The Problem of Complacency

Pilate asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" And he answered him, "The words are yours." Pilate said to the head cohanim (priests) and the crowds, "I find no ground for a charge against this man." Luke 23:3-4

 In this moment, Pilate questions Jesus by asking if He is the King of the Jews. Jesus says neither yes or no, but instead says, depending on translation, "The words are yours," or, "You have said so."
 The question Pilate asked Jesus was now turning back to him, just as when Peter was telling Him who the people said Jesus was; the real question was, "Who do you say that I am?" Jesus answers Pilate by stating something rather unexpected, "You have said so." Jesus, i believe, is saying that Pilate had at some point acknowledged Jesus as the Christ.

 So how does Pilate react? He turns from Jesus and tells the Jews that he finds no guilt in Jesus. Jesus has been charged with claiming to be the Messiah, and so Pilate asks him a simple question--and he finds no guilt in Him. Jesus didn't deny the charges. It was common knowledge that He was going around preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, raising the dead, making broken people whole. If He called Himself the Christ or the King of the Jews, He was in stark opposition to Caesar, yet He did make the claim.
 Pilate found Him innocent because He was not subverting the government. Speaking truth gives no guilt. So he turns to the crowds, "I find no ground for a charge against this Man." In other words, He claims to be the King, which puts Him at odds with the Emperor, but He is not wrong in Pilate's eyes.

 When the crowd demanded that Pilate carry on his tradition of releasing one prisoner during a festival, he succumbed; he looked for a murderous rebel. He picked someone the crowds would've hated worse. He picked someone who would safeguard Jesus' release.
 Nevertheless, the Jews were stirred into a commotion and asking for Barabbas.

Pilate appealed to them again, because he wanted to release Yeshua. But they yelled, “Put him to death on the stake! Put him to death on the stake!” A third time he asked them, “But what has this man done wrong? I haven’t found any reason to put him to death. So I’m going to have him flogged and set free.” But they went on yelling insistently, demanding that he be executed on the stake; and their shouting prevailed.

 "Why?" he asks. What crime did Jesus commit? Pilate still saw no guilt in the Accused. He didn't see Him as having done a thing wrong, not even in His claiming to be the Christ ("Everyone who claims to be a king is opposing the Emperor!" - John 19:12; in saying he found no guilt in Jesus, he was claiming that Jesus was not wrong in opposing Caesar).
 Even as they demanded Christ's death, Pilate still asked their reason, but according to Matthew's account, they only got louder in demanding His death, to the point that a riot was starting. So in order to keep the peace, he gives in and allows Jesus to be crucified.

When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, “My hands are clean of this man’s blood; it’s your responsibility.” (Matthew 27:24)

 He washed his hands because he didn't want the death of the Messiah on his head. Let someone else take the blame. And the Jews agreed to shoulder the responsibility. It would appear as though Pilate got with compliance Scot-free.

 It may seem i'm defending Pilate in all of this, but such is not the case. This particular perspective creates something perhaps worse than seeing him as an accuser.
 He washed his hands. He didn't want the burden. He didn't want the blame. He didn't want the guilt. He wasn't willing to risk his reputation for the man he himself had admitted to believing in. He wasn't willing to change for the sake of the Lord.
 He embodied the modern Church's stance; "I won't let acknowledging Him change my life; won't let it make me uncomfortable or hated."

 What's worse: to not believe, or to believe and not act? Surely the man who can see evil and does nothing about it is far greater an accomplice than the man ignorant of it. If Pilate had not known, that would've been one thing. But to believe and yet still allow it falls on an entirely different order of complacency.

 If we truly believe Jesus to be the Messiah, we better be ready to defend that belief. We must be ready to lay down our reputation, find enmity in our friends, become an enemy of the government, and to lose everything we know and care about for His sake. Because if we don't, we will appease the crowd, wash our hands, and say, "Don't let this affect me."
 In doing so, we are as guilty (nay, more guilty!) as those who don't believe.
 The only way to have clean hands is to have them bathed in Christ's redemptive blood.

Go To The Ant!

 Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. (Proverbs 6:6-8)

 Planning ahead, especially in finances, has never been a strongpoint for me (sometimes a verse just gets personal, you know?), and only recently has any major attempt to change that been made. And while this is often seen as a message for financial responsibility (and sometimes a call for an end of procrastination), there is another, more subtle application we can get from this passage.

 To put this softly, i've been around too many churchgoers outside of church-related functions to be anything but a cynic, and only the fewest (a remnant, if you will) haven't proven the resulting assumptions correct.
 To be slightly more blunt, a lot of people going to Hell will arrive there on a pew. And it's such a tragic thing, it should bring tears to our eyes. In fact, God showed Ezekiel that His judgement would fall on the heads of those who didn't mourn; of the men, women, children, regardless of age, He tells the executioners to "Slaughter them all!" and to "Defile the house! Fill the courtyards with corpses! Get going!" What's more, there's a startling command given; "Begin at my sanctuary."

 The first to receive judgement, it is saying, are those who believe in God, who claim to follow His Law, and yet pass by the crippled man on the side of the road. Those who "love God," but not their fellow man.
And don't get me wrong, "Love always trusts, always hopes, always--" I know. And there is little defense to be made for cynicism, excepting perhaps the fact that we're commanded strictly to avoid those who "retain the outer form of religion but deny its power."
 See, there are those we're to avoid, not just blindly embrace. Love is blind, but it's certainly not stupid. Keeps no record of wrong, but isn't naive. It hopes, but hope is usually encompassed by doubt--or else it would simply be expectation.

