Tag Archives: Christianity

Keep the Faith – Part 4

Let’s make a million bucks together; we’ll split it. I’ll provide the idea; you do the graphics. Let’s make a T-shirt with a picture of the screen of a GPS across it. However, instead of the street arrow pointing to the next intersection, it points to the sandaled feet of Jesus, as He walks up the road ahead of us, leading us forward. Then, below that picture, one word: “Recalculating!” Nice, huh?

Hebrews 12:2, continuing with coaching tips for those who are struggling to hold on to their faith (this topic starts here), says this:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:2)

This tip builds on the previous one, continuing the idea of living life as a marathon race. When you are running a race, you keep the finish line in mind to motivate you in the tough moments. There is a real sense in which Jesus is our finish line! Think about it…

But this verse also says He is the “author and perfecter of our faith.” What does that mean?

The word, Author, means He invented faith, He brought it into being. Ever ride a Segway? – those two wheeled “balancy” things? Imagine getting on the prototype, the day it was invented, by Dean Kamen. You get on it and It feels like it is going to fall over. What do you do? You look over at Dean and say, “Am I doing this right?” Same thing with the “Author” or inventor of our faith. You keep your eyes on Him. “Am I doing this right?”

The word, Perfecter, means the One Who brings faith all the way to its complete, intended conclusion. Again, that’s Jesus. These challenges we face in this life are used by Jesus to prepare us for a life in which faith, perfect faith, is the norm! Keep your eye on Him, because He won’t quit working on you until you get there, until your faith is perfect, lacking nothing, complete.

… He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6b)

There’s a reason that people have teams as they participate individually in sports of endurance . You can run farther, faster and better when you are running with a teammate. If you are alone in a race, it helps to fix your eyes on a better runner, letting his example “lead you on” and motivate you. In the marathon of following Jesus, as we struggle to hang on to our faith, it makes all the difference to

“fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.”

There’s more to this – too much for today. Stay tuned.

Basic Faith

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Perhaps if I gave it a chance, I might get into Downton Abbey, but something about watching stuffy aristocrats having tea just makes me restless. Give me heart-pounding, thriller action. Maybe that is why I’m drawn to Hebrews 11. It is about giants of faith who resolutely held on to what they believed was true, in the face of painful and life-threatening coercion. Some of those guys (and gals) were sawed in two and thrown to the lions because they would not deny their beliefs. Dozens of jaw-dropping acts of faith are attributed to sixteen individuals by name. But the first act of faith listed isn’t specific to any one of them; it was shared by all of them – and, hopefully, you too. After first explaining what faith is (See: Loud and Clear), the author of Hebrews gives examples of faith, beginning with this one:

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Hebrews 11:3)

Since that was written, we’ve advanced quite a lot, from swords to drones, from parchment to the cloud. But how the universe came about is still being actively debated. Faith understands that God formed it, by commanding it to be. That sounds old and religious. But, more contemporary and mind-bending, it says faith knows that the tangible universe was formed out of something invisible. Scientists in the field of quantum mechanics talk like that.Notice, please, that the quote from Hebrews didn’t say faith knows when God did it, but that He did. The understanding that God made everything out of nothing (or at least out of something intangible) is a foundation stone for faith. Why start there? Perhaps because, with that understanding and perspective, everything else we do in life is colored by deep respect and reverence for God. We live with a profound awareness that this is His place, He made it.

The antique tea cart in our living room was hand-made by my wife’s great grandfather. It is a thing of old beauty, adorned by hand-carved, swirling trim, and slender, wood-spoked wheels. It is a visible expression of great skill and passion. We don’t put cans of paint on it, don’t use it as a workbench. Sometimes I gaze at it, losing myself in the details of its construction. I imagine the man I never knew, hunched over in his shop, wiping sawdust off his glasses and leaning in to get just the right cut from his old, but carefully sharpened gouge.

That type of humility and reverence (greatly multiplied), in the midst of God’s awesome creation, is foundational for the faith that connects us to Him in a living relationship. Conversely, the arrogant attitude that dismisses such awe and humility disconnects us from that relationship with God. With tragic consequences. As the Apostle Paul said, it’s not that people don’t know that God created the tangible universe, but that they suppress this truth.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:20-21)

Looking for faith, real faith? Open your heart and mind and take a good look around at all that God has crafted so intricately and beautifully.

