The Gospel is unpalatable, and so should it be

How palatable is the Christian message? I submit, totally and utterly unpalatable. Any attempt to make it sound palatable is diluting it to a point where its potency is taken away.

So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, "Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey." I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.
- Revelation 10:9-10

It is THE bitter pill (putting it mildly), THE surgery without an anaesthetic, THE rawest of severed nerve endings. It is first death before it gives life (and only in that order).

Christianity's accusation - ALL have sinned!!

It was Blaise Pascal who said, "If you make people think they are thinking, they will love you. If you REALLY make them think, they will hate you".

The Christian message will have none of these things - mollycoddling, ego-massaging, flattery, false hope, placebo, Crocin-for-cancer, etc. It always tells the unvarnished truth - THAT WE ARE TO BLAME FOR IT ALL. It cannot liberate us prisoners, except by first placing us in the dock. It does not try to anaesthetise us and then perform surgery while we're out for the count - it seeks to 1) confront us with our culpability 2) convict us, pronounce sentence 3) elicit acceptance of culpability 4) summarily execute the proud man within us, bury him and 5) create a new, right man, by putting God's own uncreated life into us. Christians are not just "enlightened" people - they are actually part of a NEW (a second, if you like) creation. God has donned His creator hat once more!

Human beings have had problems with "blame" all through time. Typically, blame is okay as long as we are not being blamed ourselves. And when we are blamed, the primal instinct, as old as time itself, is to deflect blame on to someone or something else, whether or not blame is justified. Therefore, the universal antipathy with and opposition to Christianity's Original Sin theology.

A range of reactions have resulted over the sands of history to this seemingly monstrous, inexorable accusation of Christianity that we are to blame for our condition:

Denial
This is a wide, vast, stunningly varied collection - we deny both culpability as well as any basis for culpability. Witness how carefully we are told today that not only are we not to blame, but that blaming in itself is bad and has no basis. It gets deeper - we deny not just culpability, but any structure or framework, narrative, ideology or philosophy that espouses our culpability.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
- I John 1:8-10

Denial is one of the most dangerous of reactions, because it claims that because there is no disease, there are no symptoms, and also because it lulls one into a false sense of security.

Defence
How often are we told that human beings have "weaknesses" and "defects", but not "culpability"? This is a construct that actually begins in denial and then ends up in defence.

Independence and self
So what if we're culpable? The indomitable human spirit can redeem anything we lost! We have science, we have evolved brains.....Can you hear the positive thinking pundits and the "self-realisation" gurus?

Now this reaction would be okay if it were indeed true that we can help ourselves. Truth is, we probably can whitewash the tomb, but who will bring the dead man to life again?

Offence
We seek to tear down and destroy any thinking that tells us we are culpable; we reason desperately that if we kill the accuser, the accusation will go away. It also might arise from the white anger that seizes us when someone or something calls our bluff - deep-down we do feel our culpability, but it is very uncharitable for anyone to actually expose it and bring it to the light; and we are driven to even killing anyone or destroying anything that has the temerity to expose us. In a very twisted sense, this is rather better than denial or defence, because it at least begins with acceptance of the fact that we're culpable. Never mind; the end result is still the same.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
- John 3:19-21

Little wonder, then, that the one way of life in this world that is subject to the most relentless attack and vilification, is Christianity. New warriors turn up everyday to defraud historical evidence about Christianity, to de-legitimise the Bible, to claim that it does not speak the truth about Jesus, and so it goes....

Fear, guilt and sorrow
The accusation of our culpability produces in us a palpable sense of fear, guilt and sorrow. Here again, those who live in denial will say that such fear is just a reaction where none is warranted, because there is nothing to fear, etc....

Fear is an important response, because it can push us in desperation towards any of the other responses - either towards what Christianity calls the "hardening" reactions - denial, defence, independence and offence, or the "transforming" reactions - acceptance and repentance. It is a compelling factor, like it or not, one way or another.

Acceptance and repentance
For us who are Christians, 1) acceptance of the accusation (this is called belief, and it comes by faith, through the grace of God) and 2) repentance from living that ties us up in culpability - these are the biggest keys. These are the best possible reactions to Christianity's accusation.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
- I John 1:9

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Why are we trying to make the gospel palatable?

