The Ten Talents

I wonder sometimes when I hear people say "If it's God's will for my life" what they really mean. Does it mean that they are truly praying for God's desires for them to match their own desires. The Bible does teach us that generally if we pray for our desires, God will grant them. It's not a promise, or a guarantee, but more a guideline for life, as Psalms and Proverbs are.

People who leave major decisions to chance, things like finding a job, leaving a job, accepting responsibility for a position at church, or even family planning I want to ask this question of. "Do you really not care what God wants for you, are you willing to accept what God wants for you, or are you just saying "let it be God's will" to pass responsibility of discernment from yourselves, to God. Sometimes I wonder if people say this really intending to accept what God does plan for them. Sort of like removing your hands from the steering wheel of a car and demanding God to supernaturally prove that He can drive. True, God is omnipotent, but He is also not at our command to satisfy all of our wishes, like a genie in a bottle.

The true task for a Christian is prayer and proper discernment for our own lives. We should pray that God and the Holy Spirit guide us to proper responsibility, right? Doing our best to bring glory to Him, and praying that the Holy Spirit will guide our decisions is key.

Is what we are really saying by "God's will" really a "I really don't know what is best God, but I truly and completely trust that you will give me what is best for me" or is it "I don't want to take the time to talk with you about it, or I don't feel like dealing with the responsibility of making a decision of my own with your help, so you choose and then let me know what you decide. If you choose well, and I am happy, then you did a good job God. But if what you choose for me makes me miserable, then I'm going to throw a fit. I just know that I don't want the responsibility of making the decision, because if it turns out horribly, then I don't want to be the one to blame. You can take it, God. Your bigger than me."

Really??

It's like the "magic Bible" way of reading scriptures for answers to our questions. Sure, I will not discredit that God can't speak to believers in this way, but He wants us to be more mature in our seeking of answers. We are not teenagers with a Magic 8 Ball in our hands. The Bible is not a question and answer book, per see, but rather the story of God and who He is and how He constantly seeks and redeems us. If we read it, we should learn more about Him, and when we understand more about God's character and hopes for our lives, we have added to our understanding of how he hopes we will live our lives. Through learning more about God, we can learn more about who we are and what He created us to be.

This is as much to myself as any one else, but don't play the "You Choose" card with God unless you are honestly prepared to accept what He knows is best for your life. We must remember that Satan is the king of this world, and has authority to run amuck in it for now. Satan would like nothing better than to see you leave a decision open for anyone or thing to decide besides God or yourself. Like leaving a pile of cash out on the counter at a pub, leaving and then saying, "God will keep my money safe!" God has left you responsible for what He has given you authority over, take responsibility for the talents you have been given, and deal respectfully with them. The master will be home in a while to see what you have accomplished.

God wants so much for us to desire to live our lives with His will in our hearts. But he doesn't want us to seek that blindly, without preparation, discernment or understanding of what He is asking. He wants us to love Him! He wants us to ask Him to guide us, or carry us when we need it. Above all, God is Love, triune love, expressed in perfect unity in the trinity. He wants us to come and take part in perfect community with Him; He desires that we develop a deep relationship with him, relationships are not just one way with one person making all the decisions.

Christ gave us the mental picture of the bridegroom and the bride as Himself and the church or body of believers. To be part of this body, we must be maturing, actively participating followers of Christ. Children do not marry, yet people have to accept Christ with faith like a child, and then they must progress to maturity marrying into the body. The Groom has the ultimate authority, but the groom also respects what the bride thinks and feels and He desires to teach her, train her, disciple her, love her, care for her, give her what she wants (even if it goes against what He wants for her), and have a relationship that defies all human understandings of love and intimacy on this earth! If the bride truly wants what is best for the relationship, she will talk through, debate and show passion for the tough conversations that need to be had. She doesn't just stand there and accept that her fate is out of her hands. Our lives are not pre-determined, they are what we make of them. We can either choose to follow Christ, or we can choose to stay behind. We can choose to be God's partner in our lives, or we can follow blindly, never partaking in the necessary discipline of discussing things with God.

For me, He had to discuss A LOT with me about going back to school. I really thought that I understood that God wanted us to "Go!" To me, that meant just going. Not staying! Staying didn't sound nearly as fun. So, God and I had to talk about that for a while, several weeks in fact, before I was ready to hear the rest of His plan. He wouldn't tell me the rest of the plan until I was ready to accept it without fighting back. He had to spoon feed it to me. All I kept praying for was that my will would be the same as His will for my life. I didn't care what that will was, I just wanted my own will to fade away and be replaced with His. Slowly, as I was honestly more and more ready to hear that will, He showed me. If He had dumped it all on me when I asked Him to, I would have rejected it and turned away, or at least would have taken a lot longer to come back around... He knows what is best for me, including what to tell me when. I trust Him completely in that. God's timing is perfect, but only if we are of the mind to wait for it and accept it when it comes.

So now, here I am, one day from finishing up my first year of Bible college! 46 credits down!! We are feeling God's leading to Portugal for a three year internship with Otto and Marjorie Ekk. It will be an amazing ride, but any of this, I know can change at any time. I am prepared to follow, and discerning where that will be is my responsibility.

4 Year anniversary

I have been blogging for four years now, since April 18th, 2008. That's a pretty neat treasure to look back on. I wish that I had done it more consistently, but I will take what I have done, because I know the reasons why I didn't for long periods of time :)

Lisbon, Portugal

Sarah Rose likes this place. It was her favorite picture out of a 128 page book of beautiful Portuguese photographs. It is in Lisbon. Jason and I have decided that we want to do a 3 year Journada to Lisbon, Portugal with Otto and Marjorie Ekk. We had a fabulous meeting with them last night at the Eytzen's house, and really feel that this is where God would have us train. I want to take Sarah Rose to this place for real, and in two more years we will be ready to leave!

We have one year down, and one year to go before we can get ready for our internship. Preparation for a Journada is pretty extensive compared to Trek, which is the shorter 8-9 month mission trip. It will take us about a year to get through the basic training, some language school and fundraising. I am so excited to have something nailed down, now we just need to run it past MBMissions so we are all on the same page.

This makes me sad... 

So many people are willing to admit that Jesus lived, and that he was a "good person" or a good rabbi and prophet. They even admit that there is a spiritual world consisting of good and evil! But admitting that Jesus is the only path to eternal life with God, they refuse. They call that intolerant, or hypocrytical. They say how can a loving God send any of His creations to Hell.

You want to know how I see it? Well, if you don't want to spend time on earth developing a relationship with God, why do you think you will want to when you are dead? Hell is just God granting your request to  be apart from Him. You made the choice, not Him. That is what free will is ALL about! Why would God force you to be with Him eternally when you didn't want to "hang" while you were here? So, yes, there is a HELL! And, there is a heaven. heaven is not for what you might call "goody-too-shoes." It's for people who were willing to die for what they believed. Martyrs and saints and true Followers of Jesus who pledge their souls to Christ because He pledged his life for them first.

We forget, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" Romans 5:8
He died for us even though we had rejected Him! We spat in His face, and crucified Him! Yet He knew that through His death He would speak directly to our hearts.

You have this one life to either accept that Jesus is God's Son, or to reject it. It's easy.
But remember, Satan is the King of this world, and he would like nