Part 12

My family and I were at the lake a few weekends ago celebrating my son’s birthday. I was sitting on the back porch early one morning reading, and just enjoying time to reflect on my life when two fishermen came by bass fishing. When I saw them something immediately resonated in my soul. It wasn’t the people, or their boat, or that I wished I was the one fishing; it was nostalgia, it sparked memories. 

I grew up fishing with my dad. Some of my fondest times with him were fishing on Lake West Point. We would get up early and drive, stop at the Huddle House to eat, and be on the water before the sun came up. It was great. Some days we would catch a lot, and some days we wouldn’t catch a thing, but we were always together fishing. Inside of me something was growing, a love of fishing and wonderful memories; something which will be with me the rest of my life. 

I enjoy taking my son fishing now. We go when it’s cooler outside. We go trout fishing and someday want to go to Alaska for salmon fishing. He loves it. And he is good at it. Something is growing inside of him also. Something which one day, when he is sitting on the back porch reflecting on life, will resonate with him also. We are making memories. 

I don’t think I can explain the feeling I got on the back porch. It was a feeling something was “right” with those guys fishing. It was a “I should be fishing” feeling. I get the same thing when it comes to hunting, or camping, or anything I loved to do when I was a kid. It is like there is something inside of me that knows I am supposed to do “that”, it’s in my soul. It’s part of me. Something in me remembers those times and longs to feel that again. 

I think you know the feeling I am talking about. It’s a feeling you get when you see something that feels like you were made to do “that”. Whatever “that” is. Maybe when you go to a football game you can feel the game coming back from childhood. Or maybe when you watch someone play the piano it takes you back to where you know you are meant to be. It’s strange, you can’t put a finger on it, but it’s there. That feeling is sparked by memories. 

Experiences make memories, and memories shape our life. History, our history, shapes everything about us. It makes us into the person we are. It shapes what we love, what we don’t love, how we react to people. Memory is a motivator. You can act on faith when you have memories. For instance I will fish one spot longer than another if I have had good luck in that spot in the past, because I have a memory in that spot.  

Memories also make that which we can’t see easier to believe. For instance, I love to go ride my mountain bike at Bull Mountain. There is a creek crossing there I have been over many times. In the middle of the creek there is a deep channel that will suck your tire under and throw you over the handlebars. However, there is one rock there in the middle; if you hit that rock just right it makes a bridge to scoot right across. I was recently riding up there after a rainy day. When I got to the creek crossing the water was up and muddy.  I could not see the rock, but I knew it was there; I had a memory of it being there. Without hesitation I went right across. Someone who had never been there would have gotten off and walked because they would not have known the rock was there. My memory gave me trust to have an experience. 

We also have a faith memory. It is the things God has done in our lives which brought about change. The thing about your faith memory however, is you are more apt to forget those. You are more apt to write those off because they are spiritual instead of physical. It’s easy to speak about seeing the fishermen reminding me of my dad and our memories; it’s quite different to tell about an experience with Jesus changing my life. I think what can happen is in the spiritual realm there is more room for doubt, or it's easier to forget because it isn't necessarily tangible. I can see the rock in the creek but I can’t see the Rock that leads me through my life. I can feel the rock under my tire but I can’t physically feel the Rock that I stand on every day. This can create a problem. 

So many times I think about the Israelites. I feel like they were idiots in a lot of ways. Think about it, God delivers them out of Egypt in a mighty and miraculous way. He not only gets them out of Egypt, they plunder the Egyptians as they are leaving. They take their gold and silver with them when they go. And when the Egyptians pursue them, God not only parts the Red Sea so Israel can walk across on dry land, he collapses the sea on Pharaoh and his army and kills them all. Now I don’t know about you, but I would consider that little story a miraculous deliverance! That would make one heck of a memory. You would think Israel would learn to trust God from it . . . you would think. 

