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.

Concerning Consecration

Firstly, i am not going to say that Sunday is a less important day of the week. It's the day we honor the Sabbath, though orthodoxically the Sabbath falls on a Saturday, not a Sunday. Then again, Easter and Christmas don't fall on the days of Christ's birth or resurrection; those are merely when we observe them.
I understand the importance of observation, and that Sundays, being the day we honor the Sabbath, are important.
So without further ado, carrying on.

I want to bring to mind a certain fellow from the New Testament, perhaps the last of the Old Testament prophets. To know what i mean by "Old Testament prophets," those that lived before Christ were often the sort that lived as recluses, living outside of society, in hills, wildernesses, and the like. They were revered, probably even feared by some for their seeming mystical lifestyle and nature. They didn't dress nice, they didn't eat the same things as everybody else; they lived by the provision of God, and relied only on it. They could've taken to fame and grew in wealth, but they did just the opposite. Above all else, they knew who they were in God. They spoke with no authority of their own, but rather said "This is what the Lord says," invoking nothing of their own but rather the words God had given them.
And John the Baptist was of this lot.
He knew who he was, what God called him to, and set himself on (or rather, was called to) the same path as these prophets; "A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'".
He was a prophet who had been prophesied about.

We are not called to simply live good on Sundays. I'm not talking about smoking, cussing, drinking; i'm talking about living as though God was alive in your heart!
We are a bipolar Church. We raise our hands on Sunday morning, we go up front for prayer, we may even shed tears, enough to fill a well, but come Monday many seem to have forgotten it.
Consecration is not merely living good. It's living in faith. It's trusting in God's providence. It's having faith that, though we may be homeless, orphans, abused, alone, starving, that God has providence to get His will completed, be it in our rags, or in our riches. It is the casting off of everything society expects of us. It is living without shame, not being afraid to be seen as a strange mystic to someone who doesn't understand the power flowing through us from Christ. It is being renewed according to Romans 12:1-2, offering ourselves as a living sacrifice should our Father in Heaven decide we should be required to die for His name. It is losing all inhibition, abiding by every faintest conviction of behavior we may receive from the Holy Spirit. It's being radically compliant to the Word of God, seeing God's place for us in Scripture and stripping ourselves away until we are fashioned into His decrees, set down by His prophets.

Yes, one of the Ten Commandments is to remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. In context, it is a law regarding work, not behavior. We are not told to live holier on this day, nor are we told to be a bolder follower of Christ on this day. No, instead we are told that the Sabbath is our day of rest.
I would dare say it more important to live in a consecrated manner for six days and then be laxed on the one--but that would be a falsity. The only truly Christian way to live is seven days a week. To live as though we were inside of the church every single moment, because we are the Church. The Church meets at a building on Sundays. We call it the House of the Lord, but that term was for the Temple of God set up by David if i'm not mistaken. The House of the Lord is, since the tearing of the veil, the Temple of God, is within us. It inhabits the church building only when we, the Church, occupies it, and only by proxy then.
Our sin is not in treating the building as less than absolutely holy. It is in treating our daily life as somehow less sanctified.
You carry the Church with you on Sundays when you are at the meeting place we call church, and also Monday through Saturday as you work, shop, eat, play games, sleep, read, breathe; in all things, you are the living and breathing Church, the tangible Body of Christ to the world.
It is your consecration to behave that way.
Our commission is to make disciples of all the nations--but this commission begins within us. We are the nations, too. Make disciples of yourselves first.
We are each called to be the next John The Baptist, the one who cries out to all who pass by, "Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him."

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!"

Some Thoughts On The Holy Spirit

Not everyone cares to talk about the Holy Spirit all that much, but i feel we must. As a community of believers, as Christians, as the burning light of God in this world, we must speak not only of God and Christ, but the power that drives us, that fuels us, that energetically sets our hearts aflame and leads us.
I'm not sure the reason the Christian community overlooks the Holy Spirit. It could be due to fear of blasphemy, as blasphemy against the Spirit is said to be the only unforgivable sin.
But think thusly; if speaking ill of your father would get you kicked out of the house and left on the streets, would you do it? Of course not. Would you not talk about them for fear of it? Unlikely. You would act as though they were your parents.
Why then, when speaking about the infinitely merciful and gracious God, do we speak of His Spirit with such reluctance? We should speak of the Holy Spirit all the more, that we have not been kicked out of the house for all the other wrongs we've committed against Him!

