Relationship not Real Estate

S - Matthew 28:1-10 (NIV): "After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you." So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

O - Why didn't the early disciples try to "recover" the cross?  Why didn’t they try to protect and lay claim to possessing the empty tomb for proof, history and as a place of worship?  Religious folks tried all that hundreds of  years later but the thought apparently never crossed the minds of those who were eye witnesses to all this.  Why?  In fact, this  oversight was true for the generations of believers which followed for quite some time.  I don't think it was a short range view based on some perception of Jesus returning so quickly it wouldn't matter.  A week, a year, a decade, a century and the significance of the cross and the empty tomb doesn't increase … it's incalculable from the very beginning. So why this glaring inactivity or even failure?  The reason lies in the very nature of God's will on earth. His will is for ongoing relationship with the humans he created.  Jesus is the point, the life, the way, the truth.  His significance in NOT found in the cross or the tomb … it is in who he is.  These are symptoms of his love, greatness, life, power, mercy, tenderness, brilliance and goodness.  The reason to leave the cross and tomb unclaimed is because Jesus has claimed all who will come to him … not to his cross or tomb or even words … but to him.  He saves us not the cross, the tomb or the words.  They are his … he does not belong to them; and they are only reflections of his awesome person. 

A - I would like the cross and the empty and even the words to console me when I can't seem to get Jesus to act or move in my desperate moments the way I want him to and think he should.  I think on better days I would just settle for them and go on my way … but they aren't life and can't give me life.   Jesus wants all the world and all of me … not a crowd of admirers but of brothers and sisters … not my religious self but my whole self in ongoing relationship/connection.  I am very grateful for the words, the cross and the empty tomb … but they testify of him and I must come to him for life.  Thank God they didn't capture the cross and possess the empty tomb! I must be on my guard against the yeast of the Pharisees … who used the words of Scripture but changed and refused the meaning.

P - Lord whom death could hold,

Thank you for your love, your will, your purpose and your methods … brilliant, varied and at times heart stopping and even heart crushing.  I am grateful that you want me … even at my worst.  Lord, I am relying on you and your awesome brilliance, limitless power and extreme goodness.  Thank you for letting me belong to you by choice, though I am already yours by right.  Thank for including everyone in your death without asking for their agreement.  Thank you for dignifying us in giving us the choice to join you in your irrepressible life.  Lord, according to grace and because of love, I choose you back!

Steve

Go Climb a Tree!

S - Luke 19:1-10 (NIV): "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.' “But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.""

O - What if Zacchaeus hadn't climbed that sycamore-fig tree?  What if his desire to see Jesus was overcome by his lifelong "shortness"?  What if he had simply accepted the sad circumstance and went back home alone?  What was it that inspired him to not settle for just trying and instead to climb the tree?  Scripture doesn't tell us but I wonder if this great differential can be described by the term desperate as distinguished from willing?  Willing would have carried him to the crowd not to the tree.  Willing would have ended in a nice try and then accompanied him back to business as usual.  Desperate is more than willing.  We normally think of it as reserved for frantic and threatening circumstances beyond our control and capacities.  None of this appears to us in the life of Zacchaeus.  He is rich, successful and healthy.  He's not looking for a miracle for himself or another--he just wants to catch a glimpse of Jesus.  Desperate is defined as overwhelmed with urgency, drastic, reckless or extreme as the only suitable response. What if we lived toward Jesus like Zacchaeus did? What if we were more than willing for this or that but we were desperate for him?  Jesus said (Matthew 7:7-11): ""Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

A - This subject of countless flannel graph stories told in Sunday School room for the last 150+ years is recorded for me/us to see more than an event in the life of Jesus but an event to be welcomed into each day.  What if I live desperate rather than willing?  What if my lifelong liabilities are not used as a definition of my limits but as an inspiration for the desperation (risk, urgency, extreme) Jesus deserves and the joy it will bring to me/us/earth?  Today, I need to desperate enough to climb a tree!  Today I am looking to climb a tree.

P - Lord who loves sinners,

Thank you for wanting us to be near you and to stay near. Lord, help me to engage the love inspired desperation which you deserve and I want to give.  Thank you for being desperate in your love for me/us.  You are extreme, urgent, in your love for us and call to us.  Lord, I yield to you and all you are doing on planet earth.  Please let me know my assignment with you in the work you are doing. I want to live out loud a desperate response to you.

All my all,

Steve

The Only Real Good to Great

S - 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, 4-5, 13 (NLT): "If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody.  … Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. … things that will endure … the greatest … is love. "

O - Clearly tangible acts of love and relational connections are the pages we may put the name and words of Jesus on AND be heard.  The challenge comes in living out the dynamics and limitations of love under pressure.  Impatient, unkind, proud and rude are all very easy responses to slide or jump into … especially with those who are the closest to us.  Not irritable and keeping no record of wrongs … how many couples and families live this out?  What enables love, real love as described here, to carry and win the day?  It must be that the One who is love has empowered us to be like him.  Jesus not only commands us to love he empowers us to love.  He also does not require us to learn and live a life of love flawlessly, just blamelessly.  In the Kingdom of Jesus, the Kingdom which lasts and really matters, good to great has only one measure.  It is not sharpened skills, organizational advance, increased efficiencies nor broadened influence. The greatest of these … of all is love.

