Psalm 63:1 “Wilderness Living”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

 

A psalm to David in his being in the wilderness of Judah.

 

¹O God, You [are] my God. Earnestly I seek You. My soul thirsts to You. My flesh faints to You in a dry and weary land with no water.

I have been studying through Romans 12 for several months, but it has been such a pearl-string of bombshells, I feel like I need a break to just let it all soak in. Also, I don’t like to be too long away from my Greek or Hebrew, so it would be a good idea to drop back and do some OT study for a while.

Psalm 63 has definitely been a favorite psalm for years, but I’ve just never gotten around to actually studying it. This will be a delight, I’m sure, to just slow down and really savor all these very blessed words and verses.

Obviously, the setting of the psalm is that David is in the wilderness…again. People argue whether this is from early in his life, when Saul was chasing him around, or later when he was fleeing from Absolom. I personally think it is from later as, in verse 11, he refers to himself as “the king.” David never laid any claim to the throne until Saul was dead. Though Saul was wicked and hunted him mercilessly, David never stopped respecting him. There is no doubt in my mind that David was too humble to call himself “the king” until he knew the Lord had in fact raised him to that position.  On that basis, I believe this is a later psalm and most likely from the time of Absolom’s rebellion (or some similar hardship).

Let’s begin with this simple observation: This world is a wilderness. It is a “dry and thirsty land where no water is.” Life is hard. Actually, let’s all just say it. It’s brutal. Acknowledging that, telling God that, is not necessarily lacking faith. Just as here in Psalm 63, it may instead be an expression of faith. As David says elsewhere, “I believed, therefore I said, ‘I am afflicted!’” People’s natural response to pain in trouble is of course to be angry, to grow bitter, to lash out at each other. What David is showing us is a far better way. The difference is in the very first words of this psalm: “O God, You are my God.”

If you are a believer, you are not alone. You are a man, a woman, with a God! All day. Every day. You are never alone. Although David is in a wilderness, notice it is the “wilderness of Judah.” His wilderness is in the Promised Land. All over the rest of the world, even at that moment, people were wandering in the darkness of their sin and ignorance. Their gods didn’t love them. Their gods were cruel and vindictive and even sometimes capricious. Those people’s pain was just aimless fate. Not so for a person with a God, a person who lives in our God’s Promised Land of love and joy and peace. In that land, the same David could say, “It was good that I was afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes!” Paul would later state it in our familiar promise, “All things work together for good…”

So here are you and I. Just like our unbelieving friends, we live in this painful, brutal wilderness. However, we are not the victims of cruel fate or disinterested gods. In our pain, we can cry with David, “O God, You are my God!” – even in this “dry and thirsty land where no water is.” Sometimes that wilderness comes in the form of physical pain, grief, loss, fearful news, etc. Then sometimes it assaults us in our heads. The “wilderness” can be as simple (though painful) as just feeling lost. Feeling confused.

In my own life, I’ve gone through some of those wildernesses that lasted literally for years. For just the last few years I’ve been hovering on the edge of this business of getting old and retiring. Everything is changing (and I don’t like it), but, as much as I try, I just don’t see the path forward. So many things that I used to do with ease, suddenly I’m struggling with – or dare not do at all. I love my job. I don’t want to retire, but I no longer have the energy to work 40 hours a week. My mind doesn’t work like it used to. I can’t seem to multi-task anymore. I’m not even good at tasking, much less the “multi-”! I can be talking or thinking and suddenly can’t remember what I was talking or thinking about. I sometimes can’t remember words or names and, because of that, I can barely talk at all.

Yet, what am I to do differently? I could get a rocking chair, sit on my front porch, and just wait to die. The problem with that to me is, what if I live another 25 years? I don’t want to waste 25 years. I want to do all the good I can for all the people I can as much as I can for as long as I can. I’ve always been very happy to do that primarily through my engineering, and the Lord has always miraculously carried me and enabled me to build myriads of relationships and genuinely help people/communities solve their problems.

So…what do I do now? I don’t know. I don’t know how much longer I’ll live. At this age, the general plan is not to get better. As a little girl once observed after visiting with her family in a nursing home, “Daddy, these people aren’t going to get better, are they?” When we’re young, we think we have the world by the tail – and, in a sense, we do. It’s all up from there. We get our schooling, get a job, get married, buy a home, have babies, advance in our careers, etc. For me, that world has come crashing down. So what do I do now? What’s the plan? Where are we going?

I don’t know. And I don’t like it. I feel like I’m in a wilderness right now. Probably for anyone reading this, you might be wondering why this is a big deal to me, but I’m quite sure you also have your own “wilderness(es)” constantly beating you over the head. So, we’re in the same boat, just different. What do you do? What do we do? We do what David does. We lift up our hearts and say, “O God, You are my God.”

“Earnestly I seek You.” Notice he says, “I seek You.” When us humans get in trouble, when we’re scared, when we find ourselves in a wilderness, we first of all seek relief, whatever that means and whatever it takes. What we seek earnestly is how to make it go away. David had learned one of the believers’ most precious secrets – the peace and joy of instead, in that trouble, seeking the Lord. Yes, we want relief, but with the Savior, we learn to say, “…nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.” We seek Him. We go into His presence and find whatever our heart really needs – perhaps enjoying praise or, on the other hand, like Job, a place to vent our anger. Whether either extreme or something in between, it is Him. I need Him. You need Him. We need Him. He is a personal God. He is my God. He is your God. We both need to earnestly seek Him.

Just so it’s said, if you read different translations, you’ll notice some say, “earnestly,” while others say “early.” “Which is it,” you may ask? The answer comes remembering that Hebrew is not a technically precise language like English. It is a story-telling language, where words paint pictures. The word here is just that; it is closely related to their word for the dawn, and so, has that sense of “early,” but, if you can imagine, that also carries this sense of earnestness. When you have something important to do, you may get up early to get started – because you’re earnest about it. Obviously, some translators see the “early,” while others see the “earnestly.” Either way, you get the picture!

David’s language is interesting in that he says, “My soul thirsts for You; My body longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.” As I sit and contemplate all of this, my first thought is that honestly what I’m thirsting and longing for is relief. I wish all these flies and gnats buzzing around my head would just go away. However, as I sit in the Lord’s presence and tell Him about it all, I do find I know what David means. It really is Him. We’ve been here so many times before. He has done me good my whole life. Looking back, I can see so many ways He used even my hardest times to do me good, to help me grow, to get me where I needed to go. As I sit and let my mind be surrounded by His wonderfulness, I find that is where I truly want to be.

I don’t really just want relief. I want Him to accomplish whatever He’s up to. And I can rest in that. Again, to be honest, the second I walk away, I’m afraid my heart is still longing just to escape it all, but I suppose I can take some comfort in knowing that both are true. Yes, I want relief, but then, not really. I want Him to win.

This is a crazy life. I (we) live in an awful, howling wilderness. Yet I am not alone. I am a man with a God. Even in this wilderness, I have a place to go where there is rest and comfort and hope. It doesn’t make the wilderness go away (or even necessarily any less painful), but yet there is His Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, dwelling here in my heart. I do know what love and joy and peace are.

God help us to live Your peace even in this wilderness. We do want relief, but may our greatest joy be simply to know You, to find our rest in You.

Romans 12:9 “Loving”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁹the love, unfeigned,

ones abhorring the evil,

ones being attached to the good;

In verses 6-8, Paul lists seven spiritual gifts, making his point that we are each members of the Body, with differing contributions to offer our fellow believers. The other key passages like Eph. 4 and I Cor. 12 include different possible gifts. I’m thinking that so much about these gifts has been written by others, I really have nothing to add, except to suggest that no “list” in the NT is intended to be exhaustive. I suspect the “gifts” may be as varied as the Lord made flowers – each beautiful in its own way and seemingly infinite in their variety.

Moving on, then, we have this simple verse, v.9, which brings the matter of love into full focus. All throughout vv.3-16 (see my last post), there is almost no indicative verb. In v. 9, there are only the three opening words “the love, unfeigned,” which is the familiar noun for love, “agape,” the adjective “unfeigned,” then two participles, “abhorring” and “being attached.”

“The love, unfeigned” is a simple little statement that would change the world if we believers actually lived it. As I said earlier, even the organization of this entire passage would teach us that love is supposed to be the glue that holds the Church together. What this passage would tell us is that it must be literally “unfeigned,” or “un-pretended.” The NIV and others translate it as “Love [must be] sincere.” That is a good translation, but, for myself, I want to keep in mind the “un-” something. It must be unfeigned.

