Voice

Today's word to reflect on is "voice".   I chose to reflect on Isaiah 51:3, which says, "For the LORD comfort Zion; he comforts all her waste places snd makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song." (ESV)


I love the books of the prophets; they're my favorites.  There's a common theme: warning of punishment for sin if God's people don't repent and return to the Lord followed by promises of comfort and restoration that will follow and result in the Lord being exalted.  Lent is a time on reflecting on the punishment that our sin deserves and the fact that Christ bore that punishment for us.  It is a time of mourning as we reflect on the cost of sin.  However, this verse reminds me that it can also be a time of comfort.  The NIV translation of this verse says that he looks with compassion on Israel's ruins.


During this season of lent, I'm aware of some of the ruins in my life that have been caused by sin, whether it be sins that I committed or that others committed.  However, as I lament what used to be and is no longer there, I also want to turn to God and receive the comfort that He has promised following destruction.  I don't think we are supposed to mourn in vain; I think are mourning is meant to turn us back to the God who is waiting to comfort us.  I also want this to be a time for thanksgiving and the voice of song as I look forward to the promise of comfort and restoration.

Gather

Another season of lent where I commit to blogging has begun.  This year I am adapting a lent idea that was to take and share a photo each day based off a word.  Instead, I will take some time each day to look up Bible verses containing the word, reflect, and blog some thoughts.


Today's word is "gather".  The verse I've chosen is Job 34:14-15, which says, "If he should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust." (ESV)  I read this at my church's Ash Wednesday service shortly after having the ashes placed on my forehead and hearing the words, "From dust you came; to dust you shall return."


Fortunately, this is not what God has set His heart to, and that is the grace of this season.  I've been doing Beth Moore's Bible study about the Holy Spirt called "Breath".  We've examined verses similar to the one in Job linking words like "breath", "spirit", and "life", which is one of the reasons this stood out to me.  Another reason is the passage we studied in the last session.


I encourage you to read Ezekiel 37:1-14.  It's the passage about the dry bones being brought to life.  In short, God asks the prophet Ezekiel, "Son of man, can these bones live?".  Ezekiel replies, "O Lord GOD, you know."  God tells him to prophesy life over the bones.  As he did so, the bones came together and were covered with flesh, but there was no breath.  He was then commanded to prophesy to the breath to breathe on the slain so they might live and they did.  The passage ends with God's promise to raise His people from their graves and place His Spirit in them so they might live.


I go to a church where communion is usually only taken once a month, except for special occasions.  Communion happened to fall the day after this lesson.  As I watched everyone go up for communion, I reflected on this passage.  "Can these dry bones live?" God seemed to still be asking.  "O Lord GOD, you know," I thought as I watched person after person receive the sacraments that said, "Yes."  Bones metaphorically coming together and being covered with sinews and flesh.  God breathing new life into His people that were once dead in their transgressions.  While advent looks forward to the birth of Christ, lent looks forward to God breathing life into dry bones.


From dust we came; to dust we shall return.  Praise the God whose heart is not sent on leaving us that way.  The God who instead chose to open our graves and breathe life into us a second time.  He could have gathered His breath instead.  We'd had our chance and blown it.  Yet He chose to give His last breath so that we might once again have breath.  This is the beauty of lent and Easter.

No More

The above image is from The Joyful Heart Foundation's No More Campaign.  No More means more than just no more domestic violence and sexual assault.  It means No More behaviors that enable it to happen, such as No More Silence, No More Blaming The Victim, etc.  It's No More Fill In The Blank as pictured below:

I'm hoping to add my voice to the No More campaign by doing a No More series on this blog.  God has given me a passion to fight the injustice of abuse.  I've heard several testimonies from suvivors of abuse that the church has not been much of a help in fighting abuse, and in some cases, it has even made things worse.  This is not always the case, but it is heartbreaking to hear how often it is the case.  In this No More series, I will address some common behaviors and attitudes that are found within the church that have a tendency to enable abuse, look at why they do so, and what might be able to be changed to help fight abuse.

