Missionary newsletters are interesting things to read. I read a few this morning and prayed for the people involved. Missionaries are people and like all people they have different perspectives, propensities to communicate and levels of transparency. Some letters come off as a sales pitch others a general's account of a campaign and yet others are very human accounts of day to day life and relationships.
I like reading them. All of them. They inspire me.
"And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.' " - Mark 16:15-16 ESV
That end of that passage sounds kind of hardcore doesn't it. Those who don't believe a frail human being are condemned... really?
"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." - John 3:18 ESV
Actually they are condemned already. All of us are in our natural state. Without Jesus our condemnation finds us eventually. The miracle is salvation.
Maybe because of my upbringing I'm very aware of the reality that people can tend to sell their cause. Some are aware they are doing it and others have bought something and they need to justify why they have made the investment.
Still...
I also know the power of God's word and the commission God has given all those that know Him.
"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." - Isaiah 55:11 KJV
Are we missionaries? I say we are and if we are then we do well to believe that God is going to give results if His word is given in context.
"Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." - 1 Peter 2:10-11 ESV
If we know Jesus we are sojourners here in this world. When you walk out that door you might as well be in a foreign country. Let's live out our Heavenly culture here on Earth and see who wants to be baptized into it.
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Showing posts with label Autobiography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autobiography. Show all posts
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Meeting Him Or Missing Him In 2016
It's funny that if you read an autobiography and then a biography of the same person how different the accounts can be. Usually biographers interview people and have some special interest in telling a person's story. The may have an axe to grind with the person. They may idolize them. Perhaps it is a combination of both.
This time of year can make us retrospective. What really happened this year? No doubt God's account is different from our account but in what ways? What are His plans for this next year.
I want my vision for the future and my perception of the past to align with what God would say if I could sit and have a conversation with Him.
"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." - 1 Corinthians 2:1-2 ESV
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." - Galatians 2:20-21 ESV
"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." - Galatians 6:14 ESV
Perhaps these verses sound like religious mumbo jumbo to you. Perhaps this focus on Christ and His cross seem morbid and disconnected but they are keys to understanding God's mind and view of our lives. We are not the main characters in our life story. Jesus Is. Our God Is holy and Jesus was sent into the world to include us in God's narrative.
"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth." - Isaiah 53:4-7 ESV
"Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors." - Isaiah 53:11-12 ESV
Meeting Jesus or missing Him will be the focus of God's account of this past year. It will also be the focus of the coming year. If any of you have spent a year with Christ as the focus you know what a relief that is. Years that are filled with Him are amazing years.
We know that when God talks about 2015 He will be gracious. He will reveal the mind of holiness. We can't know all the details. If we know Him now I'm sure He will reveal a great deal to us later about what actually transpired.
I have expectations for 2016. I also have reservations. As I'm sitting here writing and thinking my fervent hope is that I'll be on the same page with God and not at odds with His purposes.
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This time of year can make us retrospective. What really happened this year? No doubt God's account is different from our account but in what ways? What are His plans for this next year.
I want my vision for the future and my perception of the past to align with what God would say if I could sit and have a conversation with Him.
"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." - 1 Corinthians 2:1-2 ESV
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose." - Galatians 2:20-21 ESV
"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." - Galatians 6:14 ESV
Perhaps these verses sound like religious mumbo jumbo to you. Perhaps this focus on Christ and His cross seem morbid and disconnected but they are keys to understanding God's mind and view of our lives. We are not the main characters in our life story. Jesus Is. Our God Is holy and Jesus was sent into the world to include us in God's narrative.
"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth." - Isaiah 53:4-7 ESV
"Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors." - Isaiah 53:11-12 ESV
Meeting Jesus or missing Him will be the focus of God's account of this past year. It will also be the focus of the coming year. If any of you have spent a year with Christ as the focus you know what a relief that is. Years that are filled with Him are amazing years.
We know that when God talks about 2015 He will be gracious. He will reveal the mind of holiness. We can't know all the details. If we know Him now I'm sure He will reveal a great deal to us later about what actually transpired.
