Leave Your Gift - Matthew 5:23,24

Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

As I read this familiar passage this morning, I noticed for the first time that the man who had approached the altar of God was specifically told to leave his gift there while tending to the business of reconciliation. How strange. What if someone came along and took it before he got back to make the offering? Why not just carry it with him on his errand?

As I pondered this in my spirit, however, it began to make sense. The giving of gifts to our Lord is not about the gift. It’s about ourselves. On one hand, this is an act that costs us something—it costs the gift itself, it costs our time and effort. But these are not the most important thing. “If you bring your gift to the altar...” The real offering is that we have chosen in those moments to focus our full attention on God.

Most of us go through life avoiding God. We fill our minds with so many other things. To be sure, most of these things may seem harmless. Some of the things are in fact good and helpful. At times we may turn our thoughts specifically to matters of God—to scripture or to prayer. Yet even there it is possible to avoid giving our actual attention to God. We can easily limit our Bible reading agenda to increasing our portfolio of insights we will use to teach others, and our prayers to a litany of worries and wishes.

When a person truly quiets his mind and heart before God, there is always a risk. The Spirit of God may very well use the opportunity to do some personal housecleaning, as the above verses indicate. However, this doesn’t always happen. “IF when you bring your gift, you remember. . .” Often our times with God are seasons of joy and refreshing, especially if we meet with God on a regular basis. But there are those times (and we learn to be grateful for them) when something has arisen that is a blemish on our souls, and thereby diminishes our communion with God.

The gifts we would bring to God are interesting things. They may be tangible treasures, or they may be the gift of our talents and abilities. They may be acts of service. They are necessarily costly, sometimes quite significantly so. But always they are simply “currency.” They are the carriers of something more precious than themselves—or they will ultimately be of no worth at all. Paul spells this out clearly in I Corinthians 13:1-3.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Everything we would bring to God shows up in this list. Our talents. Our words. Our supernatural giftings. Our wisdom. Our faith. Our possessions. Even our very lives. Paul says that the viability of any of these gifts is tied to one single thing: a heart inhabited by the very love of God.

In a real sense, none of our gifts come from ourselves. God has given us our life and our abilities and our resources to steward. We are accountable to Him for how we use them. Sometimes we can use them for our benefit. Often they are entrusted to us for the benefit of others. A certain portion, a “tithe,” we are required to return directly to God.

But underneath it all is the requirement that we be motivated and directed by God’s holy love. Just as oxygen is the invisible sustainer of all earthly life, so divine agape love must infuse every aspect of authentic kingdom life. And the only way this can happen is by our regular, consistent inhalation of the very presence of God.

So yes. Bring your gift—many gifts—to the altar of God. Bring them gladly, willingly, grateful that He has given you something to bring. But understand that the deeper gift and the deeper joy will be in your choice to bring yourself to His altar, into His presence, where He will impart to you the gift of Himself. And as that divine nature enters your heart, you will be inspired and empowered to do those things which most please our Lord.

He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you—but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

Ministers of God - II Corinthians 6:4-10

“But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God.”

Every now and then as I do my morning devotions, I find that my readings converge. Today was one of those days. This is what Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost for His Highest.
 

When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. (John 1:48)

"We imagine we would be all right if a big crisis arose; but the big crisis will only reveal the stuff we are made of, it will not put anything into us. 'If God gives the call, of course I will rise to the occasion.' You will not unless you have risen to the occasion in the workshop, unless you have been the real thing before God there. If you are not doing the thing that lies nearest, because God has engineered it; when the crisis comes instead of being revealed as fit, you will be revealed as unfit. Crises always reveal character.

"The private relationship of worshipping God is the great essential of fitness. The time comes when there is no more 'fig-tree' life possible, when it is out into the open, out into the glare and into the work, and you will find yourself of no value there if you have not been worshipping as occasion serves you in your home. Worship aright in your private relationships, then when God sets you free you will be ready, because in the unseen life which no one saw but God you have become perfectly fit, and when the strain comes you can be relied upon by God.