Its very nature is that it brings first death, then new life. It cannot redeem except we be in bondage. The "bitter pill" first kills the patient entirely, and then injects new life. And all this, not under anaesthesia, but in full consciousness. The WHOLE MAN has to willingly accept and recognise culpability, and the WHOLE MAN has to willingly repent. It cannot be done in a sedated, never-never haze while under the influence of God-Loves-You placebo messages, where the mind and will have relinquished control. The man has to be first confronted with culpability, and then, having accepted it, willing, in all his fullness, to DIE, to lose it all, risk life itself, to become a new creature; and this must be done in full consciousness and willingly. So why are we trying to sedate people into accepting the gospel?

It's because we sugar-coat and soft-pedal the message, that we have "Christians" who have never really died in their inner man; who never really repented; who never really understood (or in many cases, even cared about) the Cross; who have only ever had decisions made for them while floating in a haze of feelgood and when the mind and will were on holiday; and most tellingly, who live the same lives today as they lived before they "believed" the gospel. So what did being "informed" profit them?

My guess is, if the decision to believe did not change my life....then I am not a Bible-Christian. I might as well end the charade and bravely say I do not believe. What does new life mean except new life in all its fullness - mental, spiritual, physical, volitional, emotional? Can it possibly mean dressed-up old life? or merely "informed" old life? If Christianity espouses any "life" at all, it is only NEW life - the old life is heading towards death.

If we are going to want to see God to produce true Christians, then we must be willing to preach the unvarnished Gospel, not its palatable, defanged placebo version.

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What does the Cross of Christ evoke in us?

No response? Response on Sundays? Mild, merely intellectual mind-engagement? Indifferent resignation? Amusement? Intrigue? Anger? Sorrow? Fear? Guilt? Repentance? Our complete undoing?

It's my prayer it evokes SOME response in us, hardening or transforming, for the Spirit of God can use ANY response as a starting point. And it's my prayer this 'season' that we clamour to hear from the Word of God, something that will draw us to the single greatest event in human history, the only one that matters - the Sacrifice of the Lamb; because it is indeed the only event that truly explains history.

Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song:
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."
- Revelation 5:1-10

And it is my prayer that we respond, in complete acceptance and repentance....and may our lives be transformed :)

A heart redeemed

Let not my heart be, O Prime Mover...
A 'home for a time',
A divided house,
A riddle of locked doors,
A place of sinister slumber, peacefully and soundlessly sliding to destruction
Where we sup once a year in dusty, sharded crockery,
By compulsion and goaded by bridle, chaffing at the bit
Where live I by proxy,
To where I cannot remember the way,
The rubbish-tip of my being, a hovel,
Shifting sands moving with the wind,
A shanty where I live in the cold and in the rain,
In want, in defiance and independence, yet a prisoner of myself;
Me in a sealed space and thee in another
Me an entrenched, estranged son
And thou an utter stranger, sometimes admitted, mostly irrelevant.

If thou wouldst live in my heart, let it be...
First of all, thy residence, and thine forever
Where I live in unbroken, flowing relationship with thee, my Father,
In the eternal light of unending day.
A place of safety, of bridges to the wood burned;
Of no doors ajar for wind to blow in an unclean spirit,
Where we sup together in unbounded joy and unfettered trust,
No inner rooms barred from thine indwelling,
A place where every corner thy presence strangely warms and illuminates,
Where, turn where one will, knowledge of thee overshadows,
And the deathly chill has forever thawed, never to frost again.
Where thy light casts out all darkness,
Where thy fires burn brighter than day,
And thy good purpose and will are enduring themes,
Beacons to guide unerringly in a storm,
Where your Cross is never far away,
Where your blood covers all.

Sweep my soul clean, O Merciful One!
Let my heart burn within me as I walk to Emmaus by your side.
My heart only for thee, as thou hast shown thine for me!

Death's aloneness

In the finality and aloneness of death's still corridors
Walks one.
The only one allowed there....by the angel of death.
And He spans the gulf between the living and the dead.
We should live so He'd like to meet us when we die....
And then I care not for death's still, dim corridors
And neither for death's angel.
It's probably one of the clearest moments when we know Him....
When we cross that river.
Then, there, He is realer than He ever was, ever will be...on this shore.
And He spans the gulf between those we leave behind.....and us.

