December 21, 2012

I woke up this morning and to my dismay ... the world was still here. How could the Mayans and Hopi's be wrong?  How could Nostradamus and all those other psychics be so off.

My theory on the Mayans is a simple one. Late in their history the Mayans started a grizzly practice of human sacrifice to appease the gods.  Apparently the fellow working on the calender, after revealing his predictions, fell into disrepute with the Mayan chief and was placed on the to-be-sacrificed list. He never had a chance to finish his dark predictions by writing how great the world will be having been scared into near hysteria. No more bank fraud, murder, war or famine. We would finally learn to get along ...  right.  The down side of this is we are still in a state of hysteria and will soon start pillaging and looting abandoned stores.  So ... it becomes true in spite of the Mayan chief's attempt to correct it.

Second, even simpler explanation.

The calendar guy was old and lifting those heavy stones around with the added stress of a 'deadline' caused an unsafe rise in blood pressure and he had a stroke / heart attack.  He either died and was unable to finish it OR his stroke was so bad he was unable to speak or move.  The Mayan chief misinterpreted this as a divine curse and immediately started the government's human sacrifice program (HSP).

Whatever the reason ... I am sure upper management had something to do with it. Working at Wal-Mart really does open the eyes.

Ray

What does death mean to you?

Let’s first consider the following passages:

Matthew 10:37 - 39 (NASB) ³⁷“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.  ³⁸“And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.  ³⁹“He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

Frankly, this passages sounds a bit radical.  After all, we are to honor our parents, be responsible loving parents and are raised to work hard and be successful. So, for Jesus to put it in such an either or situation sends it a bit over the top for many.

What would it mean to put parents first?

Missing church because one of them or maybe the son or daughter is in the hospital having suffered a life threatening illness or perhaps trauma from a fall or auto accident? Would Jesus consider us ‘unworthy’ for being at their bedside?

I suppose some would say yes, but that’s another matter left for future studies. For right now, lets’ explore the more personal aspects of this passage and leave those superficial questions for a later study.

What does Jesus mean when he says, “He who has found his life …”?

Are we to reject promotions, management positions which might require us to spend long hours away from family, friends, personal study time, prayer or which might cause us problems related to stress, worry, etc.? It is clear we are to reject the things that are illegal or on the shady side. That promotion which comes with a sacrifice of our ethics is obviously to be avoided. There are the stress factors to consider and the dangers which might cause us to become puffed up with pride, transforming us into a tyrant toward those we work with and oversee.

Many more aspects are attached to these questions and to address each one of them, not only expands the list, but can lead into endless debate. So, keep these two basic ideas in mind as we move to the next passages of scripture.
 

1. Keeping to the basics what does Jesus expect of me? Remember the beatitudes.
   
2.  Where ever you go, He is there with you.

 The parallel verse of Matthew 10 is found in Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8:34 - 38 (NASB) ³⁴And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.  ³⁵“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.  ³⁶“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?  ³⁷“For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?  ³⁸“For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

In both Matthew 10 and Mark 8 we hear the hint of physical death. This leads us to ask another question.
 

Grim Reaper

What does the word DEATH mean to you?

I used to think that these passages pointed toward martyrdom.  Giving our lives for His sake was dying the death of James and Steven. Perhaps even like Paul being beaten, left for dead and imprisoned for the Gospel by not denying we are Christians. They certainly are legitimate points, yet some will live their whole lives and never be confronted with the possibilities of imprisonment or execution. I was taught that persecution was to be expected and the examples left for me were those found in the scriptures along with those present day examples of missionaries dying for the Gospel. Present day missionaries illustrate how one might leave their parents for the mission field and also put their children under the same threat as they when entering a foreign country hostile to the Gospel.

But over the years I realized that the hardest death is not necessarily the physical death associated with one’s execution or persecution. Although they can’t be ruled out we must also take into account the passage found in I Corinthians 13.

