Tsunami

2:30 AM and the Tsunami sirens begin to sound. “Evacuate, this is not a drill”, it keeps blaring. From a stupor of restful sleep, having drifted off listening to the sounds of the ocean waves through an open window, I try to make sense of what I am hearing. First I think the cops are calling someone to come out with their hands up. No, too much TV still in the brain.

When I realize what is being blared into my skull I realize, something serious is happening. We check the computer and discover the facts of Japan’s earthquake and understand that size of earthquake could really cause what they are warning us of. The first waves aren’t going to hit for 4 hours but we decide to go ahead and get in the car and drive to ‘Higher Ground’. Besides, it is raining, cold and windy. I really don’t want to be reduced to hiking up the mountain at the last opportunity of escape. I have a survival kit in the car so we have food, water and a stove for cooking, so off we go.

It is then it strikes me, how very much we are like what God uses as a metaphor: Sheep. A herd mentality. When we come to the first realistic parking area, it is absolutely jammed pack full of cars. Probably 150-200 cars taking up every available area to park in. I remember that next to this area is another pull off with another parking lot. I literally go 15 feet further down Highway 26 and turn into another parking lot that even has a bathroom!! Not one car in the whole lot. All the sheep are herded together. I back into a spot in the dark at 3:30 in the AM and thank the Lord that He is not allowed us to stray so far that He could not find us. We didn’t make it back to our cabin until noon and it was all for naught, or was it? I wonder of His creation, of what is happening in it, to it and because of it. I realize how important I am to Him, how grateful I am for His goodness and care. And to realize we are perfectly safe no matter what happens.

For us it turned out, but it doesn’t always turn out that way in the human situation, it surely didn’t for hundreds in Japan for whom I mourn.

How can God allow all of this to happen if He is good? The answer has to be: Because He is good. He will redeem all of the human suffering in His time and in His way. Because He is good. If He isn’t good, a Tsunami is the least of my worries.

The Kingdom as the Basis for Death to Self

I have the privilege of bringing my natural life into His life by giving up my right to run my natural life on its own, without God. You were made to fit into, submit and live in this vast Kingdom of God and operate under the Divine Power of the Trinity. You can’t do that as long as you are holding onto your life. You just can’t do it.

Why from the human point of view we are guilty of such hubris.

We have a readiness to run the whole universe and we would if we could get away with it. Just show me the control panel?

Yet, we cannot even run our own lives.

We think we can but human history stands as undeniable proof that we can’t.

The human being was designed to fit into His kingdom.

That is the basis for death to self. That is the basis for finding our life.

It means that this is a good place to be. It means I never have to do anything wrong because I am not trying to protect my life,

I don’t have to manage my life, and I don’t even have to be happy.

What a load off. I found it to such a great relief to people to discover they don’t have to be happy.

My goal in life is not to be happy in this visible world.

Why would I put my energies into that? Why would I?

Even the best moralists in our world tell us not to strive to be happy but rather to be worthy of happiness.

Try to find something to do in life bigger then being happy.

Leave it to God to arrange for whatever happiness is to come your way. Wouldn’t that be refreshing? Just to leave your happiness up to God-and what He’ll give you in return is joyfulness. A settled sense of wellbeing.

The only way this can be done is to learn to live in His presence right now through confidence in Jesus and in the grace abundantly available to us.

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism...

Of all the phone calls, conversations and visits I had this week, the one that caused profound sadness was one from a church in our area. They have decided to not partner with the rest of the churches in our annual breakfast for High School seniors because of our ‘differences’.

The churches in our Valley have been hosting a breakfast for graduating seniors for 30 years. We all join together and share the responsibilities each June, taking turns providing music, prayer and a short presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I acknowledge that we approach Christ from different directions but we all hold Him up and exalt Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the answer to the human problem that has no human solution. We are light and salt to a community who desperately needs the healing touch of the Gentle Carpenter from Nazareth. The One who came, lived a real life, died a horrible death and rose again to provide life eternal to those who would but place their confidence in Jesus and make following Him into life the most important thing for them. Learning from Him how to live this new life from above that will never end.

But, one church in our valley is right and the rest are wrong. Rather than present our unity in Christ they prefer to magnify the differences.

You don’t find that exclusionary approach in the scriptures.

Galatians 3:26-29 and Ephesians 4:5 is instructive.

Thank God, we are not saved by being right. If anything we are right because we are saved. Perhaps we should focus on being Christlike and whatever we need to be right about we should trust Him for that as well.

I so desperately long and fervently pray for each of the churches in our little valley to thrive because each will reach people the other churches are not positioned to reach. I desire the dissenting church to thrive and I pray for her pastor that he would become the kind of person who can show his community how Jesus Christ would live his live. But the church must not draw its boundaries smaller than God draws the boundaries. This is a sad day for the entire Community of the Redeemed in Long Valley.

WHAT TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU CAN’T FORGET

It is important for us to learn to trust Him but we are also learning that He can be trusted. You aren’t going to trust Him if you doubt He can be trusted.

What do I remember when I can’t forget…He can be trusted,

And I am cared for in this loving community of Divine persons, the Trinity.

Of course, I come to a different conclusion if I think I am running the world.

From that perspective I must evaluate everything on the basis of how it affects me.

Whether I am getting my way or not. Whether I am right.

We should realize there is really no good reason in the universe why we should get our way and as for being right…being right isn’t everything.

When I take my life into His life I learn to trust Him fully because He is fully trustworthy. He is looking out for me. Do you believe that?

