Let the Party Begin!

I spent the better part of the afternoon with two of my very dear friends, June and Bill Martin, who are now retired and live in Greenwood, SC with their daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. We go back a very long way--over 25 years! Unfortunately, their visit with me was not what you might think; June's mother, Robina Revell, died the other night and they were with me to plan her graveside service, which will be held tomorrow at 2:00 at Macon Memorial Park, a perpetual care cemetery here in Macon. As you might imagine, I will be the "minister in charge!" I never have been quite sure what that term means but I do know that it does mean at least this: I will be in charge of finding words of comfort for these precious friends, as well as finding words of celebration, as we celebrate Robina's life and her homegoing. To be honest, I do not anticipate that being very difficult because these folk know and love the Lord; all I will have to do is lift out a few passages of Scripture and the rest will, well it will just happen. Immediately, several are already coming to my mind, so I am eagerly anticipating what He will do, how He will manifest Himself in our lives at this "place of death."

Acutally, for the elect of God, a gravesite is really not a place of death; instead, it is resurrection ground! (I only wish we could keep that in mind!) Jesus has promised to return for His Bride (actually, I thought it would have been long before now!)and He will do so--you count on that! Anyway, because He made this promise, this apparent "place of death" is actually a place of resurrection! There will be that final day, when God Himself descends from Heaven with the voice of the archangel, the trumpet of God will sound, and the dead in Christ (the "Robinas" who have gone before the rest of us) will rise first, then we which are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord(You can find that in 1Thessalonians, if you care to look)!In other words, when we gather tomorrow at Robina's gravesite, the place where the remains of her physical body will be buried, we will be standing on the same kind of ground upon which Mary Magdalene stood the morning of Jesus resurrection!!

You think about this for a minute: On that incredible morning, everyone, including the devil and all the demons of hell, were convinced that Jesus was dead. The devil was convinced that he had won over good and Jesus' followers were convinced that they had made a bad mistake in following Him. His "borrowed tomb" was for His followers, indeed, a place of death!Then there was Mary! She loved Him and He loved her--make no mistake about it! You remember the story; she approached the tomb about the time that Jesus stepped outside it, thinking that He was a gardner. "Please, sir," she begged, "if you know where they have taken Him, please tell me." Now remember: she was standing on what she thought was burial ground; however, she was mistaken--very mistaken! This supposed gardner replied with a single but all-powerful word: "Mary!" Wow!! Can you imagine that moment? "Raboni," she exclaimed! And they embraced!!

Listen, this IS going to be repeated but this time it will be the likes of you and me, who come forth from our grave! Oh, I am sure there are many skeptics, who believe that what I am writing is a "bunch of bunk" but who cares what they believe? They will be just as surprised as the devil and all the demons of hell were surprised on that first resurrection morning!

Robina has lived with Bill & June for the past 18 years, during which time, they have been her caretakers and her providers. I do not know whether you know it or not but carrying out this kind of responsibility is no easy task, even if it does involve your own mother. It has it own unique ways of sapping one's emotional energy, not to mention physical and mental energy. Toward the end, Robina suffered the ravages of pancreatic cancer, which is a merciless killer. Her body wasted away until it could no longer deal with the suffering and just at the right time, God took her HOME!! Wow!! No longer suffering, no longer having to put up with a worn out earthsuit! At home in her home, home!!

That is right: she is already in Heaven and seated at God's right hand in the Most Holy Place, which in my humble opinion ain't too bad a place to wake up to, from having had to deal with pancreatic cancer!

Now, listen up: this does not preclude her resurrection!! Somehow (and because I am NOT God, I do not understand how), somewhere on down the road, God is going to glorify her worn out earthsuit, and her spirit that is now in Heaven will be united with it and, well, LET THE PARTY BEGIN!!

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!!

The Love of Christ Controls Us (or does it?)!