 And where this ties up; just because we have witnessed sin and immorality by churchgoers outside of church, if we watch them raise their hands on Sunday and then hear them start cussing or talking about sleeping around with people by Monday, that doesn't mean it has to change us. This is simply those who "retain the outer form of religion but deny its power." They deserve your pity, your groaning, your weeping, your compassion and, if they will hear you, Biblical correction. After all, judgement will come first to those in the sanctuary.
 But go to the ant! It has no leader, no overseer, no ruler; it operates not based on the actions of those around it, but by its own purpose, its own mind, its own work. If you have been wounded because some people look Christian on Sunday but do it all for show, that's between them and God; it's up to each of us to do what is necessary to maintain confidence before Him, which is behaving as His children should.
 Go to the ant. Do not be led astray. Do not look to the left or to the right. Do not look at your "Paul" (your spiritual leader) unless he is of more semblance to Christ than yourself. And should your "Paul" ever stop following Christ, stop imitating Paul, stop following Paul. Look to Christ.
 Imitate Christ so that you may be "Paul" to someone else.

Forgetfulness Or Remembrance?

Many of us Christians think that, when God sets us free from our sin, that He is telling us to forget it, or better yet to glory in it the fact that it happened. This comes from taking verses from the New Testament out of context (Romans 5:20 comes to mind; "...but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more"). But He does not often give us such a command.

Here's a summary/exposition of some events; Jesus is preaching, and while doing so He talks of the hypocrisy and immaturity of "this generation," and says they're like children in a marketplace, talking to each other. He speaks of how John the Baptist, His own forerunner, came in abstinence (not just sexually, but in the dietary sense), and they said he had a demon; then they say, of Christ, that He's a glutton and a drunkard because He does not observe the same dietary restrictions--and they say He's a friend of tax collectors and sinners.
After this, He is invited into the house of a Pharisee, and a sinful woman comes in, and soaks His feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, then anoints His feet with her jar of perfume. Simon, the Pharisee, is thinking that if Jesus was truly a prophet that He would know what kind of sinner she was and that she was unclean and unfit to touch Him. But Jesus knew. He says, "Simon, I have something to say to you..." and proceeds to tell a parable about two debtors who can't pay back their dues, one who owed tenfold the other's debt, and the creditor cancelling their debts. Simon says it's the one who owed more that would love the creditor more. Jesus concurs.

Because Simon, a "holy man," had been brought up in a godly manner, lived according to the Law, had little to be forgiven of, he did not love Jesus as much as the woman who apparently didn't stop kissing His feet the entire time He was in Simon's house.
Simon didn't put oil on His head, didn't greet Him with a kiss (as was the custom), yet that woman, seeing herself unfit to put oil on His head, anointed His feet--if she were a prostitute, the "expensive perfume" was crucial in her craft, and the condition of her hair was no doubt just as important. Yet she matted her hair with mud (the tears and dirt), and poured her perfume on His feet because she was giving up what she had been.
She basically says, "I don't want to be like that anymore, so I lay all of it at Your feet." She surrenders everything for Him, not the following day, not a week from then, but at that very moment she poured it all at His feet.

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little. (Luke 7:47)

She was crying because of her sins, because she had sinned against Him. These were not tears of joy, these were tears of remorse. She knew He was the friend of sinners (read: He was the friend of her). And she knew this was her only hope, this man who spoke with authority from God, who the Pharisees feared, who preached a legitimate Gospel ("Good News"). And because she knew that, a Godly sorrow welled up within her until she poured tears about the floor and His feet, and she worshiped Him by giving up her livelihood to anoint not even His head but just His feet.
He did not tell her to forget her sins. He said they were forgiven--that He would forget. But she remembered her sins. And wept. And that's what anointed Christ.

See, we all have sins, and we all have a past.
Those who have been found guilty and yet forgiven for, say, stealing five dollars worth of merchandise will not be as happy and thankful to the judge as the person who has been found guilty but forgiven of attempted murder. And, sometimes, to sear one's conscience, we forgive them without reprimanding them.
This can serve to create a higher sense of guilt than punishing them. What's more, tell them that someone else decided to take their punishment; this will (or at least should) stir them up inside to the point of their tears flowing enough to soak the feet of the person who bore their sins. And they will (again, should) turn from their crimes and even say, "See this way I was? He took the blame for me. Because of that, I set my old ways at His feet and now they're an evidence to His love for me. And He'll do the same for you."

But how do we reconcile ourselves to our pasts of sin? How do we live on after this sin? Is remembering it and being filled with grief in itself a sin? After all, the New Testament says that sinful flesh, that old person has died; is remembering that equivalent to bringing it back?
Having spent time dwelling on my past, hating myself for it, i felt like i was doing something wrong because so many pastors say our sins are forgiven so we shouldn't even think of them anymore. That we should only think of good things (as mentioned in the New Testament). And now we have pastures filled with flocks acting like spotless lambs, when it was the only spotless Lamb chosen from the vile, filthy herd that we are to take our filthiness. Yes, we have been washed, but we must never overlook the fact that we were filthy, mangy, and unclean lest we forget the weight of the sacrifice of the truly perfect One sacrificed for us.
What glory does a Redeemer receive when those He redeemed act as though they're not even the same thing as was bought back?

