He tells me I am His own

But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hinderance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Matthew 16:23

...that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 

1 Corinthians 2:5

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. 1 Timothy 1:13

Yesterday I went to the Upper Room for pounding worship, Price Club pizza and a good word from Hector.  He reminded us that in the Garden, Eve and Adam plucked from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, choosing the wisdom of man over relationship and faith in God to provide every good thing.  

And as Jesus turned his face resolutely towards Jerusalem, Peter his friend was only being reasonable.

But it was that same sly whispering as that which tripped up man so very long ago... that you might become like God. 

Our Friday night community group noticed that doctrine isn’t about airtight parsing and culturally correct prepositions, but rather the Holy Spirit is He who wields the Sword guided by faith and love.  These are what remains, and the greatest of these is love.  

And I want to be smart. And sensible. And knowledgable.  But when it gets right down to it, often that looks a lot like elbow-shoving my way back onto the throne of my heart.  

And over at the Vineyard, the teacher was whipping out slightly dated by nevertheless eye-popping Barna Group statistics about the abysmal biblical worldview of Americans, even self-described born agains.  Which is distressing, until one remembers James' admonition that even the demons have perfect worldview, and what does it matter? Nothing. Without fruit. And the Barna Group came out with some more recent statistics on that one, and once again the Christians flop, talking and acting like Pharisees, rather than like Jesus.  And actually, the less orthodox folk seem to act more like Jesus, while the dot and tittle guys stepped back into the shadows muttering into their beards that at least I am not like that sinner.  

So today, this week as I step out, let me choose to listen for the LORD God in the cool of the day, seeking me.  Seeking me with all His love. To set my mind on the things of God rather than to spin out of control into the tangled webs of with the thoughts of man. 

Don’t let Satan whiff it out.  I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. This little light of mine.

Going up in a poof of smoke

Am I my brother's keeper?

For whosoever may be wanting to save his soul shall be destroying it. Yet whosoever should be destroying his soul on my account shall be finding it, for what will a man be benefitted, if he should be gaining the while world, yet be forfeiting his soul? Or what will a man be giving in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:26

So Josh asked me to stand up in retreat and share a time when one of the brothers encouraged or admonished me, and it made all the difference.

And though of course my mind briefly flitted through my rather dramatic stories, my heart went straight to Max's good word.

That first year at Wildcat School was really tough. A lot of hopes and dreams were smashed and squished and shattered against the blackboard of reality every single day, every single period, and even in between in the hallways and staircases. And my carefully and tender crafted sacrifices were offered up at first with cheerful confidence and quickly with humble hesitancy only to be cursed upon and spat upon, and sometimes slammed up against the wall and shook. With me inside them.

And every morning I would pile into my little rumbling Mercedes, along with all of those  lesson plans and happy-faced papers and maybe-today-will-be-differents, and sing little cheerful but vaguely tuneless ditties over to myself and look out at the sunrise bouncing off of the Tucson Mountains, the sunrise reflecting in my rear view mirror, and mutter my rosary off sorts, I look up to the hills, from whence comest my strength; my strength comest from the LORD, and all was pretty good.

Until I made that right hand turn to merge onto I-10 west. And then, man, I would just start crying. And I would cry all the way up Sixth Avenue until I pulled into the cracked asphalt parking lot. Unless I was just sniffling. Or sometimes even sobbing.

And the days stumbled forward, long days of disappointment and bad decisions made with good intentions and with just the tiniest glimmers of hope around the edges.  And what can I do with these angry hissing Wildcats?

And I am sure my long-suffering friends and friends sort of rolled their eyes and asked, What did you expect and I am sure it's not that bad, except Jon and Pamela who knelt down before me in mock homage after they had laid their honed-around-the-country and polished Mayan offerings before the restless hordes and watched them go up in smoke as well.

Except for Max. He got it.