A big inspiration for this blog series has been the "A Cry For Justice" blog.  This is a Christian-led blog that exists solely to address the issue of abuse and the church.  I believe it is a valuable resource for Christians that seek to understand the dynamics of abuse and who are looking for a Biblical understanding of how to deal with abuse when it occur within the church.  Here is the link: http://cryingoutforjustice.com/.

The Hope On Which Our Faith Rests

Happy Easter, everyone!  He is risen!  The grave is empty.  Death has been defeated.  The curse that led to death has been broken by the new Adam who brings life to all who believe in Him.  This is the hope on which all of our faith rests.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14, "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith."  If Christ had not been raised, our faith would be completely useless.  But because He has been raised, we can have a true hope in redemption that will be worked out in this life and ultimately when we see Him face to face.


The fear of death no longer has power over us.  This is how the world was transformed.  Christians were willing to die instead of rejecting Christ because they trusted that He had been raised and trusted His promise that He was only the first of many who had put their faith in Him.  It's kinda hard to stop someone who whole-heartedly believes that.


Christ died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.  Simple words and so easy to take for granted.  Yet they are the deep foundations of our faith.  God Himself came down as a man, died, was raised to life in the same body that was crucified, and will return.  Simple words, yet altogether life altering when we realize just what they mean and choose to believe them.

The Day In Between

Holy Saturday.  It's the day in between death and life.  The day when the harsh, unbelievable realities of the day before began to sink in.  The day when there seemed to be little hope for the future.  A day of confusion and pain.  A day that reminds us just how hopeless we'd be if Jesus had only been crucified and not raised from the dead.  His death is crucial to our salvation and His resurrection is equally as crucial.  There is no hope in death if the promise of new life is not fulfilled.  The time in between is important too.

Throughout our lives, sin will cause many deaths and God will bring about new life. But we will also have to face the time in between.  How we deal with the time in between is crucial to the direction our faith will go.  Will we believe all is hopeless, get angry at God, and lose faith?  Or will we rely on what He has taught us thus far and dare to keep believing against all hope?  There is a reward for this who dare to trust Him even when all seems hopeless- restoration.  The time in between May be the most difficult because it forces us to come to terms with a death brought about by sin.  It's painful.  We often feel powerless. Hope seems to have died.  But His mercies are new each morning.  His plans are to prosper us, not to harm is.  To give us a hope and a future.  He will do something we wouldn't have believed even if we had been told if we will watch and pray.  This is the time that are faith is tested and stretched.  This is where drastic growth can take place.  But all 3 days are crucial to this process.

The Problem Of Evil

The Good Friday service at my church tonight was especially powerful.  The message was about taking responsibility for our individual sins that put Jesus on the cross and how doing so is a crucial part of accepting the forgiveness that Christ extends to us.  During communion, we had the option of dipping our hands into red paint and then placing them on the cross to acknowledge our guilt.  We then were invited to take communion and then go to another station to wash our hands as a symbol of the cleansing provided by Jesus' death on the cross.  The bowl of water quickly became red, making the stains difficult to wash off, similar to how there was only one way that our stains could be washed off and it was not easy.  

As powerful as those reminders were, there was one part of communion that really got to me.  I had the privilege of serving communion tonight.  I got the grape juice.  As anyone who has served communion at my church knows, this can be a bit of a messy job as some of the grape juice inevitably ends drips off of the bread.  Tonight was especially powerful as I felt the grape juice stream down my hands at times and saw spots of it spattered on the floor, all while telling person after person, "The blood of Christ spilled for you."  It was almost like feeling that blood spilled out over me.  My hands were shaking by about half way through.

