The Word Must Spread [part 2 of 2] ...

Sometimes we modern Christians believe there is nothing left to do.  There are few, if any, new mission fields to discover.  It looks to us like the work of spreading the word has been all but accomplished in the days before our own.  Perhaps there is merit to this, except in one case.  There is a field yet to be truly planted.  There is one field left, perhaps more important than any the missionaries have suffered to explore.  It is the field of our very own hearts.  We modern Christians know all “about” Jesus, we may have studied scripture, even for as long as all of our lives.  Our historical knowledge may be unparalleled.  Our doctrinal knowledge unrivaled.  But our experiential knowledge no more than that of an infant.  This condition is a symptom of one small thing, the insertion of “self” into the process of our salvation.  So many of us have been taught that “bad” people end up in hell, and “good” people end up in heaven at the end of all things.  That simple idea leads us to “try” to be “good” people.  When we fail at it, we are told to ask for forgiveness and get up and “try” again, “try” harder, show more will power, until we stop failing.  And these actions teach us over time that “we” are responsible for the molding of our characters by abstaining from evil.  We are told we must do our best “before” God will “make up the difference”.

And in so doing, our hearts remain our own.  Even for those strong of will, who abstain from evil by the sheer force of their will in action; their hearts remain unplowed fields, still chained to the desires for sin, even if overcome by abstention, still longing for what they should not long for.  We remain addicts to sin, no matter where we are in our self-proscribed 12-step-programs for treating our sins.  We rely upon Jesus so seldomly to truly rid us of sin, we have little exposure to that method, little testimony of it, little witness to it.  Instead, we have a long history of warring against sin on our own, and ultimately failing.  Still addicted to what we cannot change; the desires in us to still want evil.  What we really know about Jesus is from what we hear in sermons, and what we read in scripture, and these days what we see in films or other dramatic interpretations of these events like in “the Chosen” TV series.  All of our knowledge is “about” Jesus, little of our knowledge is personal to us, and truly meaningful in how we live our lives being made free from the desire to sin, because we do not ask Jesus for that, nor expect it if we ask.

Thus our hearts are last great mission field that must be truly sown by the Holy Spirit, creating in us a longing to let our sins go, putting them in the hands of Jesus for more than just forgiveness but to be eliminated from our thinking and our desire, thus freed from our action by His nature that becomes our own, not by struggle of our will.  For so long we have preached a message about the soon coming of our Lord, the return of Jesus to take us home.  And for so long, the Lord has delayed His return.  His delay has been one of love, hoping to harvest as many as can be harvested.  And each time we have preached His return with urgency and urgency has not yielded to fruition, even those in the church have turned aside from that message and decided it is not as real as we thought.  Those who have sought to find signs of the end have found them, yet still the Lord does not return.  Those who have sought exact dates of the Lord’s return have been bitterly disappointed.  And we wonder why the delay, why the disappointment?  All the while seeking a salvation that would tolerate and excuse the sins of our hearts.

His delay in returning is because there is one mission field left, the one of our hearts.  To live in heaven, we need to be transformed to the total absence of sin, holding on to none of it.  So many of us cling to the one cherished sin we refuse to yield up, hoping God will somehow just wink at our weakness.  But God wants us to free us from the pain and death of our sins, not leave us to continue to suffer within them.  So He delays His coming hoping to see the fields of our hearts truly sown, planted, and reaping a harvest centered upon the transformative love of Jesus Christ.  But the time for that is now.  The aspiration of repeating the Day of Pentecost in our lives is no longer just a passing whimsy but a desperate need in order to truly make us ready for His soon coming.  It is time to seek righteousness and discover the only way of finding it.  It is time to seek perfection and realize it has always been possible, not in our own strength but in the strength of Jesus Christ and His transformation of who we are down to the core.  Luke recorded the sermon of Peter upon the Day of Pentecost, but that sermon was not meant for that audience.  It was meant for this one, for you, and for me; for the purpose of these last days.

Peter mounts a defense for what some of Jews were questioning about the miracles seen on the Day of Pentecost in his day.  But Peter also speaks to us directly listen as Luke records picking up in verse 16 saying … “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; [verse 17] And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: [verse 18] And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:”  The last days Joel referred to were never so needed as they are today.  We war against atheism that would deny us purpose and meaning.  We war against humanism that would entice us to believe “intentions” are the pathway of self-realization.  We war against the delays of His return to dull our faith and reduce Jesus to historical stories, not experiential life changing transformation in the here and now.  Christianity has all but given up on the notion of perfection, as we have too long relied upon self to achieve it, and failed.  It is our hearts that need revival, and more reformation.  It is now which has become our last days.  And so our need is greater now than it has ever been.

Joel speaks to that need.  Peter correctly points out how God longs to pour our His Spirit upon ALL FLESH, yet we have too long choked off the access point of our hearts from that very experience.  But what would happen if we restricted God no longer?  What would happen if we longed for the very thing Joel describes, and Peter recounts.  What would happen if we literally begged for this?  Are we ready to beg for it?  I am.  My need is so great of these events my heart breaks for it, and my soul aches for it.  I have seen my need and I know how great it is.  I am certain that if I continue to rely upon me to achieve perfection, then my perfection is ever to remain out of reach. If I am to be saved from myself, only my Savior Jesus Christ can save me.  The Lord has granted me vision to see beyond into what is happening beyond the realms of human sight.  I see what God longs to do.  He only awaits a group of believers who also long to receive it.  “Your” sons and “your” daughters will prophesy.  “Your” children, not the children of strangers, but your own.  Are you ready for that?  Will you hear the word of God they utter, or will you close yourself off to it, affirming the age old adage the prophet receives no glory in his own home.  Your young men will see visions.  Your old men will dream dreams.  On MY servants AND on MY handmaidens will I pour out MY Spirit and they will prophesy says our God.  God describes a group of believers beyond any particular church who are ready and longing to receive this outpouring.  Has there ever been more need of these than there is today?

