murder

Instruments of the Potter

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“Everything about which we are tempted to complain may be the very instrument whereby the Potter intends to shape His clay into the image of His Son–a headache, an insult, a long line at the check-out, someone’s rudeness or failure to say thank you, misunderstanding, disappointment, interruption. As Amy Carmichael said, ‘See in it a chance to die,’ meaning a chance to leave self behind…”(Elisabeth Elliot)

A quote like this seems to be so far removed from current American Christianity as to almost be another religion. Actually, it’s a lot closer to New Testament faith than what a lot of churches and professing believers hold to.

But it’s not easy. I have a well-developed sense of injury. I don’t like it when people mistreat other people, especially when that other person is me. I want instant vindication. I say I want justice but what I really want is more like revenge.

But seeing an insult as a chance to die to self? That seems like a foreign concept. But it wasn’t to Jesus. Look at how He kept quiet during the farce that passed for a Sanhedrin trial. He was unjustly tried, convicted, and murdered, but not only did He accept it as from the Father, He forgave the very people who killed Him while they were in the very act of killing Him.

If Jesus did that for me, surely I can suffer inconvenience and insult. I can handle a headache from time to time. But it all starts with the right attitude and the right perspective. Philippians 2:5 says for us to have the mind or attitude of Christ and goes on to list a downward trajectory from heavenly throne to earthly manger, from human to slave, from rejected to murdered.

To die to self is to come alive to Christ in me. That’s the real life anyway. Not me hanging on to my perceived rights and nursing grudges and bitterness, but choosing the way of forgiveness and acceptance as from the very hand of God, seeing it as God’s way of shaping me into the very image of Christ.

Interceding for Our Enemies

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“In prayer we go to our enemies, to stand at their side. We are with them, near them, for them before God. Jesus does not promise us that the enemy we love, we bless, to whom we do good, will not abuse and persecute us. They will do so. But even in doing so, they cannot harm and conquer us if we take this last step to them in intercessory prayer. Now we are taking up their neediness and poverty, their being guilty and lost, and interceding for them before God. We are doing for them in vicarious representative action what they cannot do for themselves. Every insult from our enemy will only bind us closer to God and to our enemy. Every persecution can only serve to bring the enemy closer to reconciliation with God, to make love more unconquerable.

How does love become unconquerable? By never asking what the enemy is doing to it, and only asking what Jesus has done. Loving one’s enemies leads disciples to the way of the cross and into communion with the crucified one” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

It’s gotten so bad in this current cultural climate that we can’t abide dissenting views. We’ve gone past the point where we used to be able to debate and listen rationally to opposing viewpoints. Now anyone who disagrees with me must not only be wrong and ignorant but evil. We have turned our social media into echo chambers where we only allow voices that say the same things we say and agree with.

But that’s not the way of Jesus at all. His way is interceding for enemies. Remember that Jesus forgave His own enemies while they were in the very act of murdering Him. He prayed for the very ones who drove the nails into His wrists and feet (and the ones who shouted the loudest for Him to be crucified).

In this election season, it’s easy to turn it into us versus them and to turn “them” off so that we can have peace. But again, that’s not the way of Jesus. We are to pray for our very enemies the way Jesus prayed (and still prays) for us. We are to love them the same way Jesus loved (and still loves) us.

Is it easy? No. Is it possible? Humanly speaking, no, but only through the resurrection power of Jesus in us. Only through daily dependence and renewal by Jesus. Only by the grace that saved us in the first place.

You could pray for your enemies like you would want someone to whom you were an enemy to pray for you. And believe me, everyone has enemies. No matter how nice or accommodating you might be, you still have enemies.

Above all, remember that we all were once God’s enemies. And what did He do? He sent Jesus who loved us first before we ever loved Him, loved us best by dying for us, and loved us everlastingly from the foundation of the world until forever.

Praying for Your Enemies

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“The practical problem about charity (in our prayers) is very hard work, isn’t it? When you pray for Hitler & Stalin, how do you actually teach yourself to make the prayer real? The two things that help me are (a) A continual grasp of the idea that one is only joining one’s feeble little voice to the perpetual intercession of Christ, who died for those very men (b) A recollection, as firm as one can make it, of all one’s own cruelty wh. might have blossomed, under different conditions, into something terrible. You and I are not, at bottom, so different from these ghastly creatures” (C. S. Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis).

It’s one thing to pray for people who are diametrically opposed to you in their beliefs and lifestyle. It’s quite another to pray for those who are actively seeking to do you harm. I think the latter is what Jesus meant when He said to pray for your enemies.

