So, I have this friend… ok, last time I started a post like this it was a tongue in cheek reference to myself.  This time it is not (good thing or I would not be typing this as all my fingers – if not other appendages – would be broken), nor is it hypothetical.  And I still choose to have this friend be a friend, that’s what grace is about.  But I do need to vent, and not even so much about this friend.

You see, I recognize that my friend bears full responsibility for his decisions.  I wish him all God’s best, but unfortunately the path he has chosen will not bring him that.  We live in a world of consequences for our actions – both temporary and eternal - despite the grace that we enjoy and MUST give to others.  That’s why grace is scandalous.  In order to really be unmerited grace, it must be offered despite any actions of the recipient.  That’s offensive and scandalous, and a big reason Jesus was killed by the powers that were.

So, I have this friend who decided to leave his wife and toddler for another woman.  Beyond my agonizing over the seeming conflicts between consequences, responsibility, and scandalous grace, this raises another topic.  I’ve spouted my opinions and I know you’re probably sick of hearing them - on the dangers of the typical prosperity gospel, and the broader message that God will make his way so clear and easy that it will all come naturally.  That nothing should be hard or difficult, and that we should not force ourselves to make hard, life changing, difficult decisions that cause pain and the sacrifice of material comforts.  But this is why I will continue beating that horse until well after it is dead.

My friend heard that message and took hold of this teaching and used it to form the foundation of a spiritual justification for his actions.  I cannot help but think that a clear message of responsibility and consequences, paired with grace and blessing, would have provided some level of restraint against his decision.  Maybe enough to make him reconsider.  Probably not.  But I know this.  My kids will know all about scandalous grace, and will KNOW they cannot and need not earn anything from God.  But they will also KNOW that life in this world is not easy.  That Jesus promised that there is a wide and easy road - but that road leads to DESTRUCTION, He called us to pick up our crosses (in the context of His time, read: torture/execution devices – not the convenient religious symbol), promised that the first would become last, and that the way that seems right to man is not His way.  Given the context we were born in and the fallen state of this world, in need of redemption and in a state of conflict on a level we cannot imagine - God has no intent that our lives be easy or comfortable.  His intent is that we have joy and peace.  In HIS INCOMPREHENSIBLE WAY, joy and peace come through sacrifice, service, and submitting our desires and comfort to do hard things that He will empower us to do.  This is not about a life of dreary defeat and self-abuse.  It’s about TRUE VICTORY AND JOY when we submit to Him and put our desires down.

Another horse that may be dead, but that I will continue to beat:  scripture is dangerous if taken in snippets, and not considered and understood in the complete context of God’s entire Word, purpose, and nature.  This is just one example.  I am convinced I can find a half dozen scriptures (taken out of context, viewed in a vacuum) that will support ANY action I want to take.  We MUST understand God’s heart, His purpose, and Who He Is.  That’s what His Word is.  A description of Who He Is.  Since we are to reflect him, we must know Who He Is, and not rely on sound bites that we find pleasant.

Let’s get it right.  Live for God and for others.  Not ourselves.  All of His promises are good and real, but must be paired with – and are only realized through – true abandoning of our pursuit of our good to SERVE Him and others.  I’m frustrated right now.  His message is clear, we simply choose to concoct other arguments because we want the easy way.  And in doing so, we shortchange God, others, and ourselves.  Everyone loses.  I want everyone to win.

...Or, what should we pray for, and how do we have faith that we’ll receive what we ask for?  This question came up in a recent conversation with a friend.  I was saying that I don’t think we really know what is best for us.  My five year-old likes candy.  That does not mean that a diet of candy is what is best for him.  He does not understand why it is not.  If he were to ask for the diet of his choice, he would choose a diet of candy.

I was telling him I’m convinced that we know as little about what is really good for us as my five year-old son.  That I like “candy” an easy life, relief from trials and troubles without pain and struggle.  But that we don’t grow without facing, battling, and overcoming resistance - that’s a universal law.  It’s in the Bible, it’s in every aspect of nature.  So the “candy” I want may not be what is best for me.  So my friend asks, “If you’re right how can I have faith for anything that I pray for?”.  Great question… one that I used to really struggle with but now feel completely at peace with.