As soon as Israel gets across the sea they start to complain and doubt. They complained about water, (Ex 15:24) they complained about food (Ex 16:2-3). Every time God provided and then Israel would find something else to complain about. Even after all of these miracles when it came time to take the promise land Israel decided the task was too big, even though God told them he would give them victory (Num 14). You would think after all this Israel would have all the faith in the world, you would think the memories they had would produce faith. 

Moses was constantly telling the people, “Remember the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt.” Over and over again in the Old Testament there was a calling to remember. When you remember you literally re – memory. You recall memories from the past. Moses was asking Israel to recall the memories of what God had done in the past and trust him to do it again. When faced with monumental tasks, Moses called them to remember. He wants them to rest in what God has already done so they can trust he can do it again. 

I find this at work in me. I am an idiot as well. I know what God has done. I have seen him provide when I had no idea where provision would come from. I have seen him heal when healing seemed impossible. I have seen him repair relationships when it seemed all was lost. Over and over I have seen God at work. But I still find myself doubting. I find myself thinking, “That was then, this is now” kind of thoughts. But if I will get still long enough I can feel myself get calm. I can feel the memories bringing me peace. 

It’s the times when God came through that will bring you the strength to take the next step forward. Many people get stagnant in their faith. They sit still. They don’t want to move forward. Because they forget. They forget all God has done and therefore lose sight of all he wants to do. God has worked in your life. He is also working and also wants to keep working until you are complete in Christ Jesus. Some of the steps God may ask you to take are scary. Some of the steps God may ask you to do seem crazy, like crossing a sea he promises to part, but the fact remains memories will get you through. Memories of what God has already done and can do. 

Sometimes when I leave these posts I feel as if I leave you empty handed, so today I want to give you something practical to do. I want you to go get a spiral notebook. I think they are 99 cents at Kroger. I want you to write down every time in your life when you remember God doing something. Then, daily, I want you to write the things God continues to do in your life. Because when things go bad, when faith seems to get thin, you can go back to memories, times when you and your Heavenly Daddy went fishing together, times when the Rock was in the center of the creek, and the peace of God can flow through you and relieve your anxiety. 

Part Eleven

We have been talking a lot about law, and obedience to the law.  Today, I want to talk about grace and how it interacts with the law.

How should God react to our sin when we break his law? Is there to be no consequence? Is He just supposed to say, “Aw shucks, it’s ok, don’t worry about it. Try and do better next time.” Is that just?  Is that holy? Is that righteous? Imagine someone broke into your house, stole your grandmother’s jewelry sold it all and got caught. The day of court comes and the judge says, “Aw shucks, it’s ok, don’t worry about it. Try and do better next time.” How would you feel? I would hope you would feel outraged! That’s not just! No just judge will let a criminal go no matter how miniscule the crime is.

The next logical thought in the world of Christianity is, “Yeah but Jesus paid the price for my sins, so God will not judge me for my sins.” Now this is very true, but this is also where grace gets sticky. So let me ask a logical question. Does forgiveness make one sin more?

Consider this scenario.

 Someone breaks into your house, steals your grandmother’s jewelry sells it all and gets caught. They go to court and you are there to hear the sentence.  The judge pronounces the thief guilty, the gavel falls, and the penalty is announced “Ten years in jail.” Just then the perpetrator’s father walks in and says, “I will take that penalty for him.” It turns out the man who broke into your house has 5 kids and a wife with a drug addiction and he is doing all he can to provide for them. He works two jobs. He used to be a thief and quit ten years ago but came out of retirement to provide for his family. His dad hears about his problem and steps in to take his place so he can continue to care for his family. Now what do you do? Well you still want justice, as you should. Someone has to pay for the wrong someone has to pay the price for stealing your grandmother’s jewelry which can’t be replaced. A price has to be paid for justice to be served.

The sentence has been passed.

Judgment has been made.

The righteous judge then allows the father to do the ten years and lets the son go free. We have quite a few questions don’t we.