And even so, we still have people saying we're to live like it never happened because we're a new creation. I once heard someone say we shouldn't refer to ourselves as sinners forgiven, because it in a sense dims-down the beauty of God's creation, and that it makes Jesus' work on the cross seem like less because we still focus on what we were before. Are we truly called to forget our sins? How do we resolve this?

Simple. Remembrance. Visit the grave of your old self, and do so often. Don't try digging up the body.
The Bible does say we are a new creation. But our past happened. We're not to be liars, and we're not to be ignorant. Keep reminders of the old self's death. Never forget it.
I remember my sin. And i don't want to forget it. Because i know i've been forgiven much; i never want to forget, because i don't want to love Him less. I want to see and to dance on that grave marked, "Joshua David Isaacs," because i know that self is dead, but i don't want to act like he never was a part of me or that he never lived.

I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God. (Ezekiel 16:62)

Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. (Ezekiel 36:31-32)

Remember. Be ashamed. Be confounded. Loathe yourselves. All the while, praise God for Christ's sacrifice!

And what's a blog post without some lyrics?

Won't You please come and remind me?
I need to know what I've become. I need to know where I've come from.
Take me from this madness, take me from this pain.
Take me from this sadness, but don't take my memories. ("Memory" by Decyfer Down, from the album, "Scarecrow")

God Is Love

 Let's address something real quick; God is love.
 That's become such a cliche phrase that i'm almost tired of hearing it (if that were even possible). The saying itself is truly undeniable. It's not the quote that i'm tired of hearing. It's the context. The context is modern. And, like almost all thoughts modern, it disturbs me.
 To understand love, we should also look at pride. Many would think hate is the antonym, but it's actually pride. I honestly believe the Spirit revealed that to me a year or so ago, and the more i read and know of love, the more i understand that it is true.

 To love something is to put it first in your life--or at least hold it in high regard (to submit in humility). If you love someone or something, you do what's best for them. If you love someone, you sacrifice some (or all) of your comfort for them. If you love someone, you raise them above yourself. If you love someone, you keep no record of wrongs,
 To be prideful is to hold the image of self above all things. Hate is a symptom, but the disease itself is always pride; it is a desire for having your own way (Ever had someone cut you off in traffic? Or how about someone who feels it's their right to meddle in your life? Obviously, your own life is worth so much more than theirs, your time and comfort invaluable by comparison . . . At least that's what i tell myself under such circumstances, and this is a definition of pride, and hate being a single thread of it). The love of money, even, as the "root of all evils," is, again, pride; a craving for more for yourself.

 The reason it's so important to understand pride, though, is because to support one thing is to oppose another. That's just a fact, and it will make enemies.
 And discipline -how beautiful is the Latin root, discipulus!- is not hate, nor is it pride. Discipline, true and honest in method and motive, is a form of love. In fact, Solomon once said of it, that, "Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him." This is because a lack of discipline allows a child to wander a path that the parent knows leads to destruction. How do you keep a child from playing in the street? Incessantly warn them not to, and discipline them when they do. You train them. You disciple them. And then, when they are old, they will teach their children, God-willing, to also not play in the street. This is not cruel, this is love. And this is precisely what God does to us.

 Regard your endurance as discipline; God is dealing with you as sons. For what son goes undisciplined by his father? All legitimate sons undergo discipline; so if you don’t, you’re a mamzer (literally: bastard) and not a son! Furthermore, we had physical fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them; how much more should we submit to our spiritual Father and live! For they disciplined us only for a short time and only as best they could; but he disciplines us in a way that provides genuine benefit to us and enables us to share in his holiness. Now, all discipline, while it is happening, does indeed seem painful, not enjoyable; but for those who have been trained by it, it later produces its peaceful fruit, which is righteousness. (Hebrews 12:7-11, CJB)

 This is why modern ideas disturb me. We have forsaken a selfless and true definition for love and replaced it with, tolerance. If we don't tolerate a behavior, people inevitably think we hate them. When you see someone smoking, if you truly care for them, you will tell them the undeniable, common-sense truth, "That will kill you." That's not bigotry, it's care.
 Now, there are several responses, but a common one is, "I'm trying to quit." Sorry, but you'll quit in due time, either because you died, or else because you heeded logic for a change. Yes, it's an addictive drug, but when does an addiction trump life? When you love it. When you love self to the point of pride, and you ignore the feelings of those who love you (in other words, you cease to love them, at least more than you love yourself).
 Another common reaction is excessive defense, even to the point of becoming offensive. This is the world's reaction to hearing that sin is doing the same thing to their spirit; they get bitter. Do you think that when i was stuck in an addiction to sin, i enjoyed hearing that it was killing my soul? Of course not. I hated (read: prided myself over...) that kind of message--but it is the Gospel of Christ that says, "Go and sin no more," that led me to repentance. It was discipline that allowed me to become a disciple (two words that are, quite literally, joined at the roots).

 I'm all for growth and maturity, and even the evolution of ideas, but at a point we must start over, get back to the basics, stop worrying about offending people--the Lord does offend people. If He didn't, He'd not have been executed. If He didn't offend people, none would hate their sins enough to come to legitimate repentance.
 That wasn't a pass to be malicious, but it was an example of how the world will see us, and we must give no credence to the threats and preoccupations of man. For what can man do, after all, but kill the body? This is the beginning of wisdom, that we fear the One who is able to destroy our bodies and throw our souls into Gehenna.

