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The Fullness of Christ – part 3

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Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. – 1 John 2:15

Earlier this week, I skipped onto the David Bowie site. For those who don’t know, though I doubt there are many, Bowie was a music icon who died more than a year ago. I grew up with Bowie and was a big fan for much of my young adult life, who knows, perhaps he was even an idol. I thought it strange that, after just 12 months, so few are talking about him. What does his website look like now?

If you log onto his website, you will see as I did, that his final single release is called ‘No Plan.’ I watched the video and I was intrigued, because in it Bowie describes how, for the first time in his life, he has no need of a plan. He knows he is going to die, therefore, who needs a plan? I’m sure vast epistles have been preached on this subject, but I did spend some time wondering about how I spend so much of my time planning my life in this world, with so little attention devoted to the next. Alas, even the care of my teeth, which are not in great shape I have to report, take careful planning. Should I even bother? Does God shake his head in disbelief at the fact that humans plan every aspect of their lives down to the minutiae, without so much as a cursory consideration as to what might happen when we die? I don’t think so, as he really does know what we are like.

Soon we shall come to Easter, a time of year I personally love, and I have been drawn back to the wonderful work of Isaiah. Nothing speaks more of God’s relationship to his creation through his Son, than that book. Sometimes a little theology is helpful in our understanding of a Heavenly Father. More on that in the coming weeks for those of you who might occasionally glance this way.

Other than that?

Well, last Sunday we met with 2 groups of people, both believers, both very different and both at interesting stages. In the morning, we met with a few believers who perhaps should have been more mature given the length of time in the faith, yet somewhere along the line their faith had grown cold. Why is that so common – is Jesus really that dull?

The answer is that, for whatever reason, Jesus had been replaced in their lives. As is so often the case, Jesus gets replaced by all sorts of things in our lives. Liturgy, doctrine, apathy, the world, all that is shiny, the list can be extensive.  Merely though, that we choose to follow other things than him. He becomes routine.

“I’ll follow you wherever you may go.”

“Do you realise that foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head?”

There’s no mistaking it; you’re not going to have an easy life if you follow the Son of Man. Each of us needs to have that squared away, comprehending who he is and deciding, “yes I want to follow him no matter what.” In the process of following him, there will certainly be a way of life that is like his. Surely that makes sense. John testifies, “anyone who claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”

We grow cold, when we say to ourselves, “I want to follow Jesus but I don’t intend to walk as he walked. I have another way to follow him.” As Paul prophesied would be the case, such events in Christendom are very popular. Most believers (and many non-believers who perhaps think they are believers) think like this.  It’s easy, so it goes, to follow Jesus when he’s going East and you’re going West. Can that truly be the case, that we can follow him without submission? Of course not, but it seems to me, much more practical than that as well.

We go where he goes, live like he lives, think like he does, speak like he does, pray as he does, love like he does. I cannot find any other way to follow Jesus.

As we do, like the Apostles before us, our lives become “testified with great power” and “great grace was upon them all.” There is evident a quality of life that seems to converge with the testimony of Jesus.  As a direct result, other lives became like his, believers walked it out as he walked it out, and understood what made the Father pleased, how relationships should work. As only he can.

It is very important – crucial in fact, that Jesus does not get replaced by some form of religion, or pomp, or formula, or idea or any externals. Else, we shall live impoverished, fabricated lives that are a show to others as to how pious we are, when deep down, the true riches of relationship with the Son of Man are missing. Eventually, tedious routine. It is about walking simply with the Master, and then linking arms with anybody who wants to walk that way too.

As we behold Him, we are transformed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another. We come to him, to each other, eyes-wide-open, all my heart, soul and mind and live it for him. His teaching, His way of life.

Nothing else needed.

The Fullness of Christ – part 1

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When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Instantly the man could see, and followed him along the way. – Mark 10:47, 52

Around the world, millions of people claim Jesus as their Saviour, and are indeed saved according to Biblical definition. Yet, of those, only a few will ever experience in this life, what it means to have the fullness of Christ. That is, a relationship with Christ which is simply fully immersed into him. There is no ‘Jesus-and.’

Such a bond doesn’t involve a 5-step process, or adoption of Four Laws, signing a piece of paper or saying a prayer. Neither is it about my doctrine, the one that insists I must repent sufficiently, attend church, be baptized or pray regularly enough. Incidentally, if you settle for religion – no matter how high, or pure, or lofty the ideal, you will end up frustrated.

You can see and enter the Kingdom of God, only by being born of God, through Jesus Christ. There is no other way. The Father has left it to the Son to save us. It is his choice. But there is more, much more than just this.

Every spiritual blessing is in Christ as well. If you want to relate that to ‘a great prayer life’, or holiness, peace or something else, then just fill in the blanks with him, because Jesus is that blessing. He is Salvation in its entirety. We still think it has to do with some nugget, some teaching or activity of ours that we can do, and then we will have it. Jesus-and.

