And One Do

12.31.11

Revelation 22.8-9 8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!” NIV

Twice now, John admits to falling down to worshiping at the feet of an angel (Cf. Rev. 19.10 and 22.8-9). Twice he is emphatically admonished, “Don’t do that!”. I think we could put it this way: DON’T DO THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are certain things that shouldn’t be done and John is guilty of doing the same thing twice. I mean you can hardly blame him – he was blown away by what he was seeing and hearing. He did what came naturally when he bumped into something more grand and great than he’d ever experienced in his life – he was so caught up by it all. But the angels on both occasions said, Don’t do that!

Today I’m thinking about my past week at work and I can tell you, as a traveling salesman, it was a rough week. I am caught in a very strange place in my life of knowing confidently that God is doing something in me, and fearing terribly what He is doing. Don’t do that! I am trying to shed a belief that suffering is for someone else and I will get a lighter sentence. Don’t do that! Worship God!

I got to the place of despair yesterday where all I could do was moan – and so that’s what I did: before God I moaned. I moaned believing that: Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8.23 NIV) Except, I moaned outwardly. The reality is God is calling us to something so vast our tiny little pea-brains can’t handle it. God is transforming our lowly bodies into something so glorious our visions of the future can’t take it all in – now we do indeed see through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13).

But maybe yesterday was the birth of hope. Maybe the pain of such a week (I’m 100% commission, do the math: small production = small commission) was taking me to that place where I can truly say, He gives and takes away, may the Name of the Lord be blessed! There are things in us that have to go and God will use whatever means to move them. We are indeed being fitted for heaven where our being will be so vastly different than earth that we will implode and worship angels unless we’re prepared otherwise. So, there are some Don’t Do That’s along the way.

Don’t doubt. A friend of mine says her New Year’s resolution is simply: “I LOVE resolutions, but this year I can't seem to come up with anything more than "hang on and trust hard." (Thanks Bo!) Maybe that's okay.” Hang on and trust hard even when hard trusting proves hard.

Don’t defer. Trust now. Praise now. Repent now. Worship God now. Now is the acceptable time and if anyone is going to pull us through whatever it is we’re facing, it is only God. Trust Him now!

Don’t do that! Whatever our conscience is nagging us about now ought to be something we pay attention to now. Whatever our reaction to our circumstances, if it is anything other that praise, worship and thanksgiving to God: don’t do that! We are being fitted and sometimes fitting is through severe trial and testing. The desired result is praise from a willing and trusting heart. Anything else is as unacceptable as worshiping an angel.

And one do: Worship God – the end is worth (infinitely so) the means…

Wrath Revisited

 12.30.11

Revelation 15.1 1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.” NIV

In the ancient account of Israel’s exodus from Egypt there were ten plagues of increasing intensity that the Lord sent upon Egypt to convince her king to let His people go. Finally after the tenth plague, the plague of the death of the firstborn, Egypt’s king, Pharaoh, relented and released the Israelites. (Then in bitterness and anger he changed his mind and pursued them to his death… sometimes guys just don’t get it.)

In Revelation 15 there are seven plagues released upon the earth. These are called the Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath. Wrath is a mysterious thing to me and it is not to be trifled with. Wrath is the result of God’s unchanging mind in judgment. And once He has crossed that line in His mind, there is no reversing it: God doesn’t change His mind. He may delay His wrath, but He never changes His mind.

For what it’s worth to you, seven is the number of completion (or perfection). That’s why the voice from the Temple (verse 17) says, “It is done!” The sad reality is that men in their rebellious stubbornness [curse] God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible. They refuse to repent. Pharaoh refused to repent. People refuse to repent.

You see, life really is what it is; it’s full of whatever it brings; and it never changes until it’s over. Life has its ups and downs but life is what it is. The only thing that makes life, or breaks life, is the presence or absence of God in a person’s life. And God is in hot pursuit of every person on earth so that they can experience His presence. Some will buy and some will refuse. The ones who refuse, lose. It’s that simple.