Max who publicly defends his child porn guy and his Somalian pirate and his wanna be bomber. And He listens to their stories all day long. The back story. And it's about a lot of things. About abusive uncles and voices shouting through paper thin walls and moving every three months because grandma never can pay the rent and feeling so very, very angry because none of those little black marks on the page make any sense, but it's never about me.

It never is.

And when He was lifted up to bring all people to Himself, and they were cursing Him and spitting on Him and shoving a shaft deep into His side, He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

And something shifted in my head. And the days were still long and hard, but somehow  it looked different. Releasing my soul to be smashed and squished and shattered, and yet restored. Every day, His oil splashed down, and I stopped weeping at that right hand turn, and life became about squinting my eyes, and poking around in the bushes, and peering into dark holes, looking for lost sheep.

It's not about me.

And life is like that for each of us. And right now my issues are beyond mundane, but sometimes people look at me funny and make hurtful assumptions, or pull in front of me and make me slam on my brakes or miss the light because they are so busy texting or give stupid answers to my good questions or ask for spare change while they stand there smoking a cigarette, or the list is of course endless. Because the hapless herd of milling sheep is endless.

And yet each has a name. And it is still not about me. And it’s all about them and His great love and nail-pierced grace.

He is no fool who trades what he cannot keep for that which he cannot lose.

Sometimes when you leap out of the fish bowl you land on the floor

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:16

The Atlantic has an article this month about the New Atheism, and what drives people to denounce a belief in God, because the large precent of them started out in Christian homes and then either drifted or leaped out of faith.  And over and over again, after a few stabs at pretending it was science or reason that drove them, it turns out to be so-called Christians that caused them to doubt. Not so much an over-focus on politics or social issues or unleashed prejudices or the usual suspects. Rather it just seemed that the Christians themselves didn’t really believe what they said.  

It seems to the unbelievers that if those who choose to be called by His name really believed, every single moment of every single day would be a full court press loving people, declaring the name of Jesus, speaking of hope and grace. Not mostly the same old, same old, and by-the-way, yeah, I go to church.

The researcher ends his article with a little story about David Hume, the humanist: Sincerity does not trump truth. After all, one can be sincerely wrong. But sincerity is indispensable to any truth we wish others to believe. There is something winsome, even irresistible, about a life lived with conviction. I am reminded of the Scottish philosopher and skeptic, David Hume, who was recognized among a crowd of those listening to the preaching of George Whitefield, the famed evangelist of the First Great Awakening:"I thought you didn't believe in the Gospel," someone asked.

"I do not," Hume replied. Then, with a nod toward Whitefield, he added, "But he does."

I watched a movie Monday night, Father of Lights, about a bunch of Christians who do indeed live their life with conviction. Every single morning, every single moment of the day, it is clear that their listening ear is cocked for the Father of Light’s gentle prodding.  And sometimes they fall flat on their faces. At least that is what it looks like in the running camera of short shots. And I am still trying to figure that out.  But maybe that is the Pharisee in me.  Like being given some pretty big over sweeping Love Commandments and feeling the need to break them down into tidy outlines and tasty recipes and if/then statements. Especially tidy. I like tidy.

And it’s really hard when the knee hurts worse after they pray for it than before.  But there is without a doubt something winsome, even irresistible, about this life of conviction. And without a doubt, I do know that He is at work and that I have seen and held and been a part of miraculous restoration against the way things should go as dictated by the Laws of Physics. Either winding down or spinning outward. But sometimes there isn’t the expected restoration. Now. In this moment of time which binds me and my understanding into knots.  And I don’t get it. And I think, Hey, God I asked for a fish and You gave me a stone. 

So even though I don’t have neat tidy alphabetized boxes to organize God and How He Works, this is the direction in which I am stumbling.  In His direction. I mean, only crazy people ask for a tender aching heart. Because I do not want to live in a small quiet bowl of water in the windowsill just waiting for food and air and to die. And I am willing, at least in the Spirit (Lord, I believe; help my unbelief) to make bold proclamations and wait for the fall flat on my face moment.  (I guess that’s where He wants me anyway, flat on my face.) Again and again, to leap out of the boat. 