Stay tuned; there’s more…

God’s Name

One Plus Two Equals One

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… or at least that is what we’ve been told. God is One and God is Three. He exists in three Persons, the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But explanations of how three can equal one usually fall short. People resort to tortured analogies (“It’s like three sides of a triangle…”) that don’t really help. It’s a lot like asking a software engineer to explain what he does for a living. Beyond answering you with “techno-speak” (“I manage the cloud-based infrastructure of network algorithms…”) your engineer friend is hard pressed to help you really understand.

The Bible explains the mystery of three in one by focusing on Jesus’ part in it. Like this:

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, (Heb 1:3a)

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only (i.e. Jesus), who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (John 1:18 – with my added explanation)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Col 1:15)

God is invisible to our limited human senses. Even if we could somehow see Him, we would not be able to understand what we were seeing. But Jesus, these verses say, is an exact representation of Who and What God is, given to us in a form we can understand: human form.

My favorite (and somewhat tortured) analogy begins with a desktop computer. If you look at your computer, what you see is really just its case, not the actual computer. You open it up and look at the circuit cards inside and you still cannot see any computing going on; you don’t have any way of knowing what it is doing. What “it is doing” happens at a microscopic level, the invisible flow of electrons and “holes” (whatever those are…), in complex patterns, and at the speed of light. Even if you invented special goggles that enabled you to see that flow of energy, you still couldn’t make any sense of it. Balancing your checkbook would look very much like a game of Angry Birds. Nevertheless, this invisible computing process is being done for you! But there is no way for you to take advantage of it unless the process is somehow translated into a form you can see and understand.

That is why your computer has a monitor. When you turn on your monitor, voila!, it translates the invisible and inscrutable flow of energy in the desktop unit into words and pictures that you can understand. Assuming your desktop unit is connected correctly to your monitor, the monitor is the “exact representation of” the computer’s “being.” The monitor has “made the computer known.” It is the “image of the invisible” computer. That’s why, when you talk about your computer, you are referring to all three parts of it as one thing – the processor, the monitor and the connection between them. Like God: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Who is the wireless connection between the Father and Son!).

If you follow all of that, perhaps it will give greater understanding to these words of Jesus:

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (John 14:9b-10)

Does that make it clearer? Two plus One equals One.

Check Engine

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Are you getting tired of all this talk about what makes God angry? You might be thinking, “Alright already! I get it; let’s get on to something more pleasant!” If that is how you feel, imagine how God feels! Fact is, God wants us to get on with the good stuff. That’s why He gave us the Bible!

When your check-engine light comes on,

Check Engine light on a 1996 Dodge Caravan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

you can either get upset about it, or you can think, “Wow! My car just informed me of something I can do to get it running better.” Sure you can also be bummed out about the cretin who just serviced the thing and who probably left a wire unplugged… But the point is, Isaiah 5 is a “Check Engine” light. Ignore it to your own peril. Here’s what lies ahead for those who do:

So man will be brought low and mankind humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled. (Isaiah 5:15)

The problem, at its root, is arrogance, the attitude that presumes it knows better than God how to live in His garden. The opposite attitude, humility, is held by those who really do know they need to pay attention to God, the Creator and Designer of all this and to submit to the ways He has said work best. If you are only recently reading these posts, go back and read about the key verse in Isaiah, the one that reveals the message of the whole Bible. The short version is this: God will dwell in the souls of the humble, will forgive them, restore them and bring them to full life (Isaiah 57:15-19).

Here is what lies ahead for the humble:

But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness. Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich. (Isaiah 5:16-17)

The “sheep” in those verses are the humble who pay attention and submit to God. And to His Son, Jesus. Here’s what Jesus said lay in store for His “sheep”:

Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.
(John 10:7-9)

Real Freedom

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Tucked into the hills of North Carolina is a campground that has been under the watchful, squinty eye and command of an 88 year-old lady. Abigail (not her real name) is laid back and nice, but she has her rules, runs her place by what she reads in the Bible and doesn’t put up with anybody who doesn’t like that. We spent a night there, along with maybe 200 other campers. It was a little slice of heaven, nothing like inner, what-used-to-be-a-city, Detroit. You don’t want to set up your tent there. I know I’m painting with too wide a brush, and there are exceptions for sure, but the big difference between Abigail’s place and inner-city Detroit is that Abby respects the ways of God and the gangs on the streets of Detroit do not.

