 | - loving the Life - | Oct 23, 2004 |
Maybe Zheng Jye is wrong. Maybe he happens to be an optimist seeing good in everything. Maybe he's deceived by religion. Maybe he's crazy - because he believes that God Almighty loves him like the best daddy he's ever known. A daddy who's interested in his life, who wants to protect him, who wants to prosper him, who wants to see him happy.
But what if... Zheng Jye is right? What if God is real? What if God is not only real, but loves you? What if this real God loves you so much, that He came to die for you, as punishment for all the mistakes, and hurts you've done to everyone in all your life? What if Jesus really is the only way to God?
You can't afford to be wrong about God. More than that, you don't want to miss out on this abundant life that God wants to give you. And God's a fun God. He invented fun! And dessert too. Heh~ Is anyone going to deny that because God saw the blood on the door pillars and passed over those houses that He was watching out for them? Is anyone going to deny that He was watching over them as they finished spoiling the Egyptians during the daylight part of the 14th and as they gathered to meet there in Rameses? How closely was He watching? Here's just one little indication of how closely He was watching. And I want you to understand that this word watching does not mean that He was just passively observing them as they left. No, it means that He was guarding them. He was actively involved in it. Let me give you the meaning of that word, "watched." It comes from the Hebrew shamar; and it is used in many, many places. It's used, or translated into the word keep 283 times. Whenever you want to "keep" something, you preserve it—don't you? You actively put it into a place where it will be guarded and protected. This is what this word means. God was watching, keeping, guarding, protecting, preserving. All of those words, incidentally, are used in the Bible as translations of this word. It means, "to keep, to have charge of, guard, watch, and ward, protect, save life, retain, treasure up, keep within bounds, restrain, celebrate, abstain..." We could go on and on. It has quite a number of applications. Look at Exodus 11:7. To me this is kind of illustrative. It says there: Exodus 11:7 But against none of the children of Israel [talking about when they leave Egypt] shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast. You know how excitable dogs are. They protect their territory. We have a dog next-door to us. It's a female boxer. And it has the strangest bark you ever heard in all your life. It sounds like it has a sore throat all the time—real gravelly. But you cannot set foot in our yard without that dog barking. Sure, it's the next door neighbor's dog; but if you come into our place, all you have to do is step onto the driveway and that dog is right there, barking at you. That's the nature of dogs. Dogs bark. They protect their territory. But God was watching so closely that, on the night of the Passover (and I'm sure it carried over into The Night To Be Much Observed) not even a dog barked as Israel left Egypt. Can you imagine the din of a couple million people going along the road in their wagons (or whatever it was that they had) or walking, pans jingling, their animals going by—and the dogs don't even bark! I mean, the Egyptians' dogs. Did you notice what the rest of the verse said? Exodus 11:7 ...that you may know that the LORD does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. Was God watching, or what? Is anyone going to deny that God was not watching them as they walked out that night of the 15th—in the very sight of the Egyptians, who were burying their dead? There is every possibility that when something like this would occur that the Egyptians would want to blame the Israelites for the death of their children—their sons, their daughters—and their animals. And they would be enraged that the Israelites were the cause. They couldn't see where God was. They couldn't blame Him directly, as it were; but they would take it out on His servants, His people. But they stood numbly by, instead of resisting or fighting, and went about burying their dead as the Israelites left Egypt. Perhaps under normal circumstances the Egyptians would have fought over the sense of loss of their loved ones. Exodus 13:21-22 The LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people. We see here a visible sign that God was with them—watching them, observing them. In chapter 14 we have the occurrence where Israel was trapped at the Red Sea, and we find here: Exodus 14:19-20 And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night. That night is the official marking of God's watchful care. I think that we can easily see that this portion of the holy day is of great signification—not just on the basis of its previous history, but now on the basis of its historical occurrence in reference to the exodus. A whole nation of slaves just got up and, without having to lift a hand to effect their liberty—they walked away. I wonder if you know of anything else like that? I mean of similar consequence that ever occurred in like manner in the history of this world? Most people, in order to win their liberty, must undergo a bloody warfare; and many people lose their lives. Those who do not suffer the loss of life, usually suffer the lost of much material wealth. Israel didn't loose any lives. And Israel came away rich! In this case, the captor nation was helpless to do anything to restrain the slaves—because the Egyptians were restrained by God. Perhaps we have no feeling for how important slaves are to the economy of nations. ... When Israel left Egypt, Egypt collapsed. It never again rose to the height of being a great nation. Indeed, it was prophesied in the Bible to become the basest of nations. They collapsed because the basis of their wealth—the slaves—left. And the same thing happened, on a smaller scale, in the United States in the aftermath of the Civil War. A major reason why the South had such a difficult time recovering from the Civil War was because it lost a major portion of its wealth—the slaves! The slaves literally were the only ones who knew how to do everything. And the landowners could not survive without the slaves, because the slaves knew how to plant. They did the planting. The slaves kept the books. The slaves kept the house. The slaves did everything! They were the ones who had the skills. And the free men dissipated. http://cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Audio.details/ID/251/Night-be-Much-Observed.htm Many readers of 1 Corinthians find it difficult to recognize that the believers in Corinth were saints. To be sure, according to the Catholic definition, they were not saints. We may wonder how the fleshly believers in Corinth could be called saints. Nevertheless, it is in the Word that Paul describes them as those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and called saints.