“Lord, if it’s You,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.”

“Come,” He said.

chipped pink toe nails

And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at his feet, and he healed them, so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” And the disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?” Matthew 15: 30-33

So I went to a Holy Spirit conference this weekend.  Very much praying Give me ears to hear and eyes to perceive the manifold glories of God that I might worship You.  

 And in reality nothing dramatic happened.  No tingling hands and feet.  No descending lights.  No healing balms of Gilead. No prophetic words.  So at one point, I decided to just step into it, even lacking signs and marvels, and to request anointing.  Just like that.  And the line I stepped into resonated with my general understanding of one of my gifts, and I asked for a tender, even broken, heart for intercession.

And I pretty much figure God would like us all to carry that around.  An aching heart for hungry crowds. And He calls on me, His disciple, to be His hands and feet.  The speaker called it God’s addiction to incarnation. After Jesus gives thanks, He breaks the bread and gives it to me to serve, His compassionate provision, lest they faint in the road, the pilgrimage to Zion. 

And a woman who I knew from many years ago ran up and said, “Christy, it’s also about the gift of evangelism; you are anointed with that gift too.”  Sharing the good news.  Good news of happiness. And I am curious to see how it plays from here on out as I head out into Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday. Perhaps now my feet will burn with the Spirit’s presence. 

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

My feet, complete with chipped pink toenail polish. 

Give me ears to hear and eyes to perceive the manifold glories of God that I might worship You.  

Sputtering into my tea cup

This people honors me with their lips,
    but their heart is far from me;

in vain do they worship me,
    teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Matthew 15:8-9

So yesterday I was asked, Who is a Pharisee?

And this is the question I am asking myself ever-so-often on this trip through the familiar words of Matthew, that I so dutifully memorized in King James verbiage many years ago in order to gain a position on the Tennessee State Bible Quiz Team.

Because there are a lot of Pharisees in Matthew, this Gospel written for the Jews, the People of the Law.

When I click on the footnotes on my online ESV Bible it automatically includes sermons from John Piper, and the word “worship” sent me to a 1981 sermon entitled “Worship is an End in Itself.”  And I settled in for a good read, because like so many of my ilk, middle-aged evangelicals, we all read and reread Desiring God, over and over, like a good cup of hot tea after a long cold day: Worship is not a door through which we pass to get anywhere. It is the end point, the goal. And I have some now developing theological disagreements with Mr. Piper now, as I read and reread the Scriptures, but I so very much hold him in honor in my heart as well, and a man of God who held open this door for me.

But as I was rolling along happily, I ran into a troubling statement, just as he wound up for the final pitch, the reiteration of today’s verse: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.  

What makes a worship service authentic and genuine and pleasing to God is the quickening of our hearts with appropriate emotions. But this quickening does not happen in a vacuum. It is caused by true perceptions of God's manifold glories. And so there must be substantial theological content in the service: in the lyrics of our hymns, in the prayers, in the Scripture, the sermon.

And I had to sputter on my cup of tea. Because Jesus walks away from these Pharisees right into a region of absolutely no true perceptions and zippo substantial theological content, the district of Tyre and Sidon, the capital of Canaanite culture and religion. And he found a woman of great faith, licking at the crumbs that fell off of the Chosen People’s plates. And I am quite sure that her worship was heartfelt and authentic and pleasing to God, especially after Jesus healed her severely oppressed daughter instantly. Her vision was clear and her perceptions were true, and it had nothing to do with substantial theological content in the lyrics of the hymns.

I grew up immersed in these commandments of men. They weren’t exactly taught with me sitting in a desk with notebook and pen, but I breathed it in and knew it to be true. I knew the Pope was the antiChrist. I knew that Pentecostals were demon-possessed. I knew that Presbyterians didn’t believe in the Bible.  I memorized explicit colored timelines that charted the end times moment by moment with up and down arrows that have all come to naught. 

