Do you identify?

Have you ever thought about the Jesus who identifies with us? Probably our understanding of him as the Son of God and our Saviour prevent us from considering the full implications of a verse like Hebrews 4:15;

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."

Yet a discussion on shame in class the other day got me thinking about the Jesus who not only sympathizes with us, but the Jesus who identifies with us. In regards to shame, Jesus was born into shame, ministered to those in shame and died in shame. This is much more than sympathizing. This is identifying himself with the shamed, the outcast, the lonely and the hurting. And what's even more amazing is how Jesus does this with his life, his words and even his touch.The details of Christ’s life constantly point to a Saviour that feels, experiences and knows the most painful aspects of life, while at the same time providing power and hope. It’s incredible to think that we have a Saviour who truly moves toward us in real and intimate ways.

"Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed him."

In considering this verse in Matthew 20, I've been really struck by the concept of touch, that Jesus reaches out physically, identifying himself with what has been shamed, and then giving power and life. We have a Saviour willing to touch us where we are most vulnerable, most hurting, and most afraid. We have a Saviour who doesn't stand far off or removed. We have Saviour willing to be made unlcean by our sin so that he can make us whole and give real, abundant life. How incredibly personal and intimate!

I can’t help but think that we should again be encouraged to identify with those around us, moving alongside those who are hurting, reaching out and then offering that renewing and cleansing power of Christ. The challenge is to do that in a real way like Christ, not standing far off, unwilling to get our hands dirty, but engaging in authentic compassion and love.We are encouraged to identify with the lost, unclean, and outcast because we have a Saviour who willingly did so, bringing salvation and strength, hope and honour and glorifying the Father in that very act of touching the unclean and restoring it to wholeness.

We bring glory to God when we are moved with compassion to identify ourselves with the broken, outcast, and hurting.

in the presence of a fortress

"When a heart is being filled with the greatness of God, there is less room for the question, 'What are people going to think of me?'" - Welch

I wonder if you've ever had the experience where someone points out a character flaw that you're either not aware of, or thought you had taken care of or were at least hiding? One was recently quite painfully pointed out to me but I suppose it is one that we all suffer with it in someway or another, so it will be no surprise to hear me mention it, but we are talking about lack of confidence or insecurity. Now I think we all know that we all struggle a bit with this, but most of us have found ways around it or at least not putting it front and centre. Therefore it is a bit disconcerting when someone discovers it in us and then points it out to us. Heaven forbid I appear less than perfect and totally confident at all times :) but seriously it is good to take a closer look to make sure the enemy isn't getting in and telling us lies.

In this particular circumstance, a growing lack of trust probably triggered it. However, if we just put it down to trust it would be to easy to blame them, which conveniently lets me off. So while exploring this concept of trust, an image kept coming to mind of me standing naked and exposed in the presence of a large grey fortress. And I wonder if all of us feel that way in at least one of our relationships right now? Maybe it's that friend we've been close to forever but now feels like no one is home, or the teenager who just won't let you in, or someone new that you'd just like to get to know better? If we are honest, there is always some one in our life with which we want greater trust, great intimacy, and greater love.

I think for most of us, we go about our lives, either in the village, the city or whatever and in the course of life we come across a fortress. We know, either from what we've heard or the large windows, that we'd like entrance. Fundamentally, we know fortresses are good, places of security, safety, warmth and hospitality, so it is quite logical to want in, either because we are passing through or looking for a permanent home. So like any person we present ourselves, confident that we will gain entrance because we have no reason to believe otherwise. Yet we begin to have trouble getting in, so we present ourselves again, making known who we are, exposing ourselves and again confident that who we are is enough.

Unfortunately, this is where it can get a bit tricky, especially as the fortress holds firm. We forget that we were just passing by, that there are other places, villages, and cities that would welcome us in. We forget that while the fortress offers the comfort and security of a better relationship that there are other places and that there is a mighty and loving God ruling over all. And this is where it starts to go wrong. Maybe we use flattery to woo that friend back, or maybe its gifts to get that teenager to open up or maybe we write them off because we are tired of trying, meanwhile the fortress grows larger and larger and we become smaller and smaller. Our world becomes consumed with gaining entrance, seeking their approval, having that right relationship, and eventually all else can be lost, while the fortress looms over us, hiding us from the view of brilliant sun, rolling fields, signposts for other places and our loving Father.