The dark corridors swept pale clean have no memories
of Sunday mornings and the band
Ones we love and ones that love us
Smiling faces, bubbling joy
Of emotional Good Fridays or the gaiety of Easter
Eternity lies before, and a life behind.....with the power of decision removed from our grasp.
No one comes to plead our case
No one comes to cry
No one.
There is, even, no strong silent grief to buoy the spirit, no reservoir of hope within
Tears have no power to heal anymore
Dungeons open, chains clink on to stone floors
A decision remains, just one.....but not ours to make anymore.

But hark.....I hear not the victor's laugh
Nor any echo of voices humming
Just stillness. No one lives here......no one gloats here.
Both victim and seeming victor are silenced
While the Arbiter's will, and His will alone, prevails
The Arbiter says nothing, but transacts firmly ..... in these eerie walls
The victor did not win
And the victim was set free
There are no more spoils of war.
The dungeons hold no one.

Now this happened one day long ago ...... when an innocent was killed on a bloody altar.
Whose body bore all that we were never made to bear
Death's fury.....with the hordes from the pit
Spent on that frail human body.
There was a silent weekend....spent in a pale, antiseptic, unreal, swept-clean, dim corridor.
At dawn on the third day, the Arbiter transacted......and we were free.
Death, the victor, gave up the battle
and fled the field.
Dungeon doors broke their locks......some walked free.
Blinding, cleansing light burst down those dim, clean walls, coiling deep within
a fjord cutting through and bursting out the other shore
Some walked free. Others stayed.....did not know what had happened.

So what happens when we die?
No cold dark dungeon....no waiting for the Arbiter's decision.
The decision is over, and death's jurisdiction ends.
Dungeon doors have locks no more.
Death is the only true alone-moment.
No human being comes with us.
Only the Arbiter.
If Jesus were only lord of my joys...... I'd still be alone at death.
But Jesus is lord of my sorrows.....and that makes Him Jesus to me.
Jesus is Lord...over the moment I cross the shore.
It is but a moment, with fear and unknowing on the known shore....
to wake SAFE, in full knowing and in the light of an awesome presence....on the other, unknown shore.
Jesus, but our fondest and only hope and saviour on the known shore,
The Son, with all His radiance, STILL WITH US...on the unknown shore.
Death is the last enemy......and still, Jesus the only true victor.

Why the Christians cannot and did not "conjure up" God

No human mind can "conjure up" god. A "god" who is the product of "conjuring up" cannot be god at all but merely a human construct who can be dismantled at ease, at will, for convenience, and can have no answers for our humanness.

To borrow from C.S. Lewis, all human beings have these "uncanny" feelings - a sense of awe (bordering on DREAD), and a sense of being under a moral law.

The feeling of awe at someone or something too big for us, or dread at "the unknown", though universally experienced, is absolutely inexplicable because there seems no reason why we should feel it....unless there really exists someone or something to be in awe of, to DREAD. C.S. Lewis uses the word Numinous for this someone or something that inspires dread in us - dread that is not based on KNOWING but actually on UNKNOWING. We do not know, nor can we guess at the STUFF of what we dread; if we did; we wouldn't be using the word dread, because knowledge does usually dispel fear. Simply, these are irrational fears of the unknown.

The same can be said of the moral law; we seem to universally know instinctively know its existence and its operation on us, but more importantly, we know, most of the time, that we are contravening this law. There is no use trying to explain away this law, or say that each individual determines his or her OWN law, it's relative, subjective and so on and so forth. If we just look inside ourselves and see how our thought processes work and our decisions are made, we will discover very shortly that we indeed operate by this moral law, even WHILE we vehemently and vociferously deny it on the outside. And we will also discover that we actually do not like it very much when we see others violating a moral code. Also, we will find that though this moral law may SEEM different for people in different cultures and in different histories, it never really has strayed very far apart so as to be polar-different.

Now, we are also aware of someone or something that wields this moral law. As with the feeling of dread, it's inexplicable, unless there really exists someone or something behind this law, which set it up to operate in our experience.