This word we’re translating “unfeigned” or “sincere” is actually derived from the theater where obviously everything is pretense. In a play or a movie, we all know “they’re just acting.” Our word is telling us our love must not be like that. It must not be “an act.” It needs to be real. Another translation one sees is something like “love must not be hypocritical.” 

Basically, our love should not be fake. Of course, for all of us, I’m guessing our first response to that statement would be, “Oh, I’d never do that!” Oh, really? Our “love” could never be fake? We were all born children of the devil and that father is a “liar, and the father of lies.” He is a deceiver and it will take serious Holy Spirit transformation for you and me to learn to “speak the truth,” to rise above our old father’s life of pretense and deception.

It wasn’t without reason the Lord warned us, “The heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). Fortunately, that passage goes on to say, “I, the Lord, search the heart…”  He does know our hearts and will help us to rise above those things, but you and I must be willing to acknowledge the problem and ask for and embrace the help He offers.

This problem of pretense in love no doubt shows up in a million ways, however, what strikes me (since we’re talking about our gifts in the Body and loving each other) is the question of why we do what we do “at church,” Why does a person teach Sunday School? Why does a person agree to be an usher? Why do we sign up to take a meal to someone suffering?

This is one area where we need to be brutally honest with ourselves. Are we really doing what we do out of love? It’s so easy in a church setting to do what we do for exactly the same reason we might agree to be the treasurer for the Butterfly Collectors’ Club – just because other people are expecting it of us, because we’re flattered to be asked, maybe because we’re aspiring to be the president of the club, or a thousand other reasons – none of which is really love. (Love for ourselves, maybe…).

All of that may be fine in an organization. It is not fine in this organism, the Body of Christ, His Church. He says it simply, “The love, unfeigned.” The Lord Himself says He desires worshipers who “worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Everything about His Church is at its root heart business. Only love from the heart is acceptable and it’s up to you and me to “guard our hearts.” We need to be praying and sincerely, constantly asking the Lord and ourselves, “Am I really doing this out of love?”

Having said all of that, I want to insert how thankful I am for Jesus and His Spirit. He said, “When you know the truth, the truth shall set you free!” What I’ve come to realize is that love is exactly the freedom He gives – the freedom to truly love. He said that love for God and others are the two great aims of life. Paul said, “It is for freedom Christ has set us free…All that matters is faith, expressing itself through love” (Gal. 5:1-6). Although I’m just as rotten-hearted as the next person, it is exhilarating just to be free to love, to actually find the Lord helping me to rise above my selfishness and sincerely try to be loving. Love, I find, is what makes life worth the living!

Notice too, in this passage, that it goes on to say, “…ones abhorring the evil, ones being attached to the good.” This would tell us that real love knows the difference between good and evil. It “abhors” the evil and is literally “glued to” the good. Where these words become extremely important to you and me is in realizing that love has a standard. In other words, we are not free to decide for ourselves what love is. We’re all aware of the indulgent parent who will not correct their child – precisely because they think that is loving. There are those in our country today who think it’s loving to let criminals walk free. We could go on and on, but the bottom-line problem with those confused views of love is that they represent love with no standard.

Interestingly, Paul’s language is emphatic. To say love “abhors the evil” is quite literally that. The word translated “abhor” is a very strong word of total contempt. It’s like the feeling you get when you’re too close to a dead skunk! Then to say it is “glued to the good” is equally emphatic. It would be the word to describe when a blacksmith heated up two plates of metal and pounded them together until they became one piece of metal. Once things are “connected” or “glued to” each other in this way, you cannot separate them without destroying both. It is the same word the Lord used to describe marriage in Gen. 2:24, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”

So, once again, love has a standard. It knows the difference between good and evil. Jesus said that love to God and others are the two great commands, then observed that “all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt. 22:40). I would suggest if those are the two great commandments, then, in a sense, all of the rest of the Bible tells us how to love. It tells us how to love wisely. It is our standard. No wonder our world is so confused what love is when they reject and live in ignorance of the Bible. It is that standard.

Love is what life is all about, but it is not a love we’re free to define for ourselves. It is a love that requires us to first embrace the love of our heavenly Father, of our Savior Jesus. Only in the light of God’s love can you or I ever truly know and practice love in this world. Understanding true love requires the Holy Spirit in our hearts to open our minds to the Scriptures. Then it is our charge to know those Scriptures and to be ever knowing them better and growing in our practice of Biblical (real) love.

I should insert that, in fact, even amongst godless people, there is still (or can be) a semblance of love, and, in some cases, it may prove to be genuine love. However, I would suggest that is a result of Common Grace – that the Lord in His kindness does allow even unbelievers to know some measures of love in their life. He “sends His rain on the just and the unjust” and allows even the most wicked of people to know some measures of love and light in this world. However, you and I should not depend on Common Grace when we’ve been made the objects of very specific grace. We do have the Holy Spirit and we should be striving to learn more and more from our Bibles – and especially this idea of loving wisely.

Real love, especially as expressed in the Lord’s Church, His body, should never be fake, never feigned or pretended. It should be sincere from the heart. And it has a standard. It knows the good and the evil and should ever be more strongly welded to the good and more and more utterly abhorring evil.

All of that in just a single verse! However, while the words may be few, they are critically important. Jesus, deliver us from our arrogant presumptions that we know what love is. Give us salve for our eyes to see what You see and to live accordingly! Help us to live a “love unfeigned” especially in the “household of faith” -- the believers in our local church, the other believers at work and in our community (no matter their “church”), and literally all around the world. Lord, fill us with Jesus!

Romans 12:3-16 “Community”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³For I am saying, by the grace given to me, to all the ones being among you, not to think too highly of yourself, from what it is necessary to think, but to think into being sensibly minded, as God has given to each a measure of faith.

⁴For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another,

⁶and having gifts differing according to the grace given to us –

whether prophecy, according to the analogy of the faith;

⁷whether service, in the serving;

 whether the one teaching, among the teachers;

⁸whether the one exhorting, in the exhortation;

the one sharing, in simplicity;

the one leading, in diligence;

the one showing mercy, in cheerfulness;

⁹the love, sincere,

ones abhorring the evil,

ones being attached to the good;

¹⁰ones tenderly affectionate in the brotherly love into

one another;

ones giving preference to one another in the honor;

¹¹not slow ones in earnestness;

ones being fervent in the spirit;

ones serving the Lord;

¹²ones being joyful in the hope;

ones bearing up under the affliction;

ones being persistent in the prayer;

¹³ones sharing in the needs of the saints;

ones pursuing the hospitality.

¹⁴Be blessing the ones persecuting you;

be blessing and not cursing;

¹⁵be being joyful with ones being joyful;

be crying with ones crying;

¹⁶ones thinking the same into one another;

not thinking the high-minded,

but ones associating with the lowly ones.

Do not be being conceited ones.

I have provided my translation above all the way from v.3 to v.16, specifically because I believe the whole section is actually expressing a single thought. Notice how v.3 warns us each “not to think too highly of yourself,” while v.16 repeats the same thought and finally says clearly, “Do not be conceited.” Ancient writers often enclosed a thought with what someone has called “bookends.” I’m suggesting that is what we’re seeing here in Romans 12 – one thought expressed between the two bookends of a warning against our pride.

It is also notable that, with the exception of v.14, v.5 is the last actual verb when it says, “we the many are one body in Christ.” Our English translations generally all supply verbs throughout this section, as in v.6, when the NIV translates it, “If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.” The “is” and the “let him use it” are supplied to make it more understandable, though there are no verbs in Paul’s writing.

What I have tried to do in my own translation is to express only what is actually present in the Greek. I personally find that insightful as I am trying to establish in my own mind exactly what the Lord has said (and what He didn’t say). Of course, my translation then becomes a bit difficult for us modern English speaking readers. Just so it’s said, my hat is off to anyone who would attempt to translate the Bible into about any language. That effort is an almost constant tension between being strictly faithful to the original text while still expressing the meaning so those readers can understand it.

What that all suggests to me is that this thought, “…we the many are one body in Christ,” is the overriding thought in this entire section. In other words, that is the point of it all, and all the rest is simply expanding on what that will really mean for us believers. As I’ve expressed before, that thought has been keeping my head spinning now for several months. Of course I’ve heard it for years, but only now have I been struck by its enormous importance and, in fact, what should be its centrality in the minds of us believers all around the world.

