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Posts Tagged ‘truth’

Hearing

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

One thing really gets my goat at home: not being heard. The kids tune me out and apparently, they do the same thing at school (What test? What homework? etc.). My husband is in his own world and even the dogs tune me out. Is it the messenger?

Romans 10:17
So faith comes by hearing [what is told], and what is heard comes by the preaching [of the message that came from the lips] of Christ (the Messiah Himself) [Amplified]

These verses of Romans 10 are often used to support the need for missionaries around the world. After all, they say, someone must go to preach the message, the good news, to all those unbelievers.

But the hearing part is just as essential to the equation. Why don’t people hear? Are they unready to hear? Is the message unclear or poorly presented? Is the message given in love or draped in fear?

Over the years, the messengers (ministers, preachers, missionaries, evangelists) have wrapped the good news into a variety of packages. As a result, we now have the “four spiritual laws,” Evangelism Explosion, Billy Graham Crusade, Seeker-sensitivity, Christian infotainment, Veggie Tales, contemporary, rock, and even hip-hop music, along with movies and multi-media, to name a few. All of these were created to make the “message that came from the lips of Christ” accessible.

But is it really all necessary? Have we possibly diluted the message? Or, have we lost the simplicity of the message?

Jesus came with a story. He spoke it and they listened. We do a greater service to the message of God if we simply tell our story as well. The story of God touching my life cannot be argued. I lived it, I walked it, and it’s mine.

People don’t usually tune out story unless it sounds false.When speaking the story of Christ touching me, it is important to be truthful and transparent. Truth resonates.

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A Lament

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 24, 2010| 2 Comments »

I think of Paul as a punctilious kind of teacher, quite linearly-minded, regimented, and formal. But then, he surprises me with this verbal requiem over a particular loss he feels in traveling the “new way” in Christ: losing the people and all that was familiar to him to “boldly go” and explore this “strange new world.”

Romans 9:1a, 2
I [Paul] AM speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying; . . . I have bitter grief and incessant anguish in my heart. [Amplified]

I remember the weeks after I first became a follower of Christ. Even though I was clear about my choice and more than willing to venture forth, I also experienced a type of grief. Who would I be? How would this new way look? Would I lose all of my old friends? Would I have to conform to behaviors that didn’t feel like me because I agreed to follow this Messiah?

But, as the true adventure took hold, a joy and confidence grew within. My spirit was shooting off and I knew, despite any lingering questions and doubts and even grief, this was the way. I started telling everyone my story. But there were only a few who wanted to listen. I had to let go of them because I understood, they were no different than I had been. In the years before my spirit woke up, I had considered the Christian way old-fashioned, ineffectual, narrow-minded, and confining. Their discovery would be in God’s time. I cannot say, even to this day, why the planets aligned and I had that revelation glimpse of Christ. Others would say that I was chosen (one of the elect), but I find that too prideful to say. All have the potential to Christ.

Paul had his own supernatural experience on the road to Damascus and subsequent miracle when his eyesight was restored through the prayer of a man who should have feared being in the same room with Paul, a former enemy because of his faith in Jesus. [Acts 9:10-17] Paul was the least likely conversion.

As I walk through Paul’s writings, his dominant proof message is that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. For Paul, this was the whole point! And he could not fathom why his own people didn’t “see” what he saw, didn’t understand what he understood, didn’t accept what he had accepted. They had all the information, the genealogy, the promises, and the prophecies.

But to accept the Messiah meant changing everything. It was easier to keep waiting for the Messiah than to consider he might have come.

My lament is that many people see the trappings of Christianity and cannot project themselves into that perceived lifestyle. They are actually rejecting what they assume it means to become a follower on the Way. But I know now that accepting Christ doesn’t have to “look like that.” The first step is to open the inner door and simply allow God to direct the way.

There is always some loss in change, but there is also gain.

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Predestination Quandaries

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 21, 2010| 3 Comments »

Back in the 80’s, I had several friends who were hardcore Calvinists and quite Reformed but they also attended the same “not-very-mainstream” charismatic Methodist church at the time. Somehow, even though Calvinism is counter to the Methodist Book of Discipline (doctrine), we all got along, more or less.

Romans 8:29
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Just when I think I’m getting things, when I feel as though clarity is right around the corner, I’m confronted with this scripture and all the memories of arguments and disagreements and frustrations about the ultimate meaning of this passage and it’s sister in Ephesians 1:11. This is the stuff that theologians love to dissect.