Luke continues in verse 19 saying … “And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: [verse 20] The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:”  These signs in the earth have already been in our history.  They could repeat themselves again if the Lord desires, but they are only hallmarks to point us back to readiness.  Not because we make ourselves ready, but that we would allow the Holy Spirit to make us ready.  God is looking for all of us.  God is longing for as many of us as will turn our hearts back to Him and long for Him in return.  Now!  During the time in our history when the ministry for this earth has changed.  We have moved from a period of investigative judgment to one of the final sealing of the people of God.  The investigation is over.  All that remains is to know who will allow the Lord to seal them before He returns.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the oil we have long sought, and the delays are finally coming to an end.  But because we have heard this message before will we ignore it now?  Will we treat it like just another boy crying wolf?  Or will we take it to heart, to our hearts.

Luke continues in verse 21 saying … “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  There it is.  There is the simple message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  To call upon “His” name.  For that is the only “name” of God we are certain exists in our knowledge.  Time for our prayers to become of singular nature, to ask forgiveness, and beg for the Holy Spirit if begging is what it takes.  Let us not face the end of all things on our own.  Let us face it armed with the Holy Spirit, and transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.  Devoid of sin, not just in action, but in desire, motive, even thought.  That is the kind of transformation that has always been possible, and is possible still.  If you have not found it yet, then join me as we pray in earnest for it, for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Let us be of one accord, in this one thing, once more.  Let us shed our denominational labels and cling to the one thing that unites us in Jesus Christ, and in the power of His Spirit to bring us into alignment with Him.  Along the way we will find the truth in His Word that has been there eluding us all the while.  We will come to know what He wants us to know.  But I submit there will be no revelation of truth while our eyes are dimmed by a refusal to follow, or while we cling to the notion it is our will that will somehow save us.

Luke continues as Peter continues his sermon in verse 22 saying … “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: [verse 23] Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: [verse 24] Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.”  Peter here gives a summary of the gospel word that has the power to save, to save even you from the desire to sin, let alone from the actions of sin.  Peter then goes back to the scriptures of his day to once again give argument for Jesus Christ.  He does not throw away the Old Testament, but instead embraces the truth of the Old Testament to prove out Jesus Christ, referring back to Joel, and now moving back even farther to David.  

Luke continues in verse 25 saying … “For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: [verse 26] Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: [verse 27] Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. [verse 28] Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. [verse 29] Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. [verse 30] Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; [verse 31] He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.”  Peter outlines how David foretold of Jesus Christ and His resurrection.  David in this sense was more than patriarch, he was a prophet.

Luke continues in verse 32 saying … “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. [verse 33] Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. [verse 34] For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, [verse 35] Until I make thy foes thy footstool. [verse 36] Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”  Peter again uses the same texts Jesus used when confronted by Pharisees who asked Him by what authority He spoke in the Temple.  Jesus uses this same story of David’s prophesy for which the Pharisees had no answer how to explain it.  But Peter does.  Now in retrospect Peter is able to use the exact same passages from the author David and the words of Christ to point out how they point to Jesus as the fulfillment of these passages.  And Peter again points out that all the servants of Jesus there, bare witness to these events from ministry, to crucifixion, to resurrection, to ascension.

And in all of this the singular goal of the Holy Spirit is achieved.  Jesus planted the seeds.  Peter becomes a vessel along with all the others in that place.  And the word is spread across the hearts of every person there.  It is undeniable.  And its impact and effects unmistakable.  This is what God wants for you and I in the here and now.  Luke continues in verse 37 saying … “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? [verse 38] Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. [verse 39] For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. [verse 40] And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. [verse 41] Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”

This sermon of Peter was meant for you, not just them as some sort of history lesson.  The effect of the Holy Spirit was “prick them in their hearts”, that is the recognition of our sins, and our guilt in embracing our sins.  That is the first thing the Holy Spirit does, convict us of what we need to lose.  And you will notice it is the heart that is the mechanism, or the field if you will, through which the Holy Spirit enters.  They respond as I hope you and I do asking – what shall we do?.  The answer is “repent”.  Then be baptized literally every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.  Notice not just forgiveness of sins (that is implied), but for the remission or the removal of sins from your life, from your hands and feet, mind and heart.  That is the work of transformation only Jesus promises to perform within you.  And we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit promised to each and all of us tp accomplish that work.  For the promise is UNTO YOU, and to YOUR children, to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God SHALL CALL.  That call is going out right now.  That call goes out in this text, but more importantly it goes out to your heart from the same Jesus you know so much about.  They gladly received his words and were baptized and that same day 3000 souls were added to his kingdom.

But more importantly than that precious harvest back then, is the harvest of one more, of you, of me.  Let us turn our hearts towards Jesus, let us too repent of our sins, of who we have become, and seek His baptism by the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Let us be transformed not by what we think to do, or try to do, but by the power of His love to make us new, here and now.  In mind and heart let us allow the Holy Spirit to make us One with our God and Lord Jesus Christ.  For it is only Jesus that has ever made us this offer, this promise.  There is no other way to the Father but through Jesus Christ.  And the power of the Holy Spirit is meant to make the gospel of Jesus Christ real in our hearts and minds, and be one with us as we face the end of all things.  Only then will our actions flow from our hearts, aligned with God, one with Him in the redemptive ministry to our world in these last few hours.  The nature of the ministry for our world has changed.  It has entered its final stage.  What will you do with what time you have left?  As for me and my house, clinging to the name and grace of Jesus Christ, we will serve the Lord …

 

When it Comes Down to It ...

What will you choose?  Who will you serve?  When it comes down to it, when all you have left are precious fleeting moments fast fading from view, what will you choose when time is no longer a commodity?  Most of us just don’t think this way, and the evidence of our lives would show, we certainly do not live this way.  The healthy believe health will just continue for the length of our lives.  The accident free, find the idea of falling victim to an accident, an entirely foreign idea.  Those who have never lived under threat simply cannot imagine any other way of life.  But when you struggle to breath, finding yourself in a make-shift ICU ward, never having gotten around to getting vaccinated – you begin to realize that each breath is getting harder and harder to take.  The tubes put down your throat to ease your breathing prevent you from communicating just how desperate your situation is getting.  Fear begins to grow in your heart and mind.  You could die.  You may be actually dying right now.  There is no family nearby to see and sense your need.  They are not allowed in here.  You are alone.  And breathing just keeps getting harder and harder to do.  Your time is nearly up, and there is nothing you, or medical science can do about that anymore.  This is not the plight of some random patient in some forgotten hospital you never heard of.  This is the plight of so many, the Advent Health main campus in Orlando is fighting with, that the entire campus has gone code-black.

