Category Archives: life

February 8, 2012

What kind of life is God pleased with?

By Josh

This is a re-post from my other blog, Reconstructing the First Century Story. I thought it might be beneficial to people, so I figured I would bring it over here in order to reach a wider audience. (As it turns out, even fewer people are interested in New Testament history than are interested in the themes I write about at this site… alas! ;) )  Either way, I hope you enjoy it!

“He will be great” (Luke 1:32).

That’s what the angel said to Mary about Jesus before he was born. And in every respect it turned out to be true. His greatness was not like that of the Roman or Greek conception; his was the greatness of a servant.

Have we ever really stopped to consider that?

Think about it this way: Jesus came to be baptized by John in the Jordan river in A.D. 28 when he was about 33 or 34 years old. It was here the heavens were opened, the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and the voice of God was heard saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16,17).

Notice, as of that moment in time Jesus had not yet healed a single person, he had not raised the dead, he had not made the deaf to hear, he had not said and done unprecedented things all throughout the region of Galilee and beyond. For all we know, all Jesus had done from his youth until that time was live and work as a carpenter in Nazareth, attend the synagogue each week and Jewish festivals each year, and just be human.

And with that normal life, His Father was well pleased.

The greatness of Jesus was not just all the miracles we read about or the unparalleled teachings or anything at all spectacular that He did. His greatness was primarily found in those thirty-three silent years, where he simply lived a normal human life in fellowship with His Father… deity and humanity co-habiting as one.

This is the kind of life which causes God to smile: a normal human life lived in fellowship with the Divine. So you and I may relieve ourselves this very moment of the pressure to be something “great” according to this world or religion’s standards. God just wants normal people doing normal things in oneness with Himself. That’s the goal of the gospel. That’s the heart of it all. That is what God has brought and is bringing us to “in Christ.”

4 comments | posted in Christ, fellowship, life, life in Christ

January 25, 2012

Watching my son, seeing the Lord

By Josh

With utmost confidence I can say that my wife and kids have been the greatest teachers in my life when it comes to knowing God. Watching our kids grow up I can see the Lord so clearly just by being with them and observing the way they are. 

For instance, the other day I was with my son in his room. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this blog, my son absolutely loves Thomas the Train. In fact, it would be safe to say he’s a Thomas fanatic. Anyway, he often asks me to play trains with him. The other night was one of those times.

Josh (my son) received a new set from my brother and his wife for Christmas. It’s the biggest Thomas set we own to date. So when Josh told me he wanted to take it apart and put it back together all by himself, I was a little hesitant. The fact of the matter is I was afraid I’d have to do it myself if he wasn’t able to figure it out!

However, I was in for a pleasant surprise. Josh took it all apart, laid the tracks and pieces in their respective piles, and began to rebuild. I merely sat to the side and watched. Now, unless you’re a dad or have ever been a dad you may not understand this, but I was absolutely delighted as I watched my boy work. Piece by piece he put that set back together-thinking it through, correcting his mistakes, and changing this piece for that. There was even a point at which I thought he’d messed up the design and would have to go back and fix it, but come to find out (as I did at the end) he was right all along! I was impressed, to say the least.

Anyway, I can’t adequately describe the joy I had watching my son build that track. To see his creativity, to share in his discovery, and to express my pride and delight at his building in such a way that brought a smile to his face when he was finished gave me an awesome insight into the Lord. I could sense the mutual joy between Father and Son as they counseled and created our universe, taking delight in one another as they labored together.  I sensed the joy they share in everyday life-creating, molding, shaping, touching lives, and doing all that they do. It’s indescribable, really. But I got a taste of it in that moment watching my four-year old do his thing, as the student, shall we say, became the teacher. :)

I’d be interested to hear any similar insights or experiences you might have. It doesn’t have to be a father-and-son thing, either, just some way in which you saw the beauty of the Lord through a relationship, a happening, or whatever. Here’s your chance to chime right in.