Honestly, this one is right up there with pre and post-tribulation controversies. Blech!

Here’s my opinion, for whatever it’s worth. Some people are predestined for a particular purpose. I don’t believe this necessarily means predestined for a salvation/relationship which is available to everyone [I Timothy 2:1-4]. Since I enjoy the mysterious aspects of Christ’s way and its paradoxes, I believe there are those people who have a powerful anointing from God. Their path is set, from being called, to being justified, to being glorified [Romans 8:30]. They are the ones who become translucent and the Spirit shines through them. Some will reach this state in a human lifetime, others in that Christ-time eternal.

Is God sovereign? Yes. But God operates outside of time and to discuss God’s view, who will do what and when, seems ludicrous. There is no “when.” Only we, humans, in 3-D time are operating linearly and therefore, trying to figure out what’s next or why things happened in our past the way they did.

I think some people can be anointed for a season and others for a lifetime: God time.

Some years ago, I wrote a note to a woman at a retreat out of an anointing. Several years later, she happened to be at a meeting where I was speaking and came up to me, still carrying that worn-out note which had been life-changing for her. Predestined? I don’t know, but certainly, a type of glory. Christ broke through me to her because it was needful. To this day, I have no idea what was even written in that note.

How I respond to Christ will not change because of someone’s interpretation of this scripture and its codification in either Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion or John Wesleys’ Book of Discipline.

Jesus is firstborn, elder brother. He is showing the way as the rest of us are adopted into the family.

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Wickedness Suppresses Truth

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

People will often say, “what is truth?” And perhaps that can be debated, particularly in philosophical or academic circles. But I will hold to this: wicked (corrupt, evil, unethical) people will suppress whatever truth there is.

Romans 1:18-19
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

Truth is dangerous. Truth is in your face. Truth demands justice. Truth is messy.

One of my children has perfected the art of the lie. He actually believes the lie simplifies his life (at least at first). A quick lie will delay explanation. A clever lie will satisfy curiosity. A believable lie will delay consequences.

The biggest problem with lying is that if one does it regularly, pretty soon, the lie becomes one’s personal truth. This is the lie that births wickedness. And at this point, actual truth is much more difficult to discern.

It’s not just children who metamorphose lies into a manufactured truth. Adults do it all the time. Couples do it. Leaders do it. Companies do it. Governments do it.

Anything that “man” has not made, is God’s handiwork. God is in nature. God is wind. God is sun and moon and stars. God is dirt and insects and animals. God is energy. God is light.

God is truth.

People can try to suppress God, but in the end, truth is always revealed (sometimes sooner, sometimes later).

Give way to truth. Give way to God. And the knots of wickedness will be untied by the power of Spirit. Today.

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Nazarene Sect

Posted in Christmas Through Epiphany, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 26, 2009| 2 Comments »

If we just call it a “sect” or a “faction” or even a “cult,” we can marginalize everyone within that group. These labels already carry negative connotations without anyone needing to know any actual beliefs or doctrines. It’s a technique for categorizing the world and justifying our actions.

Acts 24:5-6
We [Sanhedrin] have found this man [Paul] to be a troublemaker, stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world. He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him. [Tertullus, the lawyer, speaking against Paul to Felix, the Governor, in Caesarea]

I have always been intrigued by labels. It’s something that humans do automatically. It’s how we “understand” what we are seeing or hearing. We look at an object and our brain identifies it as a chair or an animal or a tree. And then there are the sub-categories like particular designs of chairs or specific animals or breeds or types of trees. We do this with people too. They are categorized by how they look by skin color, body part shapes, hair color or texture, size, etc. People are also sorted by their sex, clothing, their neighborhood, their country, their language, and their incomes. And of course, they are classified by their associations, whether religious or secular.

But how do we understand or embrace something or someone new? How do we recognize it? If that thing or person does not fit into any of the normal designations, then what is it? Who is it?

I always thought the ancient prophets, whose writings and prophecies are peppered throughout the scriptures, were beleaguered with this categorization problem. They were seeing visions of a future they could not know. How would a primitive person describe an airplane, a rocket, or a space ship? How would they describe an atomic explosion? Are we any better at explaining or understanding miracles?

We use our limited understanding, our own frames of reference. We shove the unfamiliar into the closest or most familiar box. If there is no shape we recognize, we give it shape. We name it.

Jesus was outside the box. He was doing and saying things that made no sense to most of the people he encountered. Paul wasn’t much better.

