When Darkness Descends... Look to the Light

Some things can only be seen when it is dark.  The stars, for instance, are just as bright during the day as they are at night, but it takes darkness to reveal them.

Antares, pictured above, is one of the brightest stars in the sky at night.  The radius of Antares is more than 880 times larger than the Sun and it is 10,000 times brighter.  Antares is visible in the sky all night around May 31, so if the sky is clear tonight, you should be able to pick out it's distinctly reddish hew with the naked eye.

Though it is 10,000 times brighter than the Sun, Antares seems invisible in the daylight.  It takes the darkness to reveal it.  

So... when the psalm declares, "The heavens are telling the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1), does that mean that God's handiwork is more visible in the darkness than in the light?  Most of of the time for most of us the answer is YES.  Just as the light of a brilliant star is more visible in the darkness, God's glory is most visible against a shroud of darkness.

Psalm 27 begins with the exclamation:

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
    so why should I be afraid?
The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
    so why should I tremble?

I'm pretty sure that whoever wrote these words didn't come to this conclusion on a beautiful, sunny, carefree day.  It would be my guess that the author "saw the light" against a backdrop of darkness.  

Rather than cursing the darkness, we need to stare directly into the darkness with our eyes wide open.  In the darkness of night the psalmist wrote, "The Lord is my light and my salvation." If it wasn't so, Jesus would not have said, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life" (John 8:12).  

  

The Life of Christ is the DNA of the Church

•  
• Jesus is at the Center "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.  And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.  We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champian who initiates and perfects our faith." (Hebrews 12:1-2)

• His Church is a COMMUNITY "And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had.  They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity - all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved."(Acts 2:44-47)

• A Community Gathered around the Word - (Jesus prayed) "Now I am coming to you (Father).  I told them many things while  I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy.  I have given them your word.  And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world.  I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.  They do not belong to this world any more than I do.  Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth.  Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world.  I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth."    (John 17:13-19)

• A Community Guided by the Spirit - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23)

• A Community Devoted to Peace and Justice -  "You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say, love your enemies!  Pray for those who persecute you!  In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:43-45)

• A Community on a Mission for God - "Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something." But Jesus replied, "I have a kind of food you know nothing about." -- "Did someone bring him food while we were gone?” the disciples asked each other. Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work." (John 4:31-34)

This is the DNA of a New Testment Church.  All through history these values have shaped and given definition to the movement Jesus came to mobilize.  When the Church has failed to exhibit these values, it has been weak and anemic.  When the Church has been shaped by these values, it has been a force for good and for God in every age and in every culture.

The Importance of Community

Kevin Rains wrote an article on community that is an important contribution to any discussion of what a Christ centered church should look like. Community is at the very center of our desire to reshape the 21st Century church according to the pattern found in the New Testament.  This is what Eldredge calls "a band of intimate allies."  Here is Kevin Rains' contribution to the discussion:

Community is almost a ruined word. I refuse to give up on it though. Just because its been misused, battered, and tattered does not mean it can't be useful. But it needs some definition.

Community means availability. It means time spent together. Real time. Time for conversation, interaction, and a deepening of communion, of intimacy between 2 or more people. Community is never general or generic. It is always specific and definable by people spending time together. Now, time spent together does not guarantee community. There has to be a certain quality to the time spent together. Time doesn't guarantee it but it is a pre-requisite.

Community means vulnerability. If we aren't willing to open up our lives to others we will never experience true community. This is why mutual confession builds community. We come to the table with our strengths and our weaknesses and we lay ourselves bare, exposed to the scrutiny and more importantly the love, acceptance and forgiveness of others. This doesn't happen overnight nor should it. It needs to be a progressive deepening. People who lay themselves bare at a first encounter scare me. There is something unhealthy in over-exposure especially as a first approach. These things take time and discernment to know how much to share and when. Mistakes will be made. Over-hiding and over-exposure will happen. There can be no set rule for such things. But if we expect to gain community and constantly flee vulnerability we will never have it.

Community means a shared life. This ties back in to availability but goes beyond it. Our life in one regard is made up of time. So if we want a shared life we must spend time together. Resources also need to be shared. Basically our checkbooks and our schedules can be a good gauge of community.

Community means stability. Benedict was a genius to introduce a vow of stability into his Rule. If we want to experience community we need to be rooted somewhere among some people. If we constantly move on in search of greener pastures we will not be around long enough to grow the roots necessary for community. Community can not happen on the fly.

