Family health issues have interfered. Back to blogging.
The previous blogs emphasized God’s intention to use each disciple’s life as a showcase of his grace. Two living examples from WWII offer what Christians often are and what they can become. What Christian Too-Often Are: In her book, Three Came Home, Agnes Keith wrote about an American sailor on the ship coming home with other former POW’s and Internees. He had both hands bundled in bandages, gauze and tape. Because, with his bare hands, he had beaten a brutal Japanese guard to death. Incurring his wounds in the process, he wore them as a prize for revenge taken. But did it make him a more peaceful civilian at home when disputes occurred? Did his assumption of a role God reserves for himself give him a lasting sense of empowerment? And did his satisfaction with retaliation in kind last longer than Mrs. Keith’s willingness to forgive the enemy despite her mistreatment? What Christians Can Be: Jacob de Shazer served as one of General Doolittle’s Raiders over Tokyo April, 1942. He parachuted into Japanese-held China when his plane ran out of fuel. Captured the next day, he spent 40 months as a POW—brutalized, tortured, starved. One day, reacting to an inner need, he asked a Japanese guard for a Bible. He had it only three days before they confiscated it. But those three days changed his life. He had been peeling potatoes Sunday, 7 December, 1941 when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. Enraged, he shouted his hatred at the enemy, vowing to get even with them for their perfidious attack. Yet...when American paratroopers dropped into his prison camp 20 August, 1945, de Shazer had another goal: he would return to Japan as a missionary of Christ’s Gospel. Which he did in 1948 and served 30 years. Two men experienced heartless treatment from the same source. One got revenge, the other his life mission. One acted from an offended self, the other from the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. The one made no change in his tormentors, the other both life and eternal alterations. End Part V
0 Comments
Life can subject us to adversity—the bad news. Christ is able to subject even adversity to his gracious will—the good news. God destines the Gospel message and the disciple’s life to exist in perfect tension, his word inspiring our life. The obedience we render as his messengers automatically impacts our life, with service and faith merging into an indivisible bond.
The best part of Christianity remains its last part, when the Master comes down from Heaven with a Mighty Shout and a Shattering Command, trumpets blasting and angels scattering to gather all the dead and all the changed living. Until then...the best part of the Christian life is his message incarnated in us. He didn’t make his message great so we could be small; or his message triumphant that we would be conquered. He didn’t make his Gospel pure Gold, than leave us slag heaps from the refinement. He didn’t make his message FIRE but believers CLINKERS! He didn’t empower his message as Spiritual Renewal projects to leave us Podunks! Jesus didn’t come full of truth and grace to have us living a lie in disgrace. Indeed, he won’t have us proclaiming his message without actualizing it. Or teaching grace that leaves us spiritually impoverished. He won’t create brilliant teaching but leave his converted disciples unimaginative, unprepossessing saints. True: Jesus never pours his sacred oil into unclean vessels. Equally true, he always pours precious refined olive oil, not crude oil, into clean vessels. End Part IV Where Peter Tchaikovsky thought that inner peace couldn’t be FOUND, Jesus offered it as a GIFT when we belong to him. “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” John 14:27.
Why do we fruitlessly seek peace of mind until we find—which never happens—when we can accept it as Christ’s free gift to all believers? Isaiah 53 tells us that we are healed by Christ’s wounds, encouraged by his sufferings and forgiven by his sacrifice. We’re always confident, then, against temptation since Jesus pulverized Satan. But we’re never, ever, less confident by Christ’s conquest of Satan. We always take Joy from Christ’s Sorrows, but never, ever, take sorrow from his Joy! Like him, other Bible personalities positively impacted others by first being impacted by GOD: Abraham, Moses, David and Deborah, but four of more. And each one possessing a personal life equal to his belief system. So Paul could say to the Corinthians, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ” I Corinthians 11:1. And to the Philippians, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice” 4:9. That’s called life and doctrine in equilibrium! It’s possible that Frank Lloyd Wright had been scarred for life by having his wife and her two children hacked to death by a shingling ax, their bodies incinerated by the killer’s arson. While Paul could have claimed being scarred by all the grief he encountered serving Jesus...he wasn’t. For...beyond all he suffered he gained immeasurably greater grace from Jesus. Do we want to be victims of what our humanity can’t stand, or examples of Christ’s Presence that makes us “more than conquerors” of all we encounter? End Part III Using Joseph, son of Jacob as our paradigm, understand that Jesus builds in us a vigorous, attractive life through his word. It’s seen in two ways.
First, a Life That Honors Life’s Circumstances as God’s will for us at that time. We see them as the means of deepening our discipleship and witness. Even when we don’t understand or explain WHY we’re subjected to them. With Joseph, we believe that God ordinarily allows only the circumstances that develop greater faith in us ONCE they’re accepted as God’s will. THEN...adversity that breaks lesser faith only bolsters strong into redoubtable faith. Second, A Life Capable of Emulating Christ’s Message. Christians don’t live under the curse afflicting so many gifted people. WHO put the best of themselves into their work, leaving only the beggarly for their personal lives. Frederick Chopin, incomparably skilled pianist, couldn’t find peace within himself. He found himself unable to cast off thoughts that poisoned his happiness. He could only “groan and suffer and pour out” his despair at the piano. Internet, 10/30/19 I’ve read the same tortured conflicts in Frank Lloyd Wright, Peter Tchaikovsky, Ludwig von Beethoven and Leo Tolstoy. People of genius in the arts who found their personal unity fractured by perplexing contradictions. Tchaikovsky, for example, defined happiness as what one pursues but never accrues. A human longing for happiness finds a mindless Fate interfering. End Part II In the first century, people and animals could have the owner’s brand burned into their flesh. The apostle Paul used the practice to teach the futility of circumcision in qualifying a person as God’s child. Paul experienced the brand of Jesus on his body, Galatians 6:17. II Corinthians 11:22ff mentions some: three beatings, one stoning, five floggings, three shipwrecks, and one 24 hour period adrift at sea. And none of them included the mental and spiritual stress suffered as an apostle of Christ starting and pastoring churches.
These references could have been the marks of Jesus on Paul. We know for sure, however, what the marks were NOT. They were NOT the tattoos so popular today. Paul observed the Bible injunction against putting tattoos on the body Leviticus 19:28. Precisely because ancient pagans marked themselves with symbols of their deities. Hebrew faith, and Christian faith after it, distinguished Christians from unbelievers by the impact of God’s Spirit on their mind and heart. The Spirit marks prove that the Christian faith is both Doctrinally pure—what we believe; and Practically persuasive—what we personally live I Timothy 4:16. Too many disciples believe it doesn’t matter what they believe about Jesus so long as their life honors Christ. Understand, however: God put both doctrine and life in equilibrium and didn’t give us the right to upset that balance. When in balance, doctrine and life will build in us: the grace of Astaire and Rogers exchanging dance steps; the eloquence of Coleman and Garson exchanging dialogue; the passion of Bogart and Bacall exchanging glances. End Part I |
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|