Merry Christmas . . .

It's Christmastime, so this, herefore, is the obligatory Christmas post.

To sum up Christmas would be to say Christ was born, that He stepped down from Heaven, and was born to die for us.
Hallelujah!
It couldn't be truer. But to say that's an adequacy would be a gross misunderstanding of Christ and His purpose.
To say He merely died for us scarcely does justice to what He truly did. To say He merely performed miracles would be an understatement. To say anything of the like, actually, would be as saying the moon just gives light at night. Yes, that's one thing it does, and that's the most plain and simple thing it does. The miracles, though supernatural, were not just miracles.
The moon causes tides, affects winds, weather, seasons, gravity, animals' behavior, growth of plant life, and so much more. The most obvious effect we can observe, though, is light, so we say it shines in the night. But the fact, and the beauty of it, is that the light is hardly worth noting in comparison to the rest.

To say Christ just gave up His life for us is overlooking so much, though it's the most visible quality of it, so that's what we often focus on.
Anyone can die for another. Many do. Soldiers give their lives daily for their home, friends, and family. People lose their lives in dangerous workplaces trying to provide for their families.

John 15:13 says the all-so-familiar quote of, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."
And that's true. Nothing we can do can be more significant a gesture of love than the self-sacrifice of the greatest cost for the cause of preserving another. But this is a human limitation. Jesus is speaking of the greatest thing a "son of man" can do. This is the greatest gesture of love His mortal shell could express.
But He is, while fully man, also fully God. And the eternal, infinite God can -and did- sacrifice so much more than these temporary, finite shells we live in on this earth can.

Philippians 2:5-8 says, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Firstly, our way of thinking should not be to count Him as a mortal dying on a cross. That's only what's going on at the very skin of it.
Have this mind, instead, that Christ was in the form of God; the infinite, eternal, almighty, exalted, and untouchable Ruler of the universe.

Have this mind that He gave that up, not counting that nature as something to be had but to be laid down for your sake.

Have this mind that He not only gave that up, but came as a slave, humbled, ruled by men, and given up to suffer every temptation -and more- than we know.

Have this mind that He was obedient, unquestioning, while being beaten and spit on, whipped (not to be overly graphic, but He was whipped with a "Cat of Nine Tails," which was a nine-stranded whip with shards of glass tied into the ends which stick and must be ripped out; the skin of His back and sides would have been literally torn off with great force, exposing His bones and perhaps more), and then nailed, naked, to a cross which was reserved for thieves, murderers, and absolute degenerates. Left to die. In the name of God. In the name of the God that we didn't recognize--Himself. He was killed in the name of Christ.

Have this mind that He suffered through Hell, infinitely worse than the torture He endured here on earth where His physical body eventually died.

This is what He knowingly gave up for us. Not just His physical life, but He went from one absolute to the other. That was His purpose. To give up everything out of a love greater than we can fathom, greater than the mere laying down of one's life.
The miracles were not just miracles. They were the fulfillment of everything prior to His birth; four-thousand years of prophecy brought into fruition. Four-thousand years of Law embodied. Four-thousand years of man that cried out for a Savior.

This is what Christmas is. It's not just the birth of Christ. It's the conception of hope for mankind, it's the dawn of eternity birthed within us, it's the glory of God walking among -and living within- us. It's God with us. Immanuel! 

I may seem a Scrooge at times around Christmas, but only because our modern images and traditions (namely Santa Claus) take from the glory due to God. But how little can be taken from Him! All creation sings His praise, and the Heavenly beings cry out "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"

A Grain Of Sand

There's something quite fascinating in observing others' perspectives and opinions. I've also found people to be much more receptive of the Gospel if you don't treat it as something to be defended, but rather something that will defend itself. If you offer it as something to be reckoned with as opposed to displaying yourself as something that was reconciled, it's often received about as well as a stubbed toe.

This is not a post about ministering, though. This is, more than anything, a supplemental post to the prior one. Civility, sadly, is often lost when discussing something as polar and encompassing as spiritual beliefs. Sometimes on my part, sometimes on the part of the other party(ies). The thing is, though, is the non-Christian has an excuse. I'm told to expect to be rejected, even hated, because of the hope i have in Christ. I, on the other hand, have no excuse. I'm told to love unconditionally.
As said, i have a fascination with hearing what others have to say about their beliefs or lack thereof. I think the best example i could be to people who differ from me is to display love to them; listening and caring about what they say, and accepting them regardless of where they stand.

More often than not, this kind of observation leads me to hearing the opinions of atheists. Some are downright intriguing.
One that has been weighing on me heavily lately is this: In relation to the universe, we are infinitely, even impossibly small. A grain on sand along the shoreline is monumental compared to me in the universe. So how do i reconcile this feeling of vanity and pointlessness with a God that chose this planet to send His Son to, to die for me, the less-than-a-grain-of-sand human that i am?
Moreover, how do i measure my life against the universe and find worth, or hope, or meaning in death?

Well, firstly, theoretically, there's more in the microcosm (microscopic and smaller) than there is in the macrocosm (the tangible). That means there's more smaller than us than there is larger. With this, we can look into the night sky at the stars and, instead of feeling infinitely small, we feel infinitely important because there's more inside of us than there is outside of us. That is how i reconcile the infinitesimal me to the infinite God; He sees us, those He formed with His fingertips, with more desire and care than He sees the rest of the universe that He spoke into being.
That is where our worth, hope, and meaning come from; the Creator who spun us so intricately together.