A - I am clearly not loving flawlessly … and do not need to agonize over this truth.  He knows how I am made and made the way for blameless living.  So, in my world, love is NOT rewarded.  It is tolerated and even enjoyed but it is not rewarded.  Production, power, performance, shoving your way forward, making something work at most any cost is rewarded.  Love is okay as long as it does not interfere with goals and this world's measures of success.  Has any Hall of Fame anything ever inducted someone because they loved?  Has corporate office given bonuses for loving?  Does the Church reward or use those who love?  All this to say, the good to great which will matter does not matter to the world (secular and religious).  It does matter to the Judge of all and it’s the assignment he gives me today while it's called today.  The superlatives produce a superlative life here and hereafter … and heaven rewards those who so live.

P - Lord who is love,

I admit my failures, recent and consistent, in this regard.  Loving enemies, those who hurt and reject, those who are close and those who are far away is formidable on a good day.  There have been many not good days and the pressures of things less than love combine to distract, dissuade and discourage.  Lord, empower my little life to make you glad and to do this according to love … not as a performance for you but as a partnership with you … for you LOVE the whole world.  I want to give the way I've received.  Jesus, enable me to think, speak, act and love like you.

In them,

Steve

Play Ball!? … NOPE!

S – Daniel 3:16-18, 28, 29 (ISV): “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “It’s not necessary for us to respond in this matter. Your majesty, if it be his will, our God whom we serve can deliver us from the blazing fire furnace, and he will deliver us from you. But it not, rest assured, your majesty, that we won’t serve your gods, and we won’t worship the golden statue that you have set up.” … Nebuchadnezzar spoke up and announced: “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego! He sent his angel to deliver his servants who trusted in him.  They disobeyed the king’s command and were willing to risk their lives in order not to serve or worship any god except their own God. … there is no other god who can save like this.””

O – Why wouldn’t these three “play ball” with the king? He wasn’t asking them to refuse to worship their god/God … only to add his statue to their routine.  Should it have been that big of a deal? I mean, in that day and age that was how “things were done.” It’s the way the world of that time worked. Their entire earthly existence depended on accepting the world as it was and accommodating oneself to its practical matters of daily living … or did it? The Scriptures are clear from beginning to end … we really can’t worship more than one. Jesus put it this way (Luke 16:13): “No servant can serve two masters, because either he will hate the one and love the other, or be loyal to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and wealth!”

A – 2 Corinthians (4:4) speaks of the god of this world blinding minds and keeping people from seeing Jesus.  This tragic dynamic is possible for all humans not just for those who’ve never expressed some kind of faith.  The god of this world doesn’t mind us following Jesus as long as we add him to the way things work on earth.  We can say his words, hold religious services and claim to represent his ideas but when push comes to shove in the practical matters of daily living and one’s future … if this world dictates my course of action and compels me with the threat of impending doom for failure to comply and I do--I am playing the game of multiple masters which Jesus warns me to refuse. He said to Nicodemus and he says to me (John 3:12): “If I have told you people about earthly things and you do not believe me, how will you believe me if I tell you about heavenly things?” This world (secular and religious) wants me/us to “play ball” with it and ultimately to die with it.  Jesus calls me to believe him and really live here and hereafter.

P – Lord in heaven above and on earth below,

Thank you for calling me/us to yourself today and forever.  You are the God of daily bread. You know our needs before we ask and you are pleased to meet our needs. I admit I cannot (and do not want to) serve two masters … and money wants me to serve it and love it but it will never love or care for me.  Today, I am thrilled to be able to say yes to you and no to all others; to join the ancient three in living out loud the fierce personal loyalty (trust) you deserve and offer.  I believe you will do all that you have said in providing and protecting. You are life and I want only to be with you and on your teamJ!

Yes to you and no to all others,

Steve

A Toxic Combination: True Words and Self-deception

S - Jeremiah 7:2-8, 17-19 (NIV): ""Stand at the gate of the LORD's house and there proclaim this message: “‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!" If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless." … Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?  The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the LORD. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame?"

O - Twice the Lord repeats his desire for his people to live in the land, to not be rejected and dispersed … though he has been warning them for a very long time.  The problem was their religious lives which were an amalgamation of God's words with earth's desire to control, perform and acquire.  The ultimate issue is not  so much about offending God but harming themselves (this also is stated twice).  Keeping/using the words of Scripture and losing their meaning is the genesis of this trouble then and now.  Hearing is to engage doing, not mere intellectual assent.  Loving God is always verified in how we're treating our neighbors and enemies.  Right or true words become self-deceptive and death producing when they are not lived out loud but merely spoken out loud.  The beauty of living them is not found in a flawless performance but a blameless expression of trust in the Living God.