I have expectations for 2016. I also have reservations. As I'm sitting here writing and thinking my fervent hope is that I'll be on the same page with God and not at odds with His purposes.
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Friday, January 31, 2014
Of Osmosis And Autobiographies
I was going to write about osmosis but it got me thinking about autobiographies. I think the concepts are linked.
An autobiography is like a parable. If you focus on the details you miss the point. A parable uses the details to frame a concept. It is a fiction that is constructed to make a comparison or bring out a deeper truth. The reader doesn't know the people described or the setting or the time. Those things may mirror something in the readers life so there is recognition but the details are fictions in that they are someone else's story or perspective. True or untrue they belong to someone else and that person is using them to describe something to the reader that would be invisible otherwise.
A person writes an autobiography for different reasons. They want to communicate something about themselves. It could be certain lessons they have learned. Perhaps they want to dispel myths or preserve a time that only they are keeping alive. autobiographies are often used to write history but are not the best source of information because people lie in them or they just exaggerate because they have lied to themselves.
God commissioned four biographies about Jesus. The Gospels. In truth they are four autobiographies from four different perspectives. God can't and doesn't lie but a separation must be bridged in order for His mind to reach ours.
"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." - Philippians 2:5-11 ESV
That brings us back to osmosis. If liquid with a higher concentration of salt comes in contact with liquid that has no salt in time they will mix until the two have the same amount of salt. There just needs to be a gap large enough for the salt molecules to get through. The two liquids need a point of connection.
Jesus is the gap where God can mix with man. Philosophy can describe the glory of God but gives no way for a person to access God's goodness. There is no way to tastes and see that the Lord is good by philosophy.
Grace opens the membranes between worlds. Once opened the infinite nature of God will fill an area of less concentration until it is full and the same. It will equalize but with infinity there is no end... no limit. There is an overflow.
"On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' " - John 7:37-38 ESV
To many people the Book is closed. It is just words on a page. It is just morality and human history. But to those that know Jesus it is a floodgate of glory. It is God telling us the story of His life and of ours in a mystery.
Parables must be heard in humility in order to be understood. Grace gives the divine meaning. It unlocks the mystery of Christ that God wants to reveal... He just needs to bridge the gap to do it.
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An autobiography is like a parable. If you focus on the details you miss the point. A parable uses the details to frame a concept. It is a fiction that is constructed to make a comparison or bring out a deeper truth. The reader doesn't know the people described or the setting or the time. Those things may mirror something in the readers life so there is recognition but the details are fictions in that they are someone else's story or perspective. True or untrue they belong to someone else and that person is using them to describe something to the reader that would be invisible otherwise.
A person writes an autobiography for different reasons. They want to communicate something about themselves. It could be certain lessons they have learned. Perhaps they want to dispel myths or preserve a time that only they are keeping alive. autobiographies are often used to write history but are not the best source of information because people lie in them or they just exaggerate because they have lied to themselves.
God commissioned four biographies about Jesus. The Gospels. In truth they are four autobiographies from four different perspectives. God can't and doesn't lie but a separation must be bridged in order for His mind to reach ours.
"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." - Philippians 2:5-11 ESV
That brings us back to osmosis. If liquid with a higher concentration of salt comes in contact with liquid that has no salt in time they will mix until the two have the same amount of salt. There just needs to be a gap large enough for the salt molecules to get through. The two liquids need a point of connection.
Jesus is the gap where God can mix with man. Philosophy can describe the glory of God but gives no way for a person to access God's goodness. There is no way to tastes and see that the Lord is good by philosophy.
Grace opens the membranes between worlds. Once opened the infinite nature of God will fill an area of less concentration until it is full and the same. It will equalize but with infinity there is no end... no limit. There is an overflow.
"On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' " - John 7:37-38 ESV
To many people the Book is closed. It is just words on a page. It is just morality and human history. But to those that know Jesus it is a floodgate of glory. It is God telling us the story of His life and of ours in a mystery.
Parables must be heard in humility in order to be understood. Grace gives the divine meaning. It unlocks the mystery of Christ that God wants to reveal... He just needs to bridge the gap to do it.
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