When blind Bartimaeus was along the roadside, he didn’t cry out to Jesus, “what must I do to receive sight?” he cried out, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” Everyone pushed him back, in unison they told him “he doesn’t’ have time for you, just follow his teaching (you can collect your Braille book on the 20-greatest teachings of Jesus from over there). But he said, NO!, I just want Him. I want Jesus. So it is with salvation. A saved person should never be someone who has accepted just a set of ideas, or teachings and has therefore become a Christian. They are someone who says, “Jesus or nothing.” The set of ideas, the handout, the philosophy or theology, none of it is enough. Only he will suffice.

We, you and I, need to decide whether we really want to see or whether we are happy to pretend. It has been concerning me for so long. Jesus-and, doesn’t work.

If that is true of salvation my friends, then it is also true of becoming a man or woman of God. Or, perhaps of becoming a person of prayer, of being set free from whatever bondage in your life you need release from, or from becoming the person of sacrifice you always intend to be. Let us, all of us, just go after the person, not a self-help list of things to do, which gives us temporary success at best. Finally, we think we will have it, but we won’t. We are going to have to meet him to receive the blessings, because He is the only blessing.

For blind Bartimaeus, he needed to burst through the crowd of people who wanted to push him back into place, to approach Jesus despite the noise, the confusion and fear of men, to dispel all of the competing ideas; he needed to have the attitude that “Jesus is my answer and everything else will have to get out of the way. I am not ashamed, and everything else I will have to relinquish. I will not be quiet. Son of David, have mercy on me.”

Jesus, just Jesus is the Way. He is the Life. The Truth. He is prayer and righteousness, and love and self-sacrifice, self discipline and kindness and Holiness. It is all found in him. So what do we do? We adopt the attitude of Jacob. The greatest deceiver in the Bible became Israel, the founder of the nation of God, he wrestled and refused to let go. Show me you’re real. Son of David, have mercy on me.

I won’t ever let go of you Jesus, the Person, I will not let you go until I have received all of you. It is the only way to live. Live your life, me, you, full-faced toward Him in every area of our life. If he says, “you are forgiven” will we believe him? If he says to us, “arise, take up your mat and walk,” will we sit there and wonder whether you are healed, or will we take him at his Word?

When we turn full-faced to Jesus, then reality springs into life. Not just for us either, but for those who are all around us, especially the unbeliever.

Just Jesus, let us do all we can to find him, to face him, to follow him. There is no substitute, not now, not ever. Him alone.

Just Give Me Jesus

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For God the Father has given me his seal of approval – John 6:27

This is the only work God wants from you; believe in the one he has sent – John 6: 29

Anne Graham Lotz has written a book with the title, Just Give me Jesus. In the Gospel of John, more so than anywhere else, Jesus tells us that he is the chosen Messiah, the living Son of God and the only way to God. There is no other.

I have come to realise that he is the very epicentre of all things. Wars are fought because of him, families are held together in his name, people curse others using his name, or bless them as a result of him. This entire universe revolves around him, whether we can see it or not. We talk with a great deal of people on the streets from other religions, and all of them have an opinion about Jesus, Isa as Muslims call him. He figures in virtually all of the world’s religions. In our view, most of them want Jesus in ‘their religion’, a figure who is both divine and human, a way back to God. What they don’t understand, is that he belongs to no religion but if they would only accept his claims, they could claim him for themselves. That is what he wants.

It is possible to tell a person’s true relationship with God by how much they bring Jesus into conversation. Those who truly know him, talk about him openly and often, pray to him, usually in total freedom with others on the spur of the moment and seem to walk with him throughout every day of the week. He is anything but a religious institution in their lives. Conversely we know many Christians who rarely talk about him, or mention him by name and their relationship to him is strictly for Sundays. As a consequence, they rarely share their precious jewel with anybody else.

So how about you, in the hierarchy of your life, where does he rank in importance?

While on the subject of the Graham family, father Billy recently wrote that the greatest mistake a believer can make is to assume they need to work to get in the Kingdom. All too often, every one of us assumes somehow we can make it to God on our own. Jesus warns us off that path very quickly though, and tells us that God has put his Son front and centre of everything as our only chance of entering the presence of God. Believe in him, God points.

There is a fine line of course, in a statement like this. Those who truly relate to Him, understand that the Kingdom is a work, sometimes even a grind, yet they do it with relish not because it saves us, but because we are now motivated by his love. In our relationship with him, he has given us tasks to accomplish and as our loving King, he expects us to do them. He though, not our works will only save us in the end.

The world of course, gives scant regard to him or God, dismissing both as nothing more than a figment of our crazed mind. Some even fight to disprove his very existence.

