Anger or Agape?

For years I saw the cross as the place where God the Father poured out His anger on the Son in order to satisfy His justice. (That view is a very distorted view of what justice really means. I'll write about that subject another time.) Author Brad Jersak does a good job explaining the way many of us have seen God's involvement at the cross and the way it really is.

"God need not say, "I just can't get over my children's sin. I am so incensed with them. They are repulsive to me and trigger my wrath and need for vengeance. My hand is armed for their destruction. Somebody must pay me and it has to be with punishment; with blood.

But what if, alternatively, we imagine him saying, "I can't get over over my children. I'm so in love. I need to save them - even if it kills me." And so the wounds of Christ represent something far better than the satisfied wrath of an offended God. They speak of the power of God's great mercy and love for us." (Brad Jersak, Stricken By God?)

Which scenario describes your view of God? That choice will permeate how you see everything else in life.

A Story of An Accepting Father

A GPS And A Humming Driver

I'm in Arcadia, California tonight after a long day of travel. I love the state of California. I've sometimes said that if it weren't for family and friends in the South, I could be happy living here. It's a beautiful state with great weather.

When I landed at LAX today and picked up my rental car, they asked me, "Do you want the GPS?" Those who know me have heard me describe myself as "directionally challenged," to put it mildly. I know up and down. Beyond that, the whole world becomes a Bermuda Triangle for me. So accepting the GPS offer didn't take a split second to decide.

As I made the almost hour long drive from the airport to Arcadia, it was a pleasant drive despite the traffic. I didn't know where I was going, but the nice lady inside the Garmin (GPS) did. She politely told me every turn to take, even warning me in advance of approaching turns and giving me plenty of time to get into the correct lane for the turn.

I remember the first time I came to California. There was no such thing as a GPS then. Melanie and I came here many years ago to celebrate our anniversary. We flew into San Francisco and, after spending a night at Fisherman's Wharf, drove a big loop covering John Muir Woods, Yosemite National Park, Reno, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento, Napa Valley and ending up in San Fran again. I did enjoy the trip a lot, but I do clearly remember the constant stress I felt trying to figure out where I was at and where I was supposed to be going at any given moment. In the midst of immensely enjoying the sites were plenty of Rolaids to help deal with the stress of my directional disability.

It's not that way at all when I drive anywhere these days. I was thinking about it as I drove here today and the thought popped into my mind: "I wish I trusted the Holy Spirit in me as much as I trust this GPS." With the GPS, I didn't give a second thought to whether or not I would reach my destination. I was able to simply relax and hum along with the radio while I followed the instructions the nice voice was giving me as I drove.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I'm not so relaxed about my life journey sometimes. I know in my head that the Spirit of Christ inside me will guide me, but my feelings sometimes don't believe it. I find myself at times feeling anxious about the future even though I know better. I imagine immediate circumstances not unfolding the way I expect and want and foresee some long-term scenarios not having a pleasant outcome either. But the truth is the truth and that Truth is that He is in me and will most certainly guide me to the destination He has planned.

Do you find yourself feeling anxious about the future at times? Maybe it's tomorrow. Maybe it's years from now. Somebody said that worry is imagining the future without God in it. I think I heard the Holy Spirit speak to me today through the voice coming out of that GPS. He said, "You can trust Me. I know where we're going and I promise I will see to it that you safely arrive there."

Okay, Lord. If you'll keep teaching me, I'll just make the journey with you and maybe at times even hum along the way.

Taking The Plunge

Imagine that you are standing on a diving board on a hot day. It's a high dive. You look down and see fog beneath you. A reliable person who you know is trustworthy tells you that a refreshing pool of water is below. He assures you that you will enjoy the water tremendously if you jump into it.

You jump and you hit the water. It was just as you had been told. Wonderful.