1 Corinthians 13:1 - 3 (NASB) ¹If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  ²If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  ³And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

 

Sounds almost as if Paul is contradicting Jesus. In these three short passages, every aspect valued of Christianity as it is taught in schools, churches and seminaries is summarily rendered moot. Missionary work and their sacrifices are not what makes Christianity work. It is the surface veneer which lays on top of the true spirit of the individual and what they truly value. This passage will be eventually expanded into a posting entitled “The So-Called Brother”.

I need to clarify something at this point. I am not devaluing missions, evangelism or philanthropy. What seems to be Paul’s focus is the motivation, that singular factor which drives one to preach while guns are pointed and give from one’s poverty (Mark 12:41 – 44). It can be pure or impure. One acts out of a deep desire to serve God or out of the desire to look good before others. Be aware, this last one can even lead to a guillotine or a hang man’s noose.

Unless Jesus is talking about a different kind of death. Perhaps humiliation is a kind of death.

Peeling bake the layers of deception which has metastasized within us and the church can be very painful. In fact, it can lead to death. Death of our pride and arrogance toward those who are not in the church, still caught in sin’s allure. When peeled back we start to look at those outside of His Grace the way Jesus looked upon Jerusalem (Matt23:37).

We value our image.

Loss of _________________.

I get caught up into this notion that if I am to do any good for God, then I must look good before man. I must have an answer, I must defend the Gospel, I must do everything in my power to make Christianity appealing to others outside the church. This notion is just as flawed as the notion of Crusades for Jesus. Some think they ‘defend’ the Gospel by rubbing their ‘holy’ character in the sinner’s faces. This couldn’t be further from the attitude of Jesus.  He attacked the religious leaders who knew better. It wasn’t those caught up in the passions of sin, but the ones who ‘claimed’ to be free and lights of the world.

Death can take on the following list.

Change of

Lifestyle

Habits

Associations

Thinking patterns

Putting to death … deeds of the flesh is becoming ‘deadened’ to sin’s luster. We are transformed at that moment and become new creatures. We are freed and all things have become new.

More on the deception of worry in later posting, but suffice it for now to say this simple principle.

God is a big boy and He can defend himself.  He can also defend you. He promised to defend you and protect you … not necessarily from the iron of shackles, but from something even deadlier. Pride, deception and arrogance.

Humility comes through hardship. When we ask God to protect us. He will, but not the way we expect.

This is what I think Jesus was saying when He said, “If you lose your life for My sake, you will find it.”

To Serve Man: A Communion Meditation

How many of you remember the Twilight Zone with Ron Serling?

One of my favorite episodes was entitled, “To Serve Man.”

Anybody remember that episode?

SUMMARY:

Man has this tendency to see things only from his perspective.  We think differently than God. We seek comfort, shying away from what would be unpleasant and gravitate toward a life of ease. This is why we are so easily deceived.  This is how con men take advantage of the unwary, by preying upon these basic instincts and promising things which stroke man’s pride.

"We've translated the rest of the book. 'To Serve Man' ... it's a COOK BOOK"
 

So, what seems to be good for us isn’t always good for us.

Romans 11:33 - 36 (NASB) ³³Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!  ³⁴For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?  ³⁵Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?  ³⁶For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

Consequently, what seems to be bad for us, isn’t always bad, but may be of benefit.

• Matthew 4:23 - 25 (NASB) ²³Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. ²⁴The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.  ²⁵Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

• 1 Peter 5:6 - 11 (NASB) ⁶Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,  ⁷casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.  ⁸Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  ⁹But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.  ¹⁰After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.  ¹¹To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.

 

These passages briefly illustrate how our suffering can show the world His strength.

• Romans 9:19 - 24 (NASB) ¹⁹You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?”  ²⁰On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?  ²¹Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?  ²²What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?  ²³And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,  ²⁴even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. 

 

What have I learned?

I am still learning to trust in God.  Somehow I find it easy to justify taking matters into my own hands.  When I perceive things not going ‘my way’, I tend to fall into worrying about how others are going to see me. I forget that God KNOWS me and KNOWS what I need. It is difficult to accept present circumstances as HIS prescription for my growth.  Perhaps I NEED to be humiliated, put into a bad light (working hard and nothing to show for it). The line between being a good employee and just being puffed up gets blurry.

His ways are not our ways.

Wow.