All too many of us make a mental ascent to Jesus and his claims (and so believe) without it ever affecting our lives. This often drifts off into tick box religious work of sitting in pews, Sunday attendance, weekly prayer meeting and occasional choir practice, sometimes not even that. In our experience, this is deadly. It allows us to walk the fine line of somehow believing we are acceptable to God by going through a few rituals, without ever bothering with the relationship. We allow our activity to define relationship, not his expectation. All too often, as we listen to people tell us ‘we go to church’ or ‘we are Anglicans [or whatever brand it is]’ the conversation, the opportunity for real relationship passes by. Who knows when they will think about such things again? Deadly.

If you think I exaggerate, then consider throughout the Gospels, who Jesus railed against; was it ever the poor who knew in their hearts they could never reach God (after all just look at the state he left them in, went the Pharisees)? No, it was the religious elite those who set the bar so high that nobody could ever achieve it, those who changed the rules to suit themselves, those who made sure that God remained a complex and distant deity that nobody would ever get close to.

So, God sent his Son. We write, talk and preach of him. His beauty, his majesty is simply astounding, but so is his simplicity. In these simple verses and in the life he lived, he made his Father, the great Yahweh, accessible to all who were never good enough and knew it. To ascend to the heavens, you need to humble yourself first. He showed us that, if we would only dispense with our immense human pride and arrogance, we could not only come to the throne we could even call him Father.

That all the works but one were unnecessary, and that one was to believe in his Son with everything we had. Along the way, we will find every desire, every want and need, all our peace and contentment is found in him. Then one day, when we finally pass, he will take our hand and walk us into the throne room to introduce us to his Father.

Every single day of my life, I continue to be astounded by him. Just give me Jesus.

Light of my life

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Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is! – Matt 6:22-3

Can you see the light? This passage comes at the end of the Beatitudes, and I have been thinking about it all week. It is so insightful about our human condition and how Jesus relates to us.

Light in Scripture means so many things doesn’t it. In Isaiah 9, it says a people living in darkness have seen a great light and there it is referring to Jesus coming to the Jews first, and then the Gentiles. The wise men were guided to him by a great light, John announces him as “the light of the world” and in Revelation, we will live for eternity with him as the light that literally replaces the sun. Jesus then, clearly, is the light that is referred to throughout Scripture.

But there is more to it than that as well isn’t there. Light and darkness often refer to our condition, with specific relation to our sinful state before God. We are said to walk in the light, when Christ’s righteousness covers our own. That is getting closer to what Jesus is talking about here. He says that the eye is the lamp of our body; we see with our eyes, and the question for all of us is, can we see the light? When we can light, or righteousness, floods our entire body.

This has been illuminating for me (!) over the past few weeks, which I will come to in a sec. You see, there is another passage in Scripture that says ‘the prince of this world has blinded the hearts and minds of unbelievers.’ It is a powerful statement and it ties back to this passage, and to the entire essence of why Christ was sent. Aside from making a person right with God through his own sacrifice, the very first thing Jesus through his Spirit does in a believer’s life, is enable them to begin to see light and darkness, or right and wrong. The world simply cannot determine the difference on its own.

We are counselling a married couple at the moment, walking alongside them as they try to save their marriage – I wonder if we learn as much as they do in the process. One is barely a believer, the other not, and as a consequence they cannot see where they are going wrong. What is wrong, is their sin, which is ‘piled high to heaven’ to lift a phrase from Isaiah again. Only Jesus can shine his light into our lives so that we can actually discern what is wrong with us. When we can discern, then we can see to change, and as we begin to make the change (with his help) things improve. Without his light, we grovel in darkness, unaware of the real problems.

This has been enormously helpful in realising that without Christ, people simply cannot see the difference between light and dark, right or wrong. We start to make up our own morality and we’re often  only vaguely aware that something is even really wrong.

Jesus finishes this passage with an alarming ending – that is, if we see the darkness in our lives as being light, then we really are very dark indeed. This is exactly what we are seeing in our couple at the moment – unable to judge by the true light of Christ, everything is ‘good’ – even the bad. We pray then, that the Lord of Light will ‘unblind’ them, so that they may recognise what is wrong. Christ and us together can begin to change our lives for good.

Think this isn’t important? God thinks it’s crucial. If we can’t see the darkness of our own lives, then what Jesus warns us here is that we will descend into such darkness and always justify it as being ‘light’. Think ISIS as a current example.

It is why, when we present the Gospel on the streets, we almost always start with trying to open people’s eyes up to sin. As we do, we pray that He begins to open their eyes to what they are being told, so that they can see – perhaps for the first time. Jesus is always the answer to our sin. Always.

I don’t know if all of that is clear but I hope so. Friends, the enormity of the task is overwhelming. We must all learn to bring Jesus into our conversations. We must try to find a way to gently show people that they are sinful as well, and along the way, pray that he will open their eyes and shine his light. It is the beginning of salvation. The beginning of all hope.

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