Christianity of today evolved its own norms. It has taken the recorded words of Jesus and scrutinized, categorized, dissected and analyzed them to the extreme. And yet, when folks start pulling at the edges of Christianity, there is no less resistance than there was in Jesus’s day. We are still afraid of being deluded, of believing a lie, of breaking the law.

But God does not need us to “protect” the truth. God knows the heart.

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Sadducees and Pharisees

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

This post could have the heading, Protestants and Catholics, or Shi’ite and Sunni, or Orthodox and Reform, that’s how little monotheistic believers have changed over the centuries. One God… and yet, they become divided over the details.

Acts 23:7
When he [Paul] said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.

Paul used his knowledge of these differences between the sects to show the Roman commander how easily religious fervor could end in violence. The commander had assumed there was something much more sinister behind the attack on Paul and wouldn’t have believed that differences in faith practices could come to blows.

Nothing much has changed. Catholics and Protestants still kill each other in Ireland. Sunnis and Shi’ites kill each other in the Middle East. Orthodox and Reform basically ignore each other but there is plenty of hostile rhetoric.

Who has the truth? Which way is the absolute right way? The Christians will say the Bible is our authority and truth is there. I believe that. And yet, there are more than forty denominations who use the same Bible and interpret it differently. Islam has the Koran and Jews the Torah. But it is not enough to keep them together either.

For a season, everyone is united when there is a common enemy, but as soon as that “enemy” is vanquished, the in-fighting begins anew. Is this the true inheritance of the “tower of babel?” [Genesis 11:9]

Jesus was neither Pharisee nor Sadducee. He was a Jew. He brought to the world the simplicity of two truths: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbor as yourself. [Luke 10:27] There is no faith, no denomination, no sect, that cannot live by these two truths. They defy interpretations, unless someone wants to split hairs on what love means. But, as humans, born to love, I believe we know how to love. We simply choose not to do it.

This is a good day to love. I can choose to love. Unconditional love does not split hairs. God blesses those who love.

Oh Lord, bless me this day. Teach me. Remind me throughout the day to love.

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Egyptian Terrorist

Posted in Advent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Roman commander may have saved Paul from the savage crowd but he still mistook him for an Egyptian terrorist! How could that be? Is it possible the commander saw what he wanted to see and not what was actually there?

Acts 21:38
“Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?” [Commander arresting Paul]

Expectations are powerful and can lead us astray easily.

There was little to no evidence for the commander to suspect Paul to be a terrorist. I doubt Paul looked like an Egyptian, nor was he fighting off the crowd, nor did he have followers who were armed and dangerous. The only evidence was the crowd’s reaction to Paul. The commander may have assumed the situation was political. He could not imagine the riot was about differences in religious views. Or, that it was about who could be “in” and who was “out?” Or, who could be a follower and who could not? Or, who should be circumcised and who should not?

To the traditional Jews, it was bad enough that Paul was preaching/teaching about this Jesus as the Messiah, but now word had spread that Paul had embraced the gentiles and was opening the faith to them. He had crossed a line they could tolerate.

One of my favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye, the father, is faced with constant change as his daughters come of age to marry. The first one challenges the tradition that marriages are arranged and she marries out of love. Tevya begrudgingly complies. His second daughter falls in love with a zealot who is ultimately arrested and sent to Siberia. She decides to follow her love and Tevye, again, allows her to go, but with deep misgivings. But, when the the youngest daughter falls in love with a gentile, it is a line that Tevye cannot and will not cross. She is cast out and “dead to him.” In the end, the Russian pogrom disrupts their entire village. As Tevye’s family members are dispersed and may never see each other again, Tevye relents and speaks a small “God be with you” to his beloved daughter and her gentile husband.

Tevye had expectations. We all do… for our lives and for our children. Sometimes we expect the best and sometimes we expect the worst. Instead, I believe we must be willing to lay aside our expectations. Everyone’s journey is different. We can hope for the best, but we must accept the truth of what is happening in the present as well.

Another set of expectations rise up when we meet people who are different from ourselves. They may be from another country, speak a different language, or just live in a different neighborhood. Their skin may be of a different color. They may practice a different set of religious values or family structure. If we lay down our expectations, we may be surprised by what we discover: a beating heart, a yearning soul, a bright mind.

Keep my heart open today Lord. Help me to seek the heart of others and to see past our differences. Check my spirit when I start thinking that someone might be an “Egyptian terrorist” based on superficial circumstances or appearances.

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