"'I can't be expected to live the sanctified life in the circumstances I am in; I have no time for praying just now, no time for Bible reading, my opportunity hasn't come yet; when it does, of course I shall be all right.' No, you will not. If you have not been worshipping as occasion serves, when you get into work you will not only be useless yourself, but a tremendous hindrance to those who are associated with you.

"The workshop of missionary munitions is the hidden, personal, worshipping life of the saint."

I then read Paul’s compelling description of what it means to be a minister of God.

But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. (II Corinthians 6:4-10)

Paul opens his “commendation of ministry” with the word patience, hupomone, which carries in its meaning the sense of steady, even hopeful, endurance. He then lists nine places that have been the context for hupomone in his life: tribulations, needs, distresses, stripes, imprisonments, tumults, labors, sleeplessness, fastings. Notice that each of these items in Paul’s list is preceded by the little word “in.” These are the specific situations where the Spirit of Christ has been given a powerful foothold in Paul’s spiritual personality, and has revealed Himself in Paul’s patient endurance.

In another letter Paul tells us,

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13)

This kind of learning is actually not so much discipline as discovery. We tend to view endurance as gritting our teeth, as bearing up under the unbearable. But when Paul speaks of contentment, it’s with an almost amazed awareness of what Christ has provided in these hard places. While there is a certain kind of joy and gratitude in the “abounding” portions of his life, Paul has found an altogether different kind of joy in being “abased,” for it is here that he most clearly experiences the strength of Christ. It was this joy that enabled him and Silas to sing praises during their suffering and imprisonment described in Acts 16.

The preparation for ministry that comes only through suffering is never optional for anyone who follows Christ, just as ministry itself is not optional. We are by definition “ministers of God,” for if His nature is truly in us, then it has to flow out. The travesty comes when we profess to belong to God, but (as Chambers describes) there is no hidden preparation in the everyday moments of our lives, and thus when the crises come we are exposed as “unfit” and “useless,” a hindrance to those who are ministering.

What does an authentic minister look like? That’s Paul’s next list, a series of things that begin with the little word “by.” Ministers are characterized “by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report.”

Notice that it makes no difference at all what these ministers DO. Whether a person is a world-renowned evangelist or one who is confined to his bed in great suffering, ministry in God’s kingdom is a matter of the “by.” When in the current circumstances of our life we are able to exhibit His nature by our purity, knowledge, longsuffering and kindness, if what we express is the Holy Spirit Himself in love and truth and power, if we are so guarded by righteousness that we are untouched by both honor and dishonor, by good report or bad—then we are ministering. God is using us because He trusts us to represent Him well.

Paul’s final list of the characteristics of a minister of God is interesting. Here we find a third little word, “as.” This is the legacy of our ministry. These are the identifiers of those who are truly used in service to God: “As deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

Jesus warned us in Luke 6:26, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you.” One of the most consistent distinguishing marks of a true minister of God is that he will be misunderstood, judged, rejected, chastened, sad, and impoverished. Nevertheless, in the very face of what may seem to be complete failure in the estimation of the world, he will be honest and alive and joy-filled and rich. In the final count, our ministry is visible primarily to God. To be sure, there will probably be some people around us who realize they have been “made rich” by our lives. We may even receive their gratitude.

But I believe what Paul and Oswald Chambers learned, and what they are trying communicate to us, is that our accountability is to God alone. As we deliberately give back to Him the moments of our lives—accepting whatever hardships or distresses or beauties and gladnesses those moments contain as being His perfect will for us—then over time we will become true and effective ministers of the grace of God, useful and powerful in the kingdom, and pleasing to the One to whom we have given our lives.

“Therefore . . . we have . . . ” - Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

How can we know we are saved? How can we be assured that God is pleased with us? Or in the technical terms of Romans 4, how can we be certain that the promise of God is imputed to us by faith, as it was to Abraham? Can we actually know these things beyond doubt?

Often a discussion of the opening verses in Romans 5 starts by simply assuming we are saved, and then moves quickly to the consequences of salvation—as though somehow we must endeavor to make these qualities real in our lives. But I think it might be argued that Paul is describing not what should be, but what already is. “THEREFORE,” he writes, “having been justified by faith, WE HAVE peace with God.”