Some of us may have the confidence only to say that we are believers, but not the assurance to say that we are saints. Some may say, "I am a sinner saved by grace, and I am a believer in Christ. But I dare not say that I am a saint." Others, aware of failures like losing their temper or quarreling with their spouse, may not have the confidence to say that they are saints. But whether or not you are a saint does not depend on whether or not you lose your temper or quarrel. It depends on whether or not you have been called.
Do you have the boldness to say that you are holy? Concerning this, we should not look at ourselves. Paul does not say that the Corinthians were sanctified in themselves; he declares that they had been sanctified in Christ Jesus. We need to forget ourselves and see that it is in Christ that we are sanctified. God does not look at us as we are in ourselves; rather, he looks at us in Christ.
Witness Lee "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16:12–13)
There’s more that Jesus wants to say to you, much more, and now that his Spirit resides in your heart, the conversation can continue. Many good people never hear God speak to them personally for the simple fact that they’ve never been told that he does. But he does—generously, intimately. “He who belongs to God hears what God says” (John 8:47).
The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice . . . I am the good shepherd. (John 10:2–4, 11)
You don’t just leave sheep to find their way in the world. They are famous for getting lost, being attacked by wild animals, falling into some pit, and that is why they must stay close to the shepherd, follow his voice. And no shepherd could be called good unless he personally guided his flock through danger. But that is precisely what he promises to do. He wants to speak to you; he wants to lead you to good pasture.
(Waking the Dead , 102–3) There was a unique expectation connected to any priest who entered the temple. This was where God placed a special sanctity and was specially present, and people were concerned that nothing should go amiss whenever a priest entered the area. On the Day of Atonement the high priest, after offering incense in the Holy of Holies, paused for a moment in the sanctuary to pray a short prayer before returning to the courtyard where the assembled people were waiting. The Mishnah states: “He did not make the prayer long so as not to frighten Israel” (Yoma 5:1). The people’s anxiety when a priest remained too long within the sanctuary is illustrated by an incident that happened to a high priest, possibly Shim’on the Righteous who served as high priest around 200 B.C.: Once a certain high priest made a long prayer and [his fellow priests] decided to go in after him — they say this high priest was Shim’on the Righteous. They said to him: “Why did you pray so long?” He said to them: “I was praying that the temple of your God would not be destroyed.” They said to him: “Even so, you should not have prayed so long.” (Jerusalem Talmud, Yoma 42c)
Randall Buth's "What is the priest doing?" In the mythic story of The Lion King, the lion cub Simba is separated in his youth from his father through a murder engineered by his uncle, Scar, the character symbolizing the evil one in our story. Scar arranges for the cub to be caught in a stampede of wildebeests, knowing that his father, Mufasa, will risk his life to save his son. He does, and Simba is saved, but Mufasa is killed. Scar then turns on Simba and accuses him, at such a vulnerable and desperate moment, of causing his father’s death. Brokenhearted, frightened, racked with guilt, Simba runs away from home.
This is the enemy’s one central purpose—to separate us from the Father. He uses neglect to whisper, You see—no one cares. You’re not worth caring about. He uses a sudden loss of innocence to whisper, This is a dangerous world, and you are alone. You’ve been abandoned. He uses assaults and abuses to scream at a boy, This is all you are good for.And in this way he makes it nearly impossible for us to know what Jesus knew, makes it so very, very hard to come home to the Father’s heart toward us. The details of each story are unique to the boy, but the effect is always a wound in the soul, and with it separation from and suspicion of the Father.
