Time to Party ...

When was the last time you heard a Christian saying that its time to party?  A lot of nominal Christians perhaps, but how about Christians that think of themselves as disciples, or apostles, or leaders in the faith.  The problem is not the joy, it is how the term “party” is usually associated with getting to the joy.  The world has commandeered the term “party” to be closely associated with chemical stimulants.  But even the world admits, the chemical stimulation is not as much fun when you are alone.  Indeed, the most fundamental ingredient of any party, whether it be the world’s idea of fun, or perhaps the Christian ideas of the same, is a gathering of other people (no cats just won’t do).  And no matter what kind of party you prefer, or attend, having someone there who is indeed the “life” of the party makes the gathering even better.  A party can go from dull to exhilarating just by having someone attend who is practiced at being the life of the party.  But then again, if there is no-one there to see the life of the party, to enjoy the interaction with them, then the skills are wasted, and the event is generally a failure.

So if you break a party down to its most fundamental elements there are few things revealed.  First, any party to even call itself by that name, needs to include a gathering of people.  Second, parties can be made significantly better by having the “right” person or people in attendance – folks who know how to have a good time and know how to encourage others to do the same.  Third, when you gather people together, things tend to get noisy.  And lastly, no matter how you get there, the ultimate desire underlying any party is to have fun, to attain joy, to lift our spirits and make us feel better about our lives.  A party is a chance to escape the normal pressures of the world and focus on something entirely different.  And what rings the irony gong for me, is the vehicle a party uses to shift our focus upwards and better is the vehicle of human fellowship.  A party is not a party without people.  Ideally these people are ones we know and love, but most of us would be happy to meet new folks as long as they are fun to fellowship with and enjoy lifting their own spirits while at the same time lifting ours.

At most parties there is some sort of food element involved.  Even if only finger foods, or appetizers, having something to munch on is a great ice breaker at parties.  Depending on how much food is involved, a party can evolve from party to feast.  There is not much distinction between a party and a feast except for the amount of food they intend to serve and consume.  Food has long been a vehicle for people to set aside precious time and fellowship while they eat.  When you can’t get people to come to a “party” you can almost always get them to come to “feast”.  Everyone has to eat.  And even eating is much more fun when you don’t do it alone.  Sharing, whether it is ideas, or thoughts, or even commiserating, is a fundamental need of humans.  This is part of the whole “created in Gods image” thing.  Our God longs to fellowship, and enjoy His own creations (food, etc.) with us, the same way we would long to do it with each other, and hopefully with Him.

So inevitably when I look around, I see the faces of Christians, and my first thought is rarely – “this is a party guy or gal”.  No instead my first thought is – “who died?”.  When I study the rest of the American Christian frame, I realize perhaps the party is going extinct, but the feast seems to be alive and well.  Though perhaps McDonalds and the fast food industry is responsible for more of our heft, than the traditional home cooked feasting that would be so much more fun if we could only make time for it.  In any case, Jesus did not intend for Christians to be miserable people, always hungry, and never caught dead in a party (even if we call it a feast).  The intent of our God was that we eat the fruits of His garden, and that it is not good for us to be alone.  We need companionship, just like He does.  We should have way more joy in our lives.  So much joy, that it creeps into our faces and our bodies, and becomes evident to anyone who looks at us.  How do I know?  Luke offers us some insight into Jesus’ thoughts on just this topic.  He begins in his 5^th chapter in the gospel letter to his friend on the fundamentals of our beliefs and where they come from.

