the Story of Pilar

ecclesia: finding a new church.

finding a home.

Since I moved to the Triangle area of North Carolina, I’ve been visiting several churches in search for a home. Back in New Jersey I attended and served at a small church plant where everyone knows each other and sees each other on a pretty regular basis during the week. I lived, worked, served, played, and did church in the same city, and it was the same place I went to school in as well. The church I went to was where I had been planted for close to 5 years, with the exception of a year abroad in Mexico where I worked in a church who supported and took me in as their own. At my church I never wondered if I was supposed to be there or how to get connected. If anything, I was someone a new person would ask those questions of. When I met a new person, I could tell them where they would fit and how they might get involved. I knew people from most of the other local churches in the area; there are so few missionally-focused, community-loving, biblically-based churches (phew that’s a mouthful) up North that it is easy to be in a network and to see people on a regular basis and get to know them in depth.

Down here, however, is a whole other ball game. There are *multiple* missionally-focused, community-loving, bible-based churches here with big urban outreach programs. Compared to what I am used to in my small plant church, they have giant worship services in many places at once. Each has 55 (estimated) community groups all over the Triangle. There are counseling services, baseball teams, community groups based on age/gender/status and about a million other things to get plugged into and/or apply yourself and your skills towards. Sometimes it’s easy to feel like a small fish in a big pond.

This is the South. So, there are a lot of what I would call “traditional” Baptist churches, if that’s your fancy. But there are also like 30 or 40 emerging churches with wonderful pastors who are intelligent, humorous, humble and bring the word with a theological knowledge that is spellbounding! I’ve already cried, laughed, and been schooled during several sermons that I’ve heard while here. Also, there’s an enormous pool of different kinds of congregants. From kids to young professionals, artists to academics, laymen to seminarians, locals to transplants, married couples to elderly people.  As I was saying to my pastor back home: It’s like church heaven. Being from Georgia, he knew just what I was talking about. The options of great places to be planted are copious wells of resources and potential.

At first, going to these various churches feels a little like being a single person dating new people in hopes of finding a mate. Could I and this church stay together a long time? Would I be faithful here or would I just get bored? Are we like-minded and compatible? Do we share a common vision, lifestyle, purpose? Do I like hanging out with it? Does it make me feel good? It makes me have to pose questions to myself, and reevaluate what I am looking for. I am after all committing myself to a body of members, eventually to a small group which comes with even deeper responsibilities, and potentially - if I stick around long enough – roles in leadership provided that I continue to be in line with the church’s vision and movement. Right?

Well, I said “at first” because it’s dawned on me that maybe this is not the right way to go about it. After all, aren’t all these questions rather idealistic and me-centered? "Ideal" and "biblical" are very different things (I can speak from experience.)

So, biblically, why do we go to church? What is the purpose? Well that’s a big question with a big answer, and I’m no expert in ecclesiology. But I know this: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25). Also, “you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1Corinthians12:27). We “go” to church because we are the church. We don’t date churches, we are married to Christ (Ephesians 5:25-27).

Church, for me, is practice not theory. I take the vocation of community seriously, and I love it. Once upon a time I would not have stepped foot inside a church building, let alone allowed Christians into my life. And now I yearn for and accept my need for Christian brothers and sisters to be welcomed into the many layers of my daily life and who I truly am. It was a fearful thing for me to go to church the very first time, because I carried a bag full of prejudices that I was not quite willing to let go of. But there I found a group of real, actual people and not figments of my subconscious.

Biblically, we have the warning that a body is not complete without all of its parts. A hand removed from a body is useless, and a body without a hand is lacking something significant. In a sense, it is a place where I am needed for whatever it is that I am in Christ. This is for the interdependency of a thriving church body, both on the micro (local church) and macro (global church in unity) level, to serve and love the world around us. When Jesus prayed for the unity believers, He asked we would be one as He and His Father are one.  It’s written that Jesus is the Head over the Church, so even the highest leader is the servant of all. He said where two or more of us are gathered in His name, He is in the midst of us. That’s an awesome claim. It’s for His glory and renowned that we assemble, it’s for worship, it’s for Him, and it is to provide for those beyond the walls of whatever warehouse or library or underground basement or house that we are meeting in. It’s life together, in Him.

So, as I continue my search, I will do so prayerfully and open-heartedly even when I am scared. I’ll ask God where I am to go rather than asking the church what it can offer me. Church involves a lot of submitting to one another in trust. It's hard. I still carry a bag of prejudices towards Christians, I don't lie about that. It isn't always easy to love people who are all striving to be like the Messiah and messing up along the way, obviously! But that bag is a lot lighter than it used to be. And most importantly, God sends me. It's His plan to give us a place.