Now I know I've painted quite a picture but this is just one aspect to our understanding of the fear of man. My professor Ed Welch has written a book on this called 'When People are Big and God is Small' and it deals with this very issue of making people big while losing our eternal perspective. So yes, there may have been a lack of trust in this particular situation but a godly response from me would have been greater trust in God while continually placing this fortress in a eternal perspective.

Fortresses are still worth gaining entrance but like all things we must be careful not to inflate them, instead we must seek to elevate Christ.

our brilliant morning star

"And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

Luke 1:76-79

I remember one Christmas season coming across this verse in Luke about the birth of Christ as if I had never read it before. I'm sure I'm not the only that finds verses in very familiar passages speaking to us as if for the very first time. And maybe like you, at Christmas time, when we feel so familiar with its story, it almost becomes impossible to hear it fresh. We hear sermons, children's plays, abbreviated versions on TV and in movies, and slowly Christmas isn't new, and its lost its power to surprise and delight.

Yet I remember those surprising words 'God's tender mercy', and Christ as the 'rising sun' in regards to the advent, to the first parousia of Christ. Christ incarnate is like a beautiful and amazing sunrise on a dark and dying land. I need visual pictures to help me sometimes and often Christmas gets relegated to the image of a manger- tiny, small, insignificant. But here in these very verses Christ's birth becomes huge, larger than life and the most beautiful and wonderful thing in all the world.

Well this was a few years ago, but this advent I was drawn to this line from 2 Peter 1:19

'We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. '

You're probably thinking what on earth does this have to do with Christmas or advent, but here's the connection; this verse along with a good part of 2 Peter points us to the second parousia, the second coming of Christ, which is compared to the morning star in our hearts. Do you get the connection? The first advent was the morning star, sunrise on earth but the second and final one will be a sunrise in our hearts. That is how big and powerful and beautiful Christmas really is because what happened 2000 years ago will reach its ultimate culmination in us when Christ comes again, when the morning star will rise in our hearts forever. No more darkness, no more sin, no more evil - just glorious, beautiful, brilliant life and light forever.

So this Christmas as you reflect on the incarnation, on the birth of Christ let it draw you to His second coming, ever big, ever powerful, ever glorious!!!

deep organic love

I love the end of the semester. Yes, it's crazy, exhausting and challenging but you get these moments of clarity that blow your mind. Today it was a word in class, the mediation on a hymn and a passage from Romans all coming together.

Dr. Garner said . . .

' for God to stop loving us, he would have to stop loving his Son.'

Let that sink in for a moment. We know it is impossible for God to not love his Son. God is love, his Son is love. So how is it possible that we can be so connected with Christ that it is impossible for God to stop loving us because it would mean that he has stopped loving his Son? Dr. Garner went on to say . . .

' that is how organic the work of the Spirit is in uniting us with Christ.'

This means that the Holy Spirit's work in us is so interconnected to Christ that they can no longer be separated. It is no longer just me. Or just Christ. It is Christ and me so incredibly, inseparably, organically together that if God was to remove his love from me he would be doing that to Christ.

So when we come to Romans 8:38-39 and it says . .

' 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 that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

Surely, this is what Paul was thinking about when he wrote it. He fully grasped that nothing could ever separate us from the love of God in Christ, because nothing can ever separated God's love from his Son. Christ experienced everything on Paul's list, but God never removed his love, instead His love conquered. It just blows my mind that God's love is so total, so complete, so perfect, so inescapable and so inseparably organic. I struggle to get my head around it but then I remember the song that has been stuck in my head for the last two weeks. And slowly like the dawning light, God's love for me and you grows even larger. I become lost in God's love for me like a fish in the sea, living water over me, under me, in me, taking me onward to perfect rest and assurance.

'O the deep, deep love of Jesus' by Samuel Francis

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to They glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, spread His praise from shore to shore!
How he loveth, ever loveth, changeth never, nevermore!
How He watches o'er His loved one, died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth, watcheth o'er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, love of every love the best!
'Tis an ocean full of blessing, 'tis a haven giving rest!
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, 'tis a heaven of heavens to me;
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

Rest in his love, abide in him and he in your for nothing can ever ever separate you from the love of God in Christ!

no return ticket

So I had one of those weeks where all of a sudden you comprehend something in a totally new way. Something was articulated in my prologomena class but then a book I was reading for a my counseling class helped.