Picking up in verse 27 it begins … “And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. [verse 28] And he left all, rose up, and followed him.”  A lot of us modern day Christians read this passage only for its historical value.  We seem to forget this invitation is not dissimilar to what God offers each of us, every single day.  Jesus asks each of us, would you like to follow me?  Note that He does not ask us for directions.  He already knows where He is going.  The invitation is not for you to join a committee or intend to make the plans “with” Jesus.  His plans for you are already made.  What Jesus asks each of us, is whether we are willing to “follow” Jesus and let Him lead us wherever He wants us to be, even if that is to the same place you have been longing to get away from every day of your life.  Your role in this transaction is simply to follow.  Perhaps better stated to be willing to follow, and then to move where He leads, even if that means standing still while He clears the way out in front of you.  No more decision making for you, if you are practiced enough to begin letting Jesus make them for you (which is the ultimate of submission).  When Jesus asked Levi Matthew this, albeit in person, Matthew left everything and followed Jesus.  It did not matter where Jesus was going, only that Levi Matthew was honored enough to be going too.

Luke continues in verse 29 saying … “And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.”  And look how Levi Matthew responds.  Not in solemn silence.  Not with black clothing and ashes heaped upon his head for the fortune and property and income he was walking away from.  Matthew was not depressed by what he gave up to follow Jesus – instead he was excited to the hilt to be offered the spot on the Jesus team.  Money is worth nothing.  Jesus is worth everything.  So a happy man, full of joy does, what a happy man full of joy does.  He throws a party and invites anyone who would dare to party with a sinner like himself.  The elite of society will not be coming to this event, at least not inside the house of this sinner.  They will come and peruse the goings on through the windows outside where the “proper” folks go to avoid being contaminated by the sinners who tarry within.  But Jesus goes right in there.  Jesus walks right on in to a house filled with prostitutes, adulterers, men of great pride and little education, men who cheat the Israelite nation on behalf of Rome and themselves.  There was not ONE single saint in that entire gathering outside of Christ.  This was a party.  A full-on respectable party, full of joy.  And the life of the party was Jesus Christ.  If you let Him, He will be the life of every party you throw.  A tradition that does not end here, but continues in heaven for an eternity your mind is too feeble to even comprehend right now.

For those of us modern Christians who are too timid to go to a party because there “might” be alcohol there – get over it.  For those of us Christians who believe isolation is the only solution to keep us from getting contaminated by the sins of other sinners – get over it.  YOU are already the source of sin those others sinners should be avoiding in the first place by that judgmental logic.  Its not them, its you.  No matter what they are doing, you are doing things just as bad or worse.  You may not have been discovered yet, but you are no less guilty than they.  So isolation just leaves you alone in your own sins, it does not prevent you from contracting theirs.  Fellowship is not the cure for sinning, but it can be a vehicle of support for those suffering with this disease including you.  Jesus is the cure.  And Jesus can be found in places of joy and parties and feasts, just like He might be found in the places of worship that resemble more of funerals than of people bound for an infinity of fun.  Jesus attended this party, like He is honored to attend any other you ask Him to.  And He was not in there making everyone miserable with sermons on hell fire and sin and repentance.  He was in there freeing people from sins, lifting them up in joy, making them shout and sing and dance because this new found freedom was like nothing they had ever experienced.  That is my kind of party.  Who cares what you eat and drink if you have Jesus right there making everything awesome.

But alas, for every life of the party, there is usually a Debbie-downer looking to trash the whole event.  For this one, enter the Pharisees.  I forgot, are you one of those?  Nobody thinks that “they” are the Debbie-downer Pharisee, but the judgmental language that seems to just leap out of their mouths, brings everybody down and does nothing to lift anyone out of any sin ever.  We Pharisees have a knack for pointing out what is wrong with anything.  We can tell you the five ways this could have been better, but usually spend our time focusing on who is to blame for the tragedies we invent.  Anyone who comes in our circle usually instantly regrets that decision.  Walk by us in a party and just feel your spirit come crashing down to earth, when it might have otherwise soared to the heights of heaven.  When you look up, you move up.  When you look down, you fall down.  And so not content to just be miserable, we must share our misery in order to feel even the slightest bit of relief from the responsibility we carry of pointing out the sins of the world.