It might seem that the old-fashioned, Southern, campground lady, bound up with her Bible principles isn’t as free as the folks who go ahead and do whatever they feel like doing in Detroit. But in reality, the opposite is true. Abigail’s respect for God’s operating instructions for His garden allows her to breathe free. I know, I know: there are a whole bunch of “yeah-buts” with which you could poke holes in that comparison, but the point I’m trying to make is true. God isn’t trying to restrict us with His rules and principles, but set us free to make the most out of life. Those who don’t pay attention, or who deliberately thumb their noses at God will ultimately be hurt by what they do. That is the point of Isaiah 5 (This topic begins here.).

The next four “Woe’s,” next four things that make God mad, from Isaiah 5, sound like they are critiques of our current culture. I won’t quote them here; read them for yourself and see how close they fit. God is angered by:

Verse 18-19 – People who put real effort into doing things God forbids and by their actions ridicule God

Verse 20 – People who say that evil is good, and vice versa.

Verse 21 – People who think they are smarter than God and that they know better

Verse 22 – Corrupt officials who peddle influence and deny justice to those who are not connected

Sound familiar? Our culture is shot through with all of them! The people who do these things think they are being smart, squeezing the most out of life. Fact is, they are missing out, lurking about in Detroit when they could be having lemonade at Abigail’s place. Here’s what God says lies in store:

Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore the Lord’s anger burns against his people; his hand is raised and he strikes them down. The mountains shake, and the dead bodies are like refuse in the streets. (Isaiah 5:24-25)

God’s Hot Buttons

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If you want to know what makes God mad, there is a pretty clear list in the 5th chapter of Isaiah. Each one is marked by the word, Woe! That’s Biblespeak for “Beware! Bad, bad things are coming unless big, big changes are made. When God says “Woe,” He’s upset about something. God is angered by human behavior that, if left unchecked, will destroy His Creation. He says “woe!” with the same tone of voice that a homeowner uses when he sees termites destroying his home. And for the same reason.

The first “woe!” in Isaiah 5 had to do with unchecked greed (See: “What Kind of Termites Anger God?”.) The next one reads like this:

Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of his hands. (Isaiah 5:11-12)

Perhaps you are thinking, “It’s official: God is a killjoy and hates it when people party.” No way! If that’s what you think, you will be surprised as you read through the Bible. God loves celebrations. Jesus provided the wine for one. No, the problem here is that this drunkenness is constant (from early in the morning until late at night), it has become the new normal. Beyond that, it has obliterated their capacity to appreciate and respect God and the wonderful oasis He created and provided.

Imagine that you had inherited a beautiful mountain cabin that was carefully and lovingly built by your great-grandfather. It is nestled among pine trees, alongside a crystal clear, spring-fed lake. From childhood, you have forged deep and satisfying memories at his cabin and you consider it to be a precious and sacred refuge. Can you picture it? Now, how would you feel if your kids hold a party up there, inviting their friends, who proceed to get drunk and wreck the place? They break the windows, smash the plates and park their old and leaky pickup in the garden. Mad yet? That’s how God feels when He sees insensitive, drunken louts trashing His garden.

But let’s look at the nature and extent of the damage:

Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; their men of rank will die of hunger and their masses will be parched with thirst.Therefore the grave enlarges its appetite and opens its mouth without limit; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers. (Isaiah 5:13-14)

This warning was written to a people God had given special, privileged treatment. He intended to use as the Jewish nation as a model, to show others how much better life could be if you loved God and lived according to His design and principles. He had set them up with their own land, and promised to provide for them and protect them. But these privileges would only continue if they cooperated. Their irresponsible behavior wrecked the place. Consequently, instead of being protected in their own place, they were exiled to a foreign land. Instead of being physically and spiritually satisfied in God’s presence, they drank to find satisfaction and wound up with an unquenchable thirst. Instead of finding life, they fell into death. Woe!

This warning, specifically written to the people of Israel and Judah, was tragically fulfilled in their history. But it contains a principle that pertains to us all. You and I live amid God’s amazing and beautiful Creation. The more you pay attention, the more you seek to appreciate it and harmonize with the One Who gave us all this, the more wonderful life will be. The key to living like that is given to us by Jesus. Find Him and find real life.

Or, you could just get drunk and miss it. Woe!

What Kind of Termites Anger God?

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If that question doesn’t make sense, go back one post and read “On the Other Hand, God Really is Angry“. When termites threatened to destroy my house, I exterminated them. In Isaiah 5, God explains that He is going to eradicate the “termites” that threaten to destroy His garden. He doesn’t use termites as a metaphor but, rather, a vineyard that does not produce good fruit because of people wrecking the place. What kind of behavior does wreck the vineyard, so to speak? What kind of termites does God see? Before we answer that, have a look at verse 7, to see what “good fruit” looks like to the eyes of God:

And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. (Isaiah 5:7)

What does God desire for this world? Justice and righteousness. Not what we think of as justice, but perfect justice. A world where a person’s position and wealth does not change what rules apply to him or her. A world where corruption of any kind is non-existent. A world full of people who intuitively do the right thing in a harmonious way. (For more on righteousness, see “Jamming in God’s Band.”) God desires a world in which there is no bloodshed – none.