4 comments | posted in Christ, family life, fellowship, life, life in Christ

November 6, 2011

The greatest prospect ever given to man

By Josh

It is all too common for people to look at the life of Jesus Christ-even we Christians who hold Him to be sinless, the perfect Man, and the full expression of the Godhead-and miss seeing the wellspring of His incredible life. It is also possible to so overemphasize the deity of Christ that the fact of His humanity is lost sight of. Jesus was a man, a man just like you and me. Yes, He was God, but he was also just a man. He was flesh and bone, he got tired, and he wrestled with every anxiety and temptation known to mankind. Jesus was fully human, the son of man.   

And yet look at the life He lived! He did wonders. He healed the sick. He loved people. He spoke with an authority no one had ever heard before. He threatened the whole superstructure of the religious system. He shook the Empire to its very core.

And He did it all… as a man. Don’t you ever stop to wonder at the source of such an incredible life?

Simply put, the source of the Jesus’ living was the indwelling life of His Father. His own confession-”I do and say nothing but what I see and hear from my Father”-signifies as much. There was a Divine life within the spirit of this simple Nazarene which moved Him to do and say the things He did. What a thought!

But that’s only the half of it. The most incredible prospect ever to graze the consciousness of man is found in what Jesus said in John 6:57:

“As the living Father sent me, and I live by the Father, so whoever feeds on me will live by me!”

Can you see what the Lord is saying here? Basically He is saying that what the Father was to Him He is now to us, and that just as He lived by the life of God in His spirit, we too may live by His life in us! No difference! No separation! No one kind of living for the Lord Jesus and another kind of living for us! The same life Jesus lived by is the life we have to live by as well! What a prospect!

The fact is most of us have never seen this. I can’t tell you how many days of my life I’ve overlooked it. Jesus of Nazareth did not get out of bed each morning and live by a certain ethical code or set of rules. He did not read the scriptures as a manual on “how to be the Son of God.” He enjoyed communion with God in His Spirit as a man just as He did in the eternals before taking on flesh, and His daily living was regulated by the flow of that life within Him. This was His wellspring for being. This too is our source of life. This is the prospect He left us with which we so often overlook. Jesus was a man, and the life He lived came out of this inward fellowship He experienced with His Father. We have been called into the same fellowship. So turn within to your spirit. Quiet yourself and wait before the Lord until you sense the presence of His life deep inside. Behold Him there. Practice turning to Him throughout the day, moment by moment if you can. Let the transformation that comes from this daily exchange be the source of your living just as it was for the Lord.  

4 comments | posted in Christ, eternal purpose, fellowship, life, life in Christ

October 20, 2011

Who will be the greatest?

By Josh

It’s funny how my kids will sometimes argue and fight over who gets to sit by daddy. Sometimes when I come to the dinner table and sit by one of them, that one will look at the other and say, “see, daddy is setting by meeee.”

Funny, yes. But frustrating, too. Tonight when this happened it made me think of the disciples of Jesus. James and John once came to Jesus (or their mother did, depending on which gospel you read) and asked to be granted the prime place of honor next to the Lord in His kingdom (see Mark 10:35-39 or Matthew 20:20-28). Apparently the other disciples caught wind of this campaign and did not take very kindly to it. Jesus simply asked if they were able to endure the same kind of suffering he was in order to gain such honor. Of course they said yes.

This vying for spiritual position reminds me of the way I once prayed: “I want to be closer to you than anybody else, Lord.” “Lord, even if everyone else turns away from you, I won’t” (I borrowed that one from Peter). Then there was the quote by that guy who said to D.L. Moody, “The world has yet to see what God can do though a man who is fully given to him,” to which both Moody and I responded, “I will be that man” (emphasis upon the “I”).

All this kind of praying just seems silly to me anymore. I’m fairly certain it’s a mark of spiritual immaturity. Like the disciples arguing over who would be the greatest in the kingdom, or my kids fighting and gloating over who gets to sit next to daddy.

The person who has really faced life and become honest about him or herself is more like the man Peter became after the cross. Such a man is not so sure of himself anymore. In love with the Lord, yes, but not so quick to broadcast his selfless devotion and superior allegiance to the Master. A man who has truly experienced the cross is more confident in God’s love for him than he is in his love for God.