It’s been very effective.
But God is not willing to simply let that be the end of the story. Not in any man’s life. Remember what Jesus taught us about the Father’s heart in the parable of the lost son: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20 NIV). Filled with compassion, our Father God will come like a loving Father, and take us close to his heart. He will also take us back to heal the wounds, finish things that didn’t get finished. He will come for the boy, no matter how old he might now be, and make him his Beloved Son.
(Fathered by God) If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself [it shares] its superabundant water. (Bernard of Clairvuex)
A beautiful picture. The canal runs dry so quickly, shortly after the rains subside. Like a dry streambed in the desert. But a reservoir is a vast and deep reserve of life. We are called to live in a way that we store up reserves in our heart, and then offer from a place of abundance. As Jesus said, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old” (Matt 13:52). I’m thinking, Storeroom? What storeroom? “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart…for out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45 emphasis added).
I’m afraid I live spiritually like I live financially – I get a little, and go spend it. I live like a canal. I look like a reservoir when the rains come, but shortly after, I’m dried up again. (My financially responsible readers have just congratulated themselves on living a more disciplined life. But may I ask, are you using those reserves to do things that nourish your heart? Many a Scrooge has filled his coffers while starving his soul). “There are very many canals in the church today,” laments Julia Gatta, “but few reservoirs.” One woman deeply involved in ministry wrote to me recently that she is “burned out to a crackling crunch.” She has been a canal. She hasn’t cared for her heart. She is not alone.
How would you live differently, if you believed your heart was the treasure of the kingdom?
(Waking The Dead , 199, 200 )
Look to those who have walked with God down through the ages. Certainly that is why the Bible is given to us. If God had intended it to be a textbook of doctrine, well then, he would have written it like one. But its not; it’s overwhelmingly a book of stories – tales of men and women who walked with God. Approach the Scriptures not so much as a manual of Christian principles but as the testimony of God’s friends on what it means to walk with him through a thousand different episodes. When you are at war, when you are in love, when you have sinned, when you have been given a great gift – this is how you walk with God. Do you see what a different mindset this is? It's really quite exciting.
And there are those who have walked with God since the canon of Scripture closed. Here is an Athanasius, a Bonaventure, a Julian of Norwich, a Brother Lawrence, a Tozer – here is how they walked with God. When it comes to time and place, temperament and situation, they could not be more different. Julian lived in a cloister; Tozer lived in Chicago. Athanasius fled to the desert; Lawrence worked in the kitchen. But there is a flavor, a tang, an authenticity to their writings which underlies whatever it is they are trying at the moment to say. Here is someone who knew God, really knew him. This is what its like to walk with God, and that is what its like as well.
(Waking The Dead , 107, 108) When God created man, He did not create all the people He needed for His purpose at the same time. If God had wanted to create a great number of people at the same time, He certainly could have done so. He could have created billions of people. However, this was not God's way. Instead, God created a couple and charged them to multiply and replenish the earth. According to God's ordination, the propagation of mankind takes place through marriage. Marriage, therefore, is second only to God's creation.
We should never despise marriage. Hebrews 13:4 says, "Let marriage be held in honor among all." Marriage is holy, and we must honor it. Mankind was brought into existence through God's creation, and God ordained that mankind be propagated through marriage.
Watchman Nee We take folks through a discipleship program whereby they master any number of Christian precepts and miss the most important thing of all, the very thing for which we were created: intimacy with God. There are, after all, those troubling words Jesus spoke to those who were doing all the “right” things: “Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you’” (Matt. 7:23). Knowing God. That’s the point.
You might recall the old proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The same holds true here. Teach a man a rule and you help him solve a problem; teach a man to walk with God and you help him solve the rest of his life. Truth be told, you couldn’t master enough principles to see yourself safely through this Story. There are too many surprises, ambiguities, exceptions to the rule. Things are hard at work—is it time to make a move? What has God called you to do with your life? Things are hard at home—is this just a phase your son is going through, or should you be more concerned? You can’t seem to shake this depression—is it medical or something darker? What does the future hold for you—and how should you respond?
Only by walking with God can we hope to find the path that leads to life. That is what it means to be a disciple. After all—aren’t we “followers of Christ”? Then by all means, let’s actually follow him. Not ideas about him. Not just his principles. Him.