This is mission: to be sent to one another in agape love, to be in community, and to serve.

Served by Jesus

What does it mean that Jesus serves? Why does Paul say that Jesus “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant?” Does that mean that Jesus serves us? Aren’t we supposed to become his servants and servants to others? How does service play a role in our relationship with God?

One answer to Jesus came to serve is that he longs to love us. “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3) What does this mean? 

Someone was asking what my relationship with God has been like over time, about how it has developed.

“Since you became a Christian, have you ever doubted?” they asked.

“I don’t think I have ever doubted the cross," I said. "I may doubt the church, the people in it, but I have never doubted who Jesus is and what he did for me.”

I went on to explain that after what I have seen and experienced firsthand, miraculous recovery and healing beyond explanation, I cannot do anything except believe. That would be like meeting the love of my life and knowing exactly how to get to them and then totally running away from what I knew was true love. In my life, Jesus has played the role of a Lover, a true love who I first fell in love with and became totally infatuated with, and who eventually I have come to move alongside in a daily life together, observing, depending upon, and loving. I cannot doubt him because he exists. When I can look back everyday on the (now) years I have spent in a loving relationship with God, I see and remember his commitment and love to me no matter what has happened. And even if I stripped all the blessing away, I would have this one true thing to hold on to. The cross stands forever as a sign of that love.

The cross was not an easy thing for Jesus to do. He cried and was spent emotionally trying to avoid mentally the cost of what he had to do. On the Mount of Olives before he was crucified, he prayed: “‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done’…And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22: 42, 44). At this point in his years incarnated, Jesus had raised people from the dead, he had healed countless individuals of incurable diseases like leprosy and cerebral palsy. He had moved easily out of danger when it had confronted him in the past (see John 8:59). So, why now was he going to the cross? Jesus had the power to stop himself from being crucified. Why did he instead choose this prayer and the walk to Golgatha?

Jesus longs to love us. One of his most visible languages of love is that he chooses to serve us consistently. Jesus did not say, “I am tired, so I’m not going to heal this guy tonight” or “I’m too worried about dying so I’m not going to go to the cross in exchange for the freedom and salvation of the world.” He put life in perspective. His vision was that of people fully alive, knowing their Creator, having faith that would overcome the evil of this world.

Jesus said “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John16). He was talking about the Holy Spirit. The result of Jesus’s becoming broken bread meant that God’s power would be poured out through that sacrifice, and then people from every tribe, culture, nation, creed, and time would come to know the LORD their God. He knew what he had to do. A greater glory was at stake. 

Another answer to this question about Jesus's service is that he did so because we needed an example. Jesus served to show us the way we ought to selflessly serve one another. In John 13, Jesus washes the disciples feet. Jesus gives the disciples a pedicure. He lovingly begins palming cool water over the stinky, dusty toes and dry calloused heels of Peter and John. Peter, moralist that he is, says “Lord, you shall never wash my feet.” He refuses Jesus’s service to him because it seems out of line with the way things work. Jesus is his Lord, and Peter calls him thus. Shouldn't Peter wash Jesus's feet? That would make more sense.

Earlier when Jesus is saying that he has to go to the cross because this is God’s purpose for his life, Peter says “Far be it for you Lord. I will put my own life before you if you allow yourself to be taken and killed.” But in both situations, Jesus is set on service and he tells Peter to back off. Nothing can stop him. He wants the cross. He wants to wash our dirty feet.

“You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

Jesus’s feet-washing is an example. He wants us to see that even though he could calm storms and waves, heal people and provide food for the hungry, even though his Lordship is so prominent in his character, that service is also his life and his heart. If his choice is service, how much more should we serve who have been given undeserved grace?

Service is like this. Jesus gave up something so that others would receive. He knew what was best, even when he couldn’t stand the thought of it. And that’s when he made his love known most, when he took the punishment upon himself. His sacrifice was a perfect service to each one of us. God pleased himself with Jesus in every way. 

His acts of service both teach us how to be in this world and remind us every day how much Jesus loves us. They show us that service is not just an important part of the Christian walk, but it is truly an essential part of the character of Almighty God. He serves us, and chooses to do so. He has weighed the logic of security and knowledge that he does not need to do anything for us, as if he owed us something. God’s fulfilled within himself. As a servant he doesn’t come to get anything, to “feel good” about himself. He comes without self. He is perfectly free. We unfortunately are not perfectly free, and we all know it. We come with baggage. Our service is imperfect. We fall short, we want attention and affirmation. We are trying to get love, not to give it.