First why should someone else be able to pay the price? Second, why should the guy’s story be taken into account? And finally how could a just judge let a guilty man walk free? One word. . . grace. There is no other explanation but grace. Grace allows someone else to pay the price, grace allows the story to be taken into consideration and grace lets the guilty man walk free. Grace. But you could say, “That’s not fair!” BINGO! It is not fair, it is grace! It is not fair, it is unmerited favor.

But now let’s deal with another problem, what if the guy walks out of the courtroom, goes down the street and breaks into another house and steals another grandmother’s jewelry? Now it’s getting really bad right? Why? Why would that outrage you so much? Because his dad is sitting in jail paying for his crime and he is out doing it again! The father does not deserve that. The first time this happened we could possibly understand, even if we didn’t like it, why a “stand in” was necessary, but now, now we say, “But you went and did the same thing again. The sacrifice was for nothing!” The dad sacrificed his life for the son but the son went right back and committed the crime again.

If the son would have felt the weight of the gift he had been given there is no way he would ever walk out the door and rob again. He would have been transformed by the power of forgiving grace, instead of feeling like he got away with it and could go do it again.

This is deep.

This is the making the eighteen inch journey from the head to the heart.

Check out this scary verse that has been translated a million different ways, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of the judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26-27) I have heard people say this is not saying what we think it is saying, but I think it is straightforward because of one word in there, “knowledge”. If we keep going into sin deliberately after we know what has been done for us there is nothing else that can be done for us. Knowledge creates belief and belief changes behavior.  If you truly believe Christ died for your sins, stood in your place and took the penalty, then you will not keep doing the same things over and over.

I realize this may bring even more difficulty. Paul said himself “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” I get it, I truly do, (more than you know) but here comes the question, does “that” break your heart? Do you say what Paul said, “Wretched man I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Does the fact you keep doing what you are doing break your heart to the point you feel the weight of the sacrifice Jesus made for you? If you cannot feel that weight, then I am not sure you have fully understood grace.

I don’t think Jesus is as worried about what we do as much as he is worried about why we do what we do. If we keep doing what we do and it breaks our hearts when we do it then we are being transformed. If we keep doing what we do with no regrets then we have not understood exactly what Jesus did.

The simple truth is we all “steal grandmother’s jewelry”, we have all, as Christians, walked out of the courtroom with our penalty paid by our father, but the problem is we are prone to steal again. Is there progression though? Is there movement toward leaving the “old life”? Does that proneness bring you to tears at night? Does your ability to keep on sinning in spite of what Jesus did drive you toward him or away from him? That’s the issue. The life transforming power of Jesus is in the grace he has given us in spite of our guilt. It should drive us to Him.

I realize no matter what metaphor I try and use it will break down at some level. We are dealing with a mystery of God. He forgives over and over and over no matter how much we sin. But on the other hand we cannot just keep sinning as if we have a license to do so. There comes a point where the sacrifice of Jesus breaks us to the point of obedience. And obedience starts to bring blessing. I will save that for the next post. 

Part Ten

We went on vacation last week. I really needed it. My family looked forward to it for weeks. We would say, “two more weeks”, “One more week”, “Three more days”. . . it was a countdown until we left. Once we got there and got settled in it started to feel like home.

We were fortunate to be able to stay on the beach this trip. We had a patio outside that over looked the ocean on one side, and a lake on the other side. In the mornings sometimes I would go out on the patio to sit and enjoy the day. One morning, as I relaxed on the porch, I started thinking about the guard rail. We were quite a few floors up and I was thinking, “If that guard rail were not here I would not feel safe sitting here.” As a matter of fact if that guard rail had not have been there I probably would not have wanted to be on the patio at all. It would have changed the whole dynamic. A place of peace and serenity would have become a place of anxiety and fear.