God’s wrath is not vindictive. God doesn’t inflict wrath capriciously. He doesn’t blow His top. His wrath is just and righteous. His wrath is the faultless response of His righteous indignation against people who refuse His love. That may sound selfish, but only to the mind that holds that God is only just some greater version of us…Man 3.1. How lame! God is as perfect in His wrath as He is in His love. His wrath is ridiculed by men because they try to use His expression of His wrath as an accusation that He doesn’t really love: if You have to resort to wrath, they reason then You don’t really love. The madness of men!

It appears God’s wrath is given in stages and not all at once. It appears God’s wrath is revealed in nature and in our environment. It appears God’s wrath has the intention of showing man the devastation that occurs in his soul for refusing God’s righteousness. It appears that God’s wrath is intended to point toward repentance and mercy for those who experience it. It appears God’s wrath is the end of the road for those who refuse God’s love.

In John 3, is this verse: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. (v 36) It appears there are only two places for a human being to find himself: saved from God’s wrath… or under God’s wrath. And belief in Him is the only remedy for salvation from His wrath. Where do we stand today?

Sweet and Sour

12.29.11

Revelation 10.10-11 10 I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 11 Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.” NIV

The Gospel is that of good news and bad news. The Good News is good news. But there is plenty of bad news out there too. The good news is: there is good news. And despite all the bad news abounding, there is, in fact, good news. The problem is the bad news. At least the problem is the bad news needs to be dealt with and cannot (at least indefinitely) be ignored.

The scroll that John was given and instructed to eat was good news in that it tasted as sweet as honey in his mouth. But after he’d eaten it, his stomach turned sour. I don’t like a sour stomach. I don’t even like the term: sour stomach. The sweet was the good news and the sour was the bad news.

Part of me wants to say, the good news is: you’ve won a million dollars. The other part of me wants to say, the bad news is: you’ve won a million dollars. I know someone who has just been awarded a seventy-five thousand dollar settlement. Right now, today at this moment, seventy-five grand sounds like a lot of money. But at the end of the day, seventy-five k doesn’t seem to go a long way. Heck, with the price of bread at the store, seventy-five thousand ain’t really that much at all. Good news is good news but it must be taken in the light of the bad news.

John was told he was to “…prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings." In other words, he had good news to tell them but they would probably receive it as bad news. The effect of good news on bad souls is sometimes shocking – to the point of discomfort. Maybe even radical discomfort. But bad souls need good news to become good souls. And once a bad soul becomes regenerated into a good soul, there often is the fallout of the residue of the bad soul. Sometimes there can be restitution – sometimes you just gotta live with the consequences of what you’ve done.

I was up at 3:44 this morning taking care of the amount of water I’d had last night before I went to bed. As I tended to water-closet duties, I heard a voice and realized it was my son, in his room, talking to someone via the X-Box and I quickly and abruptly dispatched him to bed. I then went back to bed and began to wonder who he was talking to and then every bad thought about every bad soul began to flood my mind. I then began to think about my present employment and its demands on my time. I then began to think about my son and his needs and every bad soul out there, and finally as I prayed, I cried out: LORD, HELP ME!!

You see, we (you and I and everyone else (bad souls included)) need the Lord. We cannot live our lives effectively without Him. That is both good and bad news. That is both sweet and bitter. That is both hurtful and healing. Coming to the Lord for rescue is like being pulled through a knot-hole backwards: there’s only room for you and it’s gonna hurt like heck! John, what you’re about to do is going to hurt and help people. They’re just gonna have to get past the hurt and you’re just gonna have to be tough in administering the good news. So today, my question is: do I have the stomach for what life is going to serve me and can I (will I) cling to the Lord to pull me through?