So…having clearly and extensively explained to us the Gospel itself in Romans chapters 1-11, what is the very first subject Paul launches into? Seeing ourselves as the living Body of Christ! Notice in the passage, between the bookends of “Don’t be conceited,” and having countered that with this Body truth, what are we told? “Love [must be] sincere” (v.9).

Love. That should come as no surprise. What was Jesus’ “new” commandment? “Love one another.” What does that tell us about this business of being the Body of Christ? It tells us that love is to be the glue that holds us all together! Real, genuine, heartfelt, deliberate, and conscious love for our other believers. If you look back at this entire section, you’ll see that, in fact, that is the theme of every line – us believers’ love for each other and what that means.

Also, notice, what is the obstacle we each must overcome – the “bookends” of our passage? Pride. Wicked, sinful, self-deceptive, self-destructive pride. And what is its cure? Love. Specifically, love for other believers. See this in Gal. 6:10, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Hmmmmm. For myself, I don’t think I’ve ever really understood all of this. I read it. I knew it was there, but I don’t think it’s ever been a deliberately embraced truth in my life. Just as our passage warns, I think really, really down-deep in my soul, I’ve seen myself as an individual and never really embraced this thought of being a part (and only a part) of the living Body of Christ. That is, of course exactly the error our passage is warning us against. I don’t think our American individualism helps any. I suppose it’s our old frontier heritage that has molded us that way. All over the rest of the world, people naturally see themselves in “community,” Someone reportedly asked some Chinese college students if they were all having sex and they responded, “Oh, no! That would dishonor our parents!” Is that not a “community” thought? And I would suggest such a thought never so much as enters our young American minds!

Well, regardless of whether I’m an American or not, it’s still my responsibility to let God’s Word guide me. He is telling us, “Oh, yes. Start seeing yourselves in the community of God’s people – His Church, the Body of Christ.

Hmmmm. Another thing that hasn’t helped at all: In the various churches we have attended over the years, I suspect there were precious few real believers, real, born-again Jesus people. I feel like I’ve spent my Christian life basically making excuses for what looked like gross immaturity in my fellow church members. “They just need to grow,” I’d tell myself. Rather, Jesus Himself said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” The fruit of the Spirit is “love and joy and peace.” Where there is no love or joy or peace, there is no Spirit.

What I’m realizing from this passage is that the Body of Christ is not my local church. My local church (hopefully) contains the Body of Christ. However, the Body of Christ is made up only of real believers. As Jesus also said, there will always be “tares among the wheat.” In the “organization” of a local church there may (and probably always will be) people who are not genuinely born again. However, in the organism of the Church, the Body of Christ, there are only believers. Just like at work, there are lots of people, usually most of whom are not believers. However, there are almost always a handful of those Jesus-people who stand out because of their kindness and humility. Those people are a treasure to us and, back to our local church, it’s the Jesus-people who we are to particularly recognize and treasure.

Seeing all of this, I have to say, these last few weeks. I have very much enjoyed the services at my church. I’ve never sat in my pew, looked around, and let my heart deliberately love all the real Jesus-people I know there. I’ve never focused in on them and let my heart sincerely treasure them. I think it helps that, in this particular church, there are a LOT of those Jesus-people.

I’ve also particularly enjoyed going to work and seeing the other Jesus-people not just as “other” Christians, but as literally fellow-members of this larger community, the Body of Christ. I’ve also enjoyed the freedom of looking at other churches and realizing many of them do contain the Body of Christ. I may be uncomfortable with a lot of things those churches teach, but their real believers are still real believers and members of this great Body of Christ to which we all belong.

I want to study through this passage and learn all I can. I need to let the Lord teach me what it really means to be a member of this community, the Body of Christ – to actually begin seeing myself (and others) not as an individual Christian but as but one part, one member of this much larger Body of Christ.

Love. What does that mean? Lord, teach me. “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Know the anxious thoughts and cares within me,  and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Romans 12:4,5 “Patterns”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another..

One last thing I want to note. As I’ve studied through the Bible, one thing I’ve often noted is the fractals. The Bible is literally full of them, and, in fact, life itself is predominantly fractal. A fractal is basically a repeating pattern. The pattern can repeat itself a hundred million times and on a hundred million scales, but it is always the same pattern. I’ve always thought a tree is the best example. The way they grow and branch is itself a repeating pattern, a fractal. A trunk branches out into limbs and the limbs themselves branch and branch and branch. Same pattern right down to the smallest twigs. No two branches look exactly the same, but yet it’s the same pattern.

The same is true of families. A man marries a woman, they have children, and what do you see? The children “look like” their parents – not exactly the same, yet you see a pattern. How often have you seen families where that “look” has been passed down literally for generations? Also, say a man and a woman have four children -- what do those children do? Each finds a spouse, marries, and has children – generation after generation. And what do we call that? A family tree. And why? Because it is a repeating pattern – again, a fractal.

What does that have to do with this passage?

The Body of Christ is a fractal. On earth, Jesus had a body. His head was the head and guided that body. Here I am today and all my Christian life I’ve understood that He is the Lord, the Boss. We often encourage each other with the thought that we believers are the hands and feet of Jesus. Based on passages like this one in Romans, we can expand our perspective to say that is true, but it is more than that. Each of us individually is in fact the Body of Christ. He is my own personal Head and, as a believer, perfection for me (and you) is what? To be like Jesus. To let Him be my thoughts, my desires, to be the One who guides my eyes, my mouth, my hands, my feet. He is the Head and I am His Body.

Yet, “where two or three are gathered,” what can we say? We are the Body of Christ. We. We become not three bodies of Christ. Together we are the Body of Christ, singular. We are His Church. We may not be organized into what someone would call a “church,” but we are The Church. At work, we few believers, the Jesus-lovers, are together His Body there in that office or factory. Love for Him binds us together in love for each other. We see admonitions in the Bible like, “Do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith” (Eph. 6:10). Fellow believers are special to us. One reason why is precisely because we together are the Body of Christ. We become together literally the Body of Christ, His Church there in our workplace – and as we say, perhaps we (together) may be the only Jesus some of those people will ever know.

Yet that pattern doesn’t stop there. When we organize ourselves into a church, what are we? The Body of Christ. Are we now a different Body of Christ? No. We simply are the Body of Christ. Same fractal logic. Here again, I myself am the Body of Christ in this world. Even gathering with only a couple other believers, we are the Body of Christ. Organized together into a church, the entire group (of believers) is the Body of Christ.

I inserted the “(of believers)” because this whole study clarifies something super important in my mind. I’ll try to explain. One thing that has from the beginning been a painful observation to me was to see people in my “church” who certainly gave no evidence of genuine salvation. I came into salvation imagining that “going to church” would mean worshiping with other people who love Jesus – that everyone in my “church” would be a Christian. Wow was that hopelessly naïve! Instead, I fear the vast majority were, as we say, just “playing church.” Real believers have always been like the proverbial “rare as hen’s teeth.” You’d think Jesus might have said something like, “The gate is small and way is narrow, and few are they that find it!”

Where this Body business really helps me then is in realizing that even in a church, The Church is still only the true believers. As Jesus also said, “Let the tares grow with the wheat until the Harvest.” There will always be tares among the wheat. I don’t need to let that bother me anymore, just knowing that my church isn’t necessarily The Church. And it’s The Church that is my treasure. For now, it actually feels good to allow myself to see the others as “seekers.” There may be, in my church, people who are not really saved (and don’t act like it), but they are certainly in the right place! I can love those people and try to always show them the love of Jesus in hopes He may open their eyes.

And, of course, I’m not the Judge anyway. There are those people who seem to clearly be Jesus-people, then those people who seem not to be, and a whole spectrum in between. The truth is, I can’t say 100% where anyone fits in. Only the Lord searches the hearts. Really, no matter who it is, Jesus just wants me to love them all every way I can, then let Him do His grace work in their hearts. I find that distinction – between “my church” and “The Church” – very helpful and encouraging. I go to my church to gather together with His Church and within His Church together be the Body of Christ.