Now this being, if it exists:

1. cannot be made of the same human material or stuff as us, for if this were so, we would not fear, dread or feel awe about something or someone we can see, know and explain to a reasonable degree
2. unlike us, has got to know ALL THINGS, because as human beings we cannot explain much about our origins, our purpose, the WHY's of our existence

Such a being, is, however, what we all USUALLY call God.

Carrying on, because of point 1 above, we as human beings, with our minds, cannot conjure up what this God might be like. We have nowhere to start. There is only one way we can know what this God is like - if He took the initiative and revealed Himself to us in a way we can understand, as human beings. That is a very important conclusion to come to. This is precisely what the Christians have been claiming - that this God who exists has revealed Himself to us (not the other way round). And how do they say this God revealed Himself? Through the person we know in history as Jesus, and in the document known to us as The Bible.

Because of this, it would be unreasonable (at least) to say that Christians "made up" or "conjured up" a God. We can no more explain this God into being as we can explain Him away, using our minds. This explodes the charge that has been laid at Christianity's door all along - that Christians used a"conjured up" God to deceive and enslave the world through slavery to guilt and fear.

This also unmasks the poverty of the human mind and its ineffectiveness, when used in isolation, in helping us to know God. Not that the mind should NEVER be used, but it can never be the primary and exclusive vehicle of knowing. There is equal value in experience as a means of knowing - in fact, both reason (logic) and experience have to correspond - otherwise the KNOWING is compartmentalised and likely inaccurate or flawed.

Infallibility of the Bible as the revealed Word of God

Now we have established that Christians COULD NOT HAVE CONJURED UP GOD.

If this is so, it is very reasonable to understand HOW Christians can claim that the Bible is a God-inspired and written document in which this God who exists has fully revealed Himself. And since it is God-authored, for the purpose of revealing Himself, it can be nothing but infallible, being free in every respect from human taint (except the scribing of it - and the very meaning of the word 'scribe' here underscores the mere part human beings played in bringing the Bible into being - exactly as Christians claim).

So, just as the Christians claim, the Bible does not say what HUMAN BEINGS conceive God to be, but what God says to human beings in order to reveal Himself to people who cannot POSSIBLY have a clue about Him.

This throws out of the window the old humbug that people keep accusing Christianity of - "misinterpreting" the Bible. If the Bible was God-authored, only God can interpret it to us human beings. Or, to develop that point, if at all we human beings want to know what the Bible is REALLY SAYING, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY for us to do that (where and how can we hope to start??) unless we know the author and He chooses to actually INTERPRET it to us. This is PRECISELY what Christians claim - that the Bible is God-authored, and interpreted by God to people who know God.

The identity of Jesus

All along, we've been saying that God is made of different stuff than us human beings, and unless He took the initiative to reveal Himself to us, there can be no way for us to conceive what He is like, or what He has to say to us human beings by way of "revealing Himself" to us.

Now to go further, how would we understand unless we are told in HUMAN language? I mean, unless we saw this revelation IN HUMAN FORM, we cannot know this God. This, precisely, is what the Christians proclaim about the person we know in history as Jesus. If there ever was a way for us human beings to understand God, it is through Jesus.

Now Jesus, while in earthly human form, would still have to be God Himself, because no one other than God can reveal God. So, He would have to be perfectly God and perfectly man at the same time. This, precisely, is what the Christians claim - that Jesus, the man, was also God in earthly form during His time here on earth. Also, this explains why the Christians say that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit - if he were born of human seed, he could NOT have been perfectly God or perfectly man. God would HAVE to be his father.

The Bible has more to say about Jesus than this - it reveals that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity - the Son. The Son of God existed with God from the beginning. Only through Jesus does history have purpose and make some sense - looked at from any other angle, history makes NO sense whatsoever and seems to (frighteningly) lack any discernible purpose.

The Cross

Let's go back to the moral law. Now we strongly SUSPECT, as human beings, that if there is a moral law, someone behind it wields the law, to whom we are answerable. This, again, is a universal suspicion.

Now our predicament is that we are judged guilty by an agent who we DO NOT KNOW (unless we are Christians, in which case there is a more than reasonable explanation for all these things), for contravening a law WE DID NOT SET UP. Who can help us, or build a bridge to this "unknowable" one? We cannot come up with any plan, because we, just like all the other times, haven't the faintest clue where to begin. The Christian has an answer here as well - Jesus.

