Jesus Submitted To The Father's (Moral) Will

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Submitted To The Father’s Will

“Yet not what I will, but what you (Father) will.”

                                                                        Mark 14:36

Moral authority, where does it lie?  In whose hands does the determination of good and evil, right and wrong, rest?  Can morality be arrived at by the agreement of good people as to just what is good and what is evil?   Might morality be the product of a plebiscite? Could a public referendum be relied upon to establish any moral standard?  And, if a ballot, if public opinion, can declare moral positions, is morality any more substantial than a sand dune, subject to constant sifting and shifting day by day, likely to undergo radical and repeated change, or, if winds and tides of society move strongly enough, even be altogether abolished by the next election?

Personally, I do not understand how anyone who claims to read, know, and believe the Bible, can consider any moral authority other than God.  Look to any other moral authority than God, and know that you are immediately moving to assert your will over His.  Yet no few Christians individually, and no few churches, and even denominations, corporately, give tacit or explicit moral authority to man.  What’s up with that?  I know that a lot of people, Christians not the least, give themselves and our culture credit for being far better informed than our ancestors, of being so much wiser, wiser even than God himself as they update His moral code to accommodate their mores.  Funny how we, who are so much better informed and wiser, can’t answer with our many college degrees questions that a hundred years ago were part of an exam to pass the Sixth Grade!  Funny how the understanding of morality has “advanced” over the years:

Moral: "Conformed to the divine law..." (From the 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster.) "The word moral is applicable to actions that are good or evil, virtuous or vicious, and has reference to the law of God AS THE STANDARD by which their character is to be determined."

Morals: “Refers to generally accepted customs of conduct and right living in a society, and to the individual’s practice in relation to these.” From the 1984 Random House Collegiate Dictionary.)

Between 1828 and 1984 God, who alone is good, has been removed entirely from the discussion of morality, while we, though not even one of us is good (See Mark 10:18), have given ourselves all authority for determining what is “right” and what is “wrong!”  This is completely contrary to what Jesus had to say on the matter of morality, which he submitted to the Father’s will alone.

Morality is not subject to a vote, nor is it mutable. Change morality (And change it we have, and continue to do), and, regardless of how slight, or justified, we believe the change, we have moved from morality to immorality. Move far enough and we will arrive at the state of amorality, where "everyone does what is right in their own eyes," and anything goes.  We are already moving rapidly in this direction and are picking up speed continually.  I do not see any institution turning things around, not government, not schools, not even the Church today, much of which is a party to the deconstruction of morality.  Other than the Holy Spirit, convicting one heart at a time, and turning one life at a time to the Father, who, again, alone is good, I expect we will fall further into the moral abyss.

Jim

Marion, NC

PS 37.4

Jesus Talked Tough About Sin

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Talked Tough About Sin

“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”

                                                                        Matthew 18:8

What could Jesus have been thinking, encouraging people to practice self-mutilation to deal with sin?  Nowadays popular opinion would have us deal with sin by administering a slap on the wrist at most; follow the instruction of the Lord and there wouldn’t be many wrists to slap!  I hope we can all see that Jesus was making a point, a strong point, about just how serious sin is.  In particular, Jesus wanted his followers not to have any misunderstanding about the consequences of sin.  Unless one finds the idea of swimming in flames appealing, sin should be avoided at all costs, even if it means losing a hand or foot or an eye (Matthew 18:9).  And, yes, it would have sounded just as extreme and shocking to the audience that was listening to Jesus as it does to us.  Maybe that’s why there’s so little attention given to sin in a lot of churches.

You know, it's tough to talk about sin nowadays, isn't it? Most simply dismiss "sin" as an outmoded and unnecessary artifact of a long-irrelevant puritanical Calvinism (Though they would be hard pressed to put it into those words). Others, who might be willing to admit the subject of "sin" into conversation, will likely have a defective understanding of "sin" as actions, thoughts, and words of varying magnitude that fall somewhere along a sliding scale of things that are "bad" or "wrong."

But, make no mistake, sin is nothing less than outright rebellion against the God and Creator of all things. Sin is absolutely, pernicious, that is deadly. Sin is constituted of offenses against God which cannot be satisfied by any payment, penalty, or sentence other than death.