Luke continues in verse 30 saying … “But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? [verse 31] And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. [verse 32] I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  Does it sound like Jesus was indisposed in the back bedroom with the hookers who came to this shindig?  Or does it sound like Jesus was at the kitchen table in there counting up the gold and dividing it up to keep a good portion of it Himself?  Does it sound like Jesus was falling down drunk unable to speak without slurring His words?  No.  Jesus was fully alert, sober, and having the time of His life.  These wounded souls were hearing Him, and accepting His call to follow, and let Him free them from their sins.  Again, my kind of party.  And the results were singing, shouting, and dancing.  Everyone was having a blast, not because of their sins, but because He was freeing them from their sins.  And Debbie-downer was worried about the social stigma of hanging out with hookers and tax collectors (hookers being better than tax collectors also called publicans).

Debbie-downer was worried about reputations, and keeping themselves in isolation from sinners in need.  But that is NOT the example of Jesus Christ who we claim to follow.  Jesus did not transact with hookers, He freed them from their sins, and used His church to support them, welcoming them into His ranks.  The same applied to tax collectors.  After all, He just personally invited one of those “scum” to be one of His disciples.  Take a hike Debbie-downer.  This party is for the joy of looking up in freedom.  The life of this party was handing out life like it was M&M’s in a punchbowl.  Relief.  Joy.  And fellowship with like minded folks who appreciated these gifts more than anything wealth could ever buy.  The last thing this party needed was “church leadership”.  Let the party be the party.

But Pharisaical Debbie-downer was persistent if nothing else.  Luke continues in verse 33 saying … “And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink? [verse 34] And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? [verse 35] But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.”  Jesus says yes Debbie, there is a time coming when you will make persecution of any who find freedom from sin through me a living hell.  The church will persecute the saved from one end of the earth to the other bathing themselves in the blood of those who have found freedom no single doctrine could have ever provided.  In those times, there will be more fasting than feasting.  But notice too, when Jesus is with us, the time to party has come.  When Jesus is with us, it is feast time baby.  Somebody break out the finger food and the chips.  Hold your ears Debbie because there is going to be spontaneous singing, shouting, and dancing when Jesus is nearby.  This is not a Pentecostal thing, this is a Jesus proximity thing.  This is about being connected to the life of the party.  Not just in our imaginations or faith, but in the reality of an eternity spent with Jesus beyond the concepts of time.  We can begin here.  But it does NOT end there.

Jesus must have looked around at the guests of this party.  He notices some have clothing that is torn and ripped.  He notices too the wine bottles in the containers along the wall.  Items readily available for those in this party to see and understand what He means as He continues in verse 36 saying … “And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.”  The poor folks there understood, when their clothing was ripped, you could not cover the hole by sewing a new piece of fabric over it.  The new was much heavier and would rip the tear open even worse than before.  If you have an old robe, you need an old piece of fabric to cover it up with.

Luke continues in verse 37 saying … “And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. [verse 38] But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. [verse 39] No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.”  The same analogy holds true with the bottles of wine.  And here is where Debbie-downer (my nickname for the Pharisees among us) went away angry.  Old doctrine is what old leaders prefer.  New doctrine is what new vessels, that is new converts prefer.  The old choking doctrines of the past, will choke a new convert, focusing only on what you can and cannot do – instead of how you can love and be free in the love of God for others.  It is a completely different way of thinking.  Loving others solves the sin problem like nothing else can.  If I love you, I don’t think about hurting you, lying to you, stealing from you, dishonoring you, you name it.  If I love God first, then the love for others will flow through me.  It is the lack of focus on love in the old set-in-their-ways ideas of the past, that creates Pharisees, kills Jesus, and causes entire generations to be lost.  Jesus brought us a new way to think, a new way to love and live.

