Permanent Vacation!

After these things He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he left all, rose up, and followed Him. ~ Luke 5:27, 28

It's vacation season, so what does it take for you to pack up and go? My mother was meticulous about her packing. She had lists for each person: how many pairs of pants, what type of shoes, right on down to toothbrush and comb. The list sat with each person's designated pile of items in her room until the night before we were to leave. Once every pile consisted of the items listed, it was double-checked and loaded into a suitcase --with the list. The list would be referenced when it was time to pack again for our return home. And we were returning. 

The passage above makes it pretty clear: Matthew had no intention of returning to the place from which Jesus called him. Imagine, you're sitting at your desk one morning, or eating lunch in your cab, maybe you just got the last little tyke down for her nap. Jesus shows up. Follow Me. Okay, you're not gonna leave the children behind, but standing up from your desk, opening the door of your cab, and just walking off? Away from your livelihood? Away from the business you built up from the ground or the vocation that was your father's and his father's before him? Away from your coworkers who have been like family to you? Away from a guard shack you've passed through every day for the past sixteen years? No send off, no exit interview or letter of resignation. Where's Kevin? I think he took something over to Radiology. Away, and to what? Imagine explaining that to your spouse. Well, no, Jesus didn't say anything about personal days or a 401K. Bi-weekly? No, I don't think I get paid at all. It sounds like there's going to be a lot of travel involved, though. Maybe I can rack up those airline miles and we can go see your sister like we planned.

But if you have no intention of coming back, does any of that matter? There'd be no need for a list: what you've got in your hands and on your back is the whole of it. And when those things become unnecessary or too heavy, you put them down and keep it moving. When Jesus calls, He is faithful. Whatever we can need, whatever we will need along the way, He provides. 

In verse 29, Luke tells us Levi then took Jesus back to his house and threw a huge party. He'd just walked away from a cushy job fleecing the sheep of Israel to an unpaid position at Jesus' non-profit, and he celebrated? He didn't sit down at the kitchen table crunching numbers, telling the family how they were all going to have to cut back --take shorter showers and eat at home more often. He brought out the fatted calf, invited his --now, former-- coworkers. I mean, there can only be one explanation, right? No, he hadn't lost his mind. He was free!! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that, maybe, for the first time in Levi's life, he was free --he felt free! So free he was willing to empty out all the cupboards in celebration despite having just walked off the job. So free he ignored the seating chart and sat the tax collectors next to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law next to the disciples. Okay, so I don't necessarily know that, but it seems they were all there. Matthew was free, and it appears he wanted everyone else to be free as well. Come and meet the One worth leaving everything for! Come and see the One who has freed me from stuff and societal norms. Come and listen to the words of One to whom I have turned. Come and never go back. Oh, and by the way, if I have anything to do with it, my children are coming with me.

Watson on Wednesday

A friend just posted this on Instagram. I'd never read it before, but WOW! is it a powerful reminder of who we are in Christ. I say who we are, because the Christian life is --if you can imagine this --like Jesus holding above our heads a crown. It is ours. It is guaranteed by His Holy Spirit. But we are learning how to properly accept it; we are training and "doing the work," much as an earthly heir to the throne would, each and every day. We are still discovering who we are, but Christ has called us that since before the foundation of the world. 

So, enough of me, here is Others May, You Cannot, by G.D. Watson:

"If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

"Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

"Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their success, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

"Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

"The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants you to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater then Jesus comes.

"The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

"Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now when you are so possessed with the loving God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven."

The Work Is Getting Done

Are you ready for a good word today? Before I tell you what God said to me in my quiet time today, let me give you some background. So, the Holy Spirit seemed to be impressing two very important things on me in the past few weeks: slowing down and obeying. The link between the two was not lost on me. One of the most important lessons I learned years ago was, if I was so immersed in my problems, handling and medicating every little symptom, rather than stepping back and looking for the source of the problems, I'd end up exhausted, frustrated, and still immersed in problems. The thing I'm learning now is, that is not where God wants me to be. Jesus offers us rest in Him; we don't have to be frustrated even with the troubles of the world; and with God, all things are possible. If I am exhausted, frustrated, and knee-deep in problems, I am not walking in what God has for me; I am living contrary to what He has made possible through the power of His Son, Jesus Christ, who has made me free. In short, I am disobeying God's instruction to take care of the body He has given me, to be still and trust the plan He has for my life, and to seek Him in all things.  It's important to slow things down and gain some perspective in order to obey.

Now, all of that being said. I DO NOT DO THAT. Not in everything, which is a lot less than the obedience I want to have in all things. I do not always take things slowly. I do not always pause throughout my day to talk to or even think about Jesus. I often go to bed exhausted, feel frustrated, or find myself knee-deep in problems. I don't want to be that way, but far more than I'd like, there I am. That bothers me. In addition to that, my haste and my ensuing disobedience displease the God I love. Those things do not bring Him glory, and He is worthy! As a matter of fact, exhaustion, frustration, and a preoccupation with problems are the result of my seeking glory for myself: my self-sufficiency, my plans. I long for the day "I will just get it together and be in accordance with God's design."