There is nothing wrong with aspring to be great, dont get me wrong. When the disciples argued about who would be the greatest, Jesus did not condemn them for their ambition. He simply corrected their notions of what true greatness really is. Greatness comes not by being on top but by being on the bottom. Not by ruling but by serving. Not through strength but through weakness. So we should all strive to be great. Just get your definition right. :)

6 comments | posted in Christ, cross, fellowship, kingdom of God, life, life in Christ, love, ministry

September 23, 2011

Embracing the cross

By Josh

Life is full of sorrow, but the good news of Jesus Christ is that God has redeemed even the seemingly pointless sufferings of our lives and made them servant to His purpose. When we choose to embrace the cross then our suffering, like that of our Lord’s, is transformed into something altogether life-giving and healing.

Last night and today my thoughts have fallen toward the Lord Jesus on the cross. What a horrible injustice, from a human perspective, the cross of Christ was! And yet such horrible injustice, in the hands of God, worked itself out unto the salvation of the world! Not only did the Lord redeem my life and yours through His cross, He redeemed all the suffering of fallen humanity. Now there is redemption for our suffering!

It is inevitable that every person will suffer a great deal in his or her life. Existence in this broken world is full of heartache, loneliness, sorrow, and loss. No one is exempt. For many people this alone becomes the cause of their greatest doubts over even the existence of God. I know I have faced it. What reality could there really be beyond this veil of flesh when you take into account all the seemingly random, pointless sufferings that people go through? It just doesn’t add up.

But here is where the cross becomes such a precious thing in the experience of a believer. When we find the hand of the Lord in our suffering-not causing it, not inflicting it upon us for some “higher purpose” mind you-but simply there present, ready to transform it, or rather us through it, into something beautiful, then we are actually delivered through our pain into a life that death itself cannot touch… the resurrection life of the Lord Himself, which passes through the hands of death and through death destroys death and its power over people. What a glorious mystery!

Our response to suffering will make us like one of the two thieves who hung beside the Lord Jesus on the cross. Read the record and you will see that in the beginning they both despised their lot and reviled the Lord in their suffering. Neither one of them had anything good to say about the Lord or about their predicament. Bitterness and resentment was the order of the day. But the Lord Jesus was so different. He was calm, reposed-suffering in agony, yes-yet submitting Himself, not to its ill effects, but to the hand of His Father. At some point the one thief to his side must have beheld something in the Lord that changed his entire outlook. He saw Christ bearing a cross He Himself did not deserve to bear, and doing it with such outstanding grace. He wondered at such a Person. And in the light of such a One he became convinced of his sin, and repented. Then he embraced the cross, saying “Lord, remember me.”

The thief on the other hand, however, embraced no such change. He did not see the Lord in his suffering, rather he saw only punishment, only one more reason to be angry, bitter and spiteful. Our attitude in suffering, when we refuse to embrace the cross, is like his. Our suffering works nothing for us but pain. And in bitterness we resent our past, the people around us, and above all the Lord. Our only looking toward him is to say, “if you are really God and you really care about me, you would bring an end to this suffering of mine.” And when outward deliverance does not come, resentment consumes us and we become hard and closed off toward any kind of inward transformation.

So to go back to what I said in the beginning, when we embrace the cross then our suffering, like that of our Lord’s, is transformed into something altogether life-giving and healing, both for us and for other people. But it all hinges upon our willingness to accept the cross. God is not the author of sin, and He is not the facilitator of our sufferings in life. The world we live in is broken, time and chance happens to us all, and the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. Some things just happen. It can all seem very pointless and random at times, don’t I know it. But the secret is what is going on inside of us. Which thief will we be? In whose path will we follow? One sees only suffering and pain and nothing more, and his end is resentment, bitterness, and reviling. The other sees the hand of God. He sees the Lord Jesus, and he wonders at such a life to the point of embracing His cross. In the end, though there is still suffering, there is the transformation of that life into something healed, whole, and complete. This is what the Lord wants for each and every one of us. May He somehow, by His grace, make it so.

5 comments | posted in Christ, cross, deliverance, life, life in Christ, suffering, will of God

July 17, 2011

Praying (all the way) through Psalm 139

By Josh

I think if we’re honest we all have to admit that certain portions of the Old Testament are hard to swallow. Ever since it dawned upon me that God is good, and that Jesus Christ is the full and perfect expression of the Father, I have had to take a new look at the Old Testament writings. To go into everything that entails could easily span a whole volume’s worth of blogging material, but for this post let it suffice to say that I read and pray the scripture with a different mindset than I once did.