Now, the Holy Spirit is an "all-consuming" Fire. He's not "somewhat-consuming," or even "mostly-consuming." He is "all-consuming." Beginning to end, He is there.
We speak of God, of Christ, of salvation, even of the gifts of the Spirit, but we do not speak enough -could not speak enough!- of the Holy Spirit. Speaking of the gifts but not of the source is like saying "I got a guitar," but not saying it was from your friend. It's a massive overlook.
He wants us to give Him glory, but the accreditation is often left out, or worse, given unto ourselves (especially when speaking of words of knowledge or wisdom, or of faith or of love, which are gifts of the Spirit). This attitude is a disgrace. All He wants is for us to recognize Him and say "He gave me this guitar--and He's giving me lessons on it, too."

Again i say, He is an all-consuming Fire. He burns within us passionately, and with the same passion and power as that which was in the Word that said "Let there be light!"
That kind of power is frightening. It can create or destroy with but a single word. That is where the fear of God flows from; not in a terror that pushes us away, but a fear of being on the wrong side of the power behind creation (that is often initially what drives us to Him, but love does not come from being "scared to" something). He does not align Himself with you; you align yourself with Him. And we don't always fear being on the wrong side of this force, you fear being away from this force. This fear is a dependency. And it develops into love; just as a bear cub is terrified of being away from its mother, we should be infinitely more terrified of being separated from the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not some strange, shy thing. He is bold. He is perhaps the boldest characteristic of God.
God reigns. Christ atones. The Holy Spirit links the two together inside of us.
I say He is bold because it is the characteristic of God that makes Him real to us. Faith is a gift of the Spirit.
It's bold because it drives us to be like Christ, it drives us to love God, and it drives us to live for God. Whether or not we give this credit to the Holy Spirit, it is the reason we can preach, we can teach, we can love, we can hope, we can live.
The Holy Spirit is the invisible qualities of God mentioned in Romans 1, the undeniable aspect that makes us to be without excuse.
He's not something to tip-toe around while avoiding eye contact. It is the living force of God living within us, His Spirit, His "Breath of Life" given to Adam and Eve. It is what makes a son of man into a child of God, and transforms the dried-up bones scattering about the valley into a standing army of flesh-and-bone.

So That No One Can Boast . . .

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:8-10)

These verses are seen whenever i open a book lately, as they're printed on my bookmark. And this passage, though short, is such a profound explanation of the Christian mindset.

"For it is by grace you have been saved..."
This, grace, is the encompassing definition of Christianity. It is the Law fulfilled on our behalf. It is the humility of the Son of God, through Whom the universe was made; a King—The King of the universe, of creation in its entirety; from, through, and to Whom are all things and is all glory due. The King of kings, the Lord of Lords, the roaring Lion and the gentle Lamb, the Conqueror of nations and the seeking Shepherd who searches always for the lost sheep. This is grace, that He gave up His place to not only live like one of us, nor just to die for us, but to go to Hell on our behalf. It's by this that we are saved.

"...through faith..."

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Faith is belief in something, true, but it goes deeper than that. To say i have faith in my closest friend would not be to say i believe he/she exists, but that i have trust in them to keep something entrusted to them, to look out for my well-being; faith is a sort of love. It's always hoping, always believing, always trusting. Faith ensures loyalty; it is not being able to see the entirety of a situation, yet knowing far deeper than words that all is not lost.
And all is not lost, i tell you, because we have faith. We have faith in God. It's not merely a belief in His existence (for even the demons believe—and shudder!). And that faith is what drives us to give of ourselves, to hope that what little help we can offer will, in turn, change the world over the course of generations for the better. We have faith that drives us on to works, but the idea of works will be addressed presently.

"...and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God..."
It's easy to picture this as meaning grace is not from ourselves but from God, but that much is obvious about grace. Grace is always the undeserved gift. It would seem redundant to point this out. Therefore, my opinion is that this is speaking of both faith and grace, the two aforementioned topics. Faith is a gift from God, and this is evident when reading 1 Corinthians 12. It, like prophecy or healing, speaking in tongues or wisdom, is a gift of the Spirit, and we cannot come to faith except, and solely by, the grace of God, the gift of God. Not from ourselves do we enter into the gift of faith, but by the grace of God's calling. We have nothing to do with it except readiness. The moment we think God calls us because we are a good or deserving person, pride has already flecked the heart with blackness. But humility is, like faith, a gift He calls us to; all we have to do is submit. In submission, pride is killed. In submission, the coals of humility are kindled to flame.