Jesus is, at once, the one who helps us know the unknowable one, and also the one who buys our pardon from this unknowable one. How? The Christians claim that this is through Jesus' death on the cross.

Here again I borrow from C.S. Lewis - Jesus could perfectly pay the price only because He was a perfect, innocent man - and He could only do this PERFECTLY because he was God. Only such a penitent, a perfect God-Man, can help us, and as the Christians claim, this can only be Jesus.

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So what are the odds that Christianity "conjured up" God? In reality, Biblical Christianity is not neat, tidy, ordered or always predictable, like something "conjured up" can be. If the Christians had made it up, they'd have come up with something more believable and tidy.

Truth, in reality, must be stranger than fiction, because we have made fiction to suit ourselves.
- G.K. Chesterton

God comforts us in ALL our troubles... not just SOME troubles

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

- II Corinthians 1:3-4

Two things spoke God's heart to me in these verses:

1. God definitely COMFORTS us in trouble - He doesn't leave us to wonder, analyse or strive in feverish excitement.
2. God comforts us in ALL our troubles, not just some. We would sometimes think that God's comfort is selective - and foolishly go through SOME of our troubles alone, drawing on our own hoarded resources.

I make it a point to write down every comforting thought and verse that God brings to me when I'm in the valley. I do that because I know that my experiences are not for me alone, but the comfort I receive will be desperately needed and sought by someone else who goes through something similar. The writing I have included below happened on May 25, 2007 (for some circumstance I no longer remember) - but I do remember the weight of these thoughts pressing on me to write them down.

After writing them down, I didn't like what emerged. The fussy writer in me said, NOOOOO!!!! It's too cloying. But now I think - who am I to think this?

I'm thankful that I did preserve it, because what I think about it as a writer is of negligible importance and is totally irrelevant - what's important is that God in His FAITHFULNESS over the years continues to remind me of past deliverance, and His commitment to see me through, no matter how dark the night and how deep the valley. So, here it is, with a few refining touches, otherwise unexpurgated.

May the LORD bless these words to your heart and touch you at your point of need today. He is indeed the God of all comfort, who comforts us in ALL our troubles.

I don't know quite how to begin saying this or indeed, what to say. May the good LORD guide me.

A few minutes ago some thoughts occurred to me. They raced through my mind like piercing swords of light through the dark, blanketing fog that enshrouds my mind. Many stories in the Bible began to make a lot of sense and stood out like beacons.

It all has to do with this question - WHY?

Why does God allow things to happen to us? What does He do, where is He when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, as it were?

Often, I would venture to say, more often than not, things come up on us without warning. Bookmark that phrase "without warning" because that is what the LORD seems to be saying. Many of our experiences, especially the "bad" ones....they seem to come, in our understanding, WITHOUT WARNING. There is almost NO WAY to answer questions like "Why this? Why me? Why now?"

Some answers that came to me are these. Does God allow bad experiences to come to us? Everyone would answer, YES! Does God always tell us about impending tragic circumstances? NO. Of course there are many people in the Bible to whom God revealed exactly what they were to go through BEFORE the circumstances came up on them. In our experience, however, it is only those who are deeply in tune with His heart and His leading, who are able to comprehend what the LORD is saying when He tells us about things to come. The vast majority of us, in practice, are like sheep - we neither are able to meaningfully understand how the LORD led us in our past, nor have we any inkling of how future days will be. Even in the event of being told about the future, prophetically, if you will, we lack the intimacy with God we need to be prepared in any way for the future.

So even if we are told about the future, it does not stand to reason that we go into the future PREPARED and EQUIPPED. Knowledge of impending events does not mean preparedness for them. This, of course, is our own fault every time, because God can never be blamed for our lack of intimacy and trust in Him.

So what we do have is a situation where, in regard to future events, we might know a few specifics, or know nothing at all. In effect, therefore, PRACTICALLY, if you will, most (bad) events OVERTAKE us without any seeming prior warning.

Having come into these situations, we have questions. Where is God now? Most of the time, we don't know. What will God do? Don't be too disillusioned....but we have to face the fact that God in many cases DOES NOTHING. Will He deliver us in a way that we can understand? Maybe, but that doesn't seem to be a given.