The New way for us to follow, was one of submission of our ideas and will to our God.  Just like Jesus did with His Father every day He was here.  He submitted to God.  We submit to Him.  We accept that invitation to follow.  Next, Jesus loved everyone of us He encountered, and did everything He could to make each of our lives better through fellowship, support, and association.  There is no isolation called for in that recipe.  There is no sadness called for in it either.  He did not think of this as sacrifice, why do we?  It was the love in Him that gave Him joy in the giving.  Love can bring you that joy as well.  The world, and sin itself will bring plenty of sadness for us to have to deal with.  But Jesus brings freedom.  He brings joy.  He brings a time to party where we look up and find reason to sing, to dance, to shout praise to God.  My kind of party.  That kind of joy is infectious.  It spreads to anyone who encounters it.  And it is here.  Why not invite that life of the party into what will become the party of your life?  Why not begin to experience joy, not because you find it in a bottle or a syringe, but because true freedom is exhilarating.  Jesus truly is my kind of party.

 

The Perception of Reality ...

To admit one is an alcoholic is the first step in finding a solution to the problem.  Though most of us are not afflicted with this uncontrollable addiction, we refuse to see our condition with self-interest is as great or greater than the desire in an alcoholic for just one more drink.  We too are addicts and slaves, but to self, if not the bottle.  And like an alcoholic our perceptions of our condition are colored by the disease we are enslaved to.  We do not truly see our condition.  We do not truly recognize our peril.  We do not rightly foresee the results of the evil we engage in, and the pain that will inevitably come from our actions.  To begin to heal, we must begin by recognizing how our condition colors our reality, and ask to have our perceptions corrected.  We must admit, we are unable to accomplish this in any way.

Perception is reality.  It is so entirely easy to focus on a particular evil in our lives as being “our problem”.  We contend with it.  Loathe it.  We despise ourselves for engaging in it.  And in the process of becoming obsessed with its removal, we ignore the many other problems that go unnoticed.  We fixate on solving a particular evil that grabs our attention and ignore that perhaps it is not the most dangerous evil we are embracing.  For instance, an alcoholic may believe it is his drinking that lays at the root of all the evil in his own life.  But a more objective review, might reveal that it is his refusal to accept help in any form, that prevents him from finding a solution to not only his alcoholism, but relief from every other evil in his life as well.  While he fixates on trying to stop drinking himself, he openly engages in all manner of other evils and hardly recognizes their impact.  In this instance, it is humility that would open the doors to healing, both for this addiction to drinking, and for all the other evils Christ would be able to free him from.

I have sometimes heard the prayer … “show me the evil in my heart,”  This is truly a dangerous prayer.  Yes we need a reality check from time to time to realize our imperfections and keep our dependence upon Christ to heal us.  But a complete picture of our evil might cause us to lose hope that we would ever truly be cured of it all.  Our God is merciful to us, in that He only reveals a little at a time, as we are able to process it.  The true extent of our evil infection is in fact, terminal.  We suffer from a fatal disease that has only one cure – submission to Christ.  While a hurting infected person craves a cure, if they lack the humility to submit, a picture of their condition might only inspire complete despair.  It takes time for the Savior to humble our will, our minds, and our lives to the point where we are able and willing to accept His healing.

It is said a doctor does not make a very good patient, and a lawyer does not make a very good client.  Perhaps it is because having a level of expertise in their respective fields, colors their ideas about how best to treat themselves or represent themselves in court.  A more objective analysis, i.e. one that is provided by someone else looking out for them, may often be better that what they had imagined for themselves.  Christians are similarly stunted when it comes to self-diagnosis.  We see very little in the mirror of our true selves that needs to be adjusted, yet think ourselves expert at diagnosing others.  We sometimes take our diagnosis of ourselves or others a step too far, believing we are capable of writing a prescription that will “heal” the patient.  We have no such skills.  Not for ourselves, or for others.  Our best and only hope is call on our Master Physician to heal us all.

