God’s Story

God has a story. It is redemptive, revealed in Scripture and we are in that ongoing story. His story often finds its way into our lives through community. Usually this culminates on Sundays in an event-styled worship service where the entire community gathers around Jesus, receiving the preached word, celebrating His love. This helps prevent the story God has given and the perspective it supplies from getting lost. And this happens all too frequently because we are living in a culture that is screaming another story. So we gather intentionally to “remember”, brought back into His story. The story, then, stays alive, helping to shape every meaningful thing we do. If we forget the story, we also lose the context of the place we’ve been given to live it out. We end up outside the story, in another story, creating our own place.

God’s story is meant to be lived in the world via community; there is a pace and a rhythm inherent in the two. The place we live it out is creation and the story, in part, is about bearing His image in that place. II Cor.3:2,3 says, “Your very lives are a letter…others can read it by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it”. (Msg bible).

If we come out of the story, the pace slows down, the place suddenly looks bleak, the purpose fades. Then, as another story attempts to shape our understanding, our perspective changes and we eventually look for a gate in our particular “garden” to escape. It takes us out of the game, alienating us from others, from God, even despising our place. This instead of that place in creation and the work we have been given to do, being the context in which we live out our lives in relationship with God.

The moral of the story? Don’t submit your life to another story, it’s the wrong story. God says we were put here in the context of His creation. We were created to co-labor with Him as new creation in creation, His agents of restoration in the midst of broken humanity. God’s story causes us to remember Jesus, to remember who made us and why we exist. Not to just “keep on keeping on” but to be called back into something that’s bigger than the reduced existence we otherwise might be brought down into by that other story. Instead, we live in the reality and context of  God’s story, free, connected to community, working the garden, participating in His creation.

Urban Missionaries

“When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place….then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks” (Acts 2:1,3). On the Day of Pentecost, the sending of the Spirit activated a group or community of believers, not just one individual. The Holy Spirit sent a community into thee community or city of Jerusalem; urban missionaries (Acts 2:1-6, 1:8). The result of the sending of the Spirit was a positioning of one community into the very life of another. It’s not only one person here and another there getting saved, now assured of eternal life. It is also people being made right to be part of a new Kingdom society (community) and to take part in God’s current Kingdom project. In I Corinthians 12 the Message Bible says, “By means of His one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life. Each of us is now a part of His resurrection body. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. For no matter how signifigant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of“. Jesus died and rose again to launch a new creation community into the world and begin its restoration!

As a community of believers is exposed to the sending/missional nature of Jesus, it cannot help but embed in the larger community by LIFESTYLE. Psalm 20:2 says “God sends help from His sanctuary”. The word “embed” means “to be inserted into as an integral part of a surrounding whole”. The Christian community becomes Christ IN community through the vehicle of everyday life. We are saying “look, there is a new way to be human, a different way to be a community!” The new age has begun though the old age continues right along side it.

A picture of this is seen in Jeremiah 29:4-7, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the captives whom I have caused to be carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build yourselves houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat the fruit of them. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not be diminished. And seek the peace and welfare of the city to which I have caused you to be carried away captive; and pray to the Lord for it, for in the welfare of the city in which you live you will have welfare.” The historical background to this message is important. The Jews had existed in their own nation-state, in which faith in the biblical God was kind of the official religion. When the Babylonian army sacked Jerusalem, they, as was their policy, carried off Israel’s professional classes and spiritual leaders to exile in Babylon. It was expected that within a generation or two, the exiles would assimilate culturally and lose their national and spiritual distinctives.

Their first response to the situation was to stay outside the city of Babylon and form a homogeneous enclave of believers. But to the horror and amazement of the listeners, God commands them in Jeremiah 29 to instead move into and dwell in the heart of the pagan city, become involved in its cultural and economic life, and seek the common good of the Babylonian oppressors who had destroyed their homeland! God calls them to increase in number—and that they are not to lose their identity as a distinct and different people. Yet they are not allowed separatist withdrawal either. As a city within a city they are to minister to the whole city, to all the people, out of the resources of their spiritual and moral difference. The Jews were to keep their distinctive beliefs and practices (surely offensive in many ways to the sensibilities of the Babylonians) but were to serve their neighbors and city anyway. A culturally relevant counter culture!