Romans 8:31-32
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

My take on this verse (and many others like it) is different than most that I have heard (imagine that, I have a minority and unusual take on things - a shocker, right?).  Anyway, my take on this is that I don’t NEED to know what is best for me. God knows.  And “how will He not also… graciously give us all things?”.  Really… how could we imagine that He wouldn’t.  I don’t need to make it happen.  I have complete trust and confidence in His plan for me, and His desire and ability to give me all good things according to His plan (hmm… sounds like a real definition of FAITH to me).  So I pray for His plan.  I ask Him to reveal His will and bring it about in my life.  I ask Him to help me overcome my presumptions, my nature, my desires, and replace them with His.

Oh… yeah, I almost forgot.  It seems that someone once asked Jesus this question as well.  What should we pray for?

Luke 11:1-4
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”  He said to them, “When you pray, say:

“‘Father, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
And lead us not into temptation.”

I know God’s plan for me is good.  I know too many Christians who take my general position but misuse it to justify resignation with a situation that is not God’s plan… “well, it must be God’s will… or God must be trying to teach me something…” That misses the mark entirely.  I am a fighter, and God expects that of all of us.  Yes, I belive God always has a plan for us to grow through adversity.  But you don’t build muscle mass by laying on a bench with the bar across your neck choking you.  You grow by resisting, fighting, and learning to rely on and trust Him to reveal His plan and His deliverance.  The other extreme says that I know there is no plan of God, no benefit, and no way God has any purpose for any suffering or difficulty in my life, so I’ll layout the specific plan and outcome I want to see and will pray for and claim that.  The problem there is that we don’t know specifics.  We know to fight, and we know expect His deliverance… but not OUR plan for deliverance.  I think that is a recipe for disappointment and a resulting lack of confidence in Him.  His plan is almost never ours… we think too small.. and then we don’t get our “candy” and we lose faith.  His plan is too big and too good for us to know in full.

So, how should we pray?  I’ll go with Jesus’ explicit instruction and ask God to reveal and execute His plan and His deliverance, and I won’t limit Him to the “candy” I want.  I know that’s crazy talk… but sometimes I just get carried away with thinking Jesus actually knew something.

I’l let this one speak for itself… pretty powerful message about who we should associate with… where God’s focus is, and where ours should be.  My unscientific guess is that approximately 0% of us do this, especially that last part.  When’s the last time you wanted to have someone over for the evening and passed on inviting family or friends and instead found someone destitute and socially outcast instead?

Luke 14:8-14

“When you are invited by anyone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place, lest one more honorable than you be invited by him; and he who invited you and him come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,’ and then you begin with shame to take the lowest place.  But when you are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the presence of those who sit at the table with you.  For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Then He also said to him who invited Him, “When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid.  But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

Wow, hard to believe how much time can slide by when life gets a bit busy.  Sorry, I’ll get back to posting more regularly.

Luke 13:10-16 

Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.  And there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.  But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.”  And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.”

The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it?  So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”

It seems to me that we have another verse where 100%, yes… 100% of professing Christians would say, “Of course, like… duh… of course Jesus did the right thing, and of course that is where my priorities are also.”

But yet beneath the surface, I believe that 100% of us, yes… 100% fall on the side of the ruler of the synagogue all too often in our daily lives.  Jesus chose compassion over the rules and traditions of men… in fact, He chose compassion over the rule of law in His religion.  How often do we let ourselves write people off, fail to respond to needs in real compassion, because the person in need of compassion looks, acts, or lives in a way that breaks our societal and religious rules and norms? 

I know I’ve done that, and I’m certain I still do despite my best efforts to suppress that aspect of my human nature.  Love and compassion ruled Jesus’ every action.  We can only do that through grace and through His spirit leading us.  But we need to become aware of our need to act as He did, and our need for His help to do the same.

Luke 12: 22-34
Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on.  Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?  And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?  If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?  Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?

“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.  Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You know why I have such a problem with “the prosperity gospel” that has become popular in many evangelical circles?  First, it’s just not biblical.  It contradicts the general themes that are clearly close to God’s heart, and the vast majority of scriptures that address the concept of wealth and money.  But that’s all cold theological arguments.