And then I thought what if the guard rail was lower? Like maybe 6 inches lower? I may still feel safer, but it would definitely be less safe feeling. And then I thought (yes I know, welcome to my world) what if it were two feet lower and the rail itself was only one foot high? In that case it may as well not even been there. This rail was playing a huge part in my morning peace and quiet. It was enabling my serenity. I could stand up and lean on it, I could prop my feet up on it, I could hang my wet towel off of it. The rail had so many uses, but if it were removed the entire balcony would become useless. One piece of metal ten feet long and three feet high held in by eight bolts made my whole vacation more enjoyable and less stressful.

So you must be asking, “What does this have to do with my life and the eighteen inch journey?”.  . .  Glad you asked. . .  Everything.

I want you to envision the guard rail as The Law of God. And I want you to envision the patio as the world. God offers you peace and serenity in this world. He does not want you to leave this world like the monks thought, nor does he want you to dive off into the world mindlessly, like satan tempted Jesus to do. Instead he wants you, in this world, but protected by his law in order to keep your peace in place, in order for your “patio” to remain safe. His laws are not meant to restrain you from having peace they are there to secure your peace, to make sure you stay safely on the patio which brings the serenity you are looking for.   The Law is not there to restrain you from living life it is there to enable you to live life in a way that brings you freedom. God is not trying to keep you from happiness he is trying to give you true happiness. The Law is your guard rail to keep you inside of true life.

Think about this, what if we lower the law just a little bit? What if we say, “Well God wrote that for Israel back then. The Law doesn’t pertain to me now. We are now under the New Testament. We don’t follow the law. So the Law may have some good moral ideas, but it does not mean much to me.”? What you just did was lower the protection of your patio and endangered yourself. You lowered the law. 

In lowering The Law what we are saying is, “I know how to live. I don’t need anyone telling me what I can and cannot do. I Got this.” That is exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden. And it is why you will buck The Law. It’s wired into your DNA. But you have to trust The Law and The Law Giver. You have to trust not only is The Law good and holy and righteous, but so is the Law Giver.

Once you realize this you can lean on The Law, you can prop your feet on The Law, you can hang your dirty laundry on The Law. Then you can know the law is good because you are trusting in The Law.

So many people see The Law as a condition of God’s love. In other words, if I will follow The Law then God will love me. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead The Law is a product of God’s love. He loves his people so much he wants to keep them safe, and in peace.

So pick a Law, any Law, how about, “Thou shalt not bare false witness to thy neighbor”. In redneck terms, “Don’t gossip about your friends”. What if we remove that rail? We just tell whoppers all the time about your friends? What if you expose peoples business and expound on it into places you do not even know about? It will not be long before no one trusts you, no one wants to be around you, no one enjoys the company of a gossip. How about, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”? What if we remove that one? Peace is gone, serenity is gone, lives are ruined etc. . . are you getting the point?

The sooner we see God’s Law as a guard rail and not a jail cell, the sooner we can find the freedom and peace that he so desperately wants to give.

Part Nine

Wednesday night, in my sermon, I talked about a subject in a negative light.  Since then, after much thinking, I’ve become quite convicted about it. I was preaching about belief and how our belief system drives our entire lives. All of which is true. However, at one point in the sermon I said, “And I am not talking about fake it till you make it. That’s just behavioral modification, which never works.” That statement is true, but it is also not true. Just like with many of the things of God this subject is just not as simple as we would like it to be.

In my mind, “fake it till you make it” is hypocrisy. It means, to me, act like you are something you are not until you become something you want to be. Sounds a lot like mystical hocus pocus to me.  I imagine a bunch of people showing up on Sunday morning dressed in nice clothes, singing songs about God and saying things like, “praise the Lord” or “God is good”, in hopes someone will think they are holy. Or maybe hoping their religious “Christianese” will get them some kind of notoriety. That kind of acting drives me crazy. In this context I feel like we need to be open  and honest. We should not try to put make-up on our infirmities, but we should be honest about them and be healed from them. However, while there is hypocrisy in trying to be something you are not so people around you will not see who you truly are, there is something to be learned about lining yourself up with truth. Which is not “fake it till you make it”.