Saying, "I'm sorry" doesn't get it done. Saying, "But I'm REALLY sorry" won't cut it. Even if we had access to all the wealth in the world and offered to pay it as a fine for our sin, it wouldn't begin to approach satisfying the demands of justice. And, were we to submit to being incarcerated for eternity as punishment for sin, "Life, plus forever..." that would be far too short a time to pay our "debt."

Sin is alienation from our Maker. It is corporate and individual brokenness that accounts for all the misery and suffering in the world. And there is one, and only one, remedy for sin. One and only one way to end the rebellion and restore us, and creation to loving relationship with God (and one another). The remedy is the Cross of Christ. And we can only be saved from the inevitable consequences of sin by coming to the Cross, confessing our sin, and our utter hopelessness apart from the grace and mercy of the Father, in and through the Son, imparted to us by faith by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and receiving Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

The world will offer us endless alternatives. For example, I just learned that the "Jedi Church" (Faith based on nothing more than a screenplay!), is the 7th largest in England, and growing rapidly elsewhere. But not one of these alternatives leads anywhere but to death. People ARE looking for answers, and, as I said, the world has no shortage of them, just pick the one that appeals to you, is easiest to accommodate to your life. But what we all really need is to embrace, not merely answers, but THE Truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me." -John 14:6

Got questions: "Why are we here?" "Why is the world so messed up?" "Is there any way to fix things?" "What does the future hold?" I'd love to explore them with you.

(BTW-Just in case you don’t know, Jesus has another answer to the problem of sin in our lives besides removing offending parts of our body.  I’d be happy to talk about that with you too!)

Jim

Marion, NC

PS 37.4

Jesus Died for Condemned Sinners, Not "Basically Good" People

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Died for Condemned Sinners, Not “Basically Good” People

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners,

Christ died for us.”

                                                                        Romans 5:8

O.K.  All the ex-sinners out there, raise your hands…No offense, but, “Liars!”  Don’t get all huffy with me now.  If you put your hand up either you’re lying or God is,  and I know God doesn’t lie.  You don’t have to believe me, check out what John had to say on the matter. (1John 1:8-10)

While, by the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit at work within us, we can be convicted, repent of, and forsake our past sins, shaking our sin nature is simply not possible.  In truth, a veritable “civil war” rages in every believer. (Romans 7:21-25)  But this is a good thing.  Lost sinners have no such internal conflict, they are quite comfortable in their flesh, and, unless the Father in response to the prayers of his Son sends the Holy Spirit, they will abide in their sins under what Paul calls the “law of sin.”

Thanks be to God that, through Jesus Christ our Lord, not only does the war go on inside every believer, but the battle has been won for us!  So, Paul can truly say, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)  Unfortunately too many Christians and too many congregations have misunderstood what Paul said, and flee from all judgment and condemnation of sin.  And so we see higher divorce rates among churchgoers than the general population.  We note the alarming number of young believers who engage in premarital sexual relations.  We know that there are confused Christian women who make the tragic decision every day to abort their baby.  We either forget, or have never understood, that the purpose of condemning sin is to restore a brother or sister, to save them, not to cut them off from the fellowship of the Body and the grace and love of the Lord Jesus.  In the name of doing the “loving” thing, we do the exact opposite by creating a climate where sin, if not outwardly affirmed, is tacitly tolerated by avoiding the subject altogether in order not to hurt anyone’s self-image.

I can hear some people say, “That’s all very well, but there is never any reason to look at anyone’s past, and condemn past sins.”  This may sound good to many, but past sins never confessed, never repented of, are pretty much present sins.  At the very least such “past” sins are terrible, heavy burdens we don’t need to carry.  That’s why Jesus calls us to bring all such burdens to him (see Matthew 11:28-30), and why we need to encourage one another to regularly confess our sins to one another (James 5:16, 19-20).