There is another set of questions. Has God knowingly and willingly allowed bad things? The answer here is, if they are happening and He hasn't stopped them, YES. Is God in control of things? YES, or He wouldn't be God. Will God lose control of things? No, or He wouldn't be God.

Then the biggest question and the biggest consternation - what about His promises? What about all that He has unquestionably promised in the Bible - all those verses (millions, actually) about NEVER LEAVING US OR FORSAKING US TILL THE END, about delivering us from disaster, about having plans only to bless and prosper us, and not to harm us?

The answer that came to me is this - God wants us to know Him. He wants us to walk closer. He wants to talk to us, and teach us to hear His voice and RECOGNIZE it. He wants us to TRUST in Him and let go of ourselves. He wants us in unbroken, deep, intimate RELATIONSHIP with Him not just one day or two, but for a lifetime. He wants us to learn what He really thinks about us, so that we may never doubt Him.

I sometimes wonder - if God always delivered us in ways that we would like, and whenever we asked, from the smallest of our difficulties, what are we really learning about Him? Would we be so deeply imprinted with His love, would we comprehend his control over the universe, would we know Him as truly God? I think not.

The fact is, when bad situations overtake us......He is in control. He isn't a control freak who needs to compulsively DEMONSTRATE His control, but nothing can happen, not even the smallest thing, without His touch. I ask, why are we worried when He knows what is going on? Has He left us? How can He - He promised to not leave us ever! Just because He doesn't show us His control in bad situations in ways that we would like, we cannot surmise that He isn't in control.

What will happen to us? Should we look out for ourselves? I answer with another question - please do tell me how far we would have to go to "fall out" of His hands. Is it possible for us to go someplace where indeed, God cannot save us? Try and answer that. Here's another telling question - okay, so we take things into our own hands. Can we indeed save ourselves? So why struggle at all? Why waste the analytical striving? Why the fretting and the feverish activity? The bombarding of the mind with thoughts? Leave it to Jesus. But walk towards Him. Walk towards any little light He provides. If He offers a hand, don't just take it - develop a LIFE-HOLD on Him and refuse to let Him go. Don't just settle for His deliverance - settle only for HIM. Walk as if He is always carrying you, because He is INDEED always carrying us. That isn't a lie.

Another thought that came to me is this - the things that happen to us, good or bad, are just THINGS, mere EVENTS, mere CIRCUMSTANCES. Don't label everything as either ONLY good, or ONLY bad. If "bad" things happen, it doesn't mean the LORD has left us. If "good" things happen, it doesn't mean that we have learned everything there is to know about the LORD. Just accept everything as from His hand. Do not analyse needlessly or spend time WORKING IT OUT.

THINGS, EVENTS, CIRCUMSTANCES, EXPERIENCES - all of these are not The LORD to us. Don't let them take His place.

On the other hand, TRY TO TRACE HIS HAND ON YOU. Learn those precious moments when He saved you. Think about what He did, to you and to others....take your eyes off WHAT "is happening", and focus on what GOD is doing.

What, indeed, is God doing? For those of us who know Him and have accepted His death on the cross for us, He has a blood-covenant with us. Get this - God has not broken even SIMPLER covenants with the animals and the birds!! How much more then, a blood-covenant? If He breaks it, He isn't God. And He never will. For those out there who do not know about His saving grace - He still knows every hair on each one's head - not one falls out but that He allows it.

Are you in bereavement today? discouragement? debt? disease? guilt? fear? suicidal feelings? worthlessness? unfulfilled longings? doubt? facing death? Do you feel the keen edge of a freshly-sharpened sword at your throat? Do you want to "give up and die"?

Then know this - The LORD is with you. Where? Right there - by your side - "He's as close as the mention of His name". What is He going to do? NOTHING. He is going to wait for you to turn, look into His eyes and fall into His arms. YOU HAVE TO DO THAT - HE CANNOT MAKE YOU DO IT. He will wait till you do it.......even if it takes forever. He will still wait......till the day you die.

But YOU HAVE TO FALL INTO HIS ARMS. You have to turn, and look into His eyes.
In His eyes, you will see.....

