have most certainly been allowed to take huge influence over me and the decisions that I make. I've felt alone, afraid, and abandoned. From my heart has come the cry of David, "Where are you God?"

It's in those moments that we think, "Didn't God say that He wouldn't give us more than we could handle?" Unfortunately the Bible doesn't express that.
What we find in the Word is this scripture:

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

He won't allow more temptation than we can handle. But struggle, trial, hardship; that's a different matter.

2 Corinthians 1:8-10
For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

"But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God."
There's the truth of the matter. We will be given more than we can bare. We will have to endure through a struggle greater than our ability to persevere through.
That's the beauty in the struggle though, we have to rely on God.

1 Peter 5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.

It has never been a question as to whether God will be there for us, He wants to exalt us, He wants to care for us more and more. The requirement to allow this to happen is for us to
1) Humble Ourselves
2) Cast Our Cares Upon the Lord
3) Rely On God

In humbling ourselves we come to understand that we cannot save ourselves or others. We cannot figure out and control ourselves. We can learn discipline and acquire wisdom, but we must come to the realization that we cannot do it without God. If we try, we will fail and fail again.

To cast our cares upon the Lord means that we take the worries and struggles that we are enduring and place them into His hands. This can be seen in relationships, in giving God the reigns and realizing that He alone can take care of them and save them. Also we see this in giving our time to Him. If we spend our time trying to "soul seek" and looking constantly on who we think we are, we'll most likely only make it worse. But if we seek God than we are becoming more like Him and thus becoming who we were designed to be in Him.

Finally, relying on God is key. The passage says, "For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself." In this Paul is saying that they had nothing left to give and no where else to go, they had to turn to God or it was death. And in relying on God they were brought through that time of feeling that they "had received the sentence of death." God rescued them.

He wishes to do the same for you. And not just in a huge way where He comes down on a white horse to bring you home (though He does want to and will do that), but also is small everyday situations. In your conversations, in your workplace, at school, in church, when you're alone, He wants to save you and bring you higher in every one of those moments. All it takes is, "Yes, Lord."