"...not by works..."
This is a particularly interesting section to me, because i am of the sort that believes works are a fruit of the Spirit, and that faith brings forth these fruits. Anyone can do "good" works, but no one can become "good" by them. There is none good but God. Works by themselves are for naught; vain. They are often self-serving if not carried out for the sake of God's glory. By doing things, such as giving to the poor or volunteering, we are seeking glory and recognition. There are, however, two motivations to this. The first is self, which is always pushing us to be seen by our peers, admired and congratulated (not that these things are wrong in and of themselves; they should not be the driving force for anything, for if we do things to be recognized, our fleeting and momentary recognition is our reward). The second motivation is the Spirit, which urges us to always love more deeply, and to be nameless in the sight of man so the glory may be directed to God.
Also, i have been discussing works with people lately, and come to the conclusion that people need to earn something. They feel they must earn their way into Heaven, when the man on the cross beside Jesus is too simple a model for us. We must make our beliefs tangible by changing it from solely Christ's work (the Gospel) to also a few things here and there that we do to "win" Heaven. This ideology is flawed, though it gives us something to grasp. All in all, it is grace, not works, that gave us entry into the kingdom of God.

"...so that no one can boast."
If we think that something we can do gets us a little more recognition with God, we are deceived by our works. Nothing we can do can make God love us more or gain us entry into Heaven (what is impossible with man is possible with God). We have no boast in anything we do, but we do have exceeding reason to boast because of what Christ already did—before we were even born. If we're at a place where we are praying in thanks that we're not like someone else, we're boasting in our hearts. God desires humility; it was the tax collector that went home justified, having been too ashamed of his human nature to even lift his eyes to Heaven or approach the altar, rent his garments and beat his chest, pleading "God have mercy on me, a sinner," not the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not like the tax collector.

Boasting is not as simple as humility in public, but humility in heart. When we approach God, we are to have confidence, not cockiness. We're to be humble, meek, but sure that Christ is our Mediator, our propitiation for sin and that, through His works, and not our own, we can boast and proclaim "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
Not by what we can do, but by what He did do.

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.

For Such A Time As This

First, let me explain that this is, quite simply put, grace. All of this, a derivative of grace bestowed on an undeserving (and apparently simple-minded) fool such as myself.

“Grow where you're planted,” is a quote I've read countless times.

Basically, we can be most effective “here” instead of “there.” God will transplant us if/when He desires to have us there (I would say “need,” but how self-righteous would it be to think that God needs me? Is it beyond Him to create another like me, only exceeding in all ways? Certainly not. Therefore I am, by grace, called according to His purpose, and solely out of grace do I become a tool for Him). But where we are is where we're planted so the obvious thing for us is to grow in the pot we're in. When we're ready for a bigger container, He will transplant, but only in the Good Gardener's perfect timing.

We should never desire to be “there,” because “there” will become our “here” when He wills it (in other words, He will put us there).

Here's where I get a might bit personal. I've shared this thought with few, and only close and trusted friends at that.

I've struggled with why I'm here, free, in America. It's legal for me to worship in my own home, to own a Bible, and even to attend fellowship meetings with other believers two or three times a week, depending on the schedule. I'm blessed.

Why this is a struggle for me is because there are millions, perhaps billions, putting themselves in harm's way for the sake of the Gospel. I believe it's around fifty to fifty-five countries that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is illegal to distribute and/or display, and over ten of which are actively hostile to Christianity.

So why me?

Many ask that question when life is going wrong or they're facing persecution, so I am impelled (inwardly from external source; opposing “compelled,” which means outwardly from internal source) to ask why, on their behalf, I am free to exercise my faith. This has plagued me, kept me awake at night, and turned my stomach to consider. A freedom so basic to me is a crime so treacherous to another. Why do I get water from a faucet, in accommodating quantities that I can shower with, water the dog, water plants, and all with clear and cool water, yet another person is in such desperate need for water that they will drink from a stagnant, murky pool—one I'd scarcely even touch, let alone think to drink from?

And I'm complacent in faith sometimes, all the while enjoying (read: overlooking) blessings that countless in the world will never know.

I'd come to the conclusion that it was grace, and grace alone as to why I'm at this locality and this freedom.

I was wrong. And right.
It is grace. But it's also for a reason I can comprehend.