A - I accept the truth that mercy always triumphs over judgment in the Kingdom which can never end; that our good is humbly included in God's glory according to his brilliance, power and grace.  Today, I am to engage the words and the fierce personal loyalty (trust) the Lord offers to me and asks me to respond to by my living not just my talking.  This is not a function of performance but of relationship; it is not about trying to deserve something but rather living out the design of loving the Lord back.

P - Lord who wants us to live and stay near,

Thank you for giving us yourself in each day you create and sculpt.  Thank you that there is always more grace than sin and a mercy which will always triumphs over judgment.  Please let me be a living letter from you to all I meet and would you please cause your life to come into me and to somehow come out of me unto the blessing of others and the revelation of your great kindness.  Lord, I do love you back.

Steve

The Direct Connect Between Earth and Heaven

S - John 3:11-12 (NIV): "I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?"

O - This conversation with Nicodemus is safe (late in the night, no crowds) and open hearted.  This leader in Israel openly confesses the Sanhedrin's assessment which they will never make public ("Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him."). Jesus says in private what is intended for the whole world not just in generic concept but in the most personal terms. The verses above contain this conversation's third and final "I tell you the truth" statement. If we won't believe Jesus about earth we will not believe him about heaven.  Jesus speaks so plainly about both. The point is clear and the question which leads all the others is are we really believing Jesus about earth?

A - Even a cursory look around seems to confirm that many folks talk about believing him about heaven but give no appearance to actually be believing him about earth  (words, attitudes or deeds).  Yet this is not the kernel of the issue for me.  The issue for me is do I believe Jesus about earth?  What evidences can I see in my life which confirm or deny my belief? Jesus is always about one thing in all the truth he is and reveals…2X4ology.  I need to get and keep the 2X4 out of my eye before I attempt to help (or assess) another with any sawdust which may be in theirs. My assignment today, and every day, is to believe Jesus about earth so that I may really believe him about heaven.  I am so very thankful for the verba verbie … the words of the Word.

P - Lord of heaven above and on earth below,

Thank you for wanting to help me/us know how to live on earth and not just in thoughts about heaven.  Thank you for speaking plainly about both but for being clear on our need to come near you and stay.  Lord, I am doing my level best to believe you about earth because you are the truth.  Thank you for letting me see this in your written voice -- for sharing the secrets of your covenant with me.  I love you back.  I welcome you and your will on earth (in me) like they do in heaven.  Lord, thank you for not condemning the world.  Thank you for calling, helping, and letting us believe … unto forever relationship and irrepressible life.

All my love,

Steve

Pregnant Men and the Holy God

S - Jeremiah 30:5-11a (NIV): ""This is what the LORD says: " 'Cries of fear are heard--terror, not peace.  Ask and see:  Can a man bear children? Then why do I see every strong man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor, every face turned deathly pale? How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it. "'In that day,' declares the LORD Almighty, 'I will break the yoke off their necks and will tear off their bonds; no longer will foreigners enslave them. Instead, they will serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them. "'So do not fear, O Jacob my servant; do not be dismayed, O Israel,' declares the LORD. 'I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their exile. Jacob will again have peace and security, and no one will make him afraid. I am with you and will save you,' declares the LORD."

O - The circumstances are more than dire. Men in labor, terror not peace, and all of this at the hand of the Lord because of Israel's stubborn refusal to do what she knows to do.  Yet, in the midst of his wrath the Lord speaks of Israel's salvation, freedom and blessing.  He identifies a David-king and tells them to not fear and to not be dismayed because he will yet act on their behalf and will save them. The guarantee for all this?  He, God Almighty, is with them.  Clearly, the Lord's wrath or anger is not like ours.   He is holy, even in his wrath; holy - not like us, not like me, not like this earth. When we make his wrath like ours we do a great disservice to all.  He really does delight in mercy, kindness and justice on the earth.

A - Children are all about presence.  The presence of a parent is the difference in everything…literally everything.  Jesus calls me/us to be childlike in every situation every day.  While children share the majority of feelings and expressions of their parents, they are not identical.  I do not want to be one who assumes the Lord's wrath is like mine. It is not because he is not like me … I am being called to become like him.  I want to turn into and be aware of and reliant on his presence.  Today I am counting on him making me more like him and promising to stop assuming he's like me. 

P - Father, Lord, Comforter,

Thank you for wanting us/me to be your children.  Thank you for making us like you and for you not being like us.  Thank you for mercy always triumphing over judgment and for your delight in kindness, justice and mercy on the earth and in us.  Lord, I thank you for your presence amidst all the challenges, trials, failures and fractures of life and for working everything for good.  Please let me work with you today.  Please help me be childlike today … unto the life that is really life.  I am asking for new wineskins, mulberry trees in the ocean and for that which is too wonderful for me.  Lord, thank you for being holy … and for wanting me to become like you.  I want this too.

All my love,

Steve