So when it comes down to it, when you don’t just see your life flashing in front of your eyes, you are struggling to take every breath slowly and painfully over what may be the last hours of your life – what will the choices of your life add up to?  Will you have the brain capacity left, enough oxygen left in your brain, to even make a choice you may never have made in your life up to now?  Welcome to the crucifixion, more pointedly, your own.  Jesus lived His life knowing this day would come, knowing these moments of struggle would come.  For Him it was not some far off fate, most of us dream will only happen in our nineties when we are ready, tired, and well prepared for it.  Nope, this fate of Jesus would be thrust on Him in His early thirties.  And as for Jesus, He would have to endure all of it, at our hands, without using any of the limitless power He had to avoid a single moment of it.  When it comes down to it, Jesus would have to go through all of it, even the loss of His own life, in order to save us.  For Jesus there would be one other wrinkle; all of Jesus’ life He could always sense the Father God with Him every moment.  But here at the end that would not be true.  Jesus must die alone, without the Father.  For the Father must turn His eyes away while His Son carries the immense weight of our sins to the ultimate punishment of our sins, in order to save us.

Jesus had never known that solitude.  He could not have imagined dying alone like He was.  When it comes down to it, would Jesus go through with it?  Luke records the saddest events of our salvation in his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why picking up in the 23^rd chapter in verse 26 saying … “And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.”  Simon being forced to carry the cross of Christ, was because Pilate had already beaten Jesus with 39 lashes of a whip with broken glass in the tips.  This beating ripped the flesh off of the back of Jesus so badly he nearly died from blood loss.  The pain was so excruciating He could not carry the cross for it was too much for Him.  His humanity just could not bear up under it.  So after collapsing, the Romans realized they needed a different victim to carry this cross or it would never move again.  They conscripted Simon the Cyrenian to do it for them.

None of us still drawing breath in the comfort of our living rooms, and homes, truly know what the pain level is like for someone who is headed for death in a random ICU ward, of a local hospital.  We just assume they are drugged up enough not to truly feel much of anything.  But when you are fighting to take the next breath, you need a certain amount of awareness to make that struggle.  If you are out of it entirely you may lose that fight quickly.  None of us know, what pain can be like, how extreme, or not, when set upon by accidents in a car, or stones in a kidney, or slipped discs in a spine, until or unless you have experienced one of these things.  We never plan for that.  We never anticipate it coming, knowing we must face it.  It just happens to us, all at once, out of the blue, then begins our cursing and crying it has happened at all.  Pain will sober that up quickly.  But if we were ever in that kind of extreme pain, and had the power to fix ourselves, we would not waste a second enacting that fix.  Jesus didn’t.  He could have fixed any portion of it for Himself.  He didn’t.  He endured it.  For you.  For me.

Luke continues in verse 27 saying … “And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. [verse 28] But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. [verse 29] For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. [verse 30] Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. [verse 31] For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”  It was tradition to mourn the dead (or the dying).  Often it was spectacle, without real feeling, just to make a show for those who might actually care.  But Jesus even in His depleted state, sees what is coming upon Jerusalem in the very near future.  Jesus sees its siege and ultimate destruction.  He sees mothers eating their own children to survive.  He sees the trauma of all of this, the guilt that will never go away.  He sees the victims begging for death and the peace of sleep in the grave, for life in the barren land without Jesus there anymore in person, offers just no comfort to face all this horror.  Horror that will come from the decisions these residents will make despite the warnings.

The cries for the mountains to fall on us, is often attributed to the last days of mankind, but here Jesus attributes it to the coming days of the destruction of Jerusalem.  There were warnings sent to Jerusalem before the Romans attacked it.  Warnings that begin in a message “not to rebel” against the Roman empire in the first place.  Leave politics and who runs the world up to God, stop trying to interfere with it.  Instead focus the energy of your life on loving others and that love will begin to change the world.  But as the time for Jerusalem to be destroyed got close, signs in the clouds and the sky, alerted the Christian community that the time had come.  They fled.  They left not only the city but the region, taking with them the gospel into all the world in every direction.  But not a single Christian died in the destruction of Jerusalem.  Because they heard the warnings, and took action, immediately.  Yet here we sit today, with the biggest hospital I have ever seen, on a code-black lockdown, because despite every warning, so many people refuse the vaccination that might have kept them out of the ICU, away from the ventilators, away from the pain of struggling to make that next breath, with the horrible fear it may truly be their last breath. 

These conditions in our day do not persist for lack of warning, or for lack of a way out.  They persist for the decisions people make in their health, that they foolishly believe will last them forever.  All the while venturing into public spaces, encountering so many others, risking exposure to a pandemic they refuse to acknowledge.  They care little for their own lives, and even less for the lives of others.  And for what?  When it comes down to it, do you really think lives will change, people will live differently, begin to value the lives of others even more than their own?  Why, because the fear of losing it all has finally become a reality.  No, fear is terrifying, but wears off quickly.  Transformation is what has been needed.  But no one is seeking that.  They look to be “saved” just as they are, every sin still preserved in tact, sent to heaven this way with nothing about them changed except their bodies and health.  They would prefer to be Lucifer sent back into His Kingdom unchanged by his experiences.  When it comes down to it, your time may already be past.  The residents of Jerusalem suffered, experienced the horror of a siege, and many died in the battle that destroyed the city.  If you were “lucky” enough to have survived you lived out the rest of your life as a slave taken across the world to be sold, abused, and finally killed from the hardships you would have endured.