As I see it, this may be a key to undermining the themes, perspectives and practices of the dominant culture here in Burlington, Vermont and communities everywhere. Here you have the community version of ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them…overcome evil with good”. (Romans 12:20-21.). God called the believers to seek the “prosperity of the city—and pray for it.” (v7). And God did not tell the exiles to just use the city to build up their own community, but rather to use the resources of their community to build up the city. See, the influence of the “heavenly city” on segments of the temporal city will eventually influence and permeate (in different ways) the whole culture. And as you can see, God lays down an important principle: the way to power and influence is not to seek power and influence, but to seek to serve. This is about a community testifying not of itself but as the Message Bible says we are, “opening up our lives to others, prompting people to open up to God…”.

We see this in Jesus; He was the ultimate “urban” missionary. He did not “commute” in from heaven but actually moved in “among”. And instead of taking power, He gave it up and sacrificially loved and died for the people of the “city” (us). He initiated the beginnings of a new Kingdom society, bringing its expression of resurrection life into that which was old and waxing away…  “the Word becoming flesh and blood, and moving into the neighborhood” . (Jn.1:14 MSG).

When The Truth Becomes A Lie

I Corinthians 3:11 says, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than the one that is already laid, who is Jesus Christ“. (I Cor.3:11). Jesus is THEE way the truth and the life, there is no other foundation, no other Truth that we build upon. If you try and take A truth and make it into THEE truth (the primary emphasis, a separate foundation) it becomes a lie. You cannot lay another foundation. All truth must be built upon thee truth, the one Foundation, in order retain its truth. All truth is predicated upon Jesus. (See John 14:6). All truth is defined in relation to Him. So if you make another biblical truth the foundation, even though it is true, over time that truth will evolve into a lie because it is no longer tethered to Jesus. It loses its moorings and, eventually, its redemptive context and Scriptural meaning.

Here’s what happens when a truth becomes a lie. Jesus is thee Truth, the others are “truths”. If one of those biblical truths becomes thee emphasis and is not built upon Jesus, it will eventually veer off into error. I’ll give you an example: Holiness. Holiness is a truth. We know that without it no man will see God. But holiness is not THEE truth. Holiness is A truth and to retain its “truthfulness” or biblical integrity, it must be defined relative to Jesus. For instance, Jesus tells us holiness will not be accomplished by trying to be holy, by externals (Mt.23:26). In fact, holiness or righteousness is a free gift from God when we are born again. We are MADE holy, clothed in His righteousness by the finished work of Jesus Christ (Ro.5:19, II Cor.5:21). Hebrews 10:9 says, “By this will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all“. And, on top of that, Ez.36:26,27 says, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances, and do them”. So we are changed from within as well as clothed from without. We are not only covered in His righteousness but have new holy desires inside! It’s all Him!

BUT, what happens when holiness becomes the foundation upon which we build instead of Jesus Christ? There are churches, denominations and movements that have done this. It results in legalism; a law based, guilt driven attempt to maintain favor with God that leads to death; a roller coaster ride of self righteousness and condemnation. Holiness is not the result of observing rules but from what Christ accomplished for us 2000 years ago. Now we bear fruit out of relationship with Him. But when holiness becomes the foundation in itself and is not built upon the ONE foundation ALREADY laid (Jesus) the truth becomes a lie. And in its extreme, just visit Pennsylvania Dutch country.

Jesus-based Acceptance

“The New Covenant went into effect when Jesus died on the cross (Hebrews 9:15-26). The New Covenant  is not performance-based acceptance, but rather a Jesus-based acceptance that hinges on the finished work at the cross. We are meant to function in a secure, moment-by-moment dependency upon Jesus Christ Who gave His life for us, to give His life to us, to live His life through us!” Praise God we are under grace, not under the law! Jesus did it ALL!!

–excerpts from “Is Your Grace Filter Working?”

In Community

At our church this past Sunday I introduced worship with the following message. I’m posting it hoping it might bring some light on how Jesus is shaping our community, teaching us how to inhabit community, and go out from community. Here goes:

 I want to throw out some thoughts on a “worshiping community”. Worship is huge. And it includes coming together as community to recalibrate around Jesus. To me it’s equivalent to an event- a transforming God encounter. As I said last week, I have an increasingly greater appreciation for community.  I also mentioned a kind of early intuition that 2010 was going to be a radical year for Dwell Missional Church.  I believe the genuine “ethos” or life force of this community, the timely and necessary distinction this community brings to the mix, will continue to unfold and fill out more of its sphere of influence. And all of it flowing out from relationship with Jesus under the influence of His grace. Here is where Jesus is shaping community.  How incredible is it that the church, unleashed as community, is the means of grace by which God chooses to express Himself? (Eph.3:10). I mean, even after you leave a  community gathering, there is this profound, unbreakable, and mysterious continuity of it by which Christ is present. (Eph.5:32). Dwell then becomes community in the greater community; a community testifying not of itself but as the Message Bible says, “opening up our lives to others, prompting people to open up to God…”.