What’s crazy though is realizing that the fractal, the pattern, doesn’t stop there. Our pastor recently used the phrase “the Church of Ottawa.” All my life, I would have resisted that phrase, thinking, “Not all the churches in Ottawa are real churches!” That may be the case, but all of the believers – in whatever church they attend – are His Church, His Body in the City of Ottawa. Once again, I don’t necessarily have to worry about which are which, just know they’re there and together we do form one single Body – all of us believers in the same community. Then we can go on and speak of His Church, His Body in northern Illinois, or in America, or in the world. Then there are those who have already gone to heaven. ALL of us form together His Body.

We see the fractal as it repeats itself from beginning to end. At no point are we ever “bodies” of Christ. We are members of The Body, singular, starting with Jesus Himself and running right out into eternity!  And then, of course, we note: What is that pattern? What is this fractal, this pattern that repeats itself in so many ways? The pattern is Jesus Himself!

“From Him and through Him and to Him are all things!”  

Hmmm. I suppose, if we had the eyes to see, we’d probably realize that everywhere we look, everything we see, everything that is…is Jesus! We’d see His face, His pattern, in everything.

Well, until I “…buy from Jesus” His salve for my blind eyes (Rev. 3:18), I’ll  have to be content to learn to “see” His Body, His Church in this world. A church is not The Church – we believers are The Church, wherever and in whatever numbers He chooses to place us together!

That is cool.

 

Romans 12:4,5 “What’s Next?”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another..

Well. These last few weeks have been so explosive, I don’t even know where to start. So, as I seem to be doing a lot lately, I’ll just blunder in and see what spills out,

Where to begin? Here is the biggee: Jesus’ church is not first and foremost an organization. It is an organism. His church has to be organized, but it is far, far more than that -- or it is not His church. We are literally His body and He is our Head. That is the infinite difference between us and the Butterfly Collector’s Club (or the Rotary Club, or the local Library’s Book Club, or any other group, business, organization, or whatever gathering of human beings who join together to share some common interest).

We, His church are an organism. We are His body and He is our Head. How we organize ourselves may be, to a large extent, our own choice(s), but, in a real church, it will and must all be done deliberately and entirely under our Head. From Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things! It’s all about Jesus. To lose our connection with Him is to become nothing but that headless body, flopping and bouncing around, but accomplishing nothing of eternal value.

This relationship with Jesus is what totally separates us from all those other “clubs.” As I’ve related before, from very early in my Christian life, I looked around at what was going on in my “church” and thought to myself, “I don’t think what’s going on here is what’s going on in the Bible.” The problem was, I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. Being a new Christian and wanting to be a part of this “Jesus” thing, I just went along.

However, that sense of emptiness and confusion never left me. Here we were having our meetings, planning all these activities, setting up committees, raising money, contributing to worthy causes. We were in some cases, VERY organized (and VERY busy). But what was the difference between us and any other club? I could see very clearly that “church” in America, at least as far as I had ever (and have ever) seen is sadly nothing more than that – just another club. It was a place where we all gathered to “play church.” It was a seemingly very honorable, admirable, and worthwhile club – after all, we talked about Jesus and the Bible and may have kept VERY busy doing seemingly spiritual things, but I could see it was nothing more than a Sunday morning religious club. To me, something was terribly (and fatally) missing.

Now it is SO clear to me. There may be a “church” on every corner, but an organization called a church may or may not be THE CHURCH. The Church is the body of Christ. It is a gathering of Jesus-people – people who love Jesus and, because of that (and specifically because of that) love and value each other. In an organization, the truth is, only performers are welcome. In an organization, people who are struggling are really just a nuisance. As the Bible says, in the body of Christ, as in any organic body, “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (I Cor. 12:26). Unlike any other club, what ties together the Church is first and foremost love for Jesus and love for each other.

When a church is truly a Body of Christ (and ideally), what matters to each member of that body is what the Head thinks. The Head leads the body. When it is just an organization, it should be no surprise that everyone has their own ideas of what we should or shouldn’t do, what is or is not “success,” etc. And some alpha personalities will sooner or later be more than happy to turn it all into just one more big “church fight.” What is missing in the “church” that is only an organization? Love. The Head. The Prince of Peace. The Mighty Warrior and the Gentle Shepherd. The Lion and the Lamb. Jesus.

Now I may just ramble my jumbled thoughts, but I want to ask, what is the key here? If things aren’t right, what needs to change? The answer is me. This is heart business. I can sit in my pew and be mentally a part of an organization or I can deliberately fill my head and heart with Jesus. Last Sunday, our pastor urged the congregation to “do a 180.” “Look around you,” he urged, “These are your fellow believers.” He was so right. These other people (at least some of them) are really believers, real fellow Jesus-people, and just like at work, I treasure them just for that reason. If they love Jesus, that makes them precious to me.

My next thought personally is that I am VERY thankful for our church. When I did my 180, there are a LOT of people who are very obviously Jesus-people. There are probably more in this church than the grand total of all the Jesus-people I’ve ever attended church with. Each one is precious to me, as again and again and again, I see Jesus in them. I know they are imperfect and flawed – but they are Jesus-people. What a privilege. What a joy to gather together with Jesus-lovers and worship with them! That was probably the most pleasant Sunday morning I’ve known in all my Christian life.

But then what’s going on? It’s all about my heart. What do I choose to see? Am I looking through the eyes of Jesus or my own? He is my Head. He commanded me (among “us”) to “love one another.” For me to do less then is actually to sin. To do less is to have lost connection with my Head! That is not a problem with the church – it’s a problem with me!

This is actually a lesson I learned early in my marriage. One day I was driving down the road mad as a hornet at my poor Joanie over what was probably some trifle. As my young, impetuous self angrily fumed and muttered, the Lord reminded me clearly that He says, “Husbands, love your wives.” …Love. It occurred to me that, no matter what she may or may not have done, if I’m doing anything less than loving her, I’m sinning! I myself am not doing the very thing Jesus (my Head) told me to do. And if I’m sinning, who needs to change first?

As usual with the Lord, the entire encounter probably took about one tenth of a second. Seeing my sin and instantly receiving the grace to repent, my heart was also instantly filled again with love for her. Suddenly whatever was that trifle no longer mattered at all to me. Why should I care? I love that girl! Second only to Jesus Himself, she is the greatest treasure of my whole life!

So it is with my church. If I’m seeing it as an organization, what (or who!) needs to change first? Me. What I’m “seeing” is my own heart problem. It is sad that it has taken me nearly fifty years to figure this out, but then, my heart is content knowing “It is God who works in me to will and do according to His good purpose” (Phil. 2:13), and He actually “predestined me to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29). This is one of the reasons He saved me to start with – to fix me! Whether He takes a few days or a lifetime to do His amazing grace work, who cares really? Of Him and through Him and to Him are all things! And even if I’ve been badly misled, who cares? Maybe they really “meant it for evil.” “God meant it for good!” (Gen. 50:20).

So here I sit in His presence. Our Pastor often describes God’s work as a “What’s next?” So, Lord, my Head, what’s next?

One of the first “nexts” is always to keep studying. The Lord has a LOT more to say in Romans 12, and I need to hear it all. So…off we go!

 

Romans 12:4,5 “Still Thinking”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another..

I’m still thinking a lot about this passage in Romans, along with its counterparts in Ephesians and I Corinthians. I want to understand, for my wife and me, how to be a part of Jesus’ church, His body, keeping constantly in view that He is our Head.

This may be another rambling post, but sometimes I just have to put on paper what I’m puzzling over. Where do I begin? I think the backdrop for my current confusion is what we’ve experienced in most of the “churches” we’ve been a part of over the years. Joanie and I were both saved as college seniors and began to attend church. From there, I would say it was all downhill from there. We expected to, in fact, find Jesus-people, but I’m sorry to conclude that the vast majority of “church” people we’ve known probably weren’t even really born-again.

We have certainly known some wonderful, sincere Jesus-people over the years, but, overall, “church” has been more of a distraction than a help to us. For two people who simply wanted to know Jesus and live for Him, it seems as though "church" has been nothing but a "bait and switch" - drawing us away from Jesus and basically using us to help them "play church."  I found out early that no one liked questions. My questions seemed to only anger people. That is what got me studying the Bible myself – I figured if I can’t get answers from the pastors and the church-people, then I’ll just have to find them myself. Then, for many of the people who were held up as examples, it was nothing less than shocking to see what hateful, critical people they actually were. As one man asked in another of those hateful "business meetings," "Where's the love?"