For instance, today I was reading Psalm 139. This psalm is beautiful in every respect, one might say, until you come to the final few verses. Here the writer begins to call down curses upon his enemies-”men of blood” who speak against God “with malicious intent” and take His name in vain. David is no holds barred here. “Kill them” is his prayer to God. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I just don’t see how such a mindset could ever hope to square with the words of Jesus, who said, ”You have heard it said to hate your enemies, but I say that you should love them.” I trust you get my point!

But today I realized a new way to read and pray scriptures like this. I’m coming off a particulary difficult week, personally. Among other things, I’ve had a very heightened awareness of my sinfulness. And if you’re like me, the reason you hate your sin so much is because you like it!  It seems so much to be a part of you, even one with you, just like Paul describes in Romans 7 (read it for yourself). So I’ve been very humbled this week, even to the point of giving up. But I realize that these things in my flesh are common to all men. However it manifests in each person-whether your partiucular weakness is anger, lying, lust, or whatever-it’s a burden we all bear. And these things are enemies to God and His purpose. “The flesh and Spirit are at war with each other,” as Paul would say, for their desires are conflicting.

So when I came to the end of Psalm 139 today I suddenly had an instinct to direct it toward the Lord as a prayer against myself, or, I should say, the enemy within my own self. “Oh Lord, from this wickedness in my flesh, this man of blood who is hostile toward You and toward all men-deliver me! Slay this vile beast! This old man who masquerades as me, whom the enemy would have me identify with so as to come under his power and condemnation-away with him! I hate that part of me that stands in opposition to you, O Lord, and I side with you against myself!” 

Approaching the scriptures in this way allows me to take those otherwise difficult passages of holy Writ and touch the Lord through them.  While I may not be able to say amen to David’s wish that certain people would die a horrible death (except on a bad day maybe ;) ), I certainly can and do identify with every man’s longing to be free from the control of sin which indwells our bodies. In the words of Paul-”O wretched man that I am!  Thank God that through Jesus Christ our Lord He has delivered me from this body of death!”

2 comments | posted in Bible study, Christ, cross, deliverance, life, life in Christ, prayer, praying the scripture, sin

July 13, 2011

When a Christian sins (God’s final word on a failure)

By Josh

(Just a note, this article is a re-post from a couple years ago. But this is its first appearance on this blog.)

Of all the sermons I’ve ever heard about Samson, pretty much all of them cast him in a negative light. The message is usually about sin, saying how it will “bind us, blind us, and lead us into bondage.”

Also, I recently watched a Christian movie. It was good. The main character was a man whose life was falling apart, then he came to faith in Christ and things got better. The thing with most of these movies is that they always end right there. They never broach the subject of what happens when the Christian sins again, or when he falls into despair on the other side of the cross.

Lately I have been very conscious of my own personal failure. As a Christian, as a man, as a husband, as a father. It’s been very difficult. My thoughts have gone to thinking about Samon. The fact that just about every sermon you hear in the churches today about Samson casts him in a negative light, making a bad example of his life, pretty much confirms to me that Samson is considered by most people as a failure. He was given anointing, power, authority, insight, and yet he seemed to squander so much of it. He did some good things with it, but the bad things are many in number as well.

But have you ever considered what was God’s final word on Samson? The final mention made of Samson in the scriptures is found in the letter to the Hebrews. It is very simple. It basically says, “by faith he overcame.”

Maybe somewhere one of the apostles made an example out of Samson to teach believers about sin, but in the small record we have I dont see that anyone ever did. What I do see is Samson being named among the list of the righteous, one of many who through faith “obtained promises, subdued kingdoms” and so forth.