The point of the story in John 8 of the woman caught in adultery is definitely not that sin should be ignored.  Rather, only those who first acknowledge their own sin, and how great their debt to grace, can approach a sister or brother with the goal of redeeming them while condemning their sin.  Otherwise we will likely fall into the trap of usurping God’s role as judge of all, just as that angry mob of scribes and Pharisees did.  Our calling is not to be executioners, but agents of the Father’s forgiveness and grace in Jesus Christ, offering to those who, just like us are condemned sinners apart from the atoning death of Jesus, the same opportunity the Father gives us to be convicted, to confess, and to repent of our sins so that we all, like that woman in John 8, may, under “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” “go and sin no more.”

Jesus, Himself Being The Sent One, Encouraged Those He Sent To Also Be Senders

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus, Himself Being The Sent One,

 Encouraged Those He Sent To Also Be Senders

                                                                       

“…As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

                                                                        John 20:21

Who was the first Christian missionary?  Jesus, of course!  For before Jesus ever sent out any of his disciples, he himself was sent on a mission by the Father.  Christianity is, and always has been, a missionary enterprise, about sending and being sent.  None of us would be Christians today if not for mission and missionaries.  How else would there ever have been witnesses to Christ beyond the Twelve apostles to “Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8) if not for the repeated cycle of being sent and sending?

Sometimes it is people who are sent (Acts 8:26; 13:1-3), and sometimes it is material aide (Acts 11:27-30).  Whatever form it takes, the Church cannot be the Church apart from its sending and being sent.  And, I would argue, it is hard for us to make a case for our being  Christians without our willingness to send and to be sent.    The being sent may be no further than down the hall to the bedroom of a daughter or son, or across the street to a neighbor.  Or, we might be sent halfway around the world, the mission field being anywhere between “Jerusalem” and the “end of the earth.”  Our sending can also range from the near-at-hand, to several continents away.  Near or far it doesn’t matter, as long as we respond to the call to send and to be sent.

Oftentimes, and Jesus well knew this, those being sent simply cannot get to where they need to go by foot.  The spread of the Gospel has always benefited from improvements to transportation.  From camels and horses and mules, to Jeeps and mountain bikes, believers have used whatever works to carry the Good News wherever it needs to be heard.  And, even though modern technology permits many of us to transmit Gospel messages around the world through the ether via the internet, nothing can top the face to face encounter of those who are saved with those who have yet to hear about and receive salvation.

My friend in India, Pastor Ray, has a calling and passion to reach the lost in his country.  But India is a pretty big nation, and getting around by foot means being limited to a rather small circle of ministry.  A few bicycles would help Pastor Ray and his fellow Gospel workers immensely.  So, in addition to its mission of raising money to assist disable children and adults, 2 For The Ride will also be raising money to send bicycles to India for the work of the Gospel.

I frankly pray that, if it is the Father’s will, I may yet be sent to India to assist Pastor Ray.  But in the mean time I intend to send Pastor Ray and his colleagues help in the form of two-wheeled transportation that will facilitate their work of carrying the Gospel throughout all of their “Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria.”

If you would like to learn more about 2 For The Ride please visit our website at http://psalmfoxx.wix.com/2-for-the-ride.

Jesus Sent, And So, I Went (And I'm Still Going)

What Did Jesus Do?

Jesus Sent, And So, I Went (And I’m Still Going)

“And he called…and began to send them out.”

                                                                        Mark 6:7

If was just for fun when most of us learned to ride a bicycle.  Kid stuff.  Like learning to jump rope, climb a tree, hit a baseball.  It was kid stuff, we didn’t think all that much about it as we biked, jumped, climbed, and played ball with our friends.  Thank God for kid stuff!  But, if I may exercise some license in borrowing from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth, there comes a time when most of us give up childish ways.  Bikes sit in the garage unridden.  Jump ropes wind up tying bundles of stuff.  Trees, well they’re pretty enough, but mostly we resent having to rake up their leaves every autumn.  Baseball and most every other game utilizing a ball become something we watch rather than do.  So long, childish ways.

There was an old Schwinn “Ten-Speed” (as we called them with I was a kid) sitting out in our shed, untouched for years.  Until one day last spring I took it down and went for a spin with my daughter and her boyfriend.  None of us had been on a bike for a long-long time.  But by the end of what was an easy seven miles along a very flat greenway, something of the kid in each of us was reawakened.  Kid stuff or not, we discovered all over again how much joy there is to riding a bike.  And so that first little ride was followed by more and longer rides.