Today is a day of mourning.  A day of mourning Jesus' death.  But it is not sufficient to only mourn His death.  True repentance comes in mourning the reason for His death.  So often we focus on the fact that Jesus died because He loves us.  While this is true and fully supported by John 3:16, it is not the whole truth.  Because of our sin, we were separated from God.  A perfect sacrifice had to be given in order for us to be reconciled to Him.  Our sins had to be placed on that sacrifice.  The cross is not about God overlooking our sins; it is about God placing them on His one and only Son and punishing Him so that we may live by putting our faith in Him.

Jesus didn't just die on the cross because He loves us.  He died on a cross because our sins grieve Him and He wants to remove them.  That was the only way.  I don't think it is possible to  show proper appreciation for the sacrifice Christ made without grieving our sins that put Him there and realizing just how awful those sins are.  At some point in our lives, we have all chosen to yell, "Crucify Him," spit in His face, and mocked Him.

One of the major philosophical issues, especially in regards to religion, is the problem of evil.  How could a God who is all good, all knowing, and all powerful allow evil to happen.  Christ's willing death on the cross is never mentioned.the thing is, why would a God who doesn't absolutely detest evil take on flesh, allow Himself to be handed over to His enemies, and willingly die one of the most brutal and humiliating deaths in all of history in order to rid people of their sins- and not just so they can go to Heaven, but that this redemption would take place here and now?  I look at Jesus and see a God who cares far more about the problem of evil than any of us do.  And He conquered it on that cross.

When I realize just how much was given in order to pay for my sins, I hate my sins.  I hate my sins that put the God I love on that cross.  The cross is where my desire to turn from my sins is strongest.  I'm repulsed by the way they marred my beloved Savior.  And in this I find my desire to take up my cross and follow Him- to die to myself and to find a new and better life in Him.

Control

Control.  It's something we all need yet something that can cause major problems if misunderstood or used in the wrong way.  There are many times where we think we have more control than we actually do and many times  that we think we have less.  Not being realistic about how much control we have and what we rightly have control over can be extremely destructive to ourselves and others.


Sometimes we try to control God by bargaining with Him.  If He gives us what we want then we will give Him what He wants.  But this mistakes several things about God's character.  First, it assumes that the same God who was willing to give His only Son as a sacrifice doesn't care about our needs and desires when He in fact cares about them more than we do.  However, He sees the whole picture and knows what is best.  But sometimes it is hard to trust that.  Second, it assumes that obedience is a way to get God to give us things, but in reality, God already has good things planned for us, but obedience is to His will is the only way that those things are capable of being received by us.


Sometimes we have to acknowledge that we are powerless in certain circumstances and can do know more than leave the situation in God's hands to deal with.  This doesn't mean that we're powerless; it just means that our power is found in prayer and trusting God to work in the situation.  I've found that some of my best moments with God have been some of the most difficult in my life when I acknowledged how powerless I was and submitted to a God who I trusted was for me and would see me through.


Sometimes we try to control our circumstances by controlling other people instead of ourselves.  This is wrong and if it is habitual it is usually deemed as abuse.  Sometimes we fail to acknowledge that we have as much control as we do.  This is wrong also and can lead to victimization.  Boundaries is an excellent book that I have found very helpful in helping me realize what things I am responsible for and to and what things I am not.  It offers help for both side of the equation.  Often the two go hand-in-hand in relationships and the cycle requires at least one person in the relationship to have a clear picture of responsibility and control and make change based on that understanding in order to be broken.


I think a lot could be changed in our relationships with God and others if we learned what our responsibilities to God and others are and what we have control over and used that control appropriately.  Perhaps that is a crucial part of what it means to love God and love others.  It involves taking responsibility for the way we choose to exercise the gift of free will.  I think that one of the core things of love is using our free will for the benefit of another, and not to harm them.  It's a choice not a feeling.  And sometimes it's a very difficult choice.  Jesus talked a lot about submision, probably because it is required in fulfilling the top two commandments, which all the other commandments happen to fall under.  His whole life was about submission to the will of God, even death on a cross to reconcile us to God.  I think Paul says it well in Phillipians 2:

"2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father."

I think that submission to the will of God is the key to true and healthy control.