“Well,” someone might respond, “I don’t really feel it yet. Maybe it just means I’ve ‘made my peace’ with God so He won’t send me to hell.” But the word for “peace” in this verse isn’t a legal term. It literally means quietness, equanimity, rest. It’s something we actually feel. A person who has this kind of peace is not easily disturbed. Rather, he senses a mysterious connection with God that draws the strength of the Spirit into every life situation.

For this reason, a supernatural inner tranquility is one of the first assurances we have that God has in fact brought us into His kingdom. At the point where we transition from death to life, His imputed righteousness miraculously changes us. We will feel peace—if not at first with regard to our circumstances, at least with regard to the terrifying holiness of God. In other words, we will feel forgiven.

As we continue through this passage, we see that peace is only one of five tangible evidences of our salvation that Paul describes. The second is grace. When God’s unfathomable mercy collided with His absolute justice on the cross of Christ, it brought the grace of heaven into our lost world in a measure that will never be equaled. But grace did not end there. After we have been justified through Christ, His grace continues to flow into our lives, powerfully equipping us to do all God calls us to do.

Paul speaks of this in II Corinthians 9:8. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.” Again, this is a supernatural phenomenon, something beyond ourselves, and it should be the consistent experience of everyone who has truly entered the kingdom of God.

The third evidence of our right standing with God is that we will “rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” Said another way, we will be eternity-oriented. Everything we think about and do will be colored by our strong anticipation of the day when Christ’s glory will be fully revealed. It will become the focus of all our choices and the source of our greatest satisfaction. Earthly trials and disappointments will become less and less discouraging. As the songwriter expressed it, “The things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Evidence number four is that we will be able to glory in our tribulations. This certainly doesn’t come easily, so Paul gives us some insight into why suffering should be seen as cause for rejoicing. Essentially he tells us that our tribulations are God’s chosen tools to make us like Christ. Perseverance and character and hope are only manifested when circumstances press with great difficulty upon us. We are told that even Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). It is only in the crucible of our suffering that we are made into vessels worthy of bearing the glorious love of God into the world (II Timothy 2:21).

This in fact is the final assurance that we are part of God’s family, that the Holy Spirit pours into and through our hearts the very love that characterizes God Himself. Strong, selfless, “bearing all things and enduring all things” (I Corinthians 13:7), His love in us moves into the death of our world with life-bringing power. No human love can compare to it. Unlike the tolerance that so allures our modern culture, the fierce and uncompromising love of God transforms everything it touches.

And thus I believe we can know with great certainty that we have been radically saved by God’s transforming love. If we truly have been “justified by faith,” we will feel a deep and abiding peace in our spirits that sustains us through the mental and emotional and circumstantial tides which continually wash over us. We will rest in the assurance that His grace will be sufficient for every task He gives. We will live in the light of His glorious hope. We will embrace suffering as His precious gift. Most of all, we will find flowing out of our spirits a supernatural passion to see others brought into the kingdom and raised up into His likeness.

If these five evidences—all of which are profoundly supernatural—are present to at least some degree in your life, then you can know without doubt that you are a recipient of the promise and a bearer of His image. If you do not have this certainty, then I beg you to return to Hebrews 11:6—“He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”—until you experience for yourself the authentic presence and peace and power of God.

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"Follow Me" – Luke 9:57-62

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go."

And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."

Then He said to another, "Follow Me."

But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."

Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God."

And another also said, "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house."

But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

We sometimes assume the primary cost of following Christ is that we must walk away from those sins which were once so much a part of our lives. But if we think about it, we should realize this process is not actually a cost, but a gift. What in fact takes place is that the Spirit of God provides us with wonderful freedom from the bondages of lust, of addictions, of pride and anger and complaining and fear. This is miraculously accomplished as we learn to draw upon the grace He makes available.

Nevertheless, there is a cost to be paid. In Luke 9:57-62, we discover the three very specific sacrifices which we are called to make if we are truly to be followers of Christ, "fit for the kingdom of God."