Within about a month we amazed ourselves by doing the entire 31 miles of the Virginia Creeper Trail (Yeah, I know most of it is downhill, but the last 12 miles or so are a climb!).  By the end of the summer, well, we were hitting the road for 10-20-and 30 mile rides a couple times a week.  Talk about fun!  But, as much joy as doing kid stuff is when you are no longer a kid, there is something to be said for childish ways making way for more adult callings.

Though I would never have expected it, and who ever really expects it, on one of my rides I thought I heard someone calling.  Actually, not just someone, I believed I hear Him, calling.  While I didn’t fall off the bike, it was startling.  You see, I’ve had a couple of painfully idle, and as far as I can tell, unfruitful years of ministry.  I’d been praying and waiting for a call for way more than 40 days or weeks.  So, when I thought I discerned His voice in my head I was excited!

Pedaling along, just for the fun of it, I heard the Lord (At least I believed and hoped it was the Lord), say “Jim, I am going to send you on your bike.”  Huh?  What kind of a call could be accomplished by doing kid stuff?  Then again, in Christ’s kingdom, uh, a child, shall lead (Isaiah 11:6).  Maybe doing kid stuff is more of the work of the kingdom than most of us who are now adults believe anymore.  So, daring (?) to have the faith of a child, I rode on and asked the Lord to please tell me more.

What followed was either a calling, or a pipedream (Often there is but a very thin line separating the two.), to minister to the least of these, from the saddle of my bike.  Actually, what eventually came into focus was a ministry involving hundreds, thousands hopefully, of children and adults riding bikes for the sake of those who can’t (at least for now).  Let me back up a little here.

Thirty years ago our son suffered a near fatal illness that left him permanently disabled.  Before he had ever ridden even a tricycle it looked like riding a bicycle, and a whole lot of other kid stuff, was going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for our son.  But after some of our family who had discovered the unique potential of riding tandem (What used to be called a bicycle-built-for-two) told us how people with disabilities regularly teamed up with other riders to get rolling, we saved up some money, bought a tandem, fitted our son in the stoker position (the back seat, as it were), and, with me as the captain, headed down the road!  There were lots of the simple little rides around town.  Eventually we even tackled that Virginia Creeper Trail on the tandem, along with such great rides as the Gettysburg battlefield.  It was awesome!

But then, our little son grew up to be bigger than me, and the tandem was just too much for me to control.  And so, once again, our son was either relegated to the curb, or we just skipped riding altogether.  Which brings us back to the bike sitting unused in the shed until last spring.  Now, back to the calling.

You see, our son is just one of thousands and thousands of disabled children and adults faced with special challenges when it comes to doing kid stuff (And adult stuff too, for that matter.).  So, as I rode along talking with the Lord about what he was sending me to do on my bike, the vision of a ministry with the mission of helping folks with special needs get started in the sport of cycling began to develop.  And, when I speak of challenges I don’t merely mean physical ones.  You see, special bicycles, recumbents, tandems, and adapted tricycles are a lot more expensive than the bikes you can simply go and buy at your local “big-box” store.  Already faced with lots of expenses most of us don’t have to deal with, disabled adults, and families with disabled children often don’t have it in their budget to spend a couple of thousand dollars on a bike.

This is where 2 For The Ride (That’s what we’re calling this ministry), comes in.  The idea is to stage a number of charity rides across the country, inviting a hundred and more cyclists on each one to contribute to a fund expressly for the purpose of acquiring and giving away adaptive bikes and cycling equipment to disabled children and adults in their communities.  Pedaling a mile, or ten, or 20, or 100 (There are riders at all levels out there on the road), for a cause already has great appeal to many.  And riding in order to help others enjoy the emotional, physical, social, and spiritual benefits of cycling is ministry in a very Matthew 25 sort of way.

Now, it remains to be seen if this is a ministry that will flourish or wither, we’re just in the process of trying to launch it in 2013.  Our hope is that we might be able to schedule as many as ten rides this year, and raise over $100,000.  And, even before the first group ride, I am planning on a solo ride of about 725 miles to begin to raise money.  Anyway, I believe Jesus is sending, so I’m going to be going.  I hope and pray you may hear the Lord sending you on a ride with us too!