What He thinks about you. Not the you in YOUR SITUATION, not the you others see, not even the you YOU SEE. The YOU HE MADE. He is going to tell you, in great, excruciating detail, what He thinks of you. What He did for you before, and what He wants to do for you now. He will tell you of His love, as many times as you want to know it. He will tell you of His grace, as many times as you need to know it. He will tell you of His power - as many times as you need to have it.

You need only look into His eyes.

Feel His arms - they never stopped holding you. Feel His embrace - you never fell out of it. Feel His strength - stop feeling yours, it was never enough!! Feel his favour - it always LAY HEAVILY ON YOU, on your life, like a blanket that cannot be lifted.

And lastly, HEAR HIS VOICE.

It will never be stilled. Learn its tone, learn to recognize the words it speaks....learn the pictures it paints, learn never to forget it. LISTEN TO IT. Let it be always in your ears.

The LORD isn't in our circumstances - He is in our lives!! He isn't just out there making a way - He is our way!! The LORD isn't in our experiences - He wants to be our experience. He isn't JUST our deliverer, He is our DELIVERANCE.

Now tell me, what will you go through without Him? (Don't answer it - it's a stupid question!!!!)

"At the very thought of Jesus, His presence can be found,
He's as close as the mention of His name,
There is never any distance between my Lord and me,
He's as close as the mention of His name.

He's as close as the mention of His name,
Jesus, Jesus
He's as close as the mention of His name,
Jesus, Jesus

In my hour of struggle, so many times I've found,
He's as close as the mention of His name,
Just breathe the name of Jesus and turn everything around,
He's as close as the mention of His name,

He's as close as the mention of His name,
Jesus, Jesus
He's as close as the mention of His name,
Jesus, Jesus"

- May 25, 2007

re-store

re-store
- verb (used with object), -stored, -stor⋅ing.

1. to bring back into existence, use, or the like; reestablish: to restore order.
2. to bring back to a former, original, or normal condition, as a building, statue, or painting.
3. to bring back to a state of health, soundness, or vigor.
4. to put back to a former place, or to a former position, rank, etc.: to restore the king to his throne.
5. to give back; make return or restitution of (anything taken away or lost).
6. to reproduce or reconstruct (an ancient building, extinct animal, etc.) in the original state.

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
- Joel 2:25

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
- Psalm 23:3

Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter,
you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up.
You will increase my honor
and comfort me once again.
- Psalm 71:20-21

So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning....
- Job 42:12

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
- Isaiah 61:1-4

Some of us live in perpetual brokenness of our own making.

Of all ruins, that which we have caused ourselves is the most steely foe we face. Isn't it somehow astronomically harder to forgive ourselves than to forgive someone else? For many of us, the accusing voices are none but our own; our stains are none but those we have caused. WE ARE OUR OWN WORST ENEMIES.

And yet, I have been asked to tell us, I don't care what we've done to ourselves! There is no ruin so complete; no accusing voices so vehement, no self-caused stains so indelible, that Jesus cannot restore.

Complete restoration is not a dream or a wish. It is a promised certainty, a guaranteed hope, an accomplished reality even. It is not something we believe in wishfully; it is something we must live in as if it is already in fullness accomplished.

It's interesting that Isaiah 61 talks about ruins and their rebuilding - it is in our areas of failure and defeat that the restoration will come; where we failed, there, in the place of defeat, will be a glorious future and the heaven-given opportunity to make right again; to RESTORE! Thank you Jesus!

And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
- John 11:43-44

Take off the graveclothes...... and walk free.

Of our carols and our Babylons

The sounds and songs of Christmas are all around us now. They sound a little unbelievable, don't they........

Joy to the World, for one, says "He comes to make His blessings flow FAR AS THE CURSE IS FOUND." (and how far is that? I ask you today.... is there an end to the curse we're under on this planet?)

O Little Town of Bethlehem - "The hopes and fears OF ALL THE YEARS are met in Thee tonight" (think of ALL the hopes you ever had.....and the sum of ALL fears that ever beset you. And then, that's just you. Think of ALL the hopes EVERYONE's ever had, and the dread fear that millions live under. All met in Jesus in ONE NIGHT - the night He was born. Who's excluded here?)