 As we approach 2010, I believe greater understanding is coming to the way by which we inhabit community and move out from it; that is, in the way of living in and out from the reality of what God is forming “…Which is His body…”  I love the body metaphor because with it you get a picture of this radical, living, anatomical connectedness. Though sometimes messy, there is this relational supply between the parts. It’s this uncanny interaction between strengths and weaknesses. It’s not the externalized or mandated “love of the brethren” stuff of religion, but the outflow of relationship with God that in some way actually accomplishes the work of grace.

As I said awhile back, we come together as community in worship to “reboot” – getting our “software” in sync with the “hardware” of God’s Word and in fellowship with one another. This re-orientation around Jesus changes everything and empowers our witness. Why? Because “in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and all the riches of spiritual knowledge”.

Lastly, Paul tells us,“Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it” and that we “are parts of His body-of His flesh and of His bones”. I don’t want to “time-share” in that, where I retreat now and then when life is getting a bit hectic. No, I want to live in that “body” reality, drenched in the Gospel, under His divine influence. See, in community, the grace Jesus brings to His followers and what they become by it is incredible! Between the Son of God “made flesh” and His Church, there is, again, this profound, unbreakable and mysterious connection by which He is present. This presence of Jesus (not the presence of “presence”) is the reason for our joy. What better reason to gather in community and worship Him as community?

 

 

 

 

A Jesus Manifesto…by: Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola

There is an amazing piece of writing entitled “A Jesus Manifesto” written by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola that so stirred our spirits that we wanted to share it with you all. God is calling His Church back to the simplicity that is in Christ…May more and more of His sons and daughters be revived by His Voice so the world can truly see Jesus!

A Magna Carta

for Restoring the Supremacy of

Jesus Christ

a.k.a.

A Jesus Manifesto

for the 21^st Century Church

by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

Christians have made the gospel about so many things … things other than Christ.

Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.

It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ . . . who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.

Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.

Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.

What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.

In that regard, we feel a massive disconnection in the church today. Thus this manifesto.

We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”

In this hour, the testimony that we feel God has called us to bear centers on the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically . . .

1. The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.

2. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.

3. God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centers in Christ . . . both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.

4. Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation–the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch—is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?

To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the taproot or the headwaters of his outward behavior? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.

5. The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.

6. It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.

7. Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.

8. It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.

Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.

The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.

9. Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)

The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.

10. In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”

If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.

May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.

The two of us may disagree about many things—be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.

But in our two most recent books—From Eternity to Here and So Beautiful—we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ— “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:

Jesus the Christ.

Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.

Christians don’t preach themselves; Christians proclaim Christ.

Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.

Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.

Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:

Ask ye what great thing I know, that delights and stirs me so? What the high reward I win? Whose the name I glory in?

Jesus Christ, the crucified.

This is that great thing I know; this delights and stirs me so: faith in him who died to save, His who triumphed o’er the grave:

Jesus Christ, the crucified.

—

Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.

He is our Pursuit, our Passion, and our Life.

Amen.

*****

To discuss this manifesto and its implications, go to A Jesus Manifesto Blog at

http://ajesusmanifesto.wordpress.com/

Learning to Love God More

In Steve McVey’s recent newsletter, he wrote an article titled “Learning to Love God More”. Here are some of the excerpts:

“It’s a sincere effort to love the Lord, but so often is misguided. A lawyer once came to Jesus and asked Him, ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ Notice what the man was asking about here. He was asking about the Law. Jesus answered his question, saying, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and foremost commandment.’ In response to the man’s question about the greatest law, Jesus answered that it is to love God.”

“This verse has been abused many times by well meaning Christians because they fail to understand its context. It’s important to note that the man was asking Jesus about the Law. As odd as it might seem, when we believe our greatest need is to try to love God more, we set ourselves up for failure. That’s because of what the Law does to a person. The Bible says that the Law stirs up sinful passions. (See Romans 7:5) It stimulates rebellion against the very thing it demands. So if you focus on how much you should love God, that law will condemn you and cause you to be filled with a sense of guilt. It isn’t possible to love Him like we want to until we understand how much He loves us.Then, and only then, we will find love for God swelling up within our hearts.