This is comforting to me. Even in the Old Testament record of Samson’s life, though we see plenty of Samson’s personal failures, we see in the end, transcending it all, a revelation of Christ. For when Samson was led by the hand of a servant boy to the pillars of the Philistine temple, he prayed once more for God’s strength to turn back the hand of the enemy. The walls came crashing down on them all, and of Samson it was said that “in his death he slew more than he did in his life.” What is this but a picture of Christ, who in the days of his flesh “went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed of the devil” but who, in his death on the cross, destroyed all the wickedness of a fallen creation for all of time?

So, as I said, this is comforting to me. The great lesson of Samson’s life is not sin but faith. Through his failure, he believed. He fell, but he rose again. And again. And again. When I look at the story of Samson I am reminded of the proverb which says, “The righteous man may fall seven times, but he gets back up every time.”

When you have fallen, when you find it hard to believe the gospel in the light of your own failures, and when you are tempted to give in to the voice of the enemy, so convincing in the moment of temptation, that tells you to identify with the old man who was crucified with Christ upon the cross, think of Samson. Remember God’s final word on a failure.

“By faith he overcame.”

4 comments | posted in Christ, cross, life, life in Christ, salvation, sin

June 22, 2011

Some thoughts on knowing God

By Josh

Tonight as I put my son to sleep he wanted me to sing him a song. One song turned into two, then three, and finally we ended with Jesus Loves Me This I Know. On Sunday I took Josh to see the new Thomas the Train movie at the theatre-his first time going to the movies-so one of the songs he asked me to sing was the Thomas song. Now, I’ve heard that song far too many times in my adult life, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember all of the words. So what did I do? I made them up. After the song, though, Josh told me I did it wrong and proceeded to sing for me the correct lyrics.

I’ve been seeing all kinds of neat little things about the Lord and our life in Him through my kids lately. While I sat there tonight with Josh as he sang the song to me I thought of the way many Christian leaders major so heavily on “sound doctrine” and getting people to watch out for heresy and false teaching. So much emphasis is placed on the negatives with so little time given to revealing Christ to God’s people. And the product of such teaching is not a people who intimately know their Lord so much as it is pews full of stuffy doctrinarians whose only concern is crossing every ”t” and dotting every “i” of scripture and watching out for those who don’t.

Forgive me if that sounds harsh, for I don’t intend to be. I just believe that if you know the real thing you are not likely to be fooled by the false. The best thing for any of us to do is to know the Lord Jesus-personally, intimately, and deeply. To know the Lord in practical, every-day reality is better equipment than ten years’ worth of studies at the best seminary in Christendom. If you know the Lord, and He is real to you and He is your all, then, like with my son, when someone comes along singing the wrong song, you’ll just know. You won’t need any man to teach you, for you will have an inner sense coming from His anointing which dwells richly within. That is God’s way. Man’s way is to try to protect spiritual life with sound doctrine, but I’ve yet to see it work. The best way to ensure sound doctrine is simply to have a healthy spiritual life. Walk with God. Then when the time comes, you will know what you need to know.

The Lord is so real, and He is so enjoyable. He is abundantly rich and clearly available to us all. It strikes me as strange, those who would over-emphasize the place of “teaching” and “sound doctrine” to the point that it obscures the simply reality of God dwelling in and with His people. Take a glass of water, for instance. Can you tell me all about the molecular structure of the water in that cup? No? But you can take that glass in your hand and drink the water, can’t you? You enjoy it’s taste, and you are refreshed by the life it gives you. Experiencing the Lord is just like that. You don’t need to understand all the deep mystery of the Trinity in order to enjoy the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit that is going on inside your heart right this moment. Doctrine and theology is all good and fine in its proper place, but don’t think you have to have your mind all wrapped around God before you can taste and see that He is good.

2 comments | posted in Christ, fellowship, life, life in Christ

June 12, 2011

Learning Christ

By Josh

Kids are funny. When Josh (little Josh, that is) asks me a question about something and I tell him the answer, it’s interesting to watch his reaction. Sometimes what he’ll do is immediately run to his sister and repeat word for word what I’ve just told him, as if now he is an expert on the subject and is determined to teach her the same thing. He may not know anything about what he’s saying, not really at least, but he has an answer from me so he is now his sister’s teacher.