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear:

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet seen of old,
When with the ever-encircling years
Shall come the time foretold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Think of peace on earth. No Middle-East. No Iraq. No Afghanistan. No Kashmir. No North Korea. An undivided Jerusalem. No Gaza strip, West Bank or Golan Heights. No terrorists!!!!! Think of everyone on earth, as one voice, singing back to the herald angels.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing:

Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die,
born to raise the sons of earth,
born to give us second birth.

Think of a second chance !!!!! To do things right this time for sure !!! Think of wiping out the past - to start again and live as if the past never happened.

Yes, the carols sound too incredible, impossible, unbelievable, out-of-this-world, too-good-to-be-true! They sound like pipe dreams, fairy tales, pie-in-the-sky. Can they come true? Can they ever BE true?

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Defeat.

You know you had the chance......you blew it. Blew it so badly that it's going to take a revolution and a real miracle to roll back this mistake. And you're tired. No one else can be blamed for this but you.

And then........people come up and say, sing me a Christmas song. I've never heard a Christmas song. Sing me a carol !!!!!

That's a bit like what the Israelites were asked in Babylon - sing us the songs of Zion!!!!!! It's framed immortally for us in Psalm 137:

for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?
- Psalm 137:3-4

Don't the unbelievable words of the carols deepen the sense of defeat and failure? In our "foreign land" of failure and bondage, in the grip of the curse, how can we sing of Jesus "coming to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found? Our sense of shame and defeat mocks us - go on, sing!!! It can never be true, can it? Your portion here is defeat - captivity. See - you lost the war. See your chains! You're never going to get back to Jerusalem. Your body will fall here on Babylonian soil!!!!

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Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC. The people of Judah went into captivity, a nation no longer. Just a few hundred years earlier, God had said to Isaiah, about Babylon:

You said, 'I will continue forever
— the eternal queen!'
But you did not consider these things
or reflect on what might happen.
"Now then, listen, you wanton creature,
lounging in your security
and saying to yourself,
'I am, and there is none besides me.
I will never be a widow
or suffer the loss of children.'
Both of these will overtake you
in a moment, on a single day:
loss of children and widowhood.
They will come upon you in full measure,
in spite of your many sorceries
and all your potent spells.
- Isaiah 47:7-9

The LORD, in perfect control of history, had set His salvation in motion even before Jerusalem's fall. The destruction of the enemies of God's people was already foretold.

Let's say this to our oppressive defeat, our captivity, our failure today.......God has allowed you to triumph over me for a while. Remember Judah and Babylon? But how long will you oppress me? Till I take the Name of God's Salvation - Jesus. After that Name is said, no defeat can linger.

A few hundred years after the fall of Jerusalem, Babylon had been wiped off the map of the earth. There was no nation left, and not even a city. Jesus came - and God's salvation came with him.

If you think, well, all that's ancient history now.....see what The LORD says to the apostle John about our Babylons today, in the book of Revelation:

Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:
"With such violence
the great city of Babylon will be thrown down,
never to be found again.

The music of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters,
will never be heard in you again.
No workman of any trade
will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world's great men.
By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
In her was found the blood of prophets and of the saints,
and of all who have been killed on the earth."
- Revelation 18:21-24

What The LORD had said to Isaiah about the Babylon of his day, He says again to the apostle John today, about the Babylons who gain temporary control over us through our defeat today - fear, guilt, failure, evil, even death, Satanic world systems, oppression, persecution, affliction, disease, sickness, pride.

Today, whatever's left of ancient Babylon is somewhere in the country of Iraq, somewhere north of Baghdad. No one really knows where, and no one can be found to actually take you there to see it. A few stone walls, desert sands, mud structures. Just a small ripple on those unending interminable red sands. The haunt of every kind of wild animal and bird of prey. Where are the Babylonians of today? Even the nation itself has long since ceased to exist.

The salvation of the LORD, however, rages on and has conquered the earth. A mighty army of Christians walks the earth. Every day, the LORD "adds to our number"!!! People are testifying of Jesus and His saving power!

So where is our "defeat" or "captivity" today? It can only be in our minds......certainly not out there, because the defeat of our enemies is certain.

So, if someone asks for a Christmas carol, sing it lustily - because this is NOT the day of captivity, but of release and freedom for prisoners !!!!! The Christmas carols are not "unbelievable", they're just REAL............