What are we to do then? Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” 

But for us, to be born imperfect, full of self-importance and alienation in a really loud world, we have to learn to deny the personhood we believed we would inherit. Even if it’s ministerial. There are a lot of us out there these days who idealize ministry and the profession of being a Christian. A professional Christian is not going to please God. There’s more than this. It's a daily walk with God in which we serve because he served us first. This is how we know service, because God served us. Sometimes service feels like a chore, but truly it's one of the greatest joys we can have if we take it on with Jesus in mind. 

Just a little thought. 

Peace and grace be multiplied to you. 

God at his best

I read this post today from the Stuff Christians Like blog run by writer Jonathan Acuff: http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/06/3185/

I enjoyed it. I think Jon is smart and I respect his personal insight and availability to thousands of people. 

But it reminded me that God is at his best when we are giving him full reign, not partial. Today I was praying and I was looking out of the window into the trees next to the parking lot where I was sitting in my car. And I thought about the fact that I was looking out of my space and into the external space, the public space. I was turning away from myself to talk to God. My private space - a smelly hand-me-down car that I don't really like and feel embarrassed about sometimes - was not good enough for God. But instantly as I thought of that, I looked around my mess and thought, "This is where God truly wants to be." He loves nature and nature is his, but God wants to be in my messy car, my favala, my street corner, my slum of a life. Even if I can't truly give him anything, make any great sacrifice or turn water into wine for him, he still wants me. 

Always - Switchfoot

He doesn't need "the best" of me. He needs me to come to him as I am. And I'm pretty excited about that right now.

two kinds of psalms

I've been getting the ESV daily scripture passages every morning for almost one year. Thanks to Daniel for giving me the nudge to do this. Every day a selection of verses from 1) either Proverbs or Psalms, 2) the Old Testament, 3) the Prophets, and 4) the New Testament come together in a nice little email that I can open at will and check out throughout the day. It's been a blessing to me this year when sometimes my chances to "steal away with God" have been me scrolling down on my iPhone and reading these mysterious, tempered, time-traveled words in small, technologically encoded bites.

Recently, however, as the book of Psalms was coming to a close, I started to get annoyed. Most of the final Psalms are so full of O Praise Him!'s that I'm feeling like - Was David (or the particular Psalmist) being inauthentic? Was his worship legit? Did he really feel this way towards God every time he wrote these words - especially after all the trial of the former Psalms? I'm criticizing the walk one of the people who God was perhaps the closest to in the Old Testament...Oy vey, this probably means something about my spiritual state...

But anyway, as I judged the writing style of these ancient poets, I kept thinking - this is boring. What does this mean? I have been relating more to the Psalms when the person is a prisoner and lost lately, when they are eating dirt and wearing sackcloth. Like Psalm 22:

 ¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
       Why are you so far from saving me, 
       so far from the words of my groaning?
  ²  O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, 
       by night, and am not silent.

I sense God as far away sometimes, and these Psalms draw me closer to Him because they remind me that everyone who has ever followed His path has felt this way some time or another. These words prepare my heart to worship in a different way - without speech sometimes, just reaching out, the "inner groanings" of my soul. They console me in a strange way, knowing I am not prohibited from speaking openly and truly from my heart to God. They are words I know are true of how I feel in my relationship with God, and these words become righteous in my own heart because they are right here from the Psalmist who also felt these groans. I am not alone. 

But then I come to a Psalm like this one, at the end of the book in Psalm 148.

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
  praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
  praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon,
  praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
  and you waters above the heavens!

He goes on...

Praise the Lord from the earth,

  you great sea creatures and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and mist,
  stormy wind fulfilling his word!

Mountains and all hills,
  fruit trees and all cedars!
Beasts and all livestock,
  creeping things and flying birds!

Ok.

So how did we go from "God you have forsaken me" to "Every little being on heaven or on earth Praise God for His Superior Truth, His Love and Mercy, just in General PRAISE HIM RIGHT NOW"   !?