In his second letter to the church at Corinth, Paul made this assertion: “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (English Standard Version). Talk about raising questions; even before I can finish typing these words, I am overwhelmed with all the questions Paul’s assertion raises.
“The love of Christ controls us!” He said it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so I know it is true, but sometimes mere casual observation tells me that it must not apply to some of God’s children. If the behavior I have witnessed and experienced from many of God’s children is the result of Jesus’ love controlling them, I can only say, “Thank God that His love is controlling them!” This is my question: What is wrong? If Paul is correct (and he is), then why does it so often appear otherwise?
To be sure, the love of Christ should control us, if for no other reason than we have been the recipients of it. We deserved anything but His love; yet, He has poured it out upon us without measure. Why, then, do we behave the way we do? Why doesn’t His love control us? (Maybe I should say it this way: Why do we live as if His love has no influence or control over us?) If His love really controls us, wouldn’t our tongues speak differently? If His love really controls us, wouldn’t we care more for the other person, than we care for ourselves? If His love really controls us, wouldn’t we be less influenced by the mirrors of a thousand, religious opinions? If His love really controls us, wouldn’t we be less prone to allow others to define obedience for us? In my opinion, if His love really controls us, many aspects of our lives would be very different!
Paul then gives his reason for his assertion: because we have concluded that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. I think most of us will agree that One has, indeed, died for us, and in doing so He demonstrated the aforementioned love that controls us. However, he said that this One died for ALL, and I know that this raises the same kind of questions for most of us that the idea that “His love controls us” raises. If He really did die for all (everyone), then why are some going to Hell, not to mention, why isn’t everyone controlled by His love? I am definitely NOT a universalist (everyone is going to Heaven), so I have to believe that there is more here, than a casual glance can see. Why would Paul (of all people) even hint that Jesus died for everyone, when in fact He did not die for everyone?
Finally, Paul gives the evidence that demonstrates that the love of Christ controls us and it is this: those who live as the result of His death and resurrection, no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised! Obviously, not everyone lives as the result of His death and resurrection, which is good evidence that He did not die for everyone; however, says Paul, those who do so live, live not for themselves but for the one who died and was raised for them, which just might be the most difficult part of this passage. Why? Well, from what I can see, most of us live for ourselves (even when on the surface we seem to be doing otherwise, e.g. visiting the sick), having little or no interest in living for the One who died and was raised—Jesus, to be specific.
There is another noteworthy “twist” to this idea of the love of Christ controlling us and it is this: When God places us in adverse situations, or when He intervenes in our decision making processes, or when He, simply, overrules in our lives by not allowing us to have our way, His love is controlling us. No, it might not look like, quack like, feel like, or waddle like the love of God but in fact, it is His love—every time and all the time! Be thankful; otherwise, who knows what we might be doing! However, do not be misled: because God has chosen for us to live in a loving relationship with Him, I do not think He is using His love to somehow twist our arms until we decide to live for Jesus and not for ourselves. This would negate the entire idea of relationship and leave us a mere puppets.
Anyway, regardless of how we cut this “pie” we cannot get away from the fact that the love of Christ controls us; however, neither can we get away from the fact that controlling love is an oxymoron. Well, almost, that is. If my love is controlling you, then I do not love you—period! If your love is controlling me, then you do not love me—period! In Christian marriage, if one mate’s “love” controls the other, then that mate’s “love” is really not love at all. But then, the text says that THE LOVE OF CHRIST controls us, not our love for one another, and there is a difference!!
You see, God is, well, He is God and, therefore, His love is perfect; consequently, His love must control us; otherwise, His love is really not love at all! If God’s love does not control us, then we are in heaps of trouble—serious trouble! If His love does not control us, then no one would ever be born of His Spirit! If His love does not control us, then we would have no clue as to the significance of our being recipients of such love! To be sure, if His love does not control us, then each of us will live ONLY for ourselves.
You think about this—

Marriage, Divorce, & Remarriage Part Final

Last week, I ended my article with this bit of encouragement: “If you are one of those who, thankfully, divorced after living (incarcerated) in a controlling marriage, but you are finding it difficult to enjoy your newly-discovered freedom, take heart! God never leaves His children in in the bondage of slavery (it was for freedom that Christ set us free!), so you can rest assured that He predestined you for this freedom, and, I might add, there is nothing better than His present provision for your life—absolutely, nothing—not fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, or garlic (whatever they might represent in your life!).”
In other words, whether you choose to remain single or to remarry, God has a new life for you, a life that, on the one hand is terribly frightening, yet, on the other hand, even the thought is exhilarating, giving you the kind of rush I think you would feel just before you made your first bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, hoping you would stop short of the school of piranhas that were eagerly greeting you.