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14, ESV)

“For such a time as this,” we're told, Esther was put in place as queen. Not to remain silent in the grace bestowed upon her, but to act. Surely, the salvation for the Jewish people would come from somewhere else and at a different time, but we surrender our crown, our glory, and our hope when we give up the place God has put us in.
“For such a time as this,” then, I am blessed with the freedom to pray, to read, to glorify God in my daily life, to congregate with fellow believers in a building designated for the church to gather in. For such a time as this, we're called not to be silent, but to pray night and day that the Lord of the Harvest would send laborers into the field, for the field is quite ready. And who knows? Maybe I'll be one such laborer? All I can say right now is that my duty is to pray that He will send workers, and be open to the idea that I may be one of them in due time.

For such a time as this!

I am not given grace to enjoy this life without regard, but for such a time as this I am given the grace to act in ways that others are restricted.

This phrase given to Esther by her cousin, Mordecai, is relevant not just to the queen of the Jews of the fifth century before Christ, but to each Christian today that is living in luxury while neglecting the grace not of their material blessing but of the calling of Christ.

Spiritual Gifts

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul mentions the gifts of the Spirit. In fact, it probably goes into more detail than any other section of the Bible on such things. It ends with an interesting phrase, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.”
This is followed by 1 Corinthians 13, which, as many know, is the chapter that so eloquently and dutifully defines love by its actions and heart (this being the “more excellent way;” to prophesy without love does no good. Love does good, and it gives fruit to the gifts). He says, in chapter 12, to “earnestly desire the higher gifts.”

As he points out two chapters later, prophecy is the greatest gift because it speaks to people to build them up and to encourage them. I wish to stir in a little bit of my own interpretation of this.

The gifts, he measures by their usefulness to the congregation of believers. Prophecy is better than speaking in tongues unless there is an interpreter. Speaking in tongues is pointless to the congregation if they can't understand what's being said, so the interpreter (also by himself is without use, for he has nothing to perceive) brings to fulfillment the gift of speaking in tongues, and likewise the speaker to the translator.

God created two humans; He obviously has design in nature that two (read: fellowship) are required for the greatest manner of things to come unto fruition.
The second eye gives depth to sight; brings us into the third dimension of perception. Otherwise, we could see that distance exists, but it's incredibly difficult to grasp distance with only one eye open. Likewise, ears; a third would not be beneficial as it would only serve to confuse and disorient. With but one, we'd have to spin in a circle to tell what direction a sound originated from.
I don't know if this is universal, but I can lift over twice as much using both arms as opposed to using only one (for the sake of grip and balance).

So of course the fellowship in the gift creates a new dimension, an entirely new level of Spiritual gift, one that impresses upon the receivers to love due to fellowship. Without love, the gifts are empty and fruitless. But when a gift inclines to love, it will be the greatest, no doubt.

But still, of the solitary gifts, prophecy is the greatest.
Not only is it the most beneficial to the whole, it also has a unique quality about it.

Angels, I believe, can understand the speaking of tongues, and interpret. I think it's a Heavenly language and that it's their first language. All the gifts come from the “same Spirit,” and so are from the Holy Spirit alone. They're not something to throw away nor to disregard.
But angels can be wise, intelligent, faithful, etc. They can manifest all the gifts of the Spirit—except one. The “Heavenly Hosts” cannot glimpse the future, nor can Satan or any of his minions. They are stuck in the “now.” God alone knows the day and the hour in which Christ will return; no one and no thing else could guess or know.
Foreknowledge is a gift wholly manifested by God the Father, and by Him alone.
When we receive the gift of prophecy, of true prophecy that details events yet to occur, we are granted something unique to God, withheld from angels and beasts.
This gift is greater not only because it benefits the whole, but because it is only God who can see what is to come to pass and, in so, the intimacy with God that comes with prophecy would be that which is incomparable because it is solely between God the Father and His child.

With this being said, the intertwining of chapters 12 and 13 must not be overlooked; prophecy, without love, makes us a clanging cymbal; a noise and nothing more.
So, as said in the introduction of chapter 14, “Pursue love.” Just as with the gift of speaking in tongues' requisite of an interpreter, so does any gift require love. Love fulfills these gifts, resolves them, and brings the intercourse of believers (in terms of a body of believers being as one in Spirit) to fruition and wholeness.

In short, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, pursue love, and earnestly desire the Spiritual gifts (namely those that bring the furthered level of fellowship with other believers, and greater unity and intimacy with their Source).

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.

Radiance

God made us adaptive.
We get into things that aren't good, even if we don't partake ourselves, and we start looking "dark". Not in complexion, but in nature. We just look like what we surround ourselves with.

