we, the church

As I was writing the last post, a question arose... One that has risen many times before.

We have been called, as a church, to "...preach this message: "The kingdom of heaven is near." Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give."

Who is meant to preach?? Is there any question who is meant to preach?? 'We' are meant to preach. Are we to ask Jesus to preach? Are we to pray that Jesus would preach, plead with him to preach, present a case about how this so & so, this seeker, deserves to be preached to? Promise to give him 'all the glory' if he would but preach to us just this one time...?? Preach through us? Yes, but, we cannot keep our mouths firmly clamped shut. We must actually open our mouths and preach, to our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, our children, whatever other sphere of influence we've been entrusted with. Not preaching, as in, a half hour neatly crafted 3 point sermon, unless that's what we've been called to, but preaching, none the less, in sharing a different point of view, a different sort of hope, a kind word, a building up, a gentleness, a different quality of life, as in real life, as in Christ's life in us, through us. There is no question WHO is meant to DO the preaching. WE are.

Who is meant to heal the sick?? to raise the dead?? to cleanse those who have leprosy?? to drive out demons?? Who did Jesus call to do this?? He called US. He called us to DO this. Not to ask him to do it. Not to beg him, not to plead with him, not to bargain with him, but to DO it.

Check through the examples of scripture. Jesus did not pray to God and ask him to heal the sick. He healed the sick, directly, one to one. And the people gave glory to God. The 12 disciples did not pray to God and ask him to heal the sick. They healed the sick. Jesus had given them authority to do this. The seventy two? the apostles? A policeman does not run and get the judge to aprehend a thief. He aprehends the thief. He has been given authority to do so. Jesus commended the centurion who had an understanding of authority. He called it 'great faith'!

Jesus has given US authority.... What on earth does it look like, for US to heal the sick?? to cast out demons?? The disciples came back 'amazed'!! It must have looked extrodinary! I wonder if they were scared the first couple of times?? Maybe every time?? I wonder if they struggled with the 'who do you think you are?' accusations?

How many people did they set free? How many lives were changed?? How many lives would change if we, the church, understood this stuff? If we took it seriously?? Whatif... I....

an inappropriate response

I’ve been in a bit of a weird place lately. It seems I go through seasons. I’ve said that I have this ‘huge’ hunger to learn, but that is only true some of the time. I also go through seasons of apathy, seasons of frustration, even anger. I REALLY hate conflict. I’m learning that, when I get angry about something, I don’t like that feeling, so I channel it into apathy. I think it’s a form of passive aggression? Apathy, however, is boring, and that produces frustration. I’ve found, of late, that I’ve been a bit angry at God. (Arrogant, I know…. being that God is perfect, my anger is pretty much always misguided and unwarranted.) Anger seems like too strong a term, but there doesn’t seem to be a better one, and maybe it seems too strong because I am so adept at channelling it into apathy, which seems less aggressive, safer, more ‘proper.’ How’s that for self-psycho-analysis?

The question is, what have I been angry ABOUT?? That’s the hard part. I can’t really figure that out. It’s complex, a combination of toomanythings. All of the answers seem stupid, but here’s my best shot.

I’m angry about being such a slow learner, which I can cleverly blame on Him, after all, He created me, didn’t He? He’s the teacher, I’m the pupil, why am I not learning?? Is it semester break, or what?? And then I pretend I don’t care, which, in itself, is ridiculous… It is only Christ in me that cares at all about anything unselfish in the first place… of myself, I am purely and only selfish…so to ‘pretend’ I don’t care is just me stamping my foot and saying ‘I’m gonna live in the flesh for a while, what’re you gonna do about it??’

This anger is fairly easy to reconcile compared to the next one. It is equally arrogant and misguided. It has to do with my beliefs about healing. The problem with my beliefs is that I really believe them! (That’s clever isn’t it!?) I really believe that the healing of ‘all our diseases’ was bought and paid for by the blood, more specifically, the ‘stripes’ of Jesus Christ. I believe that it is ALWAYS God’s will to heal. I believe that this conclusion is STRONGLY supported in the Bible, and the only argument against it is experiential, not Biblical. I believe that He loves us more than I loves us. I believe that He wants to redeem mankind more than I want to. Why, then….doesn’t he DO it??? Why doesn’t He heal us when we ask Him to?? My ‘anger’ comes from my perception that God is not holding up His end of the bargain. He is not doing what he said he would do! (There won’t be a lightning strike… He knows I’ve been feeling this. He’s known it for longer than I have…)

I feel overwhelmed, at times, by the magnitude of sickness and disease in this world. There is hardly a life untouched by it, well, there isn’t a life untouched by it! I am overwhelmed by the far reaching effects of it, how many people suffer from one persons illness, and for how long, and the lengths to which we will go to be relieved of it. Some days it truly breaks my heart. These, I believe, are the days that Christ rules in my heart. This, I believe, is the heart of Christ, the love, the compassion of Christ.

I haven’t been reading my Bible very much lately, but I did the other day. This is what I read.

Matthew 9:35- 38 " Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every…" (did you get that?? EVERY…) "…disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had COMPASSION on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

I think he was overwhelmed… This is what struck me when I read this. I was surparised by it. It doesn’t fit inside ‘the box.’ I think he was overwhelmed! Please remember that when Jesus came to this earth, he set aside his divinity and became fully human. He could not, at that time, be in all places at once, as he had been before he came to earth. And he saw the magnitude of our helplessness. He experienced it. He knew personally, people who were grieving, who were suffering. Crowds waited outside his door, huge numbers of people. And he knew that in every town along the way the story would be the same. He wept sometimes…maybe lots of times. I think he was overwhelmed. His solution?? Send out workers!