Then there was the problem of “church” itself. One of my earliest memories of “church” was sitting in a meeting and thinking to myself, “I don’t think what’s going on here is what’s going on in the Bible.” At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on what I even meant by that. With this study, I’m seeing that this is exactly the problem – that the churches I’ve known were nothing but headless bodies. They were all busy, busy, busy, but none of it really had anything to do with Jesus. It was just religious “busyness.” I remember looking at one church we were in and realizing we were nothing but a Sunday morning religious club. What I mean is that there was no difference between what we did and what you’d find in the local butterfly collectors’ club.

We had our meetings, raised money, planned projects and basically offered “religious” people a place to practice their “religious” hobby – but, in reality, it had nothing to do with Jesus. There was lots of crowing about the Bible, but the real truth was no one actually cared what it said. “Church” was all about traditions of “how to be religious,” and whatever you do, you’d better not question any of it. All that activity was nothing but a headless body flopping around, twitching its nerves as that headless body was simply dying.

All of that is what I’ve come to call “Church-ianity.” It is not Christ-ianity, because Christ has nothing to do with it. My problem now is what do about it all? Although our experience with “church” has been, on the whole negative, yet obviously it was Jesus who ordained that there should be a church. And, then, the entire New Testament is written to local churches, with pastors and teachers and deacons and all the rest. So even if, in America, “church” has almost completely lost “its connection to the head,” we can’t just “throw out the baby with the bath.”

Somehow I have to figure out what it means for us personally to participate in our local church without getting sucked back into church-ianity. In my own heart and life, I have to figure out what it means to live for the glory of Jesus, to keep Him in view, to make sure He is my Head, regardless of whether others do the same – and to do all of that in this American “religious” system which I believe is nothing but that flopping headless body.

It helps immensely that the Lord brought us to our current church where I think they are actually doing a good job. However, I still have this clouded brain that can’t figure out how to pull it all together. I’ve been here many times down through the years. I have often found things in the Bible that send my head reeling. Like all of this, they would drive me crazy, trying to figure them out. But I would just keep praying over it and studying in the Bible, asking the Lord to teach me, and suddenly one day, the lights come on, and I can move on to my next conundrum!

It has been wonderful the things the Lord has taught me. I’m thankful even for things that might have taken a couple of years to figure out. Sometimes, there is as much blessing in the seeking as there is in the finding!

That’s where I am now.

I hope this post is not discouraging to anyone. Usually that has been the effect of my questions if I shared them at all. You may not have had the same experiences as me or struggled through these questions. Maybe it seems obvious to you what the answers are. However, this is what the Lord has conjured up for me currently. There will be answers. Jesus is a great Savior, but the “wells” of our sinfulness run very deep and sometimes it seems to take a colossal work on His part to do His grace-work in our lives.

Plunging ahead. Lead on, O King Eternal!

 

Romans 12:4,5 “Jesus-People”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴For, just as we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵thus we the many are one body in Christ and, as to each, members of one another..

Hmmmm. This passage strikes me as such a bombshell, it is keeping my head spinning. I honestly don’t even know where to start or which way to go with it. Sometimes if I just sit down and start typing, it all falls together for me – so...here goes.

This idea that Jesus is the Head and we, the church, are His body is so profound. For myself, I don’t think I’ve ever really considered it and its implications. It is like an entire corner of God’s truth I’ve never seriously considered, like a whole country I never knew existed and certainly haven’t visited. And as I study and ponder, I’m not so sure anyone else has either.

There are three major passages on this idea: Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. If anyone would study this subject with me, I would suggest you sit down and read through all three, watching for all they say about this business of Jesus being our Head and we His body.

I think where my head really spins is in relation to church unity. There are several things that have bothered me over the years. In John 17, Jesus prayed, “My prayer is that…they all may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You…May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me” (vv.20-23).

Complete unity? When has that ever happened? There’s a church on every corner, sometimes right across the street from each other! Every time I’ve seen that, in particular, it has been a grief to my heart that the two can’t get together and respect each other. Instead, every one of them is quite sure they are right and most have nothing to do with the other. Then, when modern churches talk about unity, too often, it seems to be with no regard at all for truth – it’s more like unity for the sake of unity, which itself I feel is completely unbiblical. It’s like there are two ditches and we can only choose one of them.

I have never, in all my Christian life, liked the idea of denominations. At church, I feel like, whether intentional or not, we have been taught the others “don’t count,” that their errors are dangerous, and we need to huddle together with other churches that seem to agree with us, and essentially pretend the others just don’t exist. Where that really bothered me was then going to work.

At work, I encountered believers from seemingly the whole spectrum from Roman Catholics to Pentecostals to Presbyterians and seemingly every variety in between. At work, I had wonderful fellowship with so many obviously true believers, real Jesus-people. In that secular world, those believers were a breath of fresh air and a sweetness I treasured. Then I’d go back to church and, once again, I’m supposed to see them as dangerous and that they and their churches “don’t count.” That dichotomy has always troubled me.

Then there is the church itself. Unity? One church we were in scheduled a business meeting and a little girl asked her mother, “Mommy, will this be a yelling meeting? I don’t like yelling meetings.” And yes, people really do fight over the color of the carpet. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears. Even within any given church, people have their own opinions, clump together with others who agree, determine to get their way, and seemingly care nothing for this whole business of unity.

I see all of that, then read in our passage, “We, the many, are one body in Christ, and, as to each, members of one another.” In Ephesians 4, it says, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all…until we all reach unity in the faith…attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ” (vv.3-13).

Unity? Does anybody really care? Has anyone ever cared? It seriously bothers me that so many men comment on this passage in Romans and never run the flag up the pole – “Hey! Why is our world (the world of believers, of course) so far from this truth?” How can we wander glibly by passages like this and never stop to mourn how far we have wandered from its truth? I guess I have my entire life. Apparently, I’ve sort of mentally dismissed it as something like a hypothetical ideal – a nice idea that will simply never be true until Jesus returns. Yet there it is in the Bible, in three major passages.

Then the thought struck me, “How many “churches” were there when Jesus was here? There were twelve disciples. Were there twelve churches? There could be only one, because Jesus Himself was the “church.” You were either one of His disciples or not. There was no in-between and it was Jesus or nothing. If Jesus were still here on earth traveling around the world, how many denominations would there be? I maintain it would be the same as when He was here before. There would be only ONE – and it would clearly be all about Jesus.

If different people studied their Bibles and came up with different interpretations, what would they do? Ask Jesus, of course. What if people had different ideas about how something should be done? What would they do? Ask Jesus, of course.

Therein, I believe is exactly the problem. It’s all about Jesus. Unity is not about us “getting together.” It’s about us all remembering He is the Head. That’s what made it different at work – regardless of which churches we attended, what we all shared was our love for Jesus. In Colossians 2, Paul describes someone who had gotten some kooky ideas, then notes, “He has lost connection with the Head” (v.19). Is that not exactly the problem? To me, that is the bombshell that has my head spinning. I fear we have all “lost connection with the Head.” Our generation has totally forgotten it’s all about Him.

Am I wrong? If there is only one Head, then there is only one body – the body of Jesus-people, people who love Jesus, people who want to live Jesus, people who love other Jesus-people. Ought not we all be living all day every day praying, “Father, today, fill me with Jesus. Fill my mind. Fill my heart and all my desires. Fill my eyes, my mouth, my hands, my feet. Just fill me with Jesus!”

Is it not obvious, with all our “denominations,” and with all our division, the most underlying problem is simply that “we’ve lost connection with the Head?” And what sets my head spinning the fastest is realizing I am a part of the problem! I said earlier, I feel we’ve lost our awe of the glory of God, that I myself do not dwell on that glory. I’m sitting here thinking that more specifically, we’ve lost our awe of the glory of Jesus! He is our HEAD. Every real Christian, born-again eye should be fixed on Jesus.

If He is our Head and we’re just the body, shouldn’t we be looking to Him and, in Him, finding our unity? I know I’m a dreamer, but shouldn’t our church life be like our work life? Shouldn’t we be so happy to just be with other people who genuinely love Jesus, that our “differences” just aren’t that important? If I really do think another believer is “in error” to the point it needs to be dealt with – shouldn’t real believers who love Jesus be able to sit down and say, “I know you’re thinking like this, but it just seems wrong to me? It seems unbiblical.” Shouldn’t we both pray together to our Head and say, “Jesus, help us to help each other. Help us to talk this through in love. Help us to walk away knowing better Your mind.”