Here's the word: THAT DAY IS COMING! Philippians 3:20-21 says:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

In this chapter, God through Paul is talking about obtaining a righteousness that is from God by faith in Christ (v. 9). Paul says there is work to be done; we are not simply, passively waiting for our bodies and our natures to be changed, but we are pressing on through the study of God's Word, Scripture memorization, the fellowship of believers, prayer, and service to others, to name a few. Our bodies, our natures, will be transformed in conformity with God's design by the authority and power of Jesus which brings all things into subjugation to Himself! That is good news! There is no part of us He will leave untouched; there is nothing in us too deeply rooted, too sinister or vile, He cannot transform. 

I'm getting older, of course, and my body is failing. I accept it, but I still try to eat right and exercise; the rest I have to leave up to God. However, I am not so assured when it comes to my character flaws. Why can't I just...? Why do I always...? I have so much less tolerance for my inability to get it together. I guess that's a good thing on some level; but if I don't depend entirely on my efforts, my plans, my schedule, my little "tricks" to reverse the inevitable effects of aging, why do I think character flaws or this sin nature are absolutely, unequivocally within my control. There are some aspects of my nature I have to leave up to the Holy Spirit, some aspects I have to turn over to Him on the regular. I'm not saying this a free-for-all; this is not sin that grace may abound. We sin, and we need to repent: first, for the purposes of recognizing Jesus as our Savior and our Lord, leaving behind the way in which we used to live without Him; and secondly, once we have begun following Him, we repent in recognition of the ways we do fail Him and as part of our commitment to the change we are pressing toward in concert with the Holy Spirit's work. The good news is, in addition to our pressing on and reaching forward (Phil. 3:12-14), we trust; just as we trust the day will come when we no longer know sadness or cancer or death, we trust the day will come when we no longer know sin or any remnant of the nature that causes us to sin. 

So, what is God telling you to do? Slow down? Obey? Maybe get back to regular church attendance or tithing? Know that if you heed His voice, the work will get done, by this gloriously inseparable fusion of obedience and grace, for His glory and your good.

Photo courtesy LuAnn Martin

Ugly Candles and All God Is Due

I don't recall how old I was when I began thinking about Christmas in terms of buying gifts for others. I do remember thinking that was what Christmas was about --giving-- and I wanted to be a part of that. Was it selfless? Was it a way of fitting in? I'm not sure, but I do remember a hideous Santa Claus candle I "purchased" for my mother. I place "purchased" in quotes, because when I think of that candle, there is something about it that brings to mind someone, perhaps even my mother herself, giving me the money to buy it. Such is the life of a child. No income. No possessions except those given to them by a higher, benevolent source. You might call it poverty.

In Mark 10:15, Jesus tells us:

Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.

Impoverished, trusting our Father to give us whatever we need. Is that even possible? It's not only possible, it's necessary. Remember that hideous candle? Whoever was kind enough to give me the money for that candle was teaching me. The candle was so ugly, I remember it fifty+ years later, and the lesson was so effectual it outweighs the ugliness of the candle: giving is important, but so is receiving. 

C.S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity says:

Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God.

If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, "Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” 

Hardly the sacrifice we associate with giving, but what father wouldn't hand over the sum? The child's request is sweet, endearing. His heart has been developed to give. But the thing I find equally important is that the child's heart has been developed to receive. The child knows Daddy has supply. The child knows Daddy will supply. The child not only knows where supply is located (in Daddy) but knows to ask. As adults we see the humor in the situation; but the child has no concept of it: the child is single-minded in obtaining what he needs in order to follow the compulsions of his heart. He awaits his father's generosity with confidence, both hands cupped so as to catch every cent.

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. ~ Philippians 4:19

As grown-ups, we are the fools. We not only have a problem with receiving, of being dependent --even admitting that we have cause to depend-- on our Creator, but we have a problem understanding the true meaning of needs. We tend to think of need in terms of food, clothing, and shelter. Those things are important, but great explorers, teachers, servants, inventors, Christians, grew up begging for a crust of bread, grew up without a home or with threadbare clothes. What does a child really need? Someone who loves them enough to teach them: morals, good character, the Golden Rule, who Jesus is and what He has done. And their hearts need to be softened, made teachable, in order to receive the lessons so important to their growth. Adults should be equally as ready to receive not just the things we want --gas in the truck, money to pay the taxes, food in the cupboard (all very important) --but we must be prepared to receive what we need: lessons in morality, good character, relationships, who Jesus is and what He has done. What is that old proverb? Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime? Jesus teaches those who seek Him how to fish! He hands over the sixpence or whatever for the ugly candle that we might learn to depend on Him, to trust Him when He says No, and to take part in all the things He is doing in this world. Jesus gives soft hearts, teachable spirits, that we might learn and develop His character, and in doing so, give Him His due.

We have nothing to give the One who has given us everything. But if we are willing to receive with a humble spirit, we will receive it all. We will, like a child, approach our Father in confidence, with singleness of mind, hands cupped, unwilling to allow a thing to slip by, and we will receive what He appropriates in His time. It will be all we need. And it will be all we can give.