Matthew 10:1, the very next verse…" He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every…" (again… EVERY) "…disease and sickness." Verse 6: "Go to the lost sheep of Isreal. As you go, preach this message: "The kingdom of heaven is near." Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." Verse 25…"It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master."

When Christ rules in my heart, I am compassionate, I long for healing, I weep with those who weep, I am overwhelmed, but this is not the easy road. This is the road of self-sacrifice. Apathy is easier…it is the path of least resistance, …it is selfish, self centred, …it lays blame, … and it’s …. BORING, and FRUSTRATING, strangely LONELY.

Oh, to be like Thee…

As for the pictures...

I said in an earlier post that God had begun to speak to me in pictures. There is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. In my attempts to describe these pictures, I have found this to be true. They are very difficult to describe, but, I will try. These pictures have shaped who I am, who I believe God to be, how I perceive the world.

If you read my last post you will remember the day that God ‘held me’ in his lap, the day that changed me forever, the day I first LOVED God. Everything changed for me that day. Worship changed for me that day. I have always been a singer and, as such, had always loved ‘worship.’ I enjoyed the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms, the lyrics. I enjoyed the ‘corporate’ness, the sound of 200 voices raised together, the rise, the fall, the highs, the lows. But, up until that day, I never ‘enjoyed’ God in any way that was real. Occasionally there were moments of a strange sense of longing, a sense that maybe there was something more, particularly when we sang this one ‘new’ song, ‘I love you Lord’. It left me feeling…well…lost, I guess, empty…like a hypocrite, a liar; exposed. This one little song played a huge role leading up to the day that God held me. I remember being so very frustrated one Sunday and refusing to sing that song…accusing God, saying, ‘How can I possibly LOVE you?! I don’t even KNOW you! I can’t see you, hear you, feel you, how can I LOVE you?’ He waited a while before He answered me… a week, maybe two…I can’t remember… but, my goodness did He answer!! If a picture is worth a thousand words, a hug is worth a million. How can I NOT love you?!! I LOVE YOU, LORD! You are WORTHY, TRUST WORTHY, SAFE! GENTLE! LOVING! ALL ENCOMPASSING! PEACE full! JOY full! WARM! STRONG!

I have never been the same….

‘Worship’ has never been the same. So… on to the ‘pictures’…

I had opportunity to go to a big city church for a ‘worship’ night. There was a band there who had ‘fallen in love’ with God. It was real. They were not in love with the ‘idea’ of God. They were in love with GOD. It was personal. The Spirit in this place was wonderful, tangible. We worshipped for several hours. Near the end we were singing Isaiah’s (?) vision "I see the Lord, seated on the throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple with GLORY, and we cry Holy! Holy! Holy is the Lord Most High!" It was a beautiful song, powerful, glorious. I again had this sense… I was singing words I had not experienced. I was not being genuine. I did not SEE the Lord seated on the throne. I wanted to. I tried to imagine him…but could not. I successfully imagined the train of his robe filling the temple, heavy white satin with gold embroidery rippling over the entire sanctuary…but I could not imagine Him… SEE Him. I imagined how I would feel if I saw him; awed, humbled, quiet, reverent, trembling, subdued, wondrous. I anticipated feeling that way, trying to ‘prepare’ myself. I asked him ‘please God, reveal yourself to me, I love you so much, just show yourself to me, high and lifted up’ The worship leaders understood something about deep worship… they understood that it is not about getting through the song and moving on to the next one…that there are other things going on besides the singing and the music…that there are dialogs like mine going on in a thousand different hearts and it’s best not to interrupt the quality ‘father-daughter’ time by rushing through things. They continued to play this song for a long time, I imagine until the Spirit led them somewhere else. It’s nice when the Spirit leads, rather than the page leading, but that’s a side bar… sorry…

I kept pleading with God to reveal himself. Eventually I sat, knees drawn to my chest, and waited…and then…there he was… It only took a second.

I saw a boy. Seventeen, eighteen years old. Blue jeans, t-shirt, lean, tanned, short wavy hair. He was standing twenty, maybe thirty feet away, one foot on the shore, one foot on a small boulder in the creek. He’d been skipping rocks. The sun was perfect, warm on my right shoulder, the light dancing off the sparkling, splashing water. I sat on the shore, downstream, watching, perfectly relaxed, happy. He turned to look at me and he grinned. A perfectly innocent, perfect day, full of life, playful kind of grin, and his eyes sparkled. He was happy, content, at peace. He was glad to be with me! He was having fun! He was in love! My heart leapt! My whole being filled -- how does one describe it? You know what it feels like. Young love! Delight, elation, a rush! You know it…, that flush that starts at your toes and rushes all the way up, forcing you to inhale as much of life as you possibly can in the moment. He was delighted with me! He LOVED ME! He PICKED ME! And, I knew it! To the depths of my soul, I knew it! We were spending the afternoon together. I was the luckiest girl in the world, to be chosen by HIM! My heart was full to overflowing, delighted, grateful, energised, lifted up. Did I say full? It was full!

And that was it! One second of my life! A moment! I can't do it justice...

I laughed out loud, there in the sanctuary! The laugh of one surprised by something wonderful, unexpected, delightful. I was caught so completely off guard! I was expecting ‘the train of his robe,’ the King of Kings. I met Jesus, lover of my soul!