Then couldn’t we say, “Show me in your Bible where you’re getting this,” then show them in our Bible where we’re getting our ideas? Couldn’t we in sincere love and respect for each other keep talking it through until Jesus opens both our minds to see Him? If, in the process, that other person simply cannot or will not enter into that kind of Jesus-love, perhaps we will have to walk away mournfully concluding that person is either not really born-again, or that, in fact, as Paul said, “They’ve lost connection with the Head.” If I find no fellowship with that person, then there is no unity, nor needs to be, and that is no cause for anger, but rather for grief and loving sorrow – sorrow that we have no common Head. Our faith is all about Jesus. If someone else’s isn’t, then there is no unity, whether that is an individual or an entire church group.

Again, I know I’m a dreamer, but if Jesus is really our Head, shouldn’t that be true? What was Jesus’ "new” commandment? “Love one another” (John 13:34). For us believers, if our hearts and minds are filled with Jesus, how can we do less? Is not “less” a sure sign we’ve (I’ve) lost connection with the Head?

Perhaps I’m rambling now, but, in my own life right now I’m living one application of this. For the last six years or so, Joanie and I have been attending a Presbyterian church. One attraction for me is that, after studying the Bible myself for nearly fifty years, I find the Presbyterians’ Reformed theology the closest to the Bible of any church I’ve ever been in. That has been a glorious breath of fresh air.

However, what allures us the most is the “Jesus-people.” From the pastor down to so many people in the pews, there is that glowing, humble sweetness of Jesus. There are definitely a few of the “Presbyterian” ideas that I don’t see in the Bible, but I find those just aren’t important. The people are real Jesus-people and, just like at work, that is enough for me. Then I guess I need to add, but I really don’t want to be a “Presbyterian” or a “Baptist” or a “Methodist” or a “Catholic” or anything else. I just want to be a Jesus-people. I want to love Him and love His people, His body, and figure out how He wants me to fit into not really any “church,” but rather His body.

Even as I type, I don’t think I see how this all fits together and exactly what it means for my all-day-every-day. But I feel like the Lord has used this passage in Romans 12:4,5 to challenge my heart. And not just “challenge,” but, again, I feel He’s dropped a bombshell on me. I may have to walk away from this passage for a bit and let it ruminate in my heart, then come back. The glory of God. The glory of Jesus. He’s the Head. He’s my Head. He’s our Head.

“I’m coming back to the heart of worship – ’cause it’s all about You, Jesus;  it’s all about You."

 

Romans 12:3 “For the Honor of God”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³For I am saying, by the grace given to me, to all the ones being among you, not to think too highly of yourself, from what it is necessary to think, but to think into being sensibly minded, as God has given to each a measure of faith..

I’m still pondering on this verse. Earlier I mentioned Charles Simeon, a British minister from around 1800. Of all the commentaries I’ve read, he was the only one who seemed to slow down and really see the depth of this verse. That said, I want to quote him at length, as I believe he calls our attention to another implication of the truth we find here:

“It is an insult to God to make His gifts a pedestal for the exaltation of self. You will remember, that He complains of His people of old, because they appropriated ‘His corn, and His wine, and His oil,’ to the honoring of others who were His rivals in their esteem (Hosea 2:5; Hosea 2:8-9). And this is the very thing which every man does, who takes to himself the honor of those gifts which have been conferred upon him by God. And how indignant Jehovah is at such treatment, we may see in His expostulations with Sennacherib: ‘I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hands I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent; and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures; and I have put down their inhabitants, …’ Now, hear Jehovah’s reply: ‘Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? …(Isaiah 10:12-15).’ Tell me, I pray you, what would you have been above the beasts, if God had not endowed you with reason? or, what had you differed from the lowest of the human race, if God had not made you to differ? Your distinctive powers afford you ground enough for gratitude; but none for self-applause: and if, like Herod, you take to yourselves the credit which your ignorant or partial friends may accord to you, like Herod you shall become monuments of God’s just and fiery indignation. You may not be eaten up with worms in this life: but you shall surely bear His displeasure in the world to come. ‘God is a jealous God’ and ‘His glory will He not give to another (Exodus 20:5.Isaiah 42:8; Isaiah 42:8).’ ‘From Him does every good and perfect gift proceed’ (James 1:17), and to Him must all the glory of it be ascribed: ‘He that glories, must glory only in the Lord’ (Jer 9:23 and 1 Corinthians 4:7).”

As I read those words, it struck me that I’ve never seen this whole matter as an affront to God Himself. I am remembering, many years ago, I read I Corinthians 4:7 – “For who makes you to differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? But if you received it, why do you boast as if you did not?” – and the Lord showed me my arrogance. My very first thought reading it was, “I don’t think I do boast like that.” Then suddenly, I could see it very clearly for the first time -- I realized that way down deep, underneath it all, I really did think I was better than everyone else. As another man once described it, it’s having “ingrown eyeballs.”

That was a deeply painful moment, to see that awful arrogance in my own heart. Yet, as always with the Lord, it was at the same time gloriously liberating. Having seen it, I knew I could rise above it. Because of the Lord, I knew I would rise above it. I am so thankful for that moment, as the world is a much more pleasant place when I am sincerely realizing I need to value everyone else around me, that we are all “cut from the same bolt of cloth,” that, with Paul I can sincerely say, “By the grace of God, I am what I am.”

So, in that verse I saw how arrogant I was, and of course that was very bad. However, in all these years, the thought has never crossed my mind that my arrogance was actually an affront to God Himself. As Charles Simeon said, “It is an insult to God to make His gifts a pedestal for the exaltation of self… And this is the very thing which every man does, who takes to himself the honor of those gifts which have been conferred upon him by God.” Those words, “It is an insult to God…” are what has my head spinning.

I fear our generation has all but lost any real sense of the glory of God. I myself can see the ugliness of my sins, how hurtful they are to myself and others. I can see how righteousness – doing the “right” things – makes all of life just go better. I very much like that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” I like that “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with Him.” And, in a sense, there is nothing wrong with liking any of that. The Lord Himself often encourages people to obey Him, saying “…that it may go well with you and with your children after you.”

But what about God? Insult Him??? “…make His gifts a pedestal for the exaltation of self”??? Those words feel like a giant razor blade cutting down to the very bedrock of my soul. He is my Maker. All that I am and all that I have are a gift from Him – a gift He deliberately chose. My heart should literally live in the wonder of His glory. Yet, I don’t think I’ve ever really seen my arrogance as an affront to Him Himself.

The verse says, we are “not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has given to every man a measure of faith.” From this day forward, every time I think about my own few fishes and loaves or see and recognize the amazing gifts in others, I want my first thought to be the glory of God.

What a wonderful God He is. He puts up with so much from us. Yet He gives His own Son to make us His children, then patiently sets about to make us all we should be. And when this is over, He gives us heaven forever!

Like Moses, I would pray, “Lord, show me Your glory!”

 

Romans 12:3 “For Whom the Bell Tolls”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³For I am saying, by the grace given to me, to all the ones being among you, not to think too highly of yourself, from what it is necessary to think, but to think into being sensibly minded, as God has given to each a measure of faith..

I’m still nursing on this simple but amazing verse. I think it is one of those verses which are easy to read glibly by and never really let its bombshells of truth explode in our hearts. My mind is still reeling realizing that the very first issue the Lord addresses in Romans 12 is our pride. That should come as no surprise as our pride is the most fundamental expression of our Adamic nature. It lurks in the shadows behind our every lust and sin. If we truly desire to be like Jesus, we must realize it is our worst enemy and sincerely pray and watch against its deceptive allurement.

This morning I want to especially focus on the last phrase “…as God has given to each a measure of faith.”  Obviously, one of the most typical expressions of our pride, of our “thinking too highly of ourselves,” is found in not realizing or truly appreciating that God has given to each person “a measure of faith.” No matter how gifted or talented anyone is, no one “has it all.”  The truth is we all need each other.  

To this point, I am struck by the quote, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” This famous line traces back to the 17th-century English poet John Donne. In his 1624 Meditation XVII, Donne wrote, "never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee". He was using the tolling of a funeral bell (which was a common practice in days gone by) as reminding us of our human interconnectedness. He was asserting that any loss or death diminishes us all because we are all fundamentally connected. (Most of us recognize the quote from Ernest Hemingway’s novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls”).