This is cute when you see it in your children, but not so cute with those people who think that just because they have a certain kind of understanding of spiritual things, or biblical truth, that now they are qualified to be teachers of others. Don’t you find it is so easy to get that way? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done it myself. I’ll get an intellectual grasp on some truth from the scriptures, and before you know it I’m an expert on the subject, ready to sit behind a pulpit (or keyboard ;) ) and educate the masses of people out there who are ignorant of my glorious revelation.

The only problem is, learning Christ is not like that. You can’t just read a book-even the Bible-and by your study suddenly become an expert on the subject of God (as if God is a subject to be studied). The kind of knowledge of Christ we need is experiential… one that is worked into our very being by the Lord Himself through time, testing, and many seasons of long growth. Such knowledge just does not come easy. Nor is it cheap. It takes a lifetime of many hard lessons to acquire.

I’m not saying things like Bible study don’t play a part, or that the Lord does not use scripture to build Himself into us. Of course He does. All I’m saying is that spiritual understanding is not like my son hearing an answer from me and then repeating it to his sister, as if he even knows what he is talking about yet. I can tell him how the lawnmower works-that you pour gas into the tank and the fuel makes the motor work to power the mower-and he can say “oh, ok”, but that doesn’t mean he really knows what he is talking about. The same goes for us reading a book, studying the Bible, or getting spiritual answers from our teachers and pastors. All those things may be good and have their place, but learning Christ is something more than that. May God show us what that means, and daily lead us into the knowledge of Himself, so that we ourselves become the embodiment of the message we seek to proclaim.

3 comments | posted in Bible study, Christ, life, life in Christ

June 9, 2011

The lifestyle of the church is one of happiness and joy!

By Josh

You’ll have to forgive me for skipping out on the exact quotation and reference, but there’s an old Jewish proverb that goes something like this-”A merry heart does one good like medicine”-and another that says, “he that is of a merry heart has a continual feast.” Tonight I got a call from an old friend of mine asking if he and his wife could stop by the house and see us. We ended up having them over, along with another couple, and what a great time we had just sitting around talking, laughing, meeting their new little baby, and reminiscing about old times.

As strange as it may sound, something I’ve noticed on many occasions in my life is that I never laugh quite so much as when I’m with the saints. To me this is a real evidence of the Lord’s presence-just to be together in an atmosphere of contagious joyfulness, where one can find happiness and light-heartedness over the simplest things of life. I really do believe, as Leon Henri Marie Bloy once said, that “joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”

Here’s a portion from a book entitled Church Unity, a compilation of writings from Warren Litzman, Watchman Nee, and Gene Edwards. Listen to what Litzman says in his chapter on Christ being the lifestyle of the church:

“If a Christian lives by the law, and if he fellowships with a church that preaches law, it would be difficult for that person to fellowship with believers who live by a Lord who is within them. However, the Lord is raising up believers who live by His life. These believers will be as a stream running through the world, flowing right out of the loins of Almighty God.

“They will be a people free to be who they are.

“They will be a people free from man’s harassment and dictatorship. They will be a people who have discovered that Christ is their life. They will be a people who are free to live that life regardless of what others think or do.

“This freedom will change homes, it will change marriage relationships, and it will change business dealings out there in the world.

“If you are a believer, then know that Jesus Christ lives in you. You are free because Christ Himself operates in you. What joy and happiness can flow from the life of a believer! However, that is not to say that there isn’t any suffering in your life as a believer. There is suffering.

“Nontheless the expression of the ecclesia is one of joy.

“Look around you. Everywhere you look you can see that the fun has gone out of the Christian life! God has an intention. That intention is that He have pleasure in us; that we have joy and happiness in being with Him and in Him, and He in us. When a group of believers who have a revelation of an indwelling Lord get together, they express joy and happiness just in being together and being with their Lord together. There is joy despite the difficulties they encounter from time to time.

“The church in this hour is living under laws, regulations and teachings, and has lost much of the fun of being the church. The church has lost the pleasure of knowing the Lord Jesus and the Father. However, with the discovery of the Christ-life there will grow up a lifestyle of the church that is one of happiness and joy.”

Amen! Can I get a witness anywhere out there in the blogosphere?

4 comments | posted in Body of Christ, Christ, church, church life, fellowship, life, life in Christ, love, quotes, unity

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