In part I think it is because the Bible, more than most people will acknowledge, gives free reign to every human emotion. If you're not into that, it's ok, just let me explain. The stories and people of the Bible are not one-dimensional nothings that have only one way of speaking or looking at the world. It isn't a play or a chapter-book. It's not a loosely strung together poem about gods and demi-gods who barely relate to humanity. It is the many stories of many people's encounters with a living, active God over the span of centuries and millenia. It is truth because it is the witness to who God is, and people wrote it under the inspiration of the Spirit of God after having been overwhelmed in their eyes and hearts from having seen what God did and being compelled to conserve the stories, prophecies, and commands in its perfect form. 

But what's amazing is that the Bible is a story of man and God together. And not just one man. Hundreds of men and women, thousands who are listed as having experienced, believed, loved and tasted the pure relationship with the Lord. 

One of the clearest evidences I have for knowing that the Bible is true is the fact that people in it are not perfect. Sometimes there's this argument that "How could the Bible be true when the people who wrote it are not perfect?" That is one of the stronger arguments for me in the case of why it is true. Because in the Word, human beings are portrayed as they truly are. They are kind, loving, beautiful, brilliant, family-oriented, rule-followers, community builders, parents, warriors, artists, entrepreneurs, lovers, singers, preachers, kids, women, men, all of it. But they are also stubborn, refusing to change, straight up stupid, mean, bitter, envious, ugly, slandering, self-righteous, poor, rich, frenzied masochists, sex-feigns, bitches, prostitutes, tyrannical, nosey, home-wreckers, etc. All the rest. Humans are true in the Bible, and so is God. I would not believe the Bible if people in it were perfect. Then it could not be the truth. It explains clearly why we need a Savior because it gives a truthful portrayal of who man is and who God is. God is portrayed as the Almighty, the Alpha and Omega, the Bread of Heaven, Yahweh, the Righteous One, the Lord who Heals, the One True God, the Lord who Provides, Savior, Bridegroom, Friend. And in general, these names of God describe an experience that one of these lovely yet broken human beings had with him. 

Hagar for example, Hagar like a poor lonely wolf roaming the desert after she is cast out by her mistress for bearing Abraham a son. She has no one, she is pregnant in the wilderness. She is rejected by the woman she serves, her job and her livelihood. She was given to another woman's husband to bear children because that woman would not believe the promise that she would eventually give birth. 

And then God speaks to her, in the desert, in her nothingness:

 ⁹ Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." ¹⁰ The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
  ¹¹  The angel of the LORD also said to her: 
       "You are now with child 
       and you will have a son. 
       You shall name him Ishmael,  ^{[ a ]}  
       for the LORD has heard of your misery. (Genesis 16)

So Hagar is like the first Psalm - God where are you, God why have you left me alone, God why did you put me in this situation where I would not know what to do and would be out on my own with a child? And then God meets her, comforts her, guides her to a new place. And more than anything, He looks at her when no one else will. He sees her. And out of her love for Him in that moment and her gratitude, she praises God with a new name:

 ¹³ She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen ^[c] the One who sees me."

Another time that is very striking in the Bible when someone meets God and sees himself is Isaiah. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah is face to face with God's glory. And here's what he says: 

  I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. ² Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. ³ And they were calling to one another: 
       "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; 
       the whole earth is full of his glory."
  ⁴  At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
  ⁵  "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

We can't see God and walk away unchanged. We see Him and call Him by His name. Isaiah saw Him and knew "KING". He also knew, "I am a man of unclean lips." I'm certain many of us have had this experience. God's holiness reveals our complete inadequacy and need. Hagar needed to be seen. Isaiah needed to be cleansed. God always has a purpose when He reveals Himself. 

Sometimes it feels like we will walk in our deserts forever because we are human beings with pains and feelings and attitudes about ourselves and the world that are bound up in our flesh and bother us and burn us. And we burn each other! Just as in our own lives, the people of the Bible are burned by other people and are grieved in this life by the seemingly neverending faucet of suffering. And sometimes we assign this pain to God. The book of Job is all about a man who yells at God for 42 chapters while other people try to console him, but even at the end God still counts him as righteous and restores his life. Interestingly enough, the book of Psalms comes after the book of Job in the modern  Bible.

The Bible is about God. But it is also about people. And quite often it's about the suffering of life and people's relationships with the Holy God who made the world. He who is breathing life back into it when it is down. 

Even Jesus acknowledged often that we would suffer, especially those who followed Him. This is hard to understand, so don't take this lightly. Jesus knew we would suffer, it almost seems to read as a prerequisite for becoming a Christian in the Gospels and also in Paul's letters. Still, Christians today suffer under merciless conditions, just as they did then. 