When I was young I used to dress up like my dad. I would put on his work boots, I would wear a hat like he did, I would carry a note pad like him, I would say things like he would say I would do whatever I could to be like my dad. My sister on the other hand played with baby dolls and played house. She would play like she was cooking supper and changing diapers. I hate to admit this, but sometimes she would make me play like I was her husband, yeah I know. So why would we do that? Because we were lining ourselves up with what we had been created to be. God created me to work and provide, and he created my sister to “make a home”. We were not even close to being old enough to do what we knew we were meant to do, but inside of us, deep down, we knew we were created for “that”, so we pretended. We called it playing, “make believe”.

Why would we call that “make believe”? Some would say it’s because we are making something up in our minds, we are imagining things, but I think it is much deeper than that. I think we are making ourselves believe what is true by our actions. By putting the two words together, “make” and “believe” the process is revealed. You could say it like this, we are making what we believe to be true by acting out that belief even though it is not yet fully realized.

So what is the difference between “make believe” and “fake it till you make it”? Well one says we are acting out what we already believe to be true, the other says we are being a fake in hopes that one day we can achieve a goal. One says, “I know what I am meant to be so I am going to act like that until I grow up in to it.” The other says, “I know what I am supposed to be so let me do that in hopes that one day I will get there”. See the difference?  Let me give some application.

Let’s say you get saved. And after your salvation you start to want to walk with Christ more deeply and so you chase after him with all you have. You read your bible and the words just jump off the page, you pray for a red light to turn green and it does, you go to church and you just feel the presence of God all around you. It is awesome and you love every minute! But then something happens, a dry spell. God feels distant. You bible is boring. Your prayers seem to hit the ceiling and come back down. Church is boring. What do you do? You have three options.

First you can just quit. Give up. Decide it’s never going to be the same. Say ignorant things like, “I don’t have to go to church to worship God” and “God speaks to me, I don’t have to read his word” or “I pray while I am driving to work”. Say what you want, those are all just excuses to not even try and walk with God anymore. It’s a cop out. And it’s a dangerous place to be. 

Second, you can “fake it till you make it”. You can go to church and pray and read you bible in spite of the dry feeling. And this is right! But hold on and check your motives. Fake it means you are an imposter. Fake it means you are going to pretend to be something you are not until God does what he is supposed to do and make you get that feeling again. Fake it till you make it means there will be an end. It says, “I am going to be a fake, until I make it to my destination.” The question is, then what? You’ve arrived? Really? If you have arrived what will you do if the dry feeling comes back?

Third, you can “make believe”. You still go to church, pray and read your bible in spite of the dry feeling, but here is the difference, you do it because it is who you truly are. You are not looking to “make it” to a destination, you have already “made it”, now you live as if you have “made it” and God will transform you to look more like his Son Jesus. But you have to trust.

Now we are getting somewhere, it’s about trust. One way says, “I will trust in my ability. I will work harder, do more, pray more and do better. I will give it my best. I will be a better Christian!” See all those “I”’s? I am trusting in my own ability. I will fake it till I make it. But make believe, it’s something different all together. It says, “God your way is better than my way. Your law is better than my law. Your Word is more powerful than my logic. So I will make believe I am what you say I am.” Now that will change your life!

The issue comes down to motive. If I am going to fake it till I make it so that I can get the results I want and then go back to what I was then it will never work. That’s behavioral modification. But, if I “make believe” I am already what God says I am so I can be transformed into “that”, then I am on the road to being more like Christ.

God does not want a fake. He wants you. All of you. Exactly like you are. Not some future version of you. He does not want you to try and clean up your act so he will like you more. He does not want you to stop sinning so that he can bless you more. He loves you just like you are. But, he does want you to have true life. And God knows that true life comes from living as you were created to live.

Play “make believe” today. You may be surprised how it changes your life. 