I don’t think I could do that. At least, I know that in my own strength, I couldn’t. Only the power of the risen Christ dwelling in me could possibly love and pray for my enemies as they attack me. I believe that kind of supernatural power only comes in time of need, like it did for the disciple Stephen while he was being stoned to death with the approval of Saul. And later, it came to Saul, who now went by Paul, as he faced multiple attacks over proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Ultimately, Jesus demonstrated praying for and loving your enemies best when He cried out to God, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing” as they were in the very act of murdering Him on the cross.

When I see that I am fundamentally no different than my enemies, it helps me to love them better. It helps me to see how much grace it took to save me when I’m not nearly as nice and good on my own as I had thought. It makes me that much more grateful to Jesus for saving me from me, and makes me less capable of hating anyone else.

Out of Control

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outofcontrol

Has there ever been a moment in your life when you felt out of control? Like when you stopped and looked around and wondered how in the heck you got there and how you’d ever get out of the mess you’d made?

I think EVERYBODY has felt that way to some degree or other. Kinda like King David, who started out lusting after a neighbor’s wife and ended up with not only adultery but lying and mass murder thrown in. It took a bold prophet named Nathan to get David out of his downward spiral.

You will at some point get yourself into a hot mess. You will wonder how you could have been so STUPID. You may well wonder if escape is even a possibility.

I love what I heard someone say: it’s never too late on this side of heaven to become what you might have been. It’s never too late to become the dream God had when He thought you up and gave you a purpose before anything was made. That gives me hope.

That means that those days that seem wasted, those years that seem lost have really served a purpose– to get you to where you are, with all your life experiences, good and bad, all your successes and failures– to be the person God can use to do what NO ONE else can do, to the calling only YOU can fulfill.

Even if you’re an 80-year old backwoods shepherd like Moses. Or a nobody sitting in a prison like Joseph.

God can take nobodies and confound all those who think they’re somebodies. He uses the lowly and the nothings in the world to shame all those who think they’re hot stuff. That’s my take on 1 Corinthians 1:25-30. Or as one translation puts it:

“You can count on this: God’s foolishness will always be wiser than mere human wisdom, and God’s weakness will always be stronger than mere human strength.

Look carefully at your call, brothers and sisters. By human standards, not many of you are deemed to be wise. Not many are considered powerful. Not many of you come from royalty, right? But celebrate this: God selected the world’s foolish to bring shame upon those who think they are wise; likewise, He selected the world’s weak to bring disgrace upon those who think they are strong. God selected the common and the castoff, whatever lacks status, so He could invalidate the claims of those who think those things are significant. So it makes no sense for any person to boast in God’s presence. Instead, credit God with your new situation: you are united with Jesus the Anointed. He is God’s wisdom for us and more. He is our righteousness and holiness and redemption.”

 

More Lessons from Kairos

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Tonight, Mike Glenn spoke about King David, literally the runt of the litter who became the most famous king in the history of Israel. You know it’s bad when you’re father forgets about you when counting his own sons and has to be reminded about you.

There are several ways to define David as a man and as a king. You could define him by his military successes and his lengthy reign as king. You could also define him as someone who made several tragically bad choices, starting off with gazing a bit too long at Bathsheeba in the buff. If you haven’t read the whole story, I’ll keep it brief and just say that the story involved adultery, bribery, lying, more bribery, more lying, and (to top it all off) murder. Not to mention a cover-up that would would have made national headlines even today.

But the Bible defines David a different way. David is spoken of as a man after God’s own heart. Not as an adulterer, not as a murderer. But a man after God’s own heart.

It took God’s prophet speaking some fairly harsh words to get David’s attention, but all you have to do is read Psalm 51 to see what true brokenness and repentance looks like. David wasn’t just sorry for his sins. He didn’t just feel bad and promise never to do those things again. From that point on, he was a different man.

To be sure, his sin had consequences. He had strife within his kingdom and even within his own family from then on. But he knew where to go when the troubles and storms came. God was his safe refuge in the tempest, a strong fortress, a cleft in the rock for him to hide in.

You may have a dirty secret you don’t want anyone to know about. You may have made horrendously poor choices and have lingering regrets that you live with on a daily basis. That doesn’t have to define you. That doesn’t have to dictate who you are or where you’re going.

Let God’s love define you. Let God’s forgiveness dictate your future. May you hear the voice of your Abba Father calling you the Beloved and may you not only hear it, but believe it and live in it every single day.