The first of these I will call our need for refreshment. God created us with certain basic physical needs, including the need for sleep, food and water, and an environment that is safe for our bodies. A large portion of our time and attention is given to insuring that we receive at least these minimal comforts. In fact, much of our gratitude toward God is directly in response to His provision of our daily bread and His protection from that which could threaten our well-being.

But as Jesus pointed out, "the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." The path He walked was one of great uncertainty and self-relinquishment. He had no home, no bed of His own, no storehouse of food, no savings in the bank. If we would choose to follow Him, we must be willing to lay aside our comforts and our physical securities.

It's no coincidence that this was the first test Jesus faced in the wilderness (see Luke 4:1-13). After forty days of fasting, He was hungry. Satan then challenged Him to "command a stone to become bread." It was something Jesus could most definitely do, having Himself created the very molecules of which the stone was made. What's more, His hunger was intense. The thought of eating something pleasant may have echoed out from the very roots of His humanity. It was the same thought that had gone through the minds of Adam and Eve.

But Jesus knew that life comes not from what we might eat, but "by every word of God" (Luke 4:4). God had not given Him permission to feed Himself, to solve His own problem (see Isaiah 50:10,11). Instead, Jesus chose to wait without refreshment until the time when His Father's angels would bring it to Him (see Matthew 4:11).

The second point of sacrifice, and the second temptation of Christ, involves the desire for a good reputation. When Jesus asked the man to follow Him and the man explained he must first bury his father, what was at stake was his reputation. Of course a good son would care for his own father. If he left that undone, his family and community would be horrified. How could Jesus expect him to endure such misunderstanding?

When Satan asked Jesus to worship him, the enticement was all the world's submission and all the world's glory. Apparently it was Satan's to give, for Jesus did not question that. But He knew that worship and obedience were due to God alone. He also knew that in the proper time, God would place His Son in His rightful position of honor. Rather than grasping for that honor prematurely, Jesus had already "made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant" (Philippians 4:7). This gave Him the ability to resist the second temptation of the devil.

The third sacrifice to which we are called is the laying down of our relationships. All the third man wanted to do was to say goodbye to his family. How easy would it have been for Jesus to wait those few extra moments. Instead, in what seemed to be a very harsh response, He described this desire, this "looking back," as something that would make the man unfit for the kingdom.

"If you are the Son of God," Satan taunted, "let's prove it! Your Father will certainly take care of you. He's already promised you that." Satan knew that the Father loved His Son with an intensity that was beyond all comprehension. Surely the Father would not allow His Son to die. Surely He wouldn't. . . .

When Jesus challenged His three would-be followers, at every point He was only asking them to accept a sacrifice He Himself had already faced in the wilderness. These were, and are, the requirements of all Christian disciples: the willing relinquishment of refreshment, of reputation, and of relationships. In fact, earlier (in Luke 9:23) Jesus had described this price of obedience with stark clarity. "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."

What does that mean, to take up our cross? How is that different from simply denying ourselves? I would suggest that the answer can again be found in Jesus' own example. In the wilderness, He denied Himself the bread, the glory, and the demonstration of His Father's loyalty. Those were truly tests which He had to pass. But it was at the other end of His three years of ministry that He actually "took up His cross."

This time He wasn't in a wilderness, but rather in a garden, the garden of Gethsemane. According to the account given by Matthew (26:36-46), Jesus prayed the same prayer three times. "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will."

Why did it require three prayers? We cannot of course know the answer with certainty, but it is very possible that these agonizing decisions of relinquishment represented Jesus' willingness to once again lay down the three things He personally most longed to preserve. When Jesus "took up His cross," it began not on the road to Golgotha, but in those garden moments when He said yes to His Father.

The first thing Jesus knew He was being asked to endure was physical pain--the merging of every kind of suffering humanly possible. It included fatigue, hunger, thirst, cold, the stabbing wounds of the thorns, the torn flesh from the scourging, the searing pain from the nails, and of course the slow, torturous death from suffocation. Every source of refreshment was removed from His human body in those last unspeakable hours.

Then there was a second price He was being asked to pay, that of His reputation. He would be put on trial and accused mercilessly of crime and fraud. He would be mocked and spit upon. He would be nailed to the cross naked before the world. But even deeper than these humiliations, the pure Son of God would somehow have imputed into His being the vileness of all of humanity's sin. In that hour, the holiness which was His very nature would be completely defiled.