Sinclair Ferguson said in The Christian Life:

'Perhaps the most wonderful thing of all is this: God lifts us not only from what we are by nature to what Adam was in the Garden of Eden, but what he was to become in the presence of God and what he would have been in the presence of God.

The Gospel does not make us like Adam in his innocence- it makes us like Christ, in all the perfection of his reflection of God.'

I think some where I had this strange idea if Adam had never sinned then he had a perfect relationship God. That he would not need to progress, to learn discipline, or basically be sanctified. However that is a completely false notion. Whether or not Adam disobeyed or obeyed God, he was still to learn, to grow, to perfect until it was time to be united with God permanently. God's plan for us was not a perpetual Eden, in which we remained innocent and unchanged.

His purpose for us was always growth, always to have his name glorified through us, always a greater end. And some how last week, this finally broke through in a new way. Its implications for counselling are amazing because we are never trying to return, but we are constantly pressing forward. We will never return to Eden. We will never return to the state of Adam before the fall. We will never return to innocence. And neither we will ever return to the reign of sin.

Instead we are going forward, moving in grace, attaining sanctification all through Christ. Through Christ we attain this perfection, experience growth and are changed day by day so that when we stand before the throne of God we are everything we were meant to be because of Christ and in Christ.

So while I get this nostalgic idea in my head about Adam never sinning, or even worse a world without growth and progress I must called to mind that God always purposed something more for his creation. Our growth, our sanctification in Christ allows us the full benefits and joys of a relationship with God, even more than Adam had in Eden with God.

The call is not to return to innocence but to move forward in obedience.

responsible voting

I am sure I am not alone in wishing that tomorrow's vote would already be over. I am sick of the slandering propaganda. I am tired of the polarization. I am exhausted with trying to listen past the polemic rhetoric and to find the truth in there some where.

But my mistake would be to get so worn down that I don't vote. Or that I get so annoyed that I don't check the facts. Or I get swayed by those around me. Instead I must remind myself and those around me that my vote does matter. And my responsible vote matters even more.

I must not vote based on one issue. I must not believe the lies about either candidate. I must not vote for someone just to get rid of the current politician. I must not get so frustrated with a broken system that I give up. I must not get so angry with all of it that I vote rashly.

Because honestly right now that's what I want to do. However instead I need to go check my facts. I need to wade through the information and not the propaganda. I need to weigh up issues of funding, education, the environment, and jobs against taxes, moral hot buttons and healthcare. I need to remember that one issue at the cost of several other important issues must not determine my vote. I need to prayerfully consider all the options and all the implications of either candidates position. I need to vote responsibly.

And I must urge you to do the same. Go check out www.votesmart.org and type in your zip code. Check out each candidates voting record. Each one- even the one you think you disagree with - you may be surprised at what you see. The voting position link on the right is particularly helpful.

Again I reminded that voting is a privilege. I know it sounds trite but seriously -people have died for this opportunity, let's not throw it away!

anger

So I was reading an article for class. It was on anger and how to deal with people who are angry. This pulled me up short . . .

"Look at your worst relationships and you will see your relationship with Jesus. Am I having warm, fuzzy relationships with all kinds of folks, but there is one person out there I can't stand and want to avoid at all costs? If you only hate one person, you hate God."

Wow! Its such a strong statement. So strong that we want to revolt against. Why? Because I think, if we are honest with ourselves we probably have one or two people in our lives that we struggle to get along with. Maybe we think if the co-worker would get assigned to another location, or if I just don't pick up my phone they'll stop calling, or why can't so-and-so just be quiet. Maybe we just think that's normal. Of course we aren't going to get along with everyone but are we letting those thoughts escalate? Are we wishing them ill, talking bad about them, avoiding them, cursing them? Sometimes it helps me to think about what I'm not doing.

If I'm harboring anger towards someone I am usually not praying for them, I usually can't find any good in them, and I forget that they are a child of God too. The moment I do that I am no longer in a right relationship with them because I have only seen their sin and I am sitting in judgment over them, which makes me God. Having made myself God, I can no longer be friends with the one and only true God. So while it might seem radical to say if I only hate one person than I hate God, it's the closest thing to the truth that there can be. Where is my right to judge someone else, who am I to be angry with another person, what right do I have to justify myself? None. I am not God. I am his child. I bear his image and my goal is to be like Christ, not actually Christ.

The reality check:

It's far too easy to let anger and judgement creep in without noticing I am slowly dethroning God.