(Waking the Dead , 96–97) “Above all else, guard your heart.” We usually hear this with a sense of “Keep an eye on that heart of yours,” in the way you’d warn a deputy watching over some dangerous outlaw, or a bad dog the neighbors let run. “Don’t let him out of your sight.” Having so long believed our hearts are evil, we assume the warning is to keep us out of trouble. We think we have to guard our heart against multiple temptations and prevent it from straying. So we lock up our hearts and throw away the key and then try to get on with our living. But that isn’t the spirit of the command at all. It doesn’t say guard your heart because it’s criminal; it says guard your heart because it is the wellspring of your life, because it is a treasure, because everything else depends on it. How kind of God to give us this warning, like someone’s entrusting to a friend something precious to him, with the words: “Be careful with this—it means a lot to me.”
Above all else? Good grief—we don’t even do it once in a while. We might as well leave our life savings on the seat of the car with the windows rolled down—we’re that careless with our hearts. “If not for my careless heart,” sang Roy Orbison, and it might be the anthem for our lives. Things would be different. I would be farther along. My faith would be much deeper. My relationships so much better. My life would be on the path God meant for me . . . if not for my careless heart. We live completely backward. “All else” is above our hearts. I’ll wager that caring for your heart isn’t even a category you think in. “Let’s see—I’ve got to get the kids to soccer, the car needs to be dropped off at the shop, and I need to take a couple of hours for my heart this week.” It probably sounds unbiblical, even after all we’ve covered.
Seriously now—what do you do on a daily basis to care for your heart? Okay, that wasn’t fair. How about weekly? Monthly?
(Waking the Dead , 207–8) Against the flesh, the traitor within, a warrior uses discipline. We have a two-dimensional version of this now, which we call a “quiet time.” But most men have a hard time sustaining any sort of devotional life because it has no vital connection to recovering and protecting their strength; it feels about as important as flossing. But if you saw your life as a great battle and you knew you needed time with God for your very survival, you would do it. Maybe not perfectly—nobody ever does and that’s not the point anyway—but you would have a reason to seek him. We give a halfhearted attempt at the spiritual disciplines when the only reason we have is that we “ought” to. But we’ll find a way to make it work when we are convinced we’re history if we don’t.
Time with God each day is not about academic study or getting through a certain amount of Scripture or any of that. It’s about connecting with God. We’ve got to keep those lines of communication open, so use whatever helps. Sometimes I’ll listen to music; other times I’ll read Scripture or a passage from a book; often I will journal; maybe I’ll go for a run; then there are days when all I need is silence and solitude and the rising sun. The point is simply to do whatever brings me back to my heart and the heart of God.
The discipline, by the way, is never the point. The whole point of a “devotional life” is connecting with God. This is our primary antidote to the counterfeits the world holds out to us.
(Wild at Heart , 171–72) John 11:25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life...
1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
God placed the man whom He had created in the garden of Eden. There were two options before the man. One was to receive life, and the other was to die. If man ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the result would be death. But if he ate of the fruit of the tree of life, he would receive life.
The man created by God was good, but there was still one unresolved question-the question of life and death. In the garden of Eden, man could think and act, but he did not have life. We are not saying that he was not alive. As far as his natural life was concerned, man was alive. Genesis 2:7 speaks of man being a living soul. Nevertheless, as far as the life represented by the tree of life was concerned, man did not yet have life. The life we are speaking of is this life represented by the tree of life. At the time of Genesis 2, although man was alive, he had no life. Man had sound thoughts and sound feelings (these two being the most important elements of man's soul), but he did not have the life represented by the tree of life. From this we see that life is deeper than feelings and thoughts.
Life is the Lord Himself. Life is not something other than Christ. If it is a thing, it is dead; it is not life. To many Christians, life is something they can produce out of themselves. But the Lord told us that He alone is the life. Watchman Nee
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality [truth] and the life. John 10:10 I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly. Now we have to speak some concerning Christ being our life. Wherever there is life, spontaneously there are works. But works cannot replace life. We have to be very clear that works are not life. Life does not require any effort of our own. Life is just Christ Himself. Many people try hard and exert considerable energy to be a Christian. Daily they strive toward this goal to the point of exhaustion. To them, the doctrines are strict; one has to be humble, meek, loving, forgiving, and enduring. These teachings are truly tiresome. They consider it a hard thing to be a Christian. This is especially true for young Christians, who find that the harder they try, the harder it is for them to live like a Christian. Brothers and sisters, if Christ is not the life, we surely have to do everything. But if Christ is the life, we do not have to do anything. Let me repeat: life is Christ Himself, and works cannot replace life.