Working

Hey guys,
Just letting you know I am working on the next post. Just been really busy!

Jason

This is from Nora and beautiful

I read this morning in my little In Touch devotional book, "Commandments are in place to protect us from enslavement, which is the natural result of persistent wrong doing...We are privileged to have a Father who breaks our human chains. However, we are not freed so that we can disobey; rather, God offers us freedom from the domination of sin." I have to practice a daily communication with God because without it a weight of "meness" builds and it stinks. Its like the definition of insanity, doing something over expecting same result. I'm insane and God knows it, I'm glad God's love is from God. Constant. So constant I can't even quite grasp how constant it is.

Part Eight

Why should a Christian, saved by grace, be concerned with obeying the law? I mean after all aren’t we just supposed to do the best we can with what we have? A lot of us have been dealt difficult lives, we have baggage that is no fault of our own, surely God does not expect us to follow all these laws! He loves us, he died for us, Jesus paid for our sins, I mean can I not just do what I want?

Good question… lets pick the thought apart.

In the Garden of Eden man’s relationship to God was what some theologians call a “Covenant of Works”. A covenant of works means if Adam did his part he could stay in eternal communion with God; if Adam did not do his part he was condemned to eternal separation from God. We must not get confused into thinking that Adam would receive special treatment because of his obedience.  God did not say, “Now Adam, if you will go two years without eating of the tree I will give you a special treat. And if you go 5 years, then Adam, you will get an even more special treat. And Adam, believe it or not, if you make it 10 years without eating of that one tree then I will let you in.” Not even close. See Adam already had everything. He had all of God. Nothing held back from Adam. He had it all. The only thing Adam had to do to stay was not eat of the one tree.

The one tree in the middle of the Garden was not meant to be a punishment, it was meant to show one thing and one thing only. That single tree represented God’s sovereign reign over his people. That one tree said in essence, “I am God, I know what is best; you are not, obey me out of love.” But the temptation from satan was, “God is trying to hide something from you.” (Genesis 3:5) Satan won, (not completely, it backfired on him, but he won this battle) Eve & Adam lost, and here we are. Now we all view any law as, “Someone is trying to hold me down and hide something from me.” But what if the opposite is true?

If you come to Open Range Church this is going to be a little redundant, but you need to hear it. What if the law was meant to set you free and not bind you down?

The saying goes, “Father knows best.” And I have found that to be true. However, I did not find it to be true by trusting the saying, I found it to be true by experience. Somewhere in my late twenties, early thirties I found myself declaring the wisdom of my dad a lot. A whole lot. Especially when I had kids. (I think I just heard him say amen) It dawned on me was that he was not as big of a kill-joy as I thought he was, he just wanted to protect me from pain. He wanted to keep me from making mistakes. He wanted to set me free. He loved me. At the time I just thought he was making up weird things to keep me from knowing all that he knows. Trying to hold me back. I was a moron. Still am.

So let us tie all this up. What if God, in his sovereignty wants to give us life, as Jesus said he does? And the way he chooses to give us life is laws to live by. Laws to protect us? And what if we stopped looking at the laws and what does or does not apply and just trusted that he is good and that he is right and that he is just and we can trust him? Now I know there are some weird laws in the bible, you guys have pointed some out, but I am going to show you that even those weird ones were laws of love. They may have been cultural, but they displayed the sovereign love of God.

Now I am not suggesting that we are supposed to obey all of the laws in the bible. Many of those were for the Israelites in their day and age to protect them from harm and danger. But what I am saying is we cannot dismiss the function of the law. (More to come on that)

One more thing, what if we believe that we have all of God? Every bit of him right here with us through Jesus. No longer in a Covenant of Works, but now a Covenant of Grace. Jesus paid the debt of the Covenant of Works, that’s done, now we get to live in grace. We have it all. Nothing held back. No more to get on this earth. All of him he gives to us. And in our obedience to the law we love him back. We live in his peace. Think about this. And I will be back shortly.