 ²⁰I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. ²¹A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. ²²So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 

Psalm 148 from above is a Psalm from a person who has no doubt seen suffering, since we all do. He may have been in a Psalm 22 at one point, cried out to God with his pain like Hagar. But then the turn which I consider truly to be a small miracle, a piece of redemption, when he had an encounter with the Living Love who Sees. He remembered his God who had brought him out of Egypt. He realized the vastness of His power, the Ocean of His Love and the true passion of His heart to have caused him even to take one breath on this magnificent earth. He saw God and knew, the Creator should always be praised. He saw Nature, and knew that even the earth that was made by God revealed the majesty of His love, and the power of His supernatural Grace:

 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
  praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
  praise him, all his hosts!
Praise him, sun and moon,
  praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
  and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord!
  For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever;
  he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. (Psalm 148)

Through restored vision of who He was, through seeing God's mercy, not His anger, he could write those words. St Francis of Assisi did a variation on that theme in this canticle. Many people are touched by the beauty of the earth and the nearness of God in that beauty. 

Sometimes I think our suffering sifts our joy. So that if we suffer, it is only to get us to place at some point where our joy will be immovable, pure. Not the kind of passing flares and sparks of an inconsistent happiness, but rather some personal, true joy that resounds constantly from who we are as we hold true to the knowledge of God. This is a joy that's free of bitterness or toil. It is focused of the fruit of Love. It comes from abiding, slowly, but truly in the vine. 

I think I understand David and the other writers of the psalms a bit better today. Now, when I read those Psalms that are so excited to proclaim, so willing to be almost foolish in their love of the Creator, I will remember that it is out of seeing God that they write these things and rejoice. Seeing Him, perhaps, when they need to the most. 

The Sadness of the Rich Young Ruler

In Luke 18:18-30, it reads:

 ¹⁸A ruler questioned Him, saying, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
 ¹⁹And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.
 ²⁰"You know the commandments, 'DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.'"
 ²¹And he said, "All these things I have kept from my youth."
 ²²When Jesus heard this, He said to him, "One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."
 ²³But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

 

The last verse in the same story recounted in Mark 10 says: "Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions."

This passage gets right into my veins, and I think about it almost every day. A few years ago I wrote out my thoughts on it for a bible study, and I've carried that crumpled up paper around since then. Occasionally, I'll fish through my purse and find it, usually right when I need to read what it says, to remind myself of the futility of holding onto anything that is not Jesus. 

Lately, though I have been pondering that last verse. "He went away sorrowful." I have been thinking about this sadness, about what it meant as he walked away from Jesus and walked back to his things. 

Jesus meets the young man on His journey. Jesus is always going towards the Cross, and in the meantime meets appointments along His path. Mark says he "ran up and knelt before him and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus, knowing his heart, begins to recount to him the most obvious commandments: "Don't steal, don't cheat, don't kill..." Is Jesus giving him a bible lesson? The young man seems to think He must be kidding. 

The rich young man defends his righteousness, "I have done all of these things since my birth." (Now, I do not understand being a "righteous" person, biblically, but this is the kind of person I think Jesus was talking about when He said "the righteous don't need a doctor." I don't identify with this part of society or the church - people who have done things "the right way" from the start. I think I know people like this, but I'm not one of them. I'm the woman at the well, I'm a Luke 7 woman. Sometimes I think, as is exampled in this story, that those are the people who have the most trouble understanding what or how to sacrifice.) 

Jesus opens it up. It says, "looking at him, He loved him." He had compassion on the good kid. The kid who had been given every good thing and even been good himself. The kid who did what he was told even when he didn't want to. I know God loves the one who tries so hard, and society loves them too. This man, after all, was in a position of wealth and authority. He probably worked hard to get such a position, or at least to maintain it.

This is a conversation about what "good" means. Is it good to be in a position of high influence and wealth, yes that seems good. Is it good to be doing all the right things and getting things done on a temporal level, sure that seems good. 

But Christ knows our lack!! God has different definitions of what good is and what we need most. "You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." 

BAM.

In an instant, I think, the facade of what this man had and the years of material success, experience and the matters of this life came down quietly. I can see his excitement at being able to talk to this great Teacher slowly disappear off of his face and be replaced suddenly by the look of dread, even harrowing sadness. The last test of obedience is often to walk away from what most supports and "fills" our lives. 

But what did he expect? He came to Jesus wanting to know what it was he lacked. If following all of those rules and being "perfect" had not completed his heart, there had to be something more. And Jesus alone could tell him what it was. So, He told him. "Ask, and you shall receive." If you really want to know...