Among God's children, the greatest misunderstanding is to think that self-effort is life and that unless one exerts his own effort, he does not have life. But we have to realize that if there is life, there is no need of work. If there is life, everything will be lived out spontaneously. Consider how your eyes see. Consider how your ears hear. Your eyes see spontaneously, and your ears hear spontaneously because they all have life. Life is so spontaneous.
Brothers and sisters, we must remember that God does not give us individual things, one by one. He has given us His Son. We should always lift up our head and say to the Lord, "You are my way; You are my truth; You are my life. Lord, I have to deal with You alone, not with the things that belong to You." ... Yet how easy it is for us to take the way, the truth, and the life as separate things.
We call a noisy atmosphere life. We call clear logic life. We call rich emotions life. We call outward behavior life. Actually, they are not life at all. We have to know that the Lord is the life. Christ is our life. It is the Lord who lives out this life from us. May the Lord deliver us from many fragmentary, outward matters so that we can touch the Lord Himself. May we see the Lord in everything, and may we see that our way... our truth... our life is our knowledge of the Lord. May the Lord open our eyes, and may we be delivered from many outward things to see the Son of God. May we live in Him, and may He live in us. Amen!
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from "Central Messages" pp. 67-68, 152. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA (Repeat 11/25/97) Communion with God is replaced by activity for God. There is little time in this outer world for deep questions. Given the right plan, everything in life can be managed . . . except your heart.
The inner life, the story of our heart, is the life of the deep places within us, our passions and dreams, our fears and our deepest wounds. It is the unseen life, the mystery within—what Buechner calls our “shimmering self.” It cannot be managed like a corporation. The heart does not respond to principles and programs; it seeks not efficiency, but passion. Art, poetry, beauty, mystery, ecstasy: These are what rouse the heart. Indeed, they are the language that must be spoken if one wishes to communicate with the heart. It is why Jesus so often taught and related to people by telling stories and asking questions. His desire was not just to engage their intellects but to capture their hearts.
(The Sacred Romance , 6–7) The Lord tells us through Peter: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Peter makes it clear he is talking especially to believers, saying in verse 9, “Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brethren throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings” (emphasis added).
'Your brethren' leapt out at me when I read this excerpt. The Holy Spirit chose to use the word 'brethren' when 'the church' or 'the body of Christ' would have an equivalent meaning.
Could it be that fellowship is vitally important to standing firm in the faith?
Could it be that fellowship with Christians who are like your own family is crucial to resisting condemnation?
Could it be that brotherly love in God's family is key to overcoming our temporary sufferings?
May you find such love in our Father's house!
I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that
I am the Lord, the God of Israel,
who summons you by name. (Isa. 45:2–3)
God’s imagery of going before us lets us know that he desires us to go on a journey. This is not so frightening. Most of us are aware that the Christian life requires a pilgrimage of some sort. We know we are sojourners. It is a journey of the heart we are called to with him. He calls you by name.
(The Sacred Romance , 127–28) Guys are unanimously embarrassed by their emptiness and woundedness; it is for most of us a tremendous source of shame, as I’ve said. But it need not be. From the very beginning, back before the Fall and the assault, ours was meant to be a desperately dependent existence. It’s like a tree and its branches, explains Christ. You are the branches, I am the trunk. From me you draw your life; that’s how it was meant to be. In fact, he goes on to say, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He’s not berating us or mocking us or even saying it with a sigh, all the while thinking, I wish they’d pull it together and stop needing me so much. Not at all. We are made to depend on God; we are made for union with him, and nothing about us works right without it. As C. S. Lewis wrote, “A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.”
This is where our sin and our culture have come together to keep us in bondage and brokenness, to prevent the healing of our wound. Our sin is that stubborn part inside that wants, above all else, to be independent. There’s a part of us fiercely committed to living in a way where we do not have to depend on anyone—especially God. Then culture comes along with figures like John Wayne and James Bond and all those other “real men,” and the one thing they have in common is that they are loners; they don’t need anyone. We come to believe deep in our hearts that needing anyone for anything is a sort of weakness, a handicap.