Jesus Said "Go!"

What Did Jesus Do…Today?

Jesus Said “Go!”

“Go therefore…And behold, I am with you always.”

                                                                        Matthew 28:19,20

If you’ve had a chance to keep up with our most recent WDJDs you may recall that we noted that Jesus wasn’t one for staying put (WDJD 1/15).  The Lord was a Messiah on the move, if you will.  With the one exception of the ten days that passed between his ascension into heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, when Christ told his disciples to sit tight in Jerusalem and wait, Jesus has a standing order in place for his followers not to, well, stand in one place.

And, not to stifle creativity in ministry, we also pointed out that our calling is to follow Jesus, but to follow the example of Jesus(WDJD 1/16).  We also affirmed that what Jesus did is what Jesus does, in and through us today (WDJD 1/16).

There is, at least I believe there should be, a daily pattern of study and prayer, action, and reflection that is guided by these three questions: 1) What did Jesus do? guides our study of God’s Word; 2) What will Jesus do? takes what we learned when we asked the first question, and directs our decisions and actions during the day; 3) What did you do today Jesus? fuels our reflection at the end of our day, returning us, hopefully, to God’s Word where we confirm that yet again Jesus has done what he’s been doing ever since he first did it.

None of this is to suggest that there is nothing new for Christ’s disciples to do in ministry.  We are continually being shown by the Holy Spirit new places, new people, new needs where the Lord Jesus can and will make a difference, and wills to do so in and through us.  Endless opportunities for ministry lie just beyond the end of our nose, just outside our door, just down the block, just, well, everywhere between where we are and the ends of the earth.  Classrooms and kitchens.  Hospital rooms and holding cells.  Laundromats and locker rooms.  Mountaintops and valley floors.  Blazing deserts and damp jungles…Endless opportunities.

The chances are very good that, if we see what looks like a need, whatever it may be, wherever it may be, Jesus sees it to.  And Christ has never been one to hesitate or shrink back from meeting needs, nor has he ever told his disciples to do anything but “go” and minister in his name.

Father, I cannot thank you enough for sending Jesus when you saw the great needs of this world full of lost sinners, including my need of forgiveness and grace!  I ask you, humbly, to give me eyes to see, a heart to feel, and hands to help someone’s need today.  Amen.   

What Jesus Did Is What Jesus Does: Beyond WDJD

What Did Jesus Do?

What Jesus Did Would Fill More Than An Earthful of Books (John 21:25),

And What Jesus Did Is What Jesus Does:

Going Beyond WDJD

I’ve been asking, and answering, WDJD for over three years now, and have accumulated several hundred posts/blogs.  But, as John 21:25 makes clear, I’ll never exhaust the subject.  Yet, as rewarding as the asking and answering has been, I’ve come to understand that the Father doesn’t want us to stop at simply learning about what the Son did, because, well, the Father and the Son are still in business.  And what Jesus did is what he does.

Now, while my daily Bible study is built upon the repeated asking of WDJD, I am compelled by the Spirit to daily ask another VERY important question of the Lord, “Jesus, what WILL you do in and through me, for my life is yours to direct?”  You see, every answer to WDJD that is revealed to us is a pointer to what Jesus is about today, tomorrow, and forever in and through the lives of every believer.  For sure, God is able to work in and through us without our conscious and intentional participation.  But in such a case God is working rather in spite of us, isn’t he?  In truth, the Father would have his daughters and sons actively seeking to be a part of what he does in and through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And, even as the earth is not big enough to hold all the books that would be necessary to record all that Jesus did, there is no limit to what he will do in and through us when we put our lives in his hands every day.  “What will you do today Jesus?”  Clothe the naked.  Feed the hungry.  House the homeless.  Comfort the bereaved.  Visit the sick.  Lift up the oppressed.  Seek and save the lost.  Minister to the least.  There will be no end to what Jesus will do in this world until this world is no more.  Don’t you want to be a part of it?

Father, I thank you for revealing to me in your Word what your Son Jesus did.  Please guide me by your Word and your Spirit, to be an active part of what Jesus will do today and every day.  Amen.