Ignoring the signs, the warnings, and the cure – are ALWAYS done at the cost of your life, one way, or the other.  Misery loving company as much as it does, there would company at the horror of the crucifixion of Jesus.  Luke continues in verse 32 saying … “And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. [verse 33] And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.”  Jesus would die between two criminals who had no choice about where they were, or how they would die.  They had been caught at their crimes, tried, and convicted.  They were going to die, no choice at all.  They would struggle for their last breaths as well.  They had lived badly.  They were sinners caught in their sins.  And now death was to be thrust upon them.  When it comes down to it, how would they die?  Suffering was certain, death was certain, but salvation was right there in between them.  They had only to reach out before it was too late.

Luke continues in verse 34 saying … “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. [verse 35] And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God. [verse 36] And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, [verse 37] And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. [verse 38] And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”  Notice the contrast of Jesus, who even while struggling for His own final breaths thinks of us, thinks of His own persecutors asking forgiveness for those who clearly want no such thing.  Instead those He just asked forgiveness for, strip Him naked, start making fun of Him, cast lots for his clothing.  Soldier mock Him as well.  Everyone telling Him if He really is the Son of God, just prove it, come down off the cross and everyone there will believe.  That was a lie.  Everyone there already knew who He was, but could not imagine the Son of God willingly allowing Himself to be put thru torture and death.  As Jesus struggles to breathe, hate is hurled at Him.  But Pilate will have the last word in all of this, He will place a sign above Jesus to list Him as the King of the Jews whether the Sanhedrin likes it or not.  They won’t.

Luke continues in verse 39 saying … “And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. [verse 40] But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? [verse 41] And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.”  One of the criminals joins in the verbal abuse of Jesus, demanding a different outcome rather than death.  But death was to be certain.  The other criminal realizes they are not going to get away, nor perhaps, should they get away.  But the second criminal realizes he is guilty, Jesus is not.  The love and forgiveness of Jesus even in this state so near to death, has reached in to this condemned man’s heart, and found him for to save him.  When it comes down to it, what will you choose?  The outcome was not to change.  The decisions these men made in how they lived before they were criminals, had gone badly.  Not because they were caught, but because they did not live rightly.  There was not much left to them.  But salvation was still there.

But rather than waiting till it comes down to it, rather than waiting till your brain may not even be strong enough to make a different choice, why not look to Jesus for salvation right now.  There is time right now, if you are able to read this, to find the transformation your life and mine so desperately need.  We can still live like Jesus would enable us to live.  We can still see the signs in the sky, read the warnings, get the help, show the love.  There is no reason for us to be caught up in the code-black make-shift versions of an ICU.  Getting the shots, wearing the masks, being mindful of the lives of others, is a far better outcome than grasping for every last breath, like these men would do in the crucifixion they faced.  But it is not death we are trying to avoid, it is life we are trying to embrace.  Living for others, for the time has come when it comes down to it.  Will you find yourself calling for mountains to end the pain of your struggle, or find yourself reaching out the salvation of Jesus who was right there in between you all the while.  If you can read this, or hear this, it is not too late.  What will you do?  Who will you serve?

 

Sifted as Wheat ...

Do you sometimes wonder why people of faith seem to have lives struck by every bit as much tragedy as people who have no faith at all?  Why is that?  In fact, you could argue that people of faith seem to have even harder lives than people who have none. The question follows, if we are loved by God, why are we subjected to such sadness, and so much grief in the lives God gave us to live?  The answer is more compounded when we must bear witness to the grief of loved ones that we are unable to do anything about.  The more we love, the more we hurt when they hurt.  Should it be “we” who are the cause of this pain our loved ones must suffer from, a converted heart can hardly even stand it.  And most believers just right all this off, with catch phrases and sentiments like “this is life” or “what are you going to do” as if all we should even hope to do is bear it all and keep going.

But the paradoxically sad and happy choice is that love itself must always be chosen if it is to be real.  Free-will contains within it the choice to screw up.  And if we are to love God from the purest choice to do so, we must by nature be exposed to the choice not to love God.  Or as so many of us are intimately familiar with, to forget we love God, long enough to embrace some selfish choice that wreaks in its wake waves of pure destruction that reach out and destroy many.  When we remember our love for God, we come crawling back to Him on bended knee, begging for forgiveness, that even though granted, cannot change the truth of what we said or did, or offer healing to those we have wounded by word or deed.  Sometimes the destruction we cause must be born by those we claim most to love.  Wounds that cut deeply into the hearts and lives of others.  Pain that “our truth” is responsible for, for of a truth what we have chosen to say or do echoes on long past our forgiveness.  For it to be different, our truth must be different, or choice a better one.  For the pain we cause not to exist, the choice to avoid temptation itself would be the only pathway that might have been chosen.  But again, that was not the truth we chose.

And much of the suffering of our lives is caused and borne by our own selfish choices.  Whether that pain is known only to us, or whether we have made sure it would be shared by others we claim to love, our choice to love self, winds up coming at the expense of the happiness and joy of the ones we say we love.  And sometimes our choices take a long while to bear fruit.  Take for example the choices we make of how we manage our health.  We ingest things that will do us in.  Smoking, drinking, vaping, drugs whether recreational or even sometimes by prescription, the chemicals we take in do have an effect.  And we think these aggregate choices, even if they go bad, hurt only ourselves.  But tell that to the parent who must watch his or her child contend with the cancer that consumes their baby of any age.  Tell that to the wife who must become full-time caretaker of the husband whose health has collapsed so spectacularly he is now only one tenth the man he used to be.  Tell that to the baby who is born with so many complications that the first few years of their lives will be spent in agony, all for the sake of the “moderation” we thought would be fine to partake of while pregnant.  Small daily choices with our health that bear fruit over time, some of it very ugly fruit.

And we all blame God for the results of these things.  For it is easier to blame God than to take personal accountability for the choices we have made when confronted with temptation of any sort.  Jesus used to call this phenomenon “fall into temptation”.  Those words haunt our experience from Lucifer who fell in heaven along with a third of the angels at that time up to today with you and me.  Now Lucifer is called Satan.  And those “fallen” angels are referred to as demons.  Adam and Eve “fell” in the garden of Eden breaking trust with God, and condemning us to lives of slavery to evil, making evil our first choice instead of our last one.  And even when the most critical moments in the ministry of Jesus come along, he refers again to the sin that becomes our truth back to its earliest incarnation when it was still the temptation Jesus would wish us not to fall into. 