But the third price He was facing may well have been the hardest. Jesus knew that in the final moments of His suffering, there would come a point where His Father would turn away from Him. We can never comprehend this severing of the most powerful bond which ever existed, the actual separation of the Eternal Father from the Eternal Son. It was a pain so deep that it caused Jesus to cry out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

These three relinquishments, dear friend, were the cross of Christ. He endured them willingly, because He had chosen to submit to His Father in all things. We must realize, however, that had Jesus not accepted the will of His Father, laying aside His own deep human desires, we would all in fact end up bearing the cross of Jesus. We would all one day suffer eternal physical torment in hell; we would all one day live in an existence of complete humiliation; and we would all be separated not only from our earthly loved ones, but from God Himself.

As the result of His obedience, our crosses are now much, much lighter. Still, as Christ so clearly explained, there is a "daily cross" which each of us who would be His disciple must pick up and carry. How can we know the nature of this cross? I believe we will find it in those occasions where our human nature would demand its own well-being and where it must be deliberately, even forcefully, denied.

An easy-to-understand example is the matter of eating. God truly intends us not only to eat, but to gratefully enjoy the food He provides. Nonetheless, Jesus gave us specific instructions that apply to when we fast, not if we fast (see Matthew 6:16-18). Unless we are able for a period of time to say no to the craving of our stomach (which, we are warned in Philippians 3:19, can actually become our god), then we won't be able to follow our Master when it might cost us a few meals.

While must we hold lightly to our sources of physical refreshment--and be willing to lay them aside as God requires--in other areas we may be called to deny our desires completely. In particular, we should refrain from any form of mental or emotional refreshment which is not centered on God and consistent with His nature. Jesus instructed the multitudes, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29). There is a weariness of soul that would drive us to a vast array of secular distractions and amusements. The authentic follower of Jesus will turn instead quickly and only to Him.

The "cross" of a relinquished reputation may be somewhat harder to discern. Most of us unconsciously protect ourselves from the misunderstandings or judgments of others in any number of little ways. The automatic excuses for our failures, the quick diverting of blame, the impulse to establish our value through name-dropping or other subtle boastings--how easily these become part of our daily conversations. From another angle, we may hesitate to speak of Jesus or otherwise appear to be "religious" in those situations where such choices might invite rejection or scorn.

Are we truly willing to be despised for Him? Are we willing to accept ridicule or persecution, perhaps even from our own family and friends? These are not rare possibilities, but in fact promised realities--if we are to take Jesus' words seriously. "Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.. . .Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets" (Luke 6:22,23,26).

The final cross is always the hardest. God created us with a capacity for relationship that has its origin in the Trinity itself. We are able to bond deeply--with our friends, with our parents and children, with our husband or wife--because God intended these ties to communicate the realities of His love for us. It can even be said that deep interpersonal love is the most sacred force in all creation. How then can Jesus make this disturbing statement, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:26)? How can the One who commands us to love also tell us to hate?

The answer lies in the next verse: "And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:27). The cross is actually a crossroads. We approach it, and we see that we can either turn right or left, or we can "come after" Jesus. On the right and left are what appear to be other viable choices that offer us peace and safety and happiness. Ahead, we face death. We are asked to yield up our rights, our rest, our pleasures, our reputation, our relationships. . .in essence, our very identity.

If this were only a one-time grand event, our sense of the heroic would probably carry us across the line. But instead we reach this place daily, even hourly. The question always is this: "Will I choose something else over Christ?" You see, our gods are those things to which we give our money, our time, our energy, our thoughts, and our emotional attachments. Our theology may be impeccable, but if something delights us more than Jesus, then we have given ourselves to another god.

The solution, however, is beautifully simple. In His death and resurrection, Christ has fully provided everything we need. Here is how Peter describes it. "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust" (II Peter 1:2-4).