But it really doesn’t matter. Because I didn’t know better.  None of us do.  We all see through a glass darkly. And I think that when that Glorious Day comes, all of that stuff with be rooted up and burned up like the chaff that it is, and we will all see clearly, all of us, a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, saying, "Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen."

But on the other hand it does matter. A lot. Because it stands in the path against the prayer of Jesus: May all of them to become one heart, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, So they might be one heart and mind with us.

There is nothing wrong with depth and historical precedence and Greek verbs tenses or the lack thereof, and the Pharisees with the substantial theological content. Except that it is so easily leads us astray. Like wealth. Because it sure does nothing about being in one heart and mind. Not at all.  Or loving the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and likewise, your neighbor as yourself. Mostly it draws dark lines between me and my neighbor. And the old man on the metro with the big tattoo across his face. And the chick with the short shorts. Or is that a guy? And the laughing Muslim with a gold chain around his neck. With big words that aren’t even found in the Bible so we had to make them up. And it is so very, very easy to take it seriously. And write lots of books. And read lots of books. Which leads into taking myself seriously. And the instant that I do that, it becomes about me, and not about Him.  And I do not even see Him, standing right in front of me. Lifting the the Samaritan leper up from his knees. Taking a cup of water from that woman. Rolling up the bed of the cripple on a Sabbath. Speaking gently to the adulterer. Marveling over the heathen soldier. Chatting with the now-clothed demoniac. 

Quicken my heart. Give me ears to hear and eyes to perceive the manifold glories of God. That I may worship You.

The fringe of His garment

And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent around to all that region and brought to Him all who were sick and implored Him that they might only touch the fringe of His garment. And as many as touched it were made well. Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. Matthew 14:34-Matthew 15:2

So I watched a Youtube of Nicole at Burning Man yesterday. Actually, three times. Nicole showed it to me, then I watched it with mom and then I watched it with Alan.  

And the thing is about Burning Man, is that the people of that place recognized Him.  And they stood outside His tent and His umbrella and implored Him that they might only touch the fringe of His garment. And they were made well.  And tears of joy streaked down their faces and smeared their face paint.  And it was ok.  

And there was not much talk of the sinner’s prayer or The Four Spiritual Laws or The Roman Road that I know so well from my childhood.  But there were stories, lots of stories, of healing and repentance. And this guy came back and we talked and prayed for four hours, and this lady was from Harvard, and this lady was a witch and had a serpent living in her.

And the big takeaway that Nicole has from being in that place is that God is bigger and more glorious than all of our traditions.  And He is at work to will and to work for His good pleasure. And He has been chasing these beloved lambs for a lifetime, calling them home. And what a joy to be there to welcome them, celebrating with joy before the angels of God over each lost sinner who repents.

I don't want to be a Pharisee, no, no, no.

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin

Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Matthew 14:31

It’s all those little lies pelting our thoughts that mess us up.  What Peter KNEW was that he was with the guy who had just fed the five thousand. What he KNEW was that he was indeed walking on the water. But then fear overtook his knowing, and down he went.

This is why we have to take every thought captive to obey Christ. We are called believers, not tryers.  We are not called to grit our teeth and step off the cliff of obedience in fear.  There is to be a lightness of step and joy, because we know what is true. 

I have lots of insightful saying tapping from my fingers from Joyce Meyers, as I head into a new day, refreshened from yesterday’s sick day, but surely with lots of strong winds and high waves to step across: 

We will never enjoy life unless we make a quality decision to do so. 

Wisdom is doing right now what you are going to be happy with later on.

Today can be effortless as you depend on God’s grace to do what He has called you to do.

He never called us to be busy.  He called us to be fruitful. 

Pop, pop, out the door I go.  

Walk in the Truth, as I am in the Truth.