But there is another player in the story of our lives, he too is invisible to our natural sight, but ever since his own fall, he has done nothing but lay out stumbling blocks for each of us.  Satan puts in our path a series of stumbling temptations in order for us to fall so hard, and so often, we stop looking back to God to fix any of it.  We just reach a point where we start throwing out our own catch phrases like “this is life” and “what are you going to do”, having come to a point where we just accept sin in our hearts and lives without the hope of ever seeing it go away forever.  We accept the damage of sin as just being “natural” and start focusing so much on the sin, we begin to completely ignore that it all began in an earlier stage of temptation we might have avoided.  Jesus would have us avoid the temptation altogether.  It is what our prayers to God are all about (or supposed to be).  Jesus would have us pray to avoid temptation itself, rather than have to pray for the forgiveness we will need if confronted by temptation we so often fall into. 

Satan would sift us as wheat, trying to discard any signs of God in our hearts, and harden us only into the chaff that can be blown away by the wind, having little value to anyone else, ultimately even to ourselves.  Satan would not just encourage our selfishness, he will take active measures to make the “selfish choice” the “easy choice”, the “sensible or logical choice”, the “lesser of two evils choice”.  But to avoid falling in to any one of these temptations, our prayers should center on avoiding them altogether.  And while Satan may wish to sift us as wheat, Jesus has other plans for our faith.  For when we believe, we can begin to have trust.  And as our trust grows, we can submit and follow God, even when it makes no sense to us at all.  Follow even when it does not feel warm and fuzzy.  Follow, because we know that our Shepherd leads us to where we should be, a place always better than anything we could have imagined on our own.

Luke gives us a little context of these experiences in his gospel in the 22^nd chapter of his letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  For this section we will focus on Peter’s denial texts and come back to study the others in our next examination.  It begins in verse 31 saying … “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: [verse 32] But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”  There is so much here to unpack.  First Satan wants us all.  Not because we are special to him, or mean anything to him.  He could care less about any of us.  We are however a means to an end.  Because Satan knows that God loves each of us like precious little children, when Satan can hurt or destroy us, ultimately it is God whose heart will suffer the most.  For each of us was created precious and unique for all of time and space, never to be repeated or replaced.  So when God must bear witness to our demise, God loses something that can never be replaced again.  A devastating loss of love rejected, but a choice our free-will demands if love is to ever be a real choice.  Still, the pain of that rejection will forever be keenly felt.  And the witness of our demise, long before the merciful fires of hell that forever put out our suffering will end it all; our torture having preceded all of that.  Torture brought on by the choices we make, the sins we embrace, and the selfishness we choose that spreads our pain around like ripples of water in a pond when you throw a large stone in the still waters.

Satan would sift us as wheat, and what is his first and perhaps only target – our faith.  For this is what Jesus prays for to counter the impact of satanic desires.  Jesus prays that Peter’s faith fails not.  Jesus does not pray for Peter’s perfection, have you ever wondered about that?  Why not just remove any desire Peter has to sin within him?  The answer; because Peter has not asked Him to.  And frankly, Peter does not even understand what a request like that would mean to every aspect of his life.  Peter does not trust enough for something like that.  He is not at that stage of his life or of his faith.  And something like that must be Peter’s choice.  Jesus even identifies all of this as He plainly states that Peter is still not converted.  What does that mean?  It means it is possible to “believe” in Jesus, as being our Savior, our Messiah, as the Son of God, and still remain unconverted as Peter clearly was from the point of view of Jesus.  What was still missing; a heart that understands its need.  Peter did not see himself this way.  Peter saw himself as strong enough to meet any temptation, and ready for anything that would come.  Peter was independent, not fully dependent, and that is how he saw himself, and what prevented him from being fully converted.  Peter still sees sin as a choice we can meet and choose the better of.  Most Christians still believe this is the case in their own lives.

Too many of us modern Christians still think we face sin as some sort of choice we can meet and make the right choice against.  We treat it like picking some sort of vegetables with our dinner.  Pick the potatoes and we have made the right choice, pick the Brussel sprouts and we have fallen into sin again.  Particularly easy choice for me, I hate Brussel sprouts.  But that is not what sin is like, or how it comes.  Sin is about selfishness, and we have 6000 years of selfishness ingrained in our very DNA.  You don’t put a tray of powered cocaine ready for ingestion in front of a cocaine addict and they just tell him to “say no”.  If the addict is going to “say no”, he needs to avoid that scene altogether.  He needs to be 200 miles away from that scene.  Ideally under the control of someone else.  Like say in your car, with you driving through the countryside, where there is no cocaine around for at least 200 miles.  That is avoiding temptation.  Not being there.  But because we see sin as nothing more than a choice between potatoes = good, and Brussel sprouts = bad, we treat it as if we have perfect control over the choice we will make and can avoid sin by shear force of will.  And so we keep God out of the process of sin avoidance, thinking just like Peter we can handle sin on our own, and then failing miserably to prove we could not.

Look closely at Peter’s response to Jesus as Luke continues in verse 33 saying … “And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.”  Peter is proud.  Proud of his own faith.  Peter thinks he is ready to be the number two leader in this kingdom, superior to all the others, and not ashamed to show it out loud.  Peter makes this declaration fully believing it is true.  How sad.  We all know it is not.  His actions are about to prove that.  But Peter cannot be converted until his heart is completely broken on the anvil of God’s love.  While Peter thinks he can defeat sin with pride, he cannot defeat sin at all.  That is like handing an addict heroin in order to fight the cocaine addiction, wrong tool altogether.  And while distance and lack of opportunity may provide the addict no chance to screw up, they do nothing to free the addict from his base desire to get high.  To accomplish that – only Jesus can, only if we let Him, only if we trust Him to do that very thing recognizing our desperate need.  Even then, it still does not mean once freed we are ready to run right back into the drug house to go witness.  It does mean though that only Jesus can free us, nothing else can, and especially nothing in us in any way, least of all a belief we can simply choose our way out of sin.  While Peter thinks he can choose to be sin free, he is NOT READY to help his brethren.