"All things that pertain to life and godliness" come specifically through "the knowledge of Him." As we come to know Him, we discover Him to be our provider and protector, our great comforter, and the giver of refreshing rest. As we come to know Him, we discover our complete and unwavering value in His eyes, and are thereby able to join Paul in saying, "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). Finally, as we come to know Him, the sufficiency of His love enables us to release all human ties as the means of our emotional and spiritual support.

Then wonderfully--out of these hundreds of points of dying--there arises new life, life that brings with it great freedom and joy, and the capacity to give and to serve others through the overflow of grace we ourselves have received. As we follow Him, He will lead us into the highways and byways of life, where we will encounter others who need desperately to be shown the way to the foot of the cross.

The call of Jesus is the same to each of us. "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also" (John 12:24-26).

If My People - 2 Chronicles 6 and 7

Solomon has finished building the temple, they have sacrificed more animals than could be counted, and God’s cloud of glory has filled His house. Now Solomon (with his unmatched wisdom, and with insight gained from ruling the kingdom for at least eleven years) has a list of very specific requests to bring before God. These represent situations which Solomon knows only God can resolve.

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands . . . and he said: "Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven or on earth like You, who keep Your covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts. . . .Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built! Yet regard the prayer of Your servant and his supplication, O Lord my God, and listen to the cry and the prayer which Your servant is praying before You: that Your eyes may be open toward this temple day and night, toward the place where You said You would put Your name, that You may hear the prayer which Your servant makes toward this place. . . .

"If anyone sins against his neighbor, and is forced to take an oath, and comes and takes an oath before Your altar in this temple, then hear from heaven, and act, and judge Your servants, bringing retribution on the wicked by bringing his way on his own head, and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness."

Without such tools as fingerprinting, video cameras, or DNA testing, the guilt or innocence of a person could be determined only by actual witnesses. When there were none, the accused would come before the altar and swear that he was innocent. Solomon is asking God to make the final determination in these cases.

"Or if Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You, and return and confess Your name, and pray and make supplication before You in this temple, then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which You gave to them and their fathers."

This appears to describe a prisoner-of-war scenario. Solomon understands that God does not bless efforts in battle when His people have sinned. Solomon is asking God to forgive and rescue them when they repent and turn back to Him.

"When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance."

Another consequence of sin might be drought. When God afflicts the nation in this manner until they acknowledge their sin, Solomon is again asking for forgiveness. He sees this pattern as a training effort, to "teach them the good way in which they should walk," so God's blessings could continue in their land.

"When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; when their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows his own burden and his own grief, and spreads out his hands to this temple: then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and give to everyone according to all his ways, whose heart You know (for You alone know the hearts of the sons of men), that they may fear You, to walk in Your ways as long as they live in the land which You gave to our fathers."

This list is more comprehensive, including both natural disasters and human oppression--all of which are seen as designed by God to bring His people to repentance. Solomon understands that God deals not only with the entire nation but also on an individual level in this training process.

"Moreover, concerning a foreigner, who is not of Your people Israel, but has come from a far country for the sake of Your great name and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm, when they come and pray in this temple; then hear from heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, that all peoples of the earth may know Your name and fear You, as do Your people Israel, and that they may know that this temple which I have built is called by Your name."

Solomon here asks God to respond to foreigners who have heard of His power and travel sometimes great distances to pray in the temple.

"When Your people go out to battle against their enemies, wherever You send them, and when they pray to You toward this city which You have chosen and the temple which I have built for Your name, then hear from heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause.

This request applies to those times when the Israelites are away from Jerusalem. Solomon asks God to accept prayers that are prayed "toward the city" when the people cannot actually go to the temple.

"When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to a land far or near; yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captivity, saying, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong, and have committed wickedness'; and when they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been carried captive, and pray toward their land which You gave to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and toward the temple which I have built for Your name: then hear from heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You. Now, my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and let Your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place."

In this final request, Solomon is addressing the most serious matter of all. Unlike the training process described earlier, he knows there might come a point when God would become angry with His people, so much so that He would send them into captivity. Even in this extreme situation, Solomon is once again asking for forgiveness.

After the dedication festivities are completed, everyone returns to their homes. Later, in the privacy of Solomon's bedroom, God responds to his prayer.

Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. . . . But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

"And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, 'Why has the LORD done thus to this land and this house?’ Then they will answer, 'Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calamity on them.'"

In this response God reaffirms the distinction between ordinary sins (those "wicked ways" which His people could be trained to turn away from) and the direct rejection of God Himself. While God promises to forgive when His people humble themselves, pray, and cease their sinning, there is no such offer of forgiveness when they reject Him as God and deliberately choose to worship other gods. Should this happen, God tells Solomon, He will not only send the people into captivity, but He will also destroy the temple itself.

* * *

America was founded as a Christian nation, just as Israel was God's chosen people. There have been many times when we too have been disciplined, both as a country and as individuals. However, it is arguable that we are now a post-Christian nation and are deliberately following after other gods. While God will continue to show mercy to those individuals who obey Him, He may very well have become angry with our nation.

But in our case, rather than being carried off to Babylon, it appears that Babylon is coming to us. We are being swallowed up in an anti-Christian culture. We need to face the sobering possibility that our country may be at the point of no return. In other words, we may be past the "If My people" option. If this is true, then I believe we should prepare ourselves spiritually for the long term--for life in exile--as did Daniel and the other believers of his day.

Two Kinds of Love - Mark 12:30,31

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Love is that which binds one person to another. If love is true and complete, it will reside in our hearts, in our minds, in our words, in our choices, and in our actions. For many of us however, love is partial, or even artificial. We say what we know we're supposed to say, or do what we've been told we must do. But it splits us up, because our hearts don't agree with what our words or deeds say.

The only source of true and complete love is God Himself. All of us have some connection to God, because we have received from Him our life, our identity, our personality, and our desires. No living human can be entirely separated from God, no matter how evil or destitute his nature becomes. At the same time, no human can be fully connected to God apart from the redemptive act of Christ's salvation and His imparted Spirit.

These are not new thoughts or new teachings, but rather are the bedrock of Christian truth that has endured through the centuries. What we may not have understood, I believe, is the twofold character of love. When Jesus taught that we must love God with ALL our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and yet still have love left over for our neighbors and ourselves, it is arguable that He is speaking of two different kinds of love.

A close examination of I Corinthians 13 will give us a very clear picture of one of these loves. Paul describes this love as patient and kind, self-giving and forgiving. It hopes for all things and endures all things. It is a love that has its basis not in the goodness or beauty or desirability of the one who is loved, but in the nature of the lover himself. This is the love God shows to us. If we were to name this love, we could call it cherishing love.

In contrast, the other kind of love is love that specifically responds to the nature of the one who is loved. This is the love we have toward God. As we come to know more and more deeply His beauty and His holiness and His power and His goodness, we respond with a love that eventually fills our hearts and minds and souls, and causes us to serve Him with all our strength. Whereas cherishing love loves "in spite of," this kind of love loves totally "because of." We will name it honoring love.

It is this division of love that is implied in Christ's commandment in Mark 12:30,31. We are to give God all honor, because He is all-deserving. At the same time, we are to cherish our neighbor in the same way we cherish ourselves, with patience, kindness, and a strong hope for his highest wellbeing.

What might appear to be a simple dividing line is, however, a little more complex. You see, the Bible often speaks of us honoring other individuals, such as our parents, those who rule us, and even "all people" (I Peter 2:17). We can understand this best when we define honor as being an acknowledgment of value. The honoring love we give to God is our confession that in Him alone is everything of value. However, His valuableness has been dispersed throughout His creation. Thus, wherever we see the valuableness of God, we are to give it honor as though we are giving it to Him.

For example, we are commanded to honor our parents because they are the channel of God's life-giving power and authority in our lives. To mistreat or to rebel against a parent is to essentially do the same to God. We are to honor the king because he also represents God's authority. We are to honor each other because each of us is made in the image of God. Peter tells husbands to honor their wives specifically because they are fellow inheritors of the “grace of life” (I Peter 3:7).

We should note, however, that these are all examples of what might be called "positional" honor. We give honor to those who in some way have been given a position of worth in God's created order. If we fail to give this kind of honor, we are effectively dishonoring God. But this positional honor is not exactly the same as honoring love. These people are to be treated as valuable whether or not they have any commendable or desirable personal qualities whatsoever.