Do you believe out of His abundant mercy and love, He is looking out for you?

The basis of our lack of trust in large part is the way we have viewed the essence (the indispensable quality) of Christianity. A God who is pretty angry we screwed up His plan, a fairly mean and angry person who is going to let you off the hook because somebody took your beating. Namely Jesus.

And we miss that it was the heart of love that sent Jesus.

The death of Jesus on the cross does not make God happy when He was unhappy. The death of Jesus is God’s effort to reach human beings with His love. And because of what one member of that Divine Community did He is able to say to the human being, the war is over, you don’t need to carry on the battle any longer, you don’t need to keep fighting because peace comes by accepting the God of Jesus Christ as real, you can go home now.

You can go home.

God is good and it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance, NOT His meanness. Romans 2:4

Spiritual Vertigo

Often, even in the midst of discipleship our lives just don’t make sense.

We hear the preacher talking about the abundant life of Jesus as we live drawing on the flow of His riches in the Kingdom Amongst us, and we have the tendency to say, wake up and smell the thorns.

A rather severe case of spiritual vertigo.

It is in those times I find whether I really trust, or I just really talk about it.

But it is not whether we experience the bitterness of life that defines our discipleship, it is our response. 3 things to remember during these times.

1. God is here - even when life turns sour.

God is not far away, He is here. That was the gospel Jesus Christ preached.

Our Father in Heaven not far away in space and time…He is right here.

The answer is not going to heaven when we die, the answer is to live in His presence right now.

2.  Nothing too hard for God.

Because God holds everything together anyway. Nothing too hard for Him.

Col. 1:17 In Him all things hold together. See: Luke 1:37

Not to hard for Him to redeem even your sufferings if submitted to Him.

3. God is good.

1 John 1:5 This is the message of Jesus Christ…God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. NONE. Don’t believe anything bad about God.

Nahum 1:7 (You can’t have the God of Nahum 1 without verse 7)

   The LORD is good, A stronghold in the day of trouble,

   And He knows those who take refuge in Him.

I would paraphrase Nahum 1 like this:

Give up, the battle is over, He won, quit fighting because you can go home now. You can go home because God is good and you can take refuge in Him. We sing at Christmas the great lines from the prophet Daniel:
The Kingdoms of this world have become those of our God and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever and ever…

What is the next word? hallelujah.

- Pastor Brian

Thinking bigger...

The life God has for us here as we learn to trust Him is much richer than we have been led to believe.

God has called us to and will empower us to live a life of actual moral goodness that flows from inside the life of One committed to trusting Him and desirous of living in the conscious reality of the very presence of God.

We are today living the consequences of not thinking big enough regarding our life with Christ. It is not that we do not acknowledge our sinfulness, it is our failure to acknowledge our place in His life. We so easily forget that the plans He has for us are something so grand we can hardly begin to fathom. We are so busy bemoaning our lot in life we forget the position we hold in His life as we live eternity right now.

The reason for learning to trust Him is not just that it is good for us, though it is and not just that it will see us through the hurts of life as it will, but because we are involved in a world, indeed universe wide conspiracy where God is undermining the very evil structures that have dominated and existed in human history with the perpetual good of His people.

Overcoming evil is not just a personal effort we engage in, it will actually come about. That is God’s plan and the resurrection of Jesus is proof He will bring it about---and He has made us indispensable participants in this.

God is about making us into the kind of person who will be able to stand up to the rigors of an eternity that stretches before us in an endless life.

That takes training in this phase as we ‘reign in life through One Jesus Christ’-Romans 5:17

You can learn to live in the conscious reality of the presence of God. Don't let them tell you otherwise.

- Pastor Brian

CHOOSING TO DECIDE

Many of us have taken the step of realization that the teachings of Jesus constitute for us the best way to live. It is, actually, the only way to live. You can’t live this life any other way. But you say, lots of people are. No they aren’t, they are dead in transgressions and sin. (Check out: Romans 8:5-8; Ephesians 2:1; 3:5; Colossians 2:13)
And if there is anything we know about dead people-they aren’t alive!
How is that for profound?

To really flourish in discipleship-we have to honestly decide whether He can be trusted.
Is His teaching the best there is out there?
Is there someone else to turn to?
Do you have enough confidence in Jesus to declare that if there were a more significant body of knowledge out there or a more knowledgeable teacher, Jesus would be the first to tell us about it? There simply isn’t anyone.
Jesus has the best information on the most important topics of life. His early followers knew this and declared: In Him dwells all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col.2:3-4).

Why, for me it is almost humorous that people would suggest that someone has lived this life that is more intelligent, more brilliant than Jesus.

If you don’t believe that Jesus is The One with the best information on how to live life then you will always be looking for someone who DOES have the best information.
Perhaps yourself, a philosopher, writer or TV guru.

But, if I have my confidence in Him then I am going to do whatever it takes to learn from Him how to live my life. I am going to learn His teachings, what His first intimate friends had to say about Him and what He taught about the God who stands back of the universe He created. I am going to believe there is nothing, there is no evil, no matter how difficult and heartbreaking that cannot be redeemed for good. I will consider nothing more important then being His student in life.

If I can’t believe these things about Jesus, I may profess that I desire to put into practice what He said, but I will be constantly prepared to do it some other way that seems at the moment more appealing. I will want to do good but I will always be prepared to do evil.
And guess what will then pop out when life comes at me at breakneck speed?