The problem with our disease is that warps our thinking and our perceptions by default.  Self-focused thinking warps the mind to believe it must be done, it cannot be neglected, and if another suffers for our need, better him than me.  These become our core values.  They are exhibited in our actions and worse our motives.  They drive our bad decisions, and create ripples of pain in those we love.  We are blinded by the disease we carry and it is a common disease.  To look to another human for an answer, is to ask another person with a varying level of infection, how to avoid infection at all.  Humans do not have the answer.  Divinity alone is required to recreate what has already been warped within us.  To restore His original intent takes His hands alone.  We can encourage each other.  We can console each other.  We can love each other.  But we cannot heal each other.  We cannot change our own desires, let alone those of another human.  This was not supposed to be our role.  Our job is to give the hurting, the name of our physician and let Christ do the healing.

But as the disease warps the mind to the negative, healing restores the mind to the freedom and joy that is a part of His intentions for us.  Imagine being a freed slave for the first time.  True freedom.  Not being told when to eat, or limited as to what to eat; not being forced to work or play or do anything.  Our addictions force us, or compel us, to do that which we would not.  Healing removes those horrible cravings of slavery.  We no longer have to fight against them, they are removed.  The chains are lifted.  We are set free.  The shear enormity of the time we have, no longer obsessing with the pain of the past, is in itself a gift from Christ.  The liberation of being unbound to the weights that would drag us down, make us feel as if we could run with the wind.  We become free to sing, to dance, to express our joy at the freedom He gives us in our souls.  Our earthly surroundings become meaningless trappings to a heart that has been freed from the evil that once bound it.  It ignites a passion within us, to experience even more freedom, even less pain.  Healing is the only kind of good addiction.

Gratitude from a heart that has begun to experience true healing can motivate us as well.  Freedom resets our colored perceptions and causes us to see truth more clearly.  We begin to want to express our thanks for this gift.  It is not enough to merely utter the words “thank you” over and over and over again.  We cannot be contained just shouting them.  We feel as though we want to do something to show our gratitude.  We begin to want to share in the feelings God has from serving us.  And as we begin to share ourselves with others we discover what it feels like to love like God loves.  When our love affects someone else, when disinterested benevolence finds an object, we begin to rightly perceive what service is all about.

It is all too easy to give to the poor to quell a guilty conscience.  It is too easy to perform some standard amount to giving, in order to “prove” we are a good person.  Too often, work for others is not really done for their benefit alone; it is done to put check marks on a list of perceptions of holiness; or to attempt to feel better than the next guy in the pew.  Motives matter.  When our service comes from an unchanged heart, our disease colors our motives to the point where we miss the true value of serving.  Service is then a chore, a burden, a responsibility.  It drains our human strength, tires us.  Instead of finding the freedom from service, and boost to our morale, we limit its blessings with improper motivation.  But a changed life, and freed heart, can hardly be made to be still.

To discern the spiritual truth in our Word from the Lord, we must allow Him to create within us a spiritual nature.  To be able to properly interpret His Word, our motives for studying it must conform to His leadership and not our own ideas.  Our perceptions cannot be trusted.  Our ideas are affected by our disease.  And thus our results are less than perfect.  But with submission to Christ comes healing.  And with healing comes discernment.  And with discernment comes wisdom.  And it becomes a spiraling cycle leading up to the throne room of God our Father. 

There is NO cap on how good, good can truly be.  There is no limitations to joy.  There is no sky-based-limit to how far we can take this healing process.  Our limitations are only founded in our unwillingness to let go to Him, what we cherish.  Our perceptions, colored by our disease are what limit us today.  But they need not.  Rather we can relinquish them to Him, and allow the healing to commence and grow and grow till we realize we are no longer limited in any way.  This is the process of sanctification.  This is the joy and power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  There are no caps on happiness any more.  There are no chains capable of holding us back , that He is not strong enough to break.  We have truly been freed to love.  So let us love and explore love like God Himself has done on our behalf.