Donne was so right. Every death is actually a terrible loss for the rest of us. Since Paul uses the word “faith” and immediately launches into a discussion of spiritual gifts, he likely has those specifically in mind here. I will come back to that, but I’d like to step back and see how this truth embraces all people and should impact our thinking not only at church but also at work, in our families, and everywhere.

“God has given to each a measure…” In Genesis 4:19-22, we read, “Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes.  Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of  bronze and iron.” Barely out of the Garden and we see God granting to men different talents. Jabal was apparently good at farming, while his brother Jubal was a musician. Their brother Tubal-Cain was a blacksmith of sorts. 

Can we all see how each needed the other? When any one of them died, it was an enormous loss to the others. In fact, it was an enormous loss to you and me as well. What did those guys know that we don’t? What were they able to do that you and I cannot? We’ll never know – because they’re dead. In fact, every human being possesses a unique combination of talents and skills – all of which God gives so that person can in many ways do good to everyone else. Whenever anyone dies, the rest of us are the losers. “…it tolls for thee.”

When I was much younger, I worked on a jobsite where there was an older man who was a plumber. It didn’t take long before I realized how valuable he was. The guy was an amazing plumber, a very hard worker, and just a very pleasant man to know. Then one day he announced he was retiring. I shook his hand and told him I was very happy he could retire and spend more time with his grandkids, but, I had to add, “…but this is a HUGE loss for our industry. You will be very much missed.” And he was, and, in a sense, still is. So is God’s design for every human being. To lose one makes all the rest of us losers.

Someone can ask, “But aren’t there people who die, and we thank God they’re gone?” Because of sin, there will always be people who take the gifts God gave them and use them for evil, not good. Adolf Hitler had some kind of amazing talent for leadership. Because he was so evil, all of humanity can be glad he died. Yet, what if he could have been saved? What if instead, those leadership gifts could have been used for good? In fact, at that very time, there were other men like Winston Churchill in England and Dwight Eisenhower in America who also possessed amazing leadership skills. Where would we be today without them? The truth is we were all the losers first of all that Hitler used his talents for evil, then that he died and took those very valuable talents with him.

“Think of yourselves with sensible judgment, as God has given to everyone a measure of faith.” God gives His gifts and talents to everyone. Every person has a unique ability to do good to everyone else around them. Some may be called to greatness like the Winston Churchills of this world…and then there’s the rest of us. I may feel I have only “five loaves and three fishes” to offer, but what does Jesus say? “Bring them to Me.” Our job is to give those gifts and talents…what Jesus does with them is up to Him!

Think of it – if you and I would be like Jesus, what are we told of Him? “Jesus was a man ordained of God, who went about doing good…” (Acts 10:38). What good did He do? Healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons, with His death purchased salvation for the entire world. I can’t do any of those things…but what can I do? I can still be just like Him – I can be determined every day to do whatever I do deliberately, prayerfully seeking to do good for other people.

I am a man. I can go to work every day and realize my goal is to do good. I’m an engineer. I can sincerely try to help small cities and villages to make the best decisions about their infrastructure. I can help them solve problems when they often have no idea what to do. I can deal with the EPA on their behalf. And best of all, I can care about the individual people, try to be supportive, encouraging, respectful. That is precisely why the Lord places MOST of us Christians in this world as simple workers – to infiltrate this brutal, hateful world with little Jesus-people.

The same applies to me as a husband and father and simply as a friend. I’m here to take even the little I possess and to do good for the most people I can all day every day until the Lord takes me home. Few of us needs to be “great.” We may feel we have only one or two simple talents. We just need to hear Jesus say, “Bring them to Me.” He is the one who can bless them and break them and use them to feed thousands. Our job is simply to bring them.

I like what Joseph Parker said: “He made one a painter, another a poet, another a preacher, another a merchantman; he made one woman bright as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, subtle as George Eliot; he made another woman the mother of the house, taking care of everything, cumbered about many things, loving all that belongs to home, and making home the sweetest little church under the sun -- all these are equally the gift of God.”

And why is all that true? Because “God has given to everyone a measure…” Contained in that simple little statement is one of the first and most important ways you and I need to conquer our pride. I am only one of many. I need every single person in this world…and they need me. Every death, every person who uses their gifts for evil, every person who buries their talents in selfishness is a terrible loss for all the rest of us. God, help me not to be one of them.

I need to hear Jesus say, “Do not think too highly of yourself, from what it is necessary to think, but think into being sensibly minded, as God has given to each a measure of faith.”

What if everybody did?

Romans 12:3 “Pride?”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³For I am saying, by the grace given to me, to all the ones being among you, not to think too highly of yourself, from what it is necessary to think, but to think into being sensibly minded, as God has given to each a measure of faith..

Here we go again. This one little verse is another complete bombshell. After eleven chapters of the glorious Gospel and two verses calling us to the life God wants us to live, what is the very first issue which must be addressed?

Pride. We’re admonished not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think.

Pride. The devil’s sin.

“The pride of your heart has deceived you” (Jer.49:16; Obadiah 1:3).

“God resists the proud, but gives His grace to the humble” (I Pet. 5:5).

This issue is the terror of my heart. I honestly think, as I study the Bible, this is the most unrecognized sin out of them all. How can that be? For anyone to “think highly of themselves” is what we all call arrogance. We deplore it in others, yet are quite sure it’s no problem for me. It is such an obnoxious sin. Yet, if we know our Bibles at all and listen to the Spirit, it seems to be the very skin in which we all dwell. The key (and the first reason I call it a terror) is because, as Jeremiah and Obadiah warned us, “The pride of your heart has deceived you.” Its deception didn’t end in the Garden – that’s where it started for us humans and that same evil pride would still drag us all down to hell.

My pride deceives me. It hides from me. It hates the light. It is, in fact, so subtle, we (I) can actually be proud of how humble I am! All of that leads me to my second terror, that “God resists the proud.” The word translated “resists” is actually a military word that could be translated, “God marshals His troops against the proud.”

There you go. The last thing in the universe I need is to have God declare war on me!!!! Being born again, He became my Father and “nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ.” However, that relationship and that security do not shelter me from my Father’s chastening hand! In fact, if anything, it makes it worse!

Our Lord knows this is the devil’s sin. He knows it deceives us. And He knows this one sin can utterly destroy all the other good you and I can do, all the spiritual growth which could have been ours, literally everything you ever hoped or dreamed of. In His great Fatherly love, then, He may literally seem to “marshal His troops against us,” if that’s what it takes to cook this sin out of our hearts!  Just think of the brutal treatments a person must endure to overcome cancer in our bodies. How much worse the surgery we must suffer to extract that self-destructive evil pride from our hearts! …and we don’t even see it’s there!

All of that is why I say it terrifies me.

One evidence of pride’s deception is right there in the Bible lying before us. I have probably read Romans 12:3 countless times in my life, but not once did it occur to me the verse is addressing my pride. And not only me, but I have read a large number of commentaries on the verse and only one slowed down long enough to realize how serious it is! Charles Simeon, a British pastor from around 1800, was the only man whose heart jumped reading this verse. I hope to quote him at length later, but first I want to acknowledge that I didn’t see it and seemingly nor did anyone else! Deception.

What do we read? “By the grace given me” – the authority of his apostleship! – “I say to every one of you…” Verse 1 started with the general entreaty, “Therefore, brothers…” Now we read, “I say to everyone of you…” This is probably one of the most individualized verses in the Bible. “Everyone of you…” Paul is making it clear he’s speaking to every one of us personally. Yes, he means me. I’m cornered. Pride? “Think more highly of myself than I ought to think?” Oh, no. Not me. Oh, really? Not me? I hope you feel what I do – that “surely not me!” is lurking somewhere just under my skin.

Yes, me. It’s time to step out into the light and pray seriously, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts and cares; And see if there be any wicked way in me; And lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps, 139:23,24). Lord, help me today to live in genuine humility, like Jesus, to see others as more important than myself, to seek to serve rather than be served. Renew my mind and may Your Spirit be my spirit today.