That's why, when Moses came down from the mountain with the tablets, his face was shining. He had been close enough to God that he had become sort of like him; God's glory was embedded in him, and he radiated. He didn't know it was happening, but eventually put on a veil to cover it. He had been in the presence of God, seen God pass by (not His face), and it caused him to glow (Exodus 34).

That's not the only instance of this happening, either. In Luke's account of the Transfiguration, there's one noticeable variation from the other two accounts. There are other accounts where Jesus' face was shining (Matthew's version compared Jesus' face to the sun), and His clothes were bright as lightning, but this account says Moses and Elijah were in "glorious splendor." (Matthew 17, Mark 9, Luke 9)
Quite possibly shining along with Jesus.

The angels at the tomb of Jesus are described as wearing clothes that were like lightning.

1 John 3 says that what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when He appears, we will be like Him.
God made us adaptive. When we are in the presence of God, our nature alters to be more like His--even to the point of literally glowing. Personally, i've never glowed, nor seen someone who did. I do know, however, that when He comes in His full glory, in comparison to His prior earthly existence as a butterfly is to a caterpillar, we will also be transfigured. We will radiate. We will shine like Him.

Lastly, and not least, there is Revelation 22. The final chapter of the final book of the Bible.
When God has wiped every tear from our eyes, when He has given the water of life to the thirsty, when He dwells among us, He will replace the sun. 
"There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light." (22:5)
And we're going to get to be near Him, and we will become more like Him, because He made us to be like what we surround ourselves with.

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.

Remember, God Made You Special, And He Loves You Very Much!

Times have changed. Socially, and spiritually. We call it progress, but it's really not.

In 1993, twenty years ago this year (that makes me feel so old), Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki produced a children's show called "Veggie-Tales." It was kind of a hit among Christian families, and even to this day I enjoy many of the older episodes. My favorite would probably by Dave And The Giant Pickle, a retelling of David and Goliath. It was about as historically accurate (though dressed up in a couple ways so as to capture children's attention) as the recent "Bible" series that aired on the History Channel. Dave went and got five smooth stones from a brook in the Veggie-Tales episode (which the Bible points that out for a specific reason; an entire book could be devoted to expressing how impressive it was that he took five stones). In the more adult-oriented Bible series, he reaches down into the sand and grabs one. Just one. The children's show from '96 was seriously more accurate in this than the one that was geared for a more mature audience in '12.

The "shalom" at the end of each episode, the farewell, goes "Remember, kids, God made you special, and He loves you very much! Bye!"
If you turn to television evangelists or go to one of these "mega-churches", the basic theme of each sermon will likely (there are many exceptions, but it is growing increasingly common for itching ears to be tickled) be "Remember, adults, God made you special, and He loves you very much!" Yes, they preach more than just that, but it can be summarized in that phrase.
It's true, God did make you special, and He does love you very much. The Bible, summed up, says just that. It's a love story of God and how He cares for you. But what is said in the Word of God that isn't said in these churches is the difference between having peaceful situations and having a peaceful spirit. It is a massive difference.
They preach that nobody will do you wrong, that loved ones won't die, that trials will not come, that everything in life is bunnies and rainbows. Here's a smack-on-the-cheek to that philosophy: Matthew chapter 10. The words of Jesus in that chapter do little for the ideology that only blessings befall those who trust God.
What these preachers (I refrain from calling them pastors because a preacher is a person with a microphone, whereas a pastor is a leader of a flock) say creates a thin faith, a faith based on "God won't let anything bad happen to me." What this does is create the mindset of "If bad things happen, God isn't there."
Instead of this teaching, Paul said to delight in your trials and hardships because they help you in the long run.

I went to a morning and evening Christmas service at a church in another state; it was a fairly large church (goodness, the stained-glass window in front of the room the preacher stepped out of was glorious--one could even describe it as vulgar). Sadly, albeit honestly, cartoons aimed at children that I watched as a kid were as informative as these two services if not moreso.

This is not progress, people.
This is appeasement.
It's offering only appetizers.

"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

That's something not mentioned by these preachers; 2 Timothy 4:3-5
Not only does it prophesy that people will only want to hear happy-go-lucky doctrine (which has come to pass in the last couple centuries, but all the more in the past decade), and that they will find preachers who preach such a doctrine, and also that they will turn away from listening to the truth, but get this; it says to "endure suffering."

Why would it say that if there was nothing but "victory," "favor," "blessings," and the like in our future?