But death, with all its unknowns, still poses an issue.
The issue of death is not something to be dreaded if one has their hope in God. It's going to happen, it must happen. Why, then, do we dread it so?
Death is like the night sky. It's dark, mysterious, and infinitely large to those who know no hope of God. To the Christian, it is something to see as a barrier from here to there. An end or a beginning.

In either case, whether we die tonight or in fifty years or in a hundred, it does not matter.
To the one without faith, life is a motion, and death is merely the close, and there would be no observation of anything after, so it wouldn't matter when death comes, because it will eventually come.
The one with faith, it likewise doesn't matter because we have hope in God that it will be for something, and that He has a plan for it.
It shouldn't matter to either Christian nor atheist when death comes for us; one sees death as the unavoidable end that means nothing, the other as a new beginning of which the timing was chosen and proper.

Whereas a non-believer sees a curtain in this life, a Christian intends to witness all that is going on backstage to make sure the visible stays true to course.

Come From The Four Winds

I've been revisiting Ezekiel 36 and 37 lately, and trying to piece together all the ways they tie in together.
In Ezekiel 36, we read that God is going to remove our hearts of stone and put a soft heart of flesh in us, and put His Spirit within us to deliver us from uncleanness and to make us feel shame for our sins and, therefore, turn away from it. For His sake, He would act (this could easily be taken to mean He would set us apart for His glory).
In chapter 37, much of it is about the valley of dry bones, where God asks Ezekiel if the bones could live again. Ezekiel doesn't say yes or no, but rather the only true answer for any question, "O Lord God, You know."* (v. 3)
He's told to prophesy to the bones, and it describes the flesh forming over them. But there is one thing lacking still.

"But there was no breath in them." (There was no הָר֑וּחַ in them.) (v. 8)

There are several translations for the Hebrew word for breath (הָר֑וּחַ).
One is breath. Another is wind. Another, get this, is spirit.
The bodies lived, but they had no spirit.

Because of this, God commands Ezekiel to prophesy again, this time to the "breath."
"'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.' So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army." (v. 9-10)

"And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord." (v. 13-14)
This entire setting is, from the prior chapter through this one, a prophecy about Christ and the Holy Spirit; through Christ we have resurrection, and then He puts His Spirit in us to live.

What i find perhaps most interesting is this: "Come from the four winds, O breath..."

He's told to tell the Spirit to come from every direction and breathe on the slain, that they may live.
He's telling the Spirit to come from everywhere. The Spirit would be spread across the earth, in every nation; in Jew and Gentile, if you will, and those will make up the resurrected and living people of God, His children. The army of Israel would not consist of a specific race, but people of all ethnicities who have His Spirit within them.

* This should be our mantra in life. As it says in the New Testament (James 4), "...yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'"
It's not for us to even say that our next breath will come, only God knows, and only by His will can air enter our lungs.

Mission Field

After taking a few days off social media, four posts have been amassed. Here is the first.

I've been thinking about what denotes one to missionary work, but the truest and simplest fact of the matter is that we all are called to spread the Word of God. We each are entreated to offer the gift of salvation that we have come to know that is only accessible through the Gospel; we're each designated to share the Gospel. In that, we're all called to missionary work, some domestically and some to be sent abroad.
So then the question arises of who, exactly, is called to go to foreign lands and spread the “Good News” there? Who is determined to become that specific type of missionary?

The question, though a misdiagnosis when deemed a question, is simple, and when asked (pleaded) answers itself through faith.

“Am I called to proclaim the Gospel in other lands?” is not the question to present. It isn't a question at all we should beckon unto God. It's a request; “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Luke 10:2)

Furthermore, the greatest commandment is to love God, the second to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus said “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
If we love Him, we'll keep His commandments. If we love Him, we'll not only be willing to do His will, we'll be excited for His call. And we'll love others as ourselves.
If you love someone, you will no doubt save them if you have the chance. Therefore, if you love others, you'll be willing to offer the Gospel should the opportunity arise. Wherever your neighbor is, that is the place of the mission field (yes, the harvest is indeed abounding). It isn't necessarily on a foreign shore, on an exotic island, or in an uncivilized wilderness—it's there, certainly, but it's here as well; wherever you are, the nearest person to you is part of that harvest.
There is a danger in this, as reckless fanaticism will scarcely be inviting to most. It's not the intention to write a handbook for winning souls, because there is no “method” about it, as each person is an individual, and so cannot be melted down into a stereotype we recite words to. Instead, be Christ to them; love them. The opportunity will arise itself in due time.

That's where the mission field is. It's wherever you are, because there you have neighbors, and your neighbor is the harvest.

Regarding whether or not you, whoever may be reading this, is called to be a missionary in a different country, the answer comes when you beg to God to send workers to the harvest field. He will send out workers. You may be one of those workers. Whether or not you are is between you and God. He will find you a harvest field and you'll be sent there. It could be at a local coffee shop or supermarket, or it could be Guatemala.
Some are called to it. Some aren't. Simply put, the ones called to it know they are.

I'm not trying to persuade nor to dissuade any from extra-national missionary outreach. I am only encouraging all who read this to pray that workers be sent to the harvest field, and to be receptive to the idea that they may be sent somewhere they didn't expect.

Be Still

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10; ESV)

"Be still," He says, "And know that I am God."