“The Bible says, ‘We love, because He first loved us.’ The key then, is to focus on how much He loves you, not on how much you love Him at any given moment in life. The most important thing in your life isn’t to struggle to love God more. By what power can you do that? Haven’t we all struggled in that area? The secret is to begin to focus on how much your heavenly Father loves you. A legalistic view on the love relationship we have with our Father shifts the focus away from His goodness and grace and puts the responsibility on us. Grace reminds us that He is the Initiator, and we are the responders. The Bible says that God loves us; it’s all about His love for us, and when we focus on that, instead of on our love for Him, we will discover that knowing the love of God for us becomes the catalyst for experiencing and enjoying His love in a deeper way than we have ever known. We will find that our own love for Him grows by leaps and bounds.”

Grace, Mysticism And Gnosticism

In Christendom, there has been a very gradual shift taking place over the years; a progressively influential aberrant stream flowing out of the original charismatic movement. It is a new (though old as time) theological “revision” incorporating the pursuit of subjective experience, along with mystical and gnostic thought, into a “deeper” understanding of God. In much of Christianity, this movement gets blown off as extreme but benign (a sort of  “live and let live” attitude exists) or it’s violently reacted against by mean-spirited, self-appointed “contenders of the faith”. Nonetheless, it is a growing phenomenon thanks to venues like Christian television and the internet with 24 hour programming, web sites featuring “prophetic” words, conferences, teachings, podcasts, and radical claims of impending world-wide revival. Though I am not denying the authentic experience of God’s love in truth, I have no doubt that some of the wild deceptions and manifestations propagated are going from “bad to worse, men deceived and being deceived”. (II Ti.3:13).

The growing thirst for emotional and mystical experience and its wide acceptance is seen in the proliferation of gatherings where Christians seeking subjective encounters can meet. A generation of Christians, though saved and alive to God, have become somehow discontented with the “simplicity that is in Christ“. It could be their attempt to compensate for the ditch of dead orthodoxy they found themselves in and institutional Sunday church culture. This may explain why so many Christians filled with the Holy Spirit are willing to jump on planes, charter buses, spend large amounts of money, and travel great distances upon the report of a possible new “outpouring” of God. But experiences centered in personal emotions and feelings are not the antidote to the sterility and rigidity of rationalism. The reaction to that ditch has created another ditch. It’s one that validates the truth or reality of God by what is felt… by what gratifies and can bring the most immediate benefit. The “felt” God is sought after regardless of whether “He” embodies the authentic God of the Scriptures.

Subjectivism is becoming a kind of “doctrine” or hermeneutic where all “genuine” knowledge is restricted to the sensory. As is the case with all gnosticism, soon the symbolic assumes more reality than the real. It is, like other intoxicants, dangerously addicting and so are the consequences. I recently reviewed an article on the “four stages of alcoholism” and was alarmed to see the similarity between the progression of that dependency and those seeking the euphoric effects of a deeper “spirituality”. No wonder Paul said, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified”. By keeping people seeking after that which they already have in Christ, the enemy attacks the heart of the gospel, the fullness of Christ, and the sufficiency of His finished work.

I sometimes think the impact of this new gnosticism has subtly changed the Biblical meaning of faith to that which comes by sight (the tangible, the felt) rather than by evidence of things not seen. The empirical becomes the new spiritual. Thus, this stream has the power to put people on a spiritual path which can shipwreck their faith in the Person of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 2:13 says, “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which cannot hold water” (have no lasting substance).

 It is only a matter of time before more and more people become disillusioned with “prophecies” that never come to pass and “prophets” who ran but were not sent of God. Here, divination can give way to biblical revelation and the Holy Spirit once again magnifying and revealing Jesus. See, God is known only in His Son. However, as demonic forces attempt to combine subjectivism, emotion and mysticism into a new experiential theology, we may be entering into a prelude to the great apostasy we are told to expect. Paul warned in II Ti.4:3,4 “For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching [for something pleasing and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold. And will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into myths and man-made fictions“.

The word of God assures us that when these deceptions come, men who understand will take action and give understanding. See, there are voices arising in this wilderness of subjectivism and mysticism to bring biblical revelation to deception; to bring grace to this chase for “more” of God; to make the crooked places (the cockeyed theology) straight. This is why we need what is solid; we need that which is built upon the Rock: “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is [already] laid, which is Jesus Christ”. What a joy to realize that all we need has been given unto us in Christ; and it is in Him we put ALL our hope.