But if that was all He said, it would resemble a vacuous speech at a beauty pageant (“I want world peace!”). Specifically, what kind of human behavior does God see as termites? He gave Isaiah several specific examples, beginning in verse 8. These are representative examples of things people were doing in that time that wrecked God’s vineyard. Many of these sound pretty contemporary. Let’s just consider the first one:

Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. (Isaiah 5:8)

When God sees wealthy people gobbling up vast tracts of land for themselves, building themselves house after house, not because they need a place to live but just because they have the money to do it, God sees termites. Think about it: God designed the Earth as a perfect garden and invited humans to live in it and enjoy it. Whose garden is it? How is it that some of the guests in God’s garden think they should fence off hundreds of thousands of acres, saying to everybody else, “Keep out! This is mine?” It is not that God is opposed to holding property in a family in trust and passing it along. What God sees as termites is the people who greedily attempt to own and control much more than they could ever need and who wind up isolating themselves from everyone else in the process.

I could be wrong about this, but I believe God sees termites when He looks down on how much of this country is “owned” by so few – not because they need to but simply because they can. I think God sees termites in places where huge conglomerates make it impossible to make a go of a family farm. It’s not just agriculture; I see similar things going on with the decline of “Mom and Pop” stores and restaurants, too. I’ll bet that there are aspects of the forces behind enormous conglomerate corporations that God sees as termites. Just sayin’

Of course the argument for those who do such things is that they do it to be successful. Listen to what God says will be the outcome:

The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing: “Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.” (Isaiah 5:9-10) (Note: the words, bath, homer, and ephah, all refer to an extremely paltrey amount for such big places.)

God says, “What you think is success will lead to utter ruin. Mark My words!” Why? Termites! Living like that wrecks the place. That’s not the way God designed for the world to work.

That’s just the first example. Next time we will go further

Why Does God Seem So Angry?

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For some reason, it seemed like a good idea at the time: get a few of my toys together and spread them out to play with them – – – in the middle of an intersection near my home. Who knows why? For that matter, who knows why toddlers do most of the strange stuff they do? As you can imagine, my mother was pretty upset when she discovered me, happily sitting and playing out there. Probably heard the squeal of brakes before she saw what was going on. Can you understand why she might have hollered and screamed at me, might have sounded pretty angry? But at the time, it was a mystery to me. Why would a good mother get so furious?

When you first start reading Isaiah, God seems pretty cranky. He sounds pretty worked up:

Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. (Isaiah 1:4)

Whoa… This sounds like fodder for the angry, pinch-faced, bony-fingered, fire and brimstone preacher, thundering and screaming with flecks of spittle flying off his beard. Why would a good God get so furious? People make the mistake of thinking that God has changed. The God of the New Testament is pretty nice, but back in the old days, He needed some anger management counseling. Not true. God is not bipolar. God was angry for the same reason my mother was. Continue reading:

Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil. (Isaiah 1:5-6)

God hates it when He sees us doing things that endanger or hurt ourselves. Think about it: He originally created a perfect garden for us humans to live in. That is His desire for us. Unfortunately, gardens degenerate pretty quickly if you don’t what you are doing, if you don’t follow the rules. I’ve had some gardening experiences that would have frightened Maurice Sendak.

We humans turned away from God and tried to run His garden by our own ideas. We wrecked the garden and wound up hurting ourselves. But God yearns for His people (that’s us…) to turn back to Him and do things the way they work best. He hates it when we keep getting hurt. God’s plan is to ultimately restore the garden, making it available to everyone who will learn from Him and live in it peacefully and productively – and safely.

If you keep that understanding fully in mind, Isaiah is a fascinating and wonderful read. God loves to see us playing – just not in the middle of the street.

FRESH BREAD OF LIFE

Chewing on the Bible in a fresh, nourishing way…

Tag Archives: Christianity

Keep the Faith – Part 4

Basic Faith

God’s Name

One Plus Two Equals One

Check Engine

Real Freedom

God’s Hot Buttons

What Kind of Termites Anger God?

Why Does God Seem So Angry?

The Hidden Jesus

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