Notice that Jesus says, only AFTER Peter is converted, for him to help his brethren.  The specific word Jesus uses is for Peter to “strengthen” his brethren.  How is he to do that.  Perhaps the same way Jesus is trying to strengthen Peter, by praying for him, by loving him, by pointing out the folly of self-reliance as it relates to the gospel.  It is the pride of Peter, even pride in his own faith and choices, that keeps Peter from being able to strengthen his brethren, and keeps Peter’s heart an unconverted one.  Still unconverted, even after performing miracles, and spreading the gospel, and being with Jesus every day personally for over three years.  If Peter could be unconverted after all this time, who are we to say we have long since been converted and are ready for anything that comes.  We forget.  Satan wishes to sift us as wheat, and only in our absolute dependence upon Jesus will we find a change in the addict’s heart and desires.  Not in the pride of what we might choose when faced with a temptation to fall into.

Jesus hands Peter a lesson in reality as Luke continues in verse 34 saying … “And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.”  Jesus reveals that the current day will not even end before Peter denies even knowing who Jesus is, not once, but three different times.  Imagine what a blow to Peter’s pride this declaration from Jesus must have been.  How humiliating this must have been to be so public, in front of all the other disciples.  But pride must be broken.  In all its forms pride remains a sin.  It is only a different drug of choice, not the absence of one, and certainly not a tool to use when combating other sins.  So to break it, Peter must suffer a series of crushing blows to it, until there is no pride left in him.

Skipping down to verse 54 (we will cover the other verses in our next examination), Luke tells us how the words of Jesus are fulfilled … “Then took they him, and led him, and brought him into the high priest's house. And Peter followed afar off. [verse 55] And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them. [verse 56] But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This man was also with him. [verse 57] And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know him not. [verse 58] And after a little while another saw him, and said, Thou art also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not. [verse 59] And about the space of one hour after another confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow also was with him: for he is a Galilaean. [verse 60] And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew. [verse 61] And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. [verse 62] And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.”

Did Jesus force Peter into any of this?  No.  Did Jesus want Peter to have to suffer this crushing defeat?  No.  But Peter’s pride had to be broken, and Peter put himself on this path.  When confronted with the least temptation, to be identified as one of the group that was with Jesus, Peter denied that.  Peter denied even knowing Jesus while Jesus was undergoing the worst night of His life here on earth.  When Jesus most needed the love of those who followed Him, Peter was nowhere to be found, or rather, he was 20 yards away denying he even knew his Lord.  Upon realizing Peter had fallen, not once, but three times over a short space of time – Peter left weeping bitterly.  Those were not quiet tears.  That was public wailing.  That is not something men do, at any age.  Men are always trying to hide our pain.  When we reveal our pain, we make ourselves vulnerable, and our pain is usually only increased.  But here was Peter weeping and wailing as he carries himself staggering through the morning dawn over Jerusalem.  People looking upon this broken man, probably figuring him for drunk, or having a wife who left him.  But no wife could bring him comfort now.  In fact, his own wife, may have been already with Jesus following as close as any of the women were allowed to follow.  She may have been steadfast in her own faith, while her husband was broken from what he had done.

This was the sifting time.  All Satan need do is break the faith of Peter, instead of seeing God break the pride of Peter.  For in the mind of Peter they were one in the same.  But in the mind of God, they were not.  Faith was about not only the knowing of Jesus, or believing in Jesus, but in trusting Jesus with our salvation.  Allowing Jesus to remake us.  And following the very prayers of Jesus to see our faith strengthened and to avoid temptation altogether.  Satan wanted to blend pride into all of that.  Satan wanted Peter to see his own faith as one in the same as his pride as a Christian and a Jew.  Chosen people, chosen disciple, and proud to be both.  Proud to have gone to Temple.  Proud to have been so close to Christ.  So if pride were to be broken, Satan tempts Peter to just go ahead and throw faith right in there with it.  Is it any different today?  How many Christians who hold to conquering sin by choice finally one day reach a point where they see that just does not work.  No matter how hard they try, they still want things they should not want.  Pride and choice and self-reliance have done nothing to damper appetite for sin they cannot even explain.

And so upon reaching the realization that sin is still with us, the modern Christian just gives up on ever getting rid of sin.  We change our doctrine to allow for sin as if it just OK.  God forgives it, so why bother trying to get rid of it, we know that does not work anyway.  Since sin is impossible to get rid of, and God forgives, let’s just not worry about sin, go ahead and live our lives, and know God will forgive us in the end.  All of this might be true, except for the fact, that we are doing it wrong.  We, like Peter, are relying upon our pride, and our self-reliance, and our own choices to defeat sin.  We are like the addict staring at the tray of cocaine attempting to just say no.  That is not how sin gets defeated.  We must have our pride broken.  We must come to see sin as the addict/slavery relationship it is.  And we must learn to fully rely upon Jesus to remove the sin from us, as we trust Him, and allow Him to do so.  Our role is not a passive one.  We must actively choose to depend upon Jesus crying unto Him as a dying man might do in times of peril.  For it is deadly times of peril we are in.  We must separate our faith from our pride.  Having a fully dependent faith upon Jesus does not make faith weak, it makes it stronger than steel.  Having faith in ourselves is what is no stronger than rice paper.  We were not meant to defeat sin.  We were meant to cling to Jesus, following behind the only One who can defeat sin within us.

Jesus could have made that night go a completely different way for Peter.  But the pride of Peter would not allow Jesus to change what was bound to happen.  Pre-converted Peter still clung to his own pride.  Post-converted Peter was not too embarrassed to weep in the streets openly.  No pride was left in Peter post this horrible trauma of crisis of faith and pride.  Pride had to be killed.  But the prayers of Jesus prevailed in that the faith of Peter was preserved in spite of all of it.  Faith preserved in spite of the worst spiritual failure in the life of Peter.  Peter died upside down on the cross at his own request long after this knowing full well, the pain of a martyr’s death had nothing on the denial of his own Lord in Jesus’ greatest moment of need.  Nothing was worse than that.  And so the faith of Peter survived, while the pride of Peter was crushed.  Peter would still suffer from bouts of it later in life.  But every time pride reared its ugly head, Jesus was faithful to show Peter the error in his thinking, or in his loving of others.  That is how sin is meant to be defeated or avoided – in trusting to see Jesus work that transformation in us.