This is a very popular verse, but for great reason. It's a plea from God to us, His children.

If you've ever found a wounded, helpless animal and tried to help it, you can sort of grasp what God is saying here.
You reach for it, it draws back. You try to help it and it bites you, scratches you, does anything to put distance between you and itself, either by running away or trying to hurt you enough to make you leave it alone. But you know what's best for it. You have to get that wire untangled from its leg, that nail out of its foot, that rope off its neck. But it still fights you.

You talk to it, tell it that it'll be okay if it'll just let you help it, tell it to shush and to take it easy.
You say, in other words, "Be still, and know that I want to help you."

But God is more than able to help. And He wants to. He doesn't want you left in your misery, tangled up, bleeding, starving, or just stuck. He wants you to know that you're going to be okay if you just let Him have His way.
Be still. Stop fighting. Relax. It's okay, He's God, He knows what He's doing.

If you don't intervene, sometimes with force, the animal can -and probably will- die. It will not get free, only make things worse, and it will perish without water. You have to cover its head, hold it tight, speak softly, and work diligently. It can be tedious, aggravating at times, trying to get a wild animal past its fear of you.

And when you get it loose, it thinks it was of its own accord. It won't regard you as the one that saved it--not as well as you'd like at the very least.

This is how our plea to a wounded animal works. Scarcely are they willing to cooperate, nor are they in any way concerned about what you're saying, they just want to get out themselves.
We are the wounded animal; we are the ones resisting, the ones that would die if we don't give ourselves to God.

"Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live." (Ezekiel 18:31-32)

We don't want the helpless creature to perish, so we try and save it.
But God is not merely One who tries. He does.
He's able, and He will save those who let Him.
He beseeches you, "Be still, and know that I am God," and "turn and live."
He even asks us why we would die when we have the option to live. It makes no sense. The heart of man is folly, and we choose to die, each of us that does. He doesn't pleasure in that. It grieves Him. He's watching His children choosing to flee from Him and perish as He reaches out to them.
"Be still." Exactly what you're likely to tell a child that's doing something that could harm him- or herself.
Be still, and know that He is God, that He is love, that He is able, and that He is concerned for your best interest.

Love, Justice, And Mercy

There are several ways of writing either "mercy" or "compassion" in Hebrew.

The three most common for compassion are follows:

1. חֶמלָה
2. רַחֲמָנוּת 
3. רַחֲמִים 

And for mercy:

1. רַחֲמִים
2. חֶמלָה 
3. רַחֲמָנוּת 

Same three words.
And to anybody who may be curious, i did use Google Translate for this--shoddy source, but it gets the job done. I'm not a multilinguist; barely have i a grasp on my first language, let alone a second.

This is the reason some versions say God has compassion for us, whereas another would say He has mercy on us. Essentially the same words, same expressed meaning.
A friend and i were discussing how justice and love come together, and how mercy would fit into the mix. This is my personal opinion.

Firstly, i'll state that compassion has the prefix of "com," which means "together" or "with." Passion is "ardent love."
So compassion means, in essence, "with great love."
The Passion of Christ was His transference from King of The Universe to Servant of All and, ultimately, obedience to men unto the point of receiving a criminal's death sentence (Philippians 2:5-8).
We, as Christians, must show mercy to all without exclusion or condition. In this mercy, we show compassion to them for the glory of God. We share with Christ His passion for them.

Galatians 2:20, Paul says it's no longer he that lives, but Christ living in him, as he has been crucified with Christ.
When we show compassion for people for the sake of God's glory, we share in Christ's passion, in His crucifixion, and we crucify ourselves with Him. We cannot show compassion except at the cross, and not because of us, but because of Christ.

Now, love and justice are a tricky pair.
Love is undue. In terms of its nature, it is not treating someone how they deserve to be. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Justice is treating one how they deserve to be treated, taking into account their wrongs and their sins.
Justice and mercy seem to contradict, but there is a point where the two marry.
At the cross.

At the cross, justice for us was set upon the shoulders of Christ, yet by His very nature, He is love (looking over those who had crucified Him, He said "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.")
That is love. There is no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus, embodying love, was now holding justice upon Himself as He hang from the cross.

They fused at the cross and became something new. They became passion.
For this, as products of that passion, as people set upon by grace, sinners who are forgiven by God's love and mercy, we are to look at others "with great love," or with compassion--with His passion.
When we forgive, when we have compassion for someone, we do as Jesus did; we take their sin upon ourselves to unburden them of it, and in sharing His passion with them, sharing the cross with Christ, He takes it from us ("For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you").

We forgive because He first forgave us.

By forgiving those who have wronged us, we show them love by not counting their transgressions against us. This love expresses mercy. But it's no longer mere mercy that we show them, but justice since the death of Christ. It's justice because God showed us mercy, and it would be unjust for us to not show them the same mercy that was shown to us ("while we were still sinners, Christ died for us").

At the cross, justice and mercy become united, and love is their conduit.

Some Brief Correlating . . .

The other day, i was having a conversation about forgiveness, and who it benefits. I find that forgiving someone does little good for me, but it's me offering grace (what little i have to offer), a wholly Christian theme, to someone who doesn't necessarily deserve it. Christ on the cross, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," (or something along those lines) did little good for Christ's sake but show yet a further example of grace. It was for their sake that He forgave.

I digress. That has little to do with this post. Now to the meat of it.