I have heard claims from those of this growing stream that “God is so much bigger than His Word”. Really? Well, this is starkly contrasted by God’s own perspective which is expressed by David who praises God for the fact that He “Has magnified His Word above His name”. Jesus is the Word, full of grace and truth and He is the hermeneutic of our faith.

Acceptance Grace Or Man’s Approval?

We know that by the finished work of Jesus Christ, we are the righteousness of God in Christ, accepted in the Beloved. We know His acceptance is unconditional, never again based on our performance. However, if you are walking in the acceptance grace of God in a real way and not seeking acceptance from men, you may be the exception to the rule. In fact, if you are genuinely under the influence of God’s “acceptance grace”, you may be thought of by many as strange, even offensive. Because even if you are gracious and accepting of others, not being acceptable for others can put you at risk for their disapproval. Yet if you compromise for man’s acceptance, you can move into the very thing that negates you, along with the One in you. But an uncompromised witness of His unconditional acceptance might help others avoid a paralyzing fear of rejection or a nominal, ineffective Christianity. See, there is a deadly virus in the body of Christ, it is the leaven of this whole complimentary thing calling us to an acceptance-seeking bland neutrality.

Jesus said, “How is it possible for you to believe (or even care about the unconditional acceptance and honor of God ), who are content to seek and receive praise and honor and glory from one another….?” In other words, how can we see the relevance of the unconditional acceptance of God (in the now) when we seek acceptance and receive it from men? By doing so, acceptance grace can lose its cogent, present meaning. However, rejection from men has a way of turning our hearts back to the cross and the value of God’s unconditional love. Here, at the cross, we can again find assurance in God’s acceptance and remain unshaken by the rejection of others.

Yes, we all want man’s compliment; we want them to tell us that we are good, effective, non offensive, kind and that people wish all Christians were like us. But when you live under the “alreadiness” of God’s acceptance, it is to live free of this desperate need, it is to live under an absoluteness of HIS love. You come into an assurance that emancipates you from performance based acceptance and the fear of rejection; His perfect love casting out fear. Not that you are looking to be controversial. Look, I’m in my 60’s, I’m not looking to play sophomoric games where I need to be “different” or agitational. But there is a reality of deliverance from this awful fear of rejection, II Cor. 5:14 MSG says, “Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love (not the approval of others) has the first and last word in everything we do”.

We will be free from the fear of men and our desire for their approval to the degree by which we are conscious of God’s love and His unconditional acceptance of us. There are times we may have to stand alone for extended periods. Maybe even suffer whithering blasts of reproach and criticism, especially for the message we bear. But if our strength is derived from the approval of men instead of the honor that comes from God, we will not stand. We’ll collapse because we have not (in a real way) been weaned from man’s approval by God’s Sprit bearing witness with our spirit that we are the unconditionally loved sons and daughters of God. Jesus said, “I receive not glory from men [I crave no human honor, I look for no mortal fame]…..For My food (nourishment, delight) is to do the will (pleasure) of Him Who sent Me and to accomplish and completely finish His work”. (John 5:41, 4:34).

 

 

 

 

 

Grace and Gideon

^“Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD is with you, you mighty man of valor!” Gideon said to Him, “O my lord,  if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.” Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”  So he said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” And the LORD said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.” (Judges 6:11-16)

God declares Gideon to be a mighty man of valor, but Gideon who is focused on his circumstances replies with unbelief regarding the Lord’s faithfulness. This is an amazing picture of man’s resistance to believe and take the Lord at His Word! Here Gideon stands face to face with the angel of the Lord who is telling him truly who he is based on the grace of God and Gideon answers with an accusation against the Lord. Could it be that it is impossible to see who we truly are in Christ when we are questioning and doubting His faithfulness? When we are failing to see the absolute certainty of our righteousness in Him? God’s response to Gideon is even more amazing in lieu of this accusation. The Lord continues to affirm His declaration to Gideon that he will most assuredly do all that God has intended because the Lord is with him! Wow! And God doesn’t stop there and neither does Gideon! Gideon throws up one more feeble complaint about his lowly condition and the Lord just doesn’t want to hear it. He graciously continues to build Gideon up in the Truth of who he is and what he will accomplish by the hand of the Lord in his life. We are who we are by the grace of God, and Gideon was about to come into this undeniable reality. May we too experience for ourselves the undeniable reality of who we truly are by the grace of God!