(Wild at Heart , 121–22. John Eldridge) If you wanted to learn how to heal the blind and you thought that following Christ around and watching how he did it would make things clear, you’d wind up pretty frustrated. He never does it the same way twice. He spits on one guy; for another, he spits on the ground and makes mud and puts that on his eyes. To a third he simply speaks, a fourth he touches, and for a fifth he kicks out a demon. There are no formulas with God. The way in which God heals our wound is a deeply personal process. He is a person and he insists on working personally. For some, it comes in a moment of divine touch. For others, it takes place over time and through the help of another, maybe several others. As Agnes Sanford says, “There are in many of us wounds so deep that only the mediation of someone else to whom we may ‘bare our grief ’ can heal us.”
So much healing took place in my life simply through my friendship with Brent. We were partners, but far more than that, we were friends. We spent hours together fly-fishing, backpacking, hanging out in pubs. Just spending time with a man I truly respected, a real man who loved and respected me—nothing heals quite like that. At first I feared that I was fooling him, that he’d see through it any day and drop me. But he didn’t, and what happened instead was validation. My heart knew that if a man I know is a man thinks I’m one, too, well then, maybe I am one after all. Remember—masculinity is bestowed by masculinity. But there have been other significant ways in which God has worked—times of healing prayer, times of grieving the wound and forgiving my father. Most of all, times of deep communion with God. The point is this: Healing never happens outside of intimacy with Christ. The healing of our wound flows out of our union with him.
(Wild at Heart , 127–28) The deeper reason we fear our own glory is that once we let others see it, they will have seen the truest us, and that is nakedness indeed. We can repent of our sin. We can work on our “issues.” But there is nothing to be “done” about our glory. It’s so naked. It’s just there—the truest us. It is an awkward thing to shimmer when everyone else around you is not, to walk in your glory with an unveiled face when everyone else is veiling his. For a woman to be truly feminine and beautiful is to invite suspicion, jealousy, misunderstanding. A friend confided in me, “When you walk into a room, every woman looks at you to see—are you prettier than they are? Are you a threat?”
And that is why living from your glory is the only loving thing to do. You cannot love another person from a false self. You cannot love another while you are still hiding. You cannot love another unless you offer her your heart. It takes courage to live from your heart. My friend Jenny said just the other day, “I desperately want to be who I am. I don’t want the glory that I marvel at in others anymore. I want to be that glory which God set in me.”
Finally, our deepest fear of all . . . we will need to live from it. To admit we do have a new heart and a glory from God, to begin to let it be unveiled and embrace it as true—that means the next thing God will do is ask us to live from it. Come out of the boat. Take the throne. Be what he meant us to be. And that feels risky . . . really risky. But it is also exciting. It is coming fully alive. My friend Morgan declared, “It’s a risk worth taking.”
(Waking the Dead , 87–88) A friend of mine wanted to teach English as a second language in an Asian country, as a way of becoming a sort of undercover missionary. A beautiful dream, one that I’m sure she would have been excellent in fulfilling. But she rushed to the field unprepared in many ways. I don’t mean finances and language skills; I mean in the ways of the heart. Lurking down in her soul were some deep and unresolved issues that would set her up for a fall: among them shame and guilt from an abusive past. The team she joined was totally unfamiliar with the new heart, and they doubted its goodness; as with too many Christian ministries, shame and guilt were often used as motivators. Their old covenant theology would play right into Susan’s issues, shut down her young heart. Finally, she was unpracticed in spiritual warfare, ill-equipped for what hell would throw at her. The devil is a master at shame and guilt. She went; she got hammered; she came home, defeated. Her friends wonder if she’ll ever try it again. Luke 14:31"Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? " The disaster could have been avoided. Wisdom was crying out: do not rush the field (Luke 14:31); train yourself to discern good and evil (Heb. 5:14); live as though your life is at stake, and the enemy is waiting to outwit you (Matt. 10:16). God has given us all sorts of counsel and direction in his written Word; thank God, we have it written down in black and white. We would do well to be familiar with it, study it with all the intensity of the men who studied the maps of the Normandy coastline before they hit the beaches on D-Day. The more that wisdom enters our hearts, the more we will be able to trust our hearts in difficult situations. Notice that wisdom is not cramming our head with principles. It is developing a discerning heart. What made Solomon such a sharp guy was his wise and listening heart (1 Kings 3:9).
We don’t seek wisdom because it’s a good idea; we seek wisdom because we’re dead if we don’t.
(Waking the Dead , 99–100)
| |