Think about that scenario a moment. Was it your decision to jump that caused the water to be real? Did it come into being when you jumped? The fact is that the water was there whether you jumped or not. You didn't make it materialize by believing it was there and by throwing yourself off the diving board. Your action only allowed you to experience it. The water was real all along, but it became real to you when you jumped into it.

Here's the comparison: What Jesus Christ did for humanity is real. It isn't a person's faith that makes it become real. It was real before you and I believed and would have been real if we had never believed. Believing enables us to experience the reality of His finished work. It doesn't make His work real.

Existential thought in the Christian world suggests that our sins are forgiven when we believe; that we are reconciled to God when we believe; that all the things associated with our salvation happen because we believe. The problem is that this view puts the cart before the horse. We believe because it is already true. It doesn't become true when we believe! Our faith simply allows us to experience a reality that already exists.

With all our talk about the centrality of the cross, the way we often teach the gospel suggests that what is really central in our understanding is our profession of faith. The truth is that it all happened at the cross. When Jesus said, "It is finished," He meant it. He didn't mean He was waiting for us to finish it by anything we do.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Until we jump we won't ever get wet. But the water is there. We don't create by our faith. We just get to enjoy it when we take the plunge.

The Pure Gospel

Leave it to Malcolm Smith to say in less than four minutes what it took me seventeen weeks of Sunday Preaching to say :)

Melody In F - The Story of the Prodigal Son

Just for fun....

Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow
forced his fond father to fork over his farthings. He flew
far to foreign fields and frittered his fortune, feasting
fabulously with faithless friends.

Finally facing famine and fleeced by his fellows-in-folly,
he found himself a feed flinger in a filthy farmyard.
Fairly famished, he fain would have filled his frame with
foraged food from the fodder fragments.

"Fooey, my father's flunkies fare far fancier," the
frazzled fugitive fumed feverishly, frankly facing facts.
Frustrated by failure and filled with foreboding, he fled
forthwith to his family. Falling at his father's feet, he
floundered forlornly, "Father, I have flunked and
fruitlessly forfeited family favor."

But the faithful father, forestalling further flinching,
frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch forth the finest
fatling and fix a feast.

The fugitive's fraternal faultfinder frowned on the fickle
forgiveness of former failure. His fury flashed, but
fussing was futile.

The farsighted father figured, "Such filial fidelity is
fine, but what forbids fervent festivity for the fugitive
is found. Unfurl the flags with flaring, let fun and
frolic freely flow. Former failure is forgotten, folly
forsaken. Forgiveness forms the foundation for future
fortune."

(My apologies to the writer of this piece for not being able to cite the source. It was in a textbook in a homiletics class I took many, many years ago. The book is gone and the autor's name has disappeared from my notes, but this is still in my file.)

The Apple of His Eye

There are times in life when it seems that our Father is nowhere to be found. Times when we feel like we really need to see Him but we can't. Have you ever felt like God checked out of your circumstances and didn't bother to tell you that He was leaving? Well, the good news is that your feelings were just that - feelings. When we feel like God doesn't see our needs, the truth is very different from our feelings.

Our loving Father never even glances away from us, even for a moment. Psalm 139:3 says, "You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways" (NAS). Look at the picture I've posted with this blog. That child can see only one thing - himself. He's so close to the eye that he can't even see the eye. He can only see his own reflection in the pupil of the eye.

Your Father is watching you. In Zechariah 2:8, our Father called His people, "the apple" of His eye. The word literally means "the pupil." Not only are you in your Father's sight. He is focused on you. He "scrutinizes" your lifestyle. That word means "to fan or to winnow." It's the picture of an ancient harvester throwing the wheat and chaff into the air to let the wind separate them so that the wheat could be harvested.

The winds of trouble may blow in, but your Father is watching you. He is using everything that comes into your life to produce a harvest in you and for you. In the midst of our trials, our Father is not far from us. To the contrary, He is often closer than we think. Look at that picture above again. Then relax. It's all good. That's a guarantee.