A Surrendered Life

Henry Martyn was a man who was terribly afflicted with warts. He had warts on his hands, on his body, warts on his face and across his eyebrows. Henry was able to identify with the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 53:

He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.  We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by.  He was despised, and we did not care.        (Isaiah 53:3)

Like the Suffering Servant, Henry was not beautiful to look at on the outside, but he had a beautiful spirit and a brilliant mind.   He was a Cambridge scholar, having graduated first among the honor students in his class.  His field was mathematics 

Henry loved to attend sporting events, but hid himself to avoid the pain and humiliation caused by the taunts of those who ridiculed him because of his appearance.  He was amazed when a young girl by the name of Lydia fell in love with him.

One day Henry was sitting in a worship service and the pastor was talking about missions in India. Henry sensed that God was calling him to the mission field. But when he went to Lydia and asked her what she thought about it she shocked him. "Absolutely not!" she declared, "I will not go to India!"
  

Henry begged and pleaded with her, but she would not budge. Yet, day by day God's call to India grew stronger deep within his heart. He thought he had a choice to make, either Lydia or India. But as he prayed about it the Lord made it clear that the decision wasn't between Lydia or India - it was between Lydia or GOD.

Henry chose to surrender his life to the call of God and go to India to share the good news of Jesus. Like the Apostle Paul he was beaten and placed in chains, but  he was determined to let his yes be "Yes!"

When he arrived in Calcutta in April 1806, he exclaimed, "Now let me burn out for God!"  He had little idea of how quickly the fire of God would consume him.  He died six years later at the age of 31.

But in the brief span of six years, Henry Martyn  translated the Bible into three languages - Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic, leaving a legacy that continues to this day.  Such is the power of a surrendered life! 

Jesus Came to Set Us Free from Mere Religion

Simple Church Journal is a blog by Roger Thoman that I've appreciated over the years and occasionally post on The Gathering Network.  Here is a recent post from that blog.

The Christian world, the entire Christian world, is permeated with a religious spirit.  It's in me, in others, in traditional churches, in house churches.  It is such a pervasive dysfunction that it's no wonder Jesus addressed it so forcefully.

The religious spirit is not just "them," it's also "us."  We think, oh so subtly, that we are somehow better than "them."  We look at externals of some kind: how we worship, how we do liturgy or don't do liturgy, how we view Scripture, our pet theological perspectives and we hold tightly to these things because on some level we believe them to be "right."  We lose our humility and our "rightness" becomes a judgment of others.  We are better than them.  We "do it" more correctly.  And there it is--a religious spirit.

We take on a religious spirit when we get focused on the way to live the Christian life rather than the Person that we live the Christian life with.  We turn relationship with God into rules.  A relationship is an ongoing, everyday, living thing.  When we are not living out of that living relationship, we begin to retreat into the rules of Christian living as a substitute.  We do, after all, know the "right" way to live.  It doesn't take long before we are judging others because they are not living the "right" way like we are.  We quickly lose sight of the fact that the reason we are in this place of judging others is because we ourselves are unsettled.  We have lost our peace because we are no longer fully embracing the Person.  We try to repair our sense of unrest by setting up the rules, the structure, in order to live right and thus feel right.  We project that onto others.  We quickly become the pharisees who encourage others to live for God based on the letter of the law and in so doing we lead people away from vibrant relationship with God.

We take on a religious spirit when our theology becomes more important than the Person behind our belief systems.  We believe we know the truth; we often believe we know MOST of the truth even though Scripture affirms that we "see through a glass darkly."  Yet we base much of our personal security on knowing "the truth" and we leave little room for humility, for paradoxical theological positions, and for learning deeper truths.  Because our "truth" makes us feel secure, we judge the theological positions of others as being "less than."  We become the scribes and we miss the heart of the One from whom all truth flows.

We take on a religious spirit when we believe we are part of a "movement" of God that others have not yet experienced but "should."  Perhaps what we are involved in is NOT what God is calling someone else to be involved in.  Yet we take whatever God has done for us and judge others by whether or not God has done it for them or in them or to them.

We take on a religious spirit when we have been hurt or disappointed by other Christians.  Rather than heal, forgive, let go, set boundaries and move on, we become bitter.  We find reason to judge them and their "hypocritical" brand of Christianity.  We hold up a standard of "righteousness" that we judge others by (because we have been hurt).  We become standard-bearers of righteousness seeking to hold people accountable to what's "right."  In the process we become the legalists.  We forget that we are all just humans deeply in need of the washing of the blood of Jesus Christ and His eternal mercy.

We take on a religious spirit when we fail to recognize God in each and every person that He has created and redeemed.  When we believe that we have something to teach others but fail to see what they have to teach us.  When we take something from our spiritual life or experience and imagine that we are, in some way, better than those who do not share exactly what we are "into."