The Full Measure

Revelation 6.11 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been. NIV

You know, the plain truth is, some are going to be killed for their faith and that is just the way it’s going to be. And the plain truth is their deaths, at the hands of men, for their faith, has been ordained since before the world was formed – nothing will stop it. And to me, the funny (in the weird sort of funny, not the haha) is that their deaths must occur before the end of all things comes. Future events hinge on their deaths. And what God says will happen will happen; His plan will not be thwarted or altered. It also captures my attention that there is a full number of those who will be martyred for their faith.

How I am to die is something I cannot control: it is already taken care of. Dying an earthly death is something that millions upon millions have already experienced and millions upon millions more will ultimately experience.

But to those in the verse above, they are reassured that their deaths were not in vain and others must experience martyrdom before the end comes. Sure, they ask: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” (v 10) But they are assured that vengeance will come and the full measure of those who are to be martyred will be reached. Their martyrdom is necessary and foreordained.

Again, how I am to die is already established and I’m not to worry about that. What happens to me when I die is something I can influence by how I live in these days leading up to my death. Paul said, For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1.21 NIV) And so to live in a manner worthy of my calling is to live for the sake of the Lord Jesus, and when I die it is only to gain all of what and Who heaven has for me. Death is only the means by which I arrive there.

Think today about the dead in Christ and about those who died for their faith. Think about what their lives meant on earth and what their deaths mean in heaven. As I wrote this morning I thought about the famous speech that was given on a battlefield in Pennsylvania where hundreds and thousands of men fought and died for a cause that was greater than the sum of all their lives. I thought about the cause and Kingdom of Christ and how your life and mine are a part of those realities. I thought about what our lives mean on earth as we live for that cause and what our deaths in heaven will mean as a result of our living. Read the following in that light:

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of [Jesus Christ], shall not perish from the earth.”

Where Crowns Belong

12.27.11

Revelation 1.5b-6a; 4.10b-11 To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father…

10b … They lay their crowns before the throne and say: 11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

There must be worship services in Heaven. There must be things that they do there that we don’t do here…like wearing crowns. And there must be customs that they hold to in Heaven like laying their crowns before the throne of Him who made it all possible…

It is my daily responsibility to remember who I am and to where I’m going. This life is all about getting ready for the next. Presently, I don’t wear a crown but I better get used to the thought of wearing one because every indication I get from reading the Word is that I am being prepared to wear one. I’m not headed to heaven to retire but to rule.

You may know me and you may think, “Um, I’m not so sure Paul is ruler material.” But I don’t get to call the shots on what my future assignment is to be: I’m simply to be ready for it when it comes. Your job, if you believe, is to do the same thing. We are being prepared in this life for what comes to us in the next. And our crowns? Our crowns will find their place like everyone else’s: at the foot of the throne.

Think of Peter for a moment. Peter carried on in the most un-rulerly manner while he was on earth. But Peter now has a crown and a throne and rules in heaven. James, John, and Paul all do the same thing. Not one of them deserves, but each of them (now) understands what their lives were being transformed into by their attachment to Jesus. They were being prepared on earth for what they do now: rule and reign with Him. And their crowns find their proper place: laid before the throne of the True King and the One who makes it all possible.

Life really is about where we’re going. It’s also about what happens to us along the way to get where we’re going. We’ll someday trade in our ball caps for golden crowns and we’ll get into the habit of placing those crowns where they belong: at the feet of Him who made it all possible. All of what happens to me today, is divinely ordained to prepare me for what I’m going to face tomorrow; and ultimately on the day when that perfectly fitted crown is placed on my brow.

And then, like them, I will wear my crown and do what I was always created to do and I will attend those services and when the moment is right I will cast my crown to that place of worship and thanksgiving and proclaim the Name of the One who made it all possible.

That is what I am to remember today on my way out to Summerville, Cove, and Imbler – the places I am going to visit today. That is what I am to remember this week and every week as I make my way through this pilgrimage called life. I am on this pilgrimage headed to a place where a crown will one day be placed on my head by the Author and Finisher of my faith. He will extend His scepter to me and will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.”