As said, i was having a discussion about forgiveness. I thought back to what happens if a "brother" wrongs us.

We are told it's our duty to take it up with them, not theirs to come to us. We do this to cause a stirring inside of them so that they may see their wrong and right it, or at least apologize. If they do not hear us, we're to go and gather one or two witnesses so that it may be established by the testimony of two or three (Matthew 18:15-17).

Now in Romans 3, we have this little passage: "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin." (v. 20)

As those two seemingly unrelated passages came to mind, so did a revelation.

The law, the Torah, is from God. It is how we become conscious of our sin. In Matthew, it's our duty to make our brother conscious of his sin against us by telling him what he's done.
God does just that; through the law of the Old Covenant, the Torah, He confronts us, He brings the wrongs we've committed against Him to our attention.

Then Matthew 18 goes on to say that, if they do not hear us, we're to get one or two witnesses and confront him again.
God did that, too. He sent His Son, through Whom all things were made to be. He came back with a witness. Christ. We killed Christ. What greater witness to our wrongs than the very One we crucified?
No, not just one witness; He sent another. The Comforter, the Helper, the Advocate. The Advocate. An Advocate that stirs up our heart to repentance. Through the Holy Spirit, we are inclined to godly or spiritual sorrow, which is seeking penitence with God through Christ.

We sinned against God.

He sent Christ.
We crucified Him, emphasizing our breaking of the Torah.
He sent the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit inclines us to apologize for our wrongs.

In this, the selected passage from Matthew 18 is fulfilled; God made known our sins by means of the law (Romans 3). We didn't hear Him, so He came to us with the two Witnesses.

"Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, you Israelites: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin, they will die for it; because of the sin they have committed they will die. But if a wicked person turns away from the wickedness they have committed and does what is just and right, they will save their life. Because they consider all the offenses they have committed and turn away from them, that person will surely live; they will not die. Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?
"Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!" (Ezekiel 18:25-32)

We know we've wronged Him the moment we accept the Torah as His law. That is His beckon to you; He wants you to repent. He wants you to seek Him. He wants you to live.

An Ironic Turn Of Events . . .

If you want to learn something new, you must step into new territory. If you open your Bible, don't go to the familiar passages of faithfulness or hope or patience or love or whatever it is that you need to read about, because those principles are the foundation of God's Word. There is not a piece of paper between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 that is void of these things.
So i encourage you to open to a random page, and start to read something new.
Take it for what it is, and take it for what you are.

Moments ago, i posted that on Facebook. I just tried it myself. I have come to the conclusion that God is a very humorous Being (mostly with ironic humor, it seems), and this is no exception.
1 Chronicles 5:23-6:32. Are you kidding me? This? Lineage. Ancestral record keeping. The descendants of the half-tribe of M'nasheh (Manasseh), the heads of their families, their exile, and then the list begins.
Nearly a page and a half of "The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The children of Amram . . ." and so on.
So i'm sitting here trying to figure out the hope, faithfulness, love, etc., that is here on these two pages.
It hits me. Lineage is legacy. What more evidence of faithfulness can be asked than to bear witness to the lineage of Levi, the tribe "set apart" by God?
Granted, i'm having a hard time reading the entirety of these two pages (it's dizzying, to be honest), it's truly a beautiful thing to see this heritage, this promise fulfilled, this grace bestowed upon an entire tribe from their ancestry.

God visits the iniquity of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him (Deuteronomy 5:9). This is evident in the "half-tribe of M'naseh."

That may seem bleak, but there's a wonderful, beauteous flipside to it; the following verse says that He shows steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love Him and keep His commandments. The tribe of Levi comes to mind. How wonderful it is that the descendants of Levi are named and numbered.
What's even more wonderful about this is that when we're simply flesh-and-blood, we are bound to the ancestral curses (call it what you will, as many who do not take the Bible to be literal would prefer a different terminology to give credence here, but i see it as wholly literal and, therefore, will call it an ancestral curse). If your great-grandfather hated God, chances are, God will visit that iniquity upon you, because He does not fail in keeping His Word. However, when you give up your flesh-and-blood nature and become a new being in the Spirit, through Christ, you are no longer bound by this, because God becomes your Father--and He keeps His commandments. He will bless to the thousandth generation because you are His child, not a child of this earth.

See in this; "Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.
"And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’" (Ezekiel 16)
You have no place in this world anymore, and only God is your Father. He makes a covenant, He makes beautiful, He restores that which is no longer of this world. In this chapter, the girl found is Jerusalem, and she turns away, but God remembers His covenant.

And look at this; "Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life." (Ezekiel 18:25-27)
“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live.” (v. 30-32)

The patrimonial curse is nullified when God becomes your Father, and you receive Him as such. It turns, instead, into ancestral blessing.
Your lineage is not one that can be simply bound in a book because it exceeds time itself. Your ancestry is Divine and Eternal.
Just imagine, opening a book and seeing five words: "The children of God: You."
Now i'm fully convinced that there is hope, life, faithfulness, and love emanating from each and every half-opaque page between the flyleaves of a Bible, even if it's but a list of names.

It's Absurdly Logical

Mark 11:12-13, Jesus curses a fig tree that had no figs.