The fact is you stand in one of those God-designed places where you can know better than you have ever known not only that you have died (you no longer live!) but also that Jesus is your life. You have been bought with a price and, therefore, are not your own! What an incredible place to have landed after such an gut-wrenching journey! As I see it you have landed on a precipice, a very high, vertical cliff, and your only way out is a free-fall jump! Sounds just like God, doesn’t it?

Now listen to these words from “Deep Unto Deep” by Dana Candler (p. 143-145): “. . . in my descent, a drawn out cry comes forth as my last request, “Have Your way!” Into His hands, I commit my spirit (Ps. 31:5). I have died, and I no longer live. I have no more rights. Swallowed up in the great deep of my transcendent God, fully His forever. I have taken His name, and my entire identity has been absorbed by Himself. I freefall with arms spread wide, holding nothing for myself and keeping not the slightest grip of ownership upon my life. My life is not my own. I have been bought with a price. And I have willingly surrendered to my position of hiddenness in Him—hidden with Christ in God. When we leave the places of living before men and begin to live before the Eyes-of-fire alone, we cross over into unknown territory. He has brought us to a certain wilderness of transformation. And here in this place we are no longer able to measure our worth by the tangible reality of our success before men. We leave the old measuring sticks at the door, for they are not suited for the ways of God. We depart from the false identity that was based on how respected, known, gifted, and influential we were in the eyes of men and leap into the vast unknown realm, the hidden reality, of who we are eternally in God. In this hurdle, we take great risk for we leave every familiar comfort behind us. To abandon the realm of the seen that we might freefall into the unseen is a daring endeavor and only faith anchors our souls. We voluntarily jump off the cliff of our old identity without an absolute clarity of our new one. Though we know who we are in the corporate sense of the redeemed-body-of-Christ, the mysteries that He formed in us individually and the details of who we are personally in the hidden places, are nearly entirely hidden from our understandings. We are trading in what we have always known and what others have always told us of ourselves for a book of blank pages. We leave all the old voices, however true or false, for the One voice who is temporarily very silent in our experience. He shows us so little of who we are in Him in the beginning because He wants us to experience the ‘drop off’ from the old ways and be willing to plunge into the unseen realm with eyes of faith. We face the pain of the barrenness of our souls. We face the reality of all that we do not yet know of Him, when we once thought we knew so much. We spend a season in this dangling-in-between place—no longer identified as we once were, yet still so foreign and distant from who we truly are in Him and our eternal identity. As we dangle, we pray, ‘Let me be weighed on honest scales, that God may know my integrity’ (Job 31:6).”

Let me be honest: I am scared-to-death of heights, so you can rest assured that I ain’t going to bungee jump, even from a barstool, much less a bridge, so I am certainly not going to choose a freefall jump from a cliff! Interestingly, however, God has His own ways of “landing” us in that place where our only way out is a freefall jump into the unknown. Fortunately, however, we do get to make that “one last request”—”Have Thine own way!”—but even that is a bit nerve racking.

Now, let me be even more honest. I think this author (Dana Candler) is unveiling something and I really want you to see it: Even though it makes you hyperventilate, it IS safe to make the freefall jump into the wilderness of transformation, into that high and holy place where the Holy Spirit, not men, determine obedience for you. You see, in your jumping you leave behind those old measuring sticks—how respected, known, gifted, and influential you were in the eyes of men—and trade them in for a book of blank pages, or so they seem. Thankfully, God has already written the script but He did so with white ink on white paper. To use the words of Dana Candler, “No one, except those rare few with eyes into eternity can perceive who we are anymore.”