Some people talk about this passage in an isolated sense. That was this a one time event, that Jesus didn't ask people to leave they're material possessions on a regular basis, that that's just silly-talk. But actually, what He says to the rich young ruler, he says to all people who he called to be disciples. In that minute, Jesus was inviting this man to discipleship, to walk with him, to be his follower. 

Also, in one of His most famous speeches to a large crowd, Jesus said these words: 

"Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys."

I think rather than this just being one of those isolated events, this is something Jesus was KNOWN for doing. It was part of His trademark calling of his disciples, and it was a challenge to those who would be called by His name - to let go of the things they could not keep.

But he walked away. Sorrowful. Jesus gave him the path, He opened up the door for him to walk through and become a disciple. That man could have applied his book learning and his "good" life to a love relationship with the true Wealth of Eternity. His sorrow was an admittance of his fate - he was so attached to his possessions that he could not think of a possible way to walk away from all of that for this Christ, this Crucified Lord. 

Did Jesus become sorrowful also for this man as he walked away? He must have. He must have had compassion for him, because he was going to back to a world that could only give him limited truth, life, and way. Jesus had offered him abundance, and he was choosing lack. 

I know that this story is always referred to as "the Rich Young Ruler", but actually that's a combination of the gospels - one refers to him as a powerful ruler of some kind, a head of things, an authority. Another refers to him as a young man, and these two have combined to become what we call the Rich Young Ruler. Both of these titles are things that young American college graduates can understand. Rich. Young. Rulers. Well maybe not rich, but certainly privileged. And privileged with authority, in some cases, that we don't even know what to do with at the age that it is imparted upon us. 

Regardless of the way we are privileged, I know even personally that giving things up is hard. In the culture I live in, and even love, it is a foolish thing to walk away from the security of a life that will present you comforts, ease, and power. But Christ is, ultimately, where we are going. So why not start now? 

And also, in case you were wondering, He doesn't leave us empty-handed. Besides the eternal riches of glory, there are amazing gifts in this life as well for those who follow His paths. Many may be spiritual, but there are also tangible signs of a life given up for God.

Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

poem 4/5** a rare occurrence these days!

There are many grains, my Friend

In the soft wind of time

Would you rather I went

To the street to sit forever after?

There barefoot I could grasp

All that is in moments

Like when the light exalts

crystal angles and extends 

all directions simultaneous

Like the leaf that doesn’t think

And moves light in generosity

Or the core of the tree trunks

In the wrap of its own age 

Like the heart which does not pound 

Whisper or need

Be like the molecular sand

Morsel softly rolling over morsel

Sloughing away impurity until smooth

Into the shore at the lap of the great ocean

Already the unchanged ineffable rhythm of all times

Nearly silent 

Like this blank mouth

Who finds no need to speak anymore

Or like this door that doesn’t need

Any pushing

the abc's of freedom

hey,

i just wanted to express my gratitude today for God's amazing grace. it's really near impossible - the kinds of things He has done in my life. the clearest example of God's existence is simply who He is and what He does. i think that's what He might mean in the words: אהיה אשר אהיה " I AM WHO I AM ". His existence is unchallenged because He exists eternally. that seems to make perfect sense to me right now.

i was talking tonight about emotional baggage and how in light of God's grace and mercy, my baggage has been emptied. having lived as one who pushed through nearly a decade under a weight of depression, addiction, unloving attitudes, fear and anxiety, self-depreciation, self-centered false religion and disbelief in Jesus, i can totally and freely say that Jesus as Lord and Center of my life and time has altered my life permanently and foundationally by His own power and strength, with nothing from me except asking and asking and keeping on with the asking.

so i live continuously with the breath of God's Spirit, knowing that the signs of new life in me began and flowed only by listening to His calls.
 
i believe the strength of God's power will come in the fullness of His Spirit when we are ready to:

a) surrender our lives and will purely and permanently to the Fullness of Christ's Lordship as master forever. learn from His words in the Biblical texts about who He is, was, and will be. bow our knee to Him alone. believe that He rose from the dead.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; ²⁶and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+11%3A25-26&version=NIV

b) believe that He is sufficient and that grace alone is strong enough to free us from every old pattern, and every excuse, and every way of conformity in this world that is unable to bring us into His way. basically that Christ is sufficient to be our freedom, even from death. repeat the sounding joy.

 ¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual^[a] act of worship. ²Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+12&version=NIV

and so with this power, we're able to discern what everyone on earth seeks to know and asks about all the livelong day: "why am i here?" "what am i supposed to do with my life?" and we're free to live those questions (as rilke puts it), but with solutions rather than never enjoying the fruit of certainty and faith. that's a gift only God can bring someone.

after this, it's only up to Him to help you recover your truth and love the way He created to be. this is His ability as a redeemer, by offering you freedom only He can give, He comes through on that promise. that's why He is the God of Holiness, because what He freely offers, He also supplies in spiritual fullness. (See John 4:10, john 10:10)

c) rest in that knowledge and become free to live joyfully in the center of his will, with the support of other christians.

 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Hebrews+12%3A1-2

having been a part of an amazing church called the Point for about 4 years in New Brunswick, i can say that the freedom that comes from Jesus can't be found simply by being alone - at least for this extroverted lady. i believe the step to be in community comes naturally and resounds from a life centered in Jesus. knowing His love goes so deep that it must be shared.

  resting is not easy for me to do. i think i live in an anxious culture where rest is considered a fault. i'm going to move away from that mindset, however, so as to hopefully live more and become closer to that freedom i keep talking about. to rest is to learn dependence on God because if we are busy we are depending on ourselves. rest is perseverance in trusting Him. that's all we need to do . sometimes that can feel like walking on a tightrope, or free-falling into the air. fortunately, this is where our strength comes from: "I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me you can do nothing." (john15:5).

A post about Dan Rosen - support Mosaic Ventures, green energy to Native American lands

a friend's entrepreneurial adventures: check it out! donate if you can.
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Dan Rosen - support Mosaic Ventures, green energy to Native American lands

I was hungry and you fed me

Feel free to use this footage...

the Blood of God

“I can see a lot of life in you” – sufjan stevens

“He to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood” – from Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, old hymn.

The BLOOD of God

Blood. It’s not a thing people naturally like to talk about or look at. In fact, for many it’s aversive, but it’s something everyone needs to stay alive. The Franklin Institute says, “Without blood, the human body would stop working.” It moves our nutrients around and is the river for thousands of cells; it’s the pathway for metabolism and energy. Some people go through hours of treatment to replace their blood with new blood from someone else’s veins because they need it that badly. Blood is life. It is moving everywhere in our body, allowing us to breath, beating in our heart. Right now. Without moving blood, we are dead; our cells have ceased to work. How frail we are, how fast the blood will leave our bodies, and yet we search for infinity, believing in forever. How do our hearts not know that “He has set eternity” in them? . Our souls long to live eternal lives. No one ever really expects to die.

At the Resurrection, Jesus’ blood was already spilt. He came to the doubting disciple Thomas and showed him His wounds without blood in them – holes without scars. John 20.

He had already “died”, because his blood was spilt. The Blood of God had been spilled on the earth.

Today, as modern believers in that Resurrection we take the cup and the bread at Communion – symbols of Jesus’ broken body and spilt blood. Since that night, Christians have performed this one act. Next to baptism, this is one of the only other symbols of the faith. We remember that once, his body was broken under the weight of torture and abandonment on a cross, and his blood was poured out for us from the wounds on his body. The life that was in him, given up for the ransom of many. In many ways, I picture Jesus’ blood to be the same as any human’s - red, wet, then drying, caking on his skin, and matting in his hair. But at the same time, if what we believe as His followers is true, it is the Blood of God. Funny how a common criticism of Christians is that we tend to be uptight, conservative, uncultured, judgmental. And yet we sing songs about the Blood of God, the Resurrection from the dead. We praise a Wounded Lord, a Risen Holy Ghost. Only to God be the glory of these things, for the Atonement through His Blood. (For an example of some crazy worship lyrics, but altogether reverent and true to the hearts that sing them in love: check out this hymn called “There is a Fountain” that my friend Lorah Campbell has covered as well as the Welcome Wagon, a band out of Brooklyn.)

One of God’s commands to the Israelites was to remember the Passover. The Passover is a rich heritage that involves a meal reenacting elements that invoke a sensual remembrance of what God has done in the past.  For example, bitter herbs are eaten twice in the course of the meal to remember the bitterness of the Jews as they were oppressed by Pharaoh, and are eaten to remind present day Jews that they live in relative comfort in comparison to their ancestors who were slaves in Egypt.