Honoring love, on the other hand, honors because there is something powerfully attractive in the one who is loved. As we've said, this honor is only completely deserved by God alone. However, because God's beauty and goodness can be seen in others as well, it is not contradictory to give honoring love to those in whom that godly nature is manifested. Thus when someone is kind to me, or when someone demonstrates God's strength or beauty or wisdom or creative power, then it is not inappropriate for me--because I appreciate the value of these qualities--to respond through an expression of love for that individual.

The problem arises not in my loving that person, but in the misunderstanding of what my love means. Our tendency is to see the person himself as deserving the love, whereas it is ultimately God who deserves it. This will become clearer if we temporarily change the phrase "honoring love" to the word "worship."

Worship is the strongest expression of our "“because of" response. Worship acknowledges the attractiveness and desirability of another. At the same time, worship innately requires the perfection of that other person. Worship thus sets itself against "in spite of" love. When I worship someone, I not only want them to continue to be the source of the good things I see in and receive from them, but I will press them to become the source of other good things, even all good things. For this reason, only God is the proper object of our worship.

I have come to believe that the only solution to this human tendency to seek out false gods is to set our minds and hearts and wills on discovering the full beauty and strength of the true God Himself. We have a profound need to worship, and to the extent we do not know God we are driven to create imagined gods out of whomever or whatever we find at hand. But none of these will adequately nourish our spirits, and eventually we will become angry with them and will become filled with despair ourselves.

Let us now consider the other love, which I've termed "cherishing love." Whereas honoring love is centered on the acknowledgment of value, cherishing love is distinguished by its ability to establish value. It is clear that this creative power must originate with God, as do all forms of creativity. Thus while we may have some residual capacity to cherish others simply because we are made in God's image, our fallen natures are predominantly preoccupied with our own neediness, and most of our natural love focuses on what we can receive.

When, however, we have our true neediness filled by God's own cherishing love, there arises in us the ability to share in His creative outflow. As we saw in I Corinthians 13, cherishing love is characterized by its willingness to accept someone "in spite of" every disagreeable aspect of their nature. The origin of cherishing love is described in Ephesians 1:3-6.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

The Greek word that is here translated "accepted," charitoo, is the same word the angel spoke to Mary when he told her she was "highly favored." This kind of acceptance is far more than a casual tolerance, but is rather a full reception of that other person into the realm of all that is of great worth. Paul describes this process in Romans 15:1-7.

We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.For even Christ did not please himself; but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me" For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.

I have been told that when someone is in a drug-induced state of euphoria, one of the strongest feelings they experience is that of being completely safe and completely accepted. For those few surreal moments, all fear and failure and rejection mysteriously disappear. When the user is cruelly plunged back into the horrors of reality, this moment (enhanced no doubt by other physical dependencies on the drug) drives him to set aside any other desire but to return to that small oasis of peace.

How much better is the gift of true acceptance and true safety which God has offered to those who will receive it. We must understand however that while this accepting, cherishing love raises us to a place of infinite value, it does so at a cost. Christ allowed our “reproaches” to fall on Himself, and He calls us to pass this kind of love on to others in His name, pleasing them instead of pleasing ourselves.

This then is how the two commandments of Jesus are joined together. As we deliberately direct the full force of our neediness toward His all-encompassing completeness (which is a much more profound activity than what we often envision worship to be), we enter into the authentic place of joy of which the addict's euphoria is a counterfeit. There we come to understand both our absolute worthlessness apart from Him and our total acceptance "in the Beloved."

From this place of healing there arises the strength and incentive to love as we have been loved. When we see the pain and despair of those around us, our spontaneous desire will be that they might share in what we ourselves have gained. Instead of focusing on their corruption and failures (as we might have done when we ourselves were searching for God in all possible corners), we begin instead to comprehend His vision of what they could become. This comprehension moves quickly to the expressions of cherishing love, for it is our greatest joy to see God's nature fully displayed in every element of His creation--in others even as it has been in ourselves.