Satan may still desire to sift you as wheat.  Your life may have great pain in it, from choices you embraced, or from the choices of others.  But the prayers of Christ were not just for Peter, they remain for you.  To preserve your faith, to grow your trust, to crush your pride, to see you learn how to really love others.  This transformation of who you are, can only be done by Jesus.  And Jesus longs to bring it to you.  Will you let Him?  Will you place your life at Jesus’ feet, and give Him the “all” of who you are?  For it will never be your choice that defeats sin, but His transformation in you that sees the sin in you disappear, now and forever, until choosing Jesus, and choosing right, become simply natural to who you are, both here and in the world to come.

 

Letting It All Go ...

What is the chief priority of your life?  To answer that, you might consider what thing, activity, or even person it is, that you are most invested in.  Sometimes the answer might surprise you.  We get so involved in what we do, our routines, that we stop thinking about what is most important to us, and just go about life.  But take a step back from it, and think about it for a few minutes and the answer begins to emerge.  You would think that for Christians, the answer would always be Jesus.  But if you measured your answer against what you actually do with your time, it is hard to say Jesus and back it up with what you do.  Or if you measured your answer with love for others, it is hard to truly say, that outside of your immediate circle you truly love “all” others the way Jesus truly loves them.  Finally if you measured your answer against where you spend the bulk of your money – does Jesus truly emerge as your number one financial priority.  It is the routine that deceives us.  We love our spouse, sometimes with great passion, or our children and families, and think that our love for others is what Jesus intended – how could it not be.  We give our tithes and offerings faithfully to the church, and then think we have met the Lord’s requirements and so our financial “obligations” have been met.  Many other believers do not give at all, let alone systemically.  And as for time, we make time to go to church, or to watch it online, and once again consider ourselves “good” Christians as a result.  Again, many other believers don’t even go or watch at all.

But what if I told you that all those efforts, while a good start, are nowhere near enough?  It is not the beginning of being a Christian that is so condemning, it is that we let ourselves become fully satisfied with the beginning of Christianity and never take one step farther in it.  Once more, the devil knows all this.  The devil may not be able to prevent you from becoming a Christian, but the next best thing he can do, is get you to become fully complacent in your Christianity.  Cause you to focus on what you do for Jesus, not who you are inside.  Once you buy in to the argument that you are “good” enough, you shouldn’t need to try any more than that right?  I would offer, perhaps it is the “trying” that is the fundamental cause of the disconnect.  For as we “try” to be Christians, we begin to see the cost of being a Christian.  Our time spent on spiritual things is measured.  Our money given to ministry or the poor, is ever measured in order to satisfy what we think is “appropriate”.  And our love offered to spouses and children and families is thought to ever be enough.  But to “try” reveals one fundamental flaw, it is action of effort, not behavior that is natural to “who” you are.  Jesus is trying to change “who” you are, He is not focused on the actions, until the motives drive the behavior naturally.

There is a recipe for what it meant to follow Jesus, to be a true Christian.  It sounds harsh, but let us give it a second look and see if what we first read as harsh is not meant to be so.  Luke records the very words of Jesus Himself on this topic in his gospel letter to his friend on what we believe and why.  It begins in the fourteenth chapter picking up in verse 25 it reads … “And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them, [verse 26] If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”  Yikes.  Hate your mom and dad?  Hate your wife and kids?  Hate those you call brothers and sisters?  All this sounds way more like Satan talking that Jesus.  But Jesus does not end his list there, it continues to the main point of this passage.  We are to “hate” our own lives.  What does that mean?  I ask again, what, or who, is the chief priority of your life?  Go back and take a quick look at the Law, and you find to love God comes first.  How you love mankind comes second.  Why?  Because you cannot do the second half of the Law if you have neglected the first half.  To truly follow Jesus requires we let it all go.  It means we allow Jesus to transform “who” we are.  That is a very personal transformation.  And nothing else can be more important to us than that.  Not friends, or even family, but beyond both of those things, - not even ourselves.

Clinging to “who” you are right now, will be the death of you.  We come to like ourselves.  All the self help books in the world teach us to do this very thing.  Love yourself.  Do this before you can love others, or have a good life.  But here is Jesus saying – come to hate yourself.  Stop clinging to this person you are and valuing, the current you, at the cost of who you could be post the transformation Jesus longs to bring to you.  What needs to change in your life, is not a deeper love of self, but the total absence of it.  A willingness on your part to let your whole life go.  Let go those priorities you maintain today, for whatever priority Jesus lead you to.  Let go those relationships today if they stand in your way.  Especially the one of fondness for who you are as you sit today.  In truth you are not “good enough” today.  You are nowhere near as “good” as you need to be.  But way beyond that, you are nowhere near as “good” as you will become if you let Jesus run the “who” you are, and “who” you are yet to be.  The “trying” just fades away and is replaced by actions you are unaware of, even if the world around you cannot believe them with their own eyes.

The goal is not to truly hate mom.  But the priority must ever be Jesus first.  If I allow my relationship with mom to get in the way of Jesus first, I do mom a disservice, I destroy myself, and I cripple the transformation of me, that Jesus so longs to create in me.  Ultimately, for what I think is love for mom, becomes my undoing and hers.  Case in point, our first forefather Adam.  Adam let his perfect love for Eve, become more important to him, than a perfect love for God.  In so doing, he was undone, Eve was undone, and his perfect love was immediately corrupted by a new “love” that was ever aware of self-interests.  When Jesus comes for his evening walk with Adam and Eve, they hid from Him.  They were aware of their nudity.  They were ashamed of what they had done.  And when Adam is questioned about this, he does not recite a noble love of sacrifice for his beloved.  Instead he blames Eve for “making” him eat, it was her fault, not his.  Where was all the love for Eve then?  Tossed right out the window, in an effort to keep God from killing him on the spot.  Even though that would never be the plan of Jesus.  It is no different with you or I today.  We allow ourselves to claim that family is more important than Jesus to us in a pinch when things are desperate, and in so doing, we undo ourselves, and family we claim to love.  Better to hate who we are, and keep Jesus first, to give Him the clay of our lives to start over with.