And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

The fig tree (and it points out that figs were out of season) didn't do anything, one might think.  But with a closer examination, we see that is precisely the reason it was cursed.
The fig tree had no fruit on it, and Jesus was hungry, so He cursed it. This smacks of being a tantrum, but it's not. It's asking the fig tree to go against its very nature, which denotes asking the absurd.
But maybe Jesus' request was absurd. ("absurd: [of an idea or suggestion] wildly unreasonable, illogical")
Maybe His very way is absurd. In this life, it certainly is absurdity, because it's not of worldly nature.

He was demanding of the tree, in essence, "Go against your nature, and do as I wish in the moment I call on you, or else perish."
He couldn't seriously expect a fig tree to listen to Him, though, could He?
Get this; "As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.'" (Mark 11:20-21)
The fig tree withered because He told it to. It did alter its nature to do as He commanded. But He didn't command it to bear fruit, so one would be led to think it was still unreasonable to expect it to have fruit on it out of season.
But we're not talking about just a man here, we're talking about the Son of God. The Word made flesh, the Way, the Truth, the Life--get that? The Life. That's exactly why He could expect it. Because His very presence blesses. He makes the tree fruitful. He designed the nature of the tree, He could expect it to produce any time of year He desires. But this tree rebelled, in a sense. Instead of saying "Yield fruit!" and it happen, He said “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.”

This tree is much like people. He expects us to be fruitful and to multiply. This was God's first command to mankind. It wasn't a new command that, at Christ's approach, life should be teeming, even amongst the trees. Nature should be conforming to His every step. Mankind should be conforming to His approach instead of conforming to the world.
He could say "Yield fruit!" to every person on the day of judgment, when we meet Him face-to-face, and it happen. Even if it's not in our time to be productive, we should be yielding fruit for we know He is coming. Instead of saying that, though, He is going to say to many, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again," because they have lived of a nature of this world instead of a nature of the Spirit.
After all, living by the Spirit produces a fruitful life (Galatians 5: . . . I think 20-something). Life of the flesh does not produce any fruit.
He expects us, as with the fig tree, to produce fruit because we are near Him. Many don't, and will subsequently be cursed.

The reason i say the essence of His expectation of the tree involves the moment that Christ calls upon the tree is because of two of the three men at the end of Luke 9; one wanted to bury his father, another wanted to say goodbye to his family. Jesus was there at that moment. The moment He calls upon us, we should not have anything in our way too pressing as to not be able to drop, nothing else should be as important as following Christ. We should always be ready to give up all else and follow Him, because we don't know the moment that He'll call us.

But still arisen is the issue of not being the time for it to produce figs . . . "For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." (1 Thessalonians 5:2)
We know He's on His way. We should, therefore, regardless of our earthly nature, be prepared, because we don't know the day in which He will arrive, only that He is on His way.

Good Friday

The last two or three weeks have been of absent-mindedness on my part.
I seem to lack "fervor" in the things i've been meditating on.
But this day, roughly two millenia ago, my Savior died for me. And He died for you. Broken souls, unworthy and filthy beings, hopeless people . . . All of us. We were truly hopeless without Him.
But in my seeming absence of passion, i'm reminded of the Passion of Christ. He was stressed to the point that He was sweating blood. This is something that happens to mortals, though not often. Facing death isn't enough to cause it. He knew what awaited Him after the torture, after the beatings, after the crucifixion, after the death . . . He knew what awaited Him when His Father would forsake Him, when He would bear the shame and penalty for every sin you and i have ever committed, when He would be face-to-face with Satan who would be laughing and mocking, beating and tormenting Him.
And He did not turn away, He did not flee, He did not hesitate to offer Himself for us.

Like a lamb to the slaughter He was silent.

He did not so much as offer a word to avoid what was coming.

No, instead He looked at the crowd and said "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."
Instead, He turned to the man on the cross beside Him and said "today you will be with Me in Paradise."
Instead of you. Instead of me. In our stead.

As my favorite secular author described it in "The Traveller," which i highly recommend,
"Those eyes. Those eyes. My God, they’re so—they’re so hurt! Like a father who’s been beaten by his own children. Yet who still loves his children. Who’s been set upon by loved ones and stripped and beaten and nailed and humiliated!"*

*Matheson, Richard (2011-09-27). Steel: And Other Stories (p. 185). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.

Discipleship

What's it mean to "make disciples of all the nations?"

A disciple, defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another."

So, in that light, think of what it means to "make disciple of all the nations." It's not merely spreading the Word of God, spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the power for salvation unto the Gentiles), and leading others to Christ; it's teaching others to teach others. It means our faith should be viral.
A disciple is not merely a follower, but also a leader; a disciple leads others to Christ. Be a disciple, and make disciples of all the nations. Teach them not just to follow Christ, but to do as you do; teach them to spread the Gospel as well.

I've recently ordered a book and have high expectations for it. It's called "Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples," and it's by Francis Chan.
Hopefully it will live up to my hope.
Regardless, i know it's not about the size of any ministry i may be a part of, but my heart and motivation. If it's for personal glory, i have already failed--however, if it's for God's glory, to know Him better, to be able to relate to Him as a friend in this very room, then i am succeeding. If i touch His heart, and if He touches mine, if my life is as Christ and i am abundant in life and my death would be as personal gain, then i am succeeding.

If we're comfortable with our humanity, if we've come to terms with our nature, if we are okay being here and in this world, we're not going about this life correctly.
The seed (soul) is oppressed by the weed (human nature), and when the seed thinks it's thriving intertwined with the roots and under the shade of the weed, it's only because the seed has never been anywhere else.