I said I wanted to quote Charles Simeon at length. Here is part of what he wrote about this passage:

“Nothing renders a man more contemptible than vanity: it invariably defeats its own ends, and sinks us in the estimation of all whose applause we covet. But, independent of that, the more we arrogate to ourselves, the less will people be disposed to concede to us: and, if they cannot refuse us some degree of credit on those points wherein we excel, they will be sure to search out some faults to put into the balance against it; so that, on the whole, we shall be gainers to as small an amount as possible. On the other hand, modesty gives effect to all our other excellencies: and the more meekly we bear our honours, the more liberal will even the most envious of our rivals be in the bestowment of them. To “prefer others in honour before ourselves (Note: ver. 10 and Philippians 2:3),” is the way to disarm their hostility, to allay their jealousies, to conciliate their regard; so that, even if we had no better object in view than the advancement of ourselves in the estimation of man, we should seek it, not by self-conceit and self-preference, but by sobriety in self-estimation, and by modesty in our whole deportment. To this effect, the wisest of men has taught us, “To seek our own glory, is not glory (Note: Proverbs 25:27):” on the contrary, “when pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom (Note: Proverbs 11:2).”

 

Romans 12:2 “The Hinge-Pin of Reality!”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹I am urging you, therefore, brothers, because of the sympathies of God, to present your (pl.) bodies [as] a living sacrifice, holy, [and] well-pleasing to God, [which is] your (pl.) logical/reasonable act of worship. ²And do not be being conformed to this age, but be being transformed by the renewing of your mind, into [that] you [are] proving what [is] the desire of God, the good and well-pleasing and perfect.

My, my. Here I sit. I’ve been studying and pondering on Romans 12:1,2 now for over two months. It feels like I’ve sailed from one end of the universe to the other and back again. I barely know how to put into words all the amazing truth I’ve been shown. But I must. This is precisely why I type these blogs. My soul needs to distill this seeming infinity of what I feel the Lord has shown me. It often happens that it all only coalesces as I sit here and type.

Where do I begin? Hmmmm. These two seemingly simple verses are literally the hinge-pin of reality. Romans chapters 1-11 are an exhaustive summary of the realities of human existence – in fact, of this entire created universe. To deny a single word of those eleven chapters is to deny the reality in which we live – like refusing to believe we’re surrounded by air. The Gospel, I realize (ch. 1-11) is not just our neat and tidy little plan of salvation. This Gospel we believe literally defines us.

It tells us where we come from and who we are, or should I say, “Whose we are.” It tells us who God is, what’s our problem, and His glorious answer for it. It explains the very universe we live in. To embrace His Gospel is to, for the first time, truly begin to live in reality. We are not overgrown amoebas. We are human beings, uniquely and deliberately created in the image of God Himself, each of us granted the glorious opportunity to exist at all! Given the choice, our entire race has chosen to reject God’s will (reality) and then try to build a world and live lives as we would will. In so doing, what we have brought into our world is death itself – in all its horrific, ugly consequences.

Every human being wants to be happy, but love and joy and peace will elude us all our lives until we look up, accept our proper place, and begin living lives under the infinitely sovereign, good, and just God who created us.

That is precisely what I mean by these two verses being the hinge-pin of reality. In verse 1, the Lord called us to present to Him these bodies of ours (the very connection between our eternal spirits and this material world) and to live our lives as continual sacrifices of praise and adoration and service to Him. As He Himself says, that’s only reasonable.

Verse 2 then addresses the monumental change which must take place, or should I say it is the wonderful transformation the Lord will accomplish in the hearts and lives of those who come to Him? It is to leave death and begin to live. It is to leave the darkness and finally walk in the light. It is to know the Truth which sets us free – free to break loose from the chains of bad habits and self-destructive choices which we are very aware have wrecked our lives. It is the freedom to start living in reality. Chapters 1-11 told us what is reality. Now 12:1,2 calls us to start living that reality and the rest of the book will tell us what that means. 

Verse 2 explains the process the Lord would use to accomplish all this glorious, wonderful transformation in our lives. He begins by saying we must not be conforming ourselves to this world (literally “to this age”). In Christian circles, this is known as not being “worldly,” which is a good adjective. However, I would suggest that modern Christianity has largely gone astray at exactly this point, as too many have arrogated to themselves the privilege to define what “worldly” means.

May I observe, that is exactly what “worldliness” is – this deciding for ourselves what the Bible means? A thousand times, “No!” If we would know the truth, then we must seek it, not from our own corrupted minds but from the Lord Himself – in His Word, the Bible.

Instead of coming up with our own list of “no-no’s,” what do we find in the Bible? We should begin at I John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

“The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” – the love of pleasures, possessions, and applause – are the engines that drive “worldliness.” These things call us not to our list of “rules,” but to a serious assessment of our hearts. “My son, give me thine heart.” People can appear very religious at church, but what is driving them the other 166 hours per week? What drives you and me? A realization of this problem in myself moves me to pray with David, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxious thoughts and cares; And see if there be any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps.139:23,24).

If we would not be conformed to this world, we must begin by recognizing the real war zone – my heart. In Romans, Paul has already addressed this battle and called it our flesh – not so much our physical bodies, but this lusting it was born with, a spiritual problem which surfaces in physical problems. What does he say over in Galatians? “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,…hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like;…” (5:19-21). Note the “hatred, contentions (drama), jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions.” Those are what the Lord would have us know are the kind of evidences which tell us we’re being “conformed to this world.”

Instead, He wants us to be “being transformed.” And what are we to be transformed into? Paul will answer that clearly in chapter 13: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” Jesus. One of the reasons God saved us was “that we should be conformed to the image of His Son” (8:29). If you and I sincerely wish to be “transformed,” we need look no further than Jesus Himself. The really, really good news is that means you and I actually can live “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22,23).

And how is that change to occur? “By the renewing of your mind.” That immediately takes us back to Scripture. Our Bibles. The Bible itself and our time in it is the engine that drives our transformation. The Bible is the Word of God – God’s communication of His heart and mind to ours. Someone once said, “To look into the Bible is to look into the very face of God.” II Cor. 3:18 tells us that “Beholding His image, we are changed into that image, from glory to glory…” Someone else once said, “No Bible, no God. Know Bible, know God!”

That last little quip is short but true. If you and I would know God, we must know our Bibles. And if we would be transformed, if we would be enabled to know a life of love and joy and peace, it will happen because we spent that time in the Word, in the presence of our God, who is Himself love -- seeking to know Him, to know His heart, to see the world through His eyes.

And, here in v.2, on this side of this glorious hinge-pin of reality,  what does that transformation ultimately produce? Us proving (and approving) what is that “good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God.” The first thing I want to note is that God’s will is good. Once again, people (all of us) form in their minds all kinds of crazy ideas of what “God’s will” is. I would suggest, one of the very first impressions we should keep in our minds is that His will is good.

Numerous times in the Bible, we are told things like, “You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you…” (Deut. 4:40), and “Observe and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good…” (Deut.12:28). What more could we ask for, than a God who wants to do us good? And not only for us, but for our children? It should come as no surprise that such a God should promise us, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps. 37:40)!

He wants to do us good, but He also wants to make us good. Back to the fruit of the Spirit – “love, joy, peace…” The Bible tells us the fruit of everything we do to know our Bibles, to seek the Lord, even our struggles to try to understand His will and do it, even our trying and failing – the end it will produce in us is a life of love and joy and peace.

When you and I would crack our Bibles, we need not fear the “will” we find will be oppressive or absurd or difficult or capricious or anything else but to do us good and to make us good! If our view of faith is not making us better people, there is a screw loose somewhere. To be more like Jesus is to be more like Him who was the very model of everything any human being should aspire to be.

Do you see why I said these two verses are the very hinge-pin of reality? Chapters 1-11 clearly establish what is good in this world, then from 12:1 on, the Lord will tell us how He wants it all to do us good and make us good! If everyone would study to understand Romans 1-11, then live the truths of 12-16, our earth would be a veritable heaven!

There is SO MUCH more we could see from these two seemingly simple verses, but I must say, I’m excited to study on. I’ve always thought of the rest of Romans as being just sort of a miscellaneous assortment of practical admonitions. Having studied myself all the way to this hinge-pin of reality, I am rather looking at it as asking the question: “And so, having given us Romans 1-11, a detailed and extensive treatise of our Lord’s glorious gospel, what does He think are the most important admonitions to rise from it?” Rather than a “miscellaneous assortment,” I expect to find a very deliberate explanation of what our Lord sees as the very most important lessons He wants us to learn. If you and I would live in reality, what should be some of the biggest issues we must get straight in our heads? I want to try to listen carefully, knowing His will is “good, and well-pleasing, and perfect!”