Jesus continues in verse 27 saying … “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”  Yikes.  The analogy of serving Jesus compared to a torturous death that takes days to finally bring the end.  Not terribly appealing is it?  And here is where the rubber meets the road.  Who you are is not so willing to be transformed.  That love of self hangs on as if we would have to crucify it to get it out of here.  For days it struggles to find breath, maybe for years.  The carnal nature of 6000 years is deeply rooted in us, and is not inclined to go quietly.  Add to that the interest darker forces take in any person even glancing at Jesus to enact this kind of transformation and you get a perfect storm of self-love and self-interest trying desperately to avoid transformation and convince you that you just don’t need it.  And that is where most of Christianity just quits trying to let go, and settles in to a complacency about who they are, content to move this far and no farther.  But the cross is not an eternal torture device, it hurts more than anything, and then you die.  That is the hard part.  To truly be a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus, the “who” we are today is destined to die.  No other way around it.  A hard truth, but a truth of hope beyond all imagining.

Jesus continues in verse 28 saying … “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? [verse 29] Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, [verse 30] Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”  Here is Jesus Himself looking through the ages of time to a church of today, that is so content with itself.  We laid a foundation, we began through the faith of our forefathers, we rest on their accomplishments, and we move no farther.  And the devil, and the world, and our neighbors mock us saying that we have no real faith, for our lives look just like their lives, it is impossible to tell us apart, for we have no more love than they do, and we love all the same things.  We blend in so well, there is no distinction between a Christian and a non-Christian.  Worse, very often Christians are known for their condemnations and judgments of others.  Imagine that, what Jesus wanted was for the world to know us by our love.  And now they know us only by our judgment.  The church may be the greatest place for hate-speech the world has ever seen – not hate of sin, but hate of the sinners themselves.  For we offer them no plan of escape from lives burdened with pain of sin, just look at us, we have found no plan ourselves, how could we offer them one?  So we hate them instead of hating ourselves and who we have become.  The foundation was laid, but we have moved no farther.

Jesus continues in verse 31 saying … “Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? [verse 32] Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.”  We are at war today.  Not war with a physical enemy, or even war with a virus we do not see.  We are at war with ourselves, with who we are, and who Jesus longs to re-create us into, with whether we will allow Him to change us that way, or not.  But here is where hope begins to emerge once again.  Jesus tells us we are outnumbered.  Jesus tells us, it is time to find peace, to surrender and suffer no more.  On the other side of peace is a life waiting for you like no other.  On the other side of death to who you are today, is a new creation that has no limits.  The best life you can imagine is not enough to describe what Jesus first will create in you.  The conditions of this world cannot touch it.  And the conditions of the world to come, will be once again beyond all imagining.

Jesus concludes this section beginning in verse 33 saying … “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.  [verse 34] Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? [verse 35] It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  Letting it all go.  Leaving it all behind.  To seek Jesus first, God first.  To turn yourself over to Jesus entirely no matter the outcome, no matter who you will become, who He will make you into.  This is what it means to be a disciple, to be a follower of Jesus.  It may someday mean you are poor, perhaps dirt poor.  Not because you did not have money, but because you gave it all away without so much as a second thought or single regret.  You long only for the opportunity to give more.  It may someday mean, you are divorced, or isolated from your entire family for the strength of your love for Jesus.  But in that passion, your family may bear witness to who you have become, and your ever-present love for them, grounded in Jesus.  It may be that your entire family seeks the same Lord to find that kind of love for themselves.  And in being willing to let them go for the sake of Christ, that they are all brought to the feet of Christ and saved for themselves.  If Adam had been willing to let Eve go, and trust her to the love of Jesus, humanity would have had a very different fate, and Eve would still not have been lost forever.

But lest you think what the church is today, is enough, examine the analogy of salt losing its savor.  You can’t fix that.  You can’t make it better.  It becomes useless.  It becomes a church made of people who carry the name of Christ, but cling to everything in their lives but Jesus.  And in so doing, the world is not led to Jesus, but instead led away from Him.  The image of a condemning God is maintained by a people more prepared and willing to condemn others than to love them unconditionally.  A Jesus-first-church, is willing to let their entire lives go, and find themselves made into something else, something better.  A Jesus-first-church begins to think of the salvation of others, not by pointing out yet more attention to their sins, but by loving them first while they are yet in their sins, and then pointing them to Jesus for relief from the pain of their sins by the quiet example of their own lives.  No condemnation ever need be spoken, the world is not searching for yet another condemnation of itself.  But the world is desperately looking for a love that does not fail, and gives it reason to seek change, to seek a better way.  If we offer no better way in the example of our own lives and love, then we are salt that is no longer a seasoning of flavor, but just empty granules of nothing.

To let it all go sounds like sacrifice from this point of view.  But across the transformation horizon it is the deal of the century.  It is the letting go of our pain, for His joy.  It is the letting go of our self-inflicted stress and worry for His peace that nothing can touch.  It is the letting go of what we call love, for a pure love that comes from the throne of heaven itself and is reflected through you, without self-interest, but with only genuine care for another, for any other, whether sinner or saint.  And the un-healed cancer patient facing death can see this transformation in their own mind and hearts, and wind up living every moment from now to the grave in a state the world cannot ever know.  Each moment of life being made precious by a ministry for others, even though the disease never leaves, even if it kills them.  This world is but an introduction to a far better one.  And finding Jesus here is all that matters, it is all that makes life worth living, it is the meaning of life itself.  Letting it all go, means putting what matters most to you, in that hands of a loving Savior.  It means trusting God with your wife, your kids, your family, your job, and your money.  For it will only be as Jesus transforms you, that you may ever be able to reach those you love, to truly minister unto them.  And that is all that matters.  It begins, as you let it all go, but it has no end, ever better, ever more.