So, go ahead and jump; it really is safe! Whether you choose to remain single or at some point to remarry, the best is yet to come, and that is a promise (from Him, not me!). At least, once you make the jump, you are no longer controlled by the mirrors of a thousand religious, self-centered opinions and that, my friend, is quite a measure of exhilarating freedom!
Thanks for all your patience in reading these bits and pieces of “literary genius” from this old codger, who knows very well that he not only knows very little, but also that what he knows is probably a far-cry from the real truth! Let us continue seeking Him, whom to know is eternal life!!

Marriage, Divorce, & Remarriage Part XVI

FISH, CUCUMBERS, MELONS, LEEKS, ONIONS, AND GARLIC

Last week, I ended my discussion with these words: In spite of all the fears and the ensuing anger, some do finally make it to freedom and when they do, well, all kinds of new emotions begin to surface (really, old emotions dressed in different garments) making even freedom a scary thing, much as it was for the black slaves of old. The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation set the slaves free—legally free—but it did NOT teach them how to live in freedom. Many of them walked off the plantations where they had been held in slavery, but the new emotions they began to feel (old emotions dressed in different garments) had them second-guessing themselves at every turn. Unfortunate, but true. Thankfully, it was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore (to use the words of Paul), do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery!

When it comes to divorce, this second-guessing begins long before the divorce is finalized; however, once the person steps into the land of “freedom” it kicks into another gear, or to use the words of Emeril Lagasse, another “notch!” In fact, it often comes much like a landslide, in the form of “what-ifs” and “should haves.” “What if I had been more patient,” or “I probably should not have been so hard-lined,” or “If I had waited a little longer, we could have probably worked it out,” or “If I had just trusted God more, He would have changed my heart,” ad infinitum. In the long-run, this second-guessing is probably normal; it is probably our attempt at reassuring ourselves that we did the “right” thing, especially in light of the terrible stigma that has been placed upon those who divorce. So, if you see yourself here, just take it easy; give yourself time to adjust, to settle-in, and to discover at a deeper level than you have ever known, that His strength really is made perfect in your weakness. Remember: when you have the Creator of the Universe standing by your side and ON your side, all the “what-ifs” and “should-haves” you could ever list, really carry little consequence—He is in charge and in control every time and all the time.

Now, as to this notion of learning to live in this new-found freedom, something very familiar comes to my mind—fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. You are very familiar with the story but listen to these words: “Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people therefore cried out to the Lord, and the fire died out. So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burned among them. And the rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, ‘Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna’” (Numbers 11:1-6; emphasis, mine).
As you well-know, the Israelites had been in bondage to the Egyptians for many, many years but God heard their cries and chose to deliver them out of Egypt and from slavery (God never leaves His children in slavery!) AND to lead them into Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey—the land of freedom. Furthermore, He chose to be their provider and to see to it that they had everything they needed in this new-found freedom; HOWEVER, God’s provision soon lost its appeal and they found themselves grumbling and complaining, not to mention, wandering aimlessly in the desert.

Manna was neither fish nor cucumbers nor melons nor leeks nor onions nor garlic; in fact, unlike any of these, manna was perfect food but its appeal was, well, compared to these, it was not very appealing. Before long, the grumbling and complaining became a very clear and angry cry: “Oh that someone would give us meat to eat! For we were well-off in Egypt.” Did God respond? You bet He did and these were His words: “You shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you; because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before Him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”
Hopefully, at this point something very specific is becoming very obvious to you and I can only trust that it is this: the Israelites had to learn how to live in their newly-discovered freedom, even how to enjoy it! Contrary to what they thought, they were NOT well-off in Egypt; instead, they were slaves to those whose only purpose was to use them for their own selfish ends. Their question, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” is the tell-tale sign of just how difficult it is for those who have been living as slaves to learn to live in freedom!

If you are one of those who, thankfully, divorced after living (incarcerated) in a controlling marriage, but you are finding it difficult to enjoy your newly-discovered freedom, take heart! God never leaves His children in in the bondage of slavery (it was for freedom that Christ set us free!), so you can rest assured that He predestined you for this freedom, and, I might add, there is nothing better than His present provision for your life—absolutely, nothing—not fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, or garlic (whatever they might represent in your life!).

“So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord,
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth”
(Hosea 6:3).