The reason it cuts so deep for me is that the message that we should pursue worldly wealth is a message that will rob us of the joy and peace that Jesus’ way brings.  I’m not proposing that we reject the pursuit of material wealth and live a life of self-defeatism and suffering.  Money and things don’t bring happiness.  A focus on the pursuit of money and things is a trap that leads to misery and captivity in golden shackles that prevents real freedom and peace.  Isn’t it clear that Jesus is telling us here that giving all rather than accumulating things is the key to joy and freedom in this life?

I see people all around me living lives of material excess, but with empty hearts and abandoned dreams - numb and devoid of real joy.  Jesus is the answer.  Yes, most importantly, for salvation through His grace.  But He also has the answers to provide joy and peace in this life.  He gave us a clear roadmap to peace and joy, will we trust Him enough to act on those instructions?  Or do we think we know a better way?

Perhaps the most well known passage in the bible.

Luke 11:1-4
Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

    Our Father in heaven,
    Hallowed be Your name.
    Your kingdom come.
    Your will be done
    On earth as it is in heaven.
    Give us day by day our daily bread.
    And forgive us our sins,
    For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
    And do not lead us into temptation,
    But deliver us from the evil one.”

Lots of good stuff in there.  Among the most important in my opinion is the general concept that this is not a rendom teaching.  It is Jesus’ response to a question on how to pray in general.  If this is our pattern, our instruction sheet for how to pray, what does it tell us:

Do we ask for (or demand) more than enough?
Or do we express contentment with God meeting our basic needs?
Do we focus on what we want?
Or do we focus on God’s will?
Do we focus on our rights and our status?
Or do we focus on grace, both grace we receive and grace that we give?

There is great freedom here.  My well being and my future - even that of my family - is not for me to control or bring about by my will, my power, or anything I can do.  Jesus tells me to live in the present.  Focused on God and His will, content in having enough for the day.  Forgiving all that I might have anything against.  That’s a recipe for peace.  I’ve been taught to pray in a lot of different ways - but I’ve never taught to pray that way by anyone other than Jesus.  And that’s a shame.  Because He knows best, and I believe there is real peace, joy, and power in His way.

I’m going to have to do another two for the price of one… like I said, the difficulty is not in finding an example of God’s care for and focus on those in need.  The difficulty is choosing between multiple examples in most chapters.  Here we go…

Luke 10:1-5
After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.  Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.  Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road.  But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’

Interesting, this one.  I see all kinds of angles and meanings in this one.  Jesus clearly had something specific in mid when he sent the seventy out with this command.  Why?  I’m sure the seventy were asking the same thing.  Probably in stronger terms and with a bit more personal concern.  I think it was for a mix of several reasons.

Empathy - since His ministry was primarily to those in need, traveling with no means of support would sharpen the empathy felt for those in need.

Faith - real faith can only happen when we come to the end of ourselves and what we can provide.  This command certainly put them in a place where only faith could sustain them.

Environment - if they traveled with money, they could just stay at the local Holiday Inn along the way.  With no money, He compelled them to congregate with others in need, because well, they were in need also.  And ultimately compelled them into real community with others where they visited.

I can’t help but think that we would all be better off for having a similar experience.  But for all our talk about faith nowadays, I think we’d have precious few with that kind of faith.  And I’ll be honest - I don’t think I have the faith to go out that way.  I’ll add that to the list of things I need to work on… and I am trying to find ways to get out of my comfort zone.  I think we all need to.

Luke 10: 25-29
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”  So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”  And He said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.”  But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

And, of course, what follows is the story of the good Samaritan.  Jesus tells this leader that his neighbor must be anyone who cannot help themselves.  But He does not stop there.  Jesus delivers that message with a slap in the face… or maybe something more akin to a wheel kick to the head.  In His illustration, the “holy” Jews all pass by and ignore the man in need.  Only a man despised by the Jews acts with compassion.

Makes me think about us today.  Who would be the good Samaritan in Jesus’ example today when the Chirstians pass by those in need?  And Jesus wouldn’t even need a parable.  I see it in real life - people from groups Christians despise as immoral heathens acting where we fail to act.  I’m sure Jesus would pick one for His parable that would deliver the same slap in the face to us that He delivered 2,000 years ago.