The wine at a Seder is drank 4 times for the four “I wills” found in Exodus 6:6-7. They represent the promise of redemption through God: to describe the redemption (Exodus 6:6-8): a) "I shall take you out..." b) "I shall rescue you..." c) "I shall redeem you..." d) "I shall bring you..." (see here for more explanation of Jewish Passover). In the Exodus passages about the night God’s Angel of Death comes to the Egyptians who have been oppressing His children, they kill a lamb and wipe the blood on their door frames to signify the “passing over”, that God’s wrath passes over them because they are marked by, guess what, blood.

The Last Supper, was actually a celebration of this Passover meal. On that night, as Jesus sat with his disciples and celebrated what God had done for their people in the past, he asked them to drink the wine with him and take the bread, and offered them a new tradition for the unification of all nations by One Blood.

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

You can read more for context here: http://www.jesuswalk.com/lessons/22_7-20.htm.

God is a God of Blood. Here’s why I say that. Blood holds the secret to redemption, which is the embodiment of life. From the first, God spilt blood to take away sin. In Genesis, the biblical first humans Adam and Eve take their will back and commit sin – the walking away from the Law God gave them, which was that they might not take of the fruit of the Tree of Life. After this, they were ashamed of their nakedness (which before sin didn’t seem to bother them. But post-sin, suddenly shame appeared on the face of Earth. Funny how that happens.) And the first animal was killed after this to make a covering for their bodies. Blood. Later in the tales of Abraham, we read about how God asked him to bring his only son Isaac to the table and sacrifice him to God. Abraham had received a promise from God that he would bestow him and his wife Sarah with a child, but they were already in their old age and doubted God would be able to do that. But he did, Sarah conceived and their first child was born. But then Abraham received the test of whether or not he would sacrifice what was given to him as a result of that prophecy. God stilled his hand, however and Abraham did not kill his son, Isaac. In fact, Isaac went on to be the father of Jacob (also called Israel), who fathered the 12 sons of the nation of Israel. But later, a Son would come who would be sacrificed by his Father. Abraham and Isaac were a picture of the blood that would come, not from the body of a man, but from God on High Himself. On that day, God provided a ram to sacrifice instead of his son. In Jerusalem on a hill many years later, God provided a sacrifice of Blood, his own Blood, to atone for the world’s sins. This is the New Covenant.

The New Covenant is promised and referenced throughout the Old Testament:

³¹ "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
       "when I will make a new covenant
       with the house of Israel
       and with the house of Judah.

 ³² It will not be like the covenant
       I made with their forefathers
       when I took them by the hand
       to lead them out of Egypt,
       because they broke my covenant,
       though I was a husband to ^[a] them, ^[b] "
       declares the LORD.

 ³³ "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
       after that time," declares the LORD.
       "I will put my law in their minds
       and write it on their hearts.
       I will be their God,
       and they will be my people.

Jeremiah 31:31-40 (written 600 years before Christ)

In chapter 53 of Isaiah, we read

“Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.”

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Isaiah+53 (800 years before Christ)

This is Jesus, the fulfillment of the prophecies, the Lamb of God. A man esteemed not, a God forgotten and failed by His followers? In no other history has a God suffered like this, or submitted Himself to the cross for the sake of grace that would come on people like rain. This was a choice.

In Phillipians 2, we read

“Jesus…Who, being in very nature[a] God,
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
 7but made himself nothing,
      taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
      being made in human likeness.
 8And being found in appearance as a man,
      he humbled himself
      and became obedient to death—
         even death on a cross!”

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+2&version=NIV

Why is it so important that Christ gave the cup to his disciples, and that we still take the cup symbolically today? Thinking about the Blood of God, I'm finding it's an amazing gift to take that bread and wine in such a remembrance. I know from my own life the moment when I knew that the Blood of Jesus was securing my freedom from the many bonds of iniquity that held me to the world. If there is anything I know, it's that the Blood has covered me and given me generous abundance, time, and grace to experience this life with Love.

And thereafter, we have the promise of another meal with Him, and a time of peace so wonderful that the life of this world will seem like a apple, born, ripened and then eventually fallen from a tree - a moment of beauty, marked forever in time, a part of a long long story. But there is more than this.

"These are those who came out of the great tribulation. They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, they serve him day and night in his temple. He who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over them. They will never be hungry, neither thirsty any more; neither will the sun beat on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shepherds them, and leads them to springs of waters of life. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Revelation 7:14-17)

This is the God of Blood, of Sacrifice, of Forgiveness. This is the Blood that cleans, the Blood of God that contains mercy, Life, Health, the Salvation of the Lord. There isn't any other by whose name we are saved, or by whose Blood we are made free.

Delirious? Jesus Blood/King Or Cripple