A religious spirit robs us of our real spirituality.  We do not live out of the vitality of union with Christ, we live out of the push,the guilt, and the shoulds of duty.  We live out of a subtle pride; we lose the joy of first love.  We may feel good about "being good," but we lack the passion of a lover's life.

Worse, we pass on this spirit into others.  We model a Christianity that lacks the zest and peace that comes from relationship.  We exemplify a dour, sober, lifeless Christianity.  We sometimes even heap the guilt and shoulds on others and, in doing this, keep them from finding the joy of the Person.  We take the religious burdens that we have put on ourselves, and we wrap them around others in a way that stifles their openness to a God of relational, creative, beautiful love.  No wonder Jesus said, woe unto you!

So, I say, woe unto me.  Woe unto us all.  To repent and break free of religion in order to experience the power of relationship with Creator-God... isn't that the call of the hour?

Who is Jesus?

Jesus asked, "Who do people say I am" (Matthew 16:13-28)

Peter's Confession

13 Jesus went to the area of Caesarea Philippi. He said to his followers, “Who do people say I am?”

14 They answered, “Some people say you are John the Baptizer. Others say you are Elijah. And some say you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 Then Jesus said to his followers, “And who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus answered, “You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah. No one taught you that. My Father in heaven showed you who I am. 18 So I tell you, you are Peter. And I will build my church on this rock. The power of death will not be able to defeat my church. 19 I will give you the keys to God’s kingdom. When you speak judgment here on earth, that judgment will be God’s judgment. When you promise forgiveness here on earth, that forgiveness will be God’s forgiveness.”

20 Then Jesus warned his followers not to tell anyone he was the Messiah.

Jesus’ Mission

21 From that time Jesus began telling his followers that he must go to Jerusalem. He explained that the older Jewish leaders, the leading priests, and the teachers of the law would make him suffer many things. And he told his followers that he must be killed. Then, on the third day, he would be raised from death.

22 Peter took Jesus away from the other followers to talk to him alone. He began to criticize him. He said, “God save you from those sufferings, Lord! That will never happen to you!”

23 Then Jesus said to Peter, “Get away from me, Satan! You are not helping me! You don’t care about the same things God does. You care only about things that people think are important.”

24 Then Jesus said to his followers, “If any of you want to be my follower, you must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to carry the cross that is given to you for following me. 25 Any of you who try to save the life you have will lose it. But you who give up your life for me will find true life. 26 It is worth nothing for you to have the whole world if you yourself are lost. You could never pay enough to buy back your life. 27 The Son of Man will come again with his Father’s glory and with his angels. And he will reward everyone for what they have done. 28 Believe me when I say that there are some people standing here who will see the Son of Man coming with his kingdom before they die.”

The SImple Life: Simply Look to, Learn from, Live for Jesus

Excerpts from “The Simplification of life”

Taken from “A Testament of Devotion”

Thomas R. Kelly

Let me talk very intimately and very earnestly with you about Him who is dearer than life. Do you really want to live your lives, every moment of your lives, in His Presence? Do you long for Him, crave Him? Do you love His Presence? Does every drop of blood in your body love Him? Does every breath you draw breathe a prayer, a praise to Him? Do you sing and dance within yourselves, as you glory in His love? Have you set yourselves to be His, and only His, walking every moment in holy obedience?

This life, this abiding, enduring peace that never fails, this serene power and unhurried conquest, inward conquest over ourselves, outward conquest over the world, is meant to be ours. It is a life that is freed from strain and anxiety and hurry, for something of the Cosmic Patience of God becomes ours. Are our lives unshakable, because we are clear down on bed rock, rooted and grounded in the love of God? This is the first and the great commandment.

Do you want to live in such an amazing divine Presence that life is transformed and transfigured and transmuted into peace and power and glory and miracle? If you do, then you can. But if you say you haven't the time to go down into the recreating silences, I can only say to you, "Then you don't really want to, you don't yet love God above all else in the world, with all your heart and soul and mind and strength."

I think it is clear that I am talking about a revolutionary way of living. Religion isn't something to be added to our other duties, and thus make our lives yet more complex. The life with God is the center of life, and all else is remodelled and integrated by it. It gives the singleness of eye.

There is a way of life so hid with Christ in God that in the midst of the day's business one is inwardly lifting brief prayers, short ejaculations of praise, subdued whispers of adoration and of tender love to the Beyond that is within. 

Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is triumphant. It is radiant. It takes no time, but it occupies all our time. And it makes our life programs new and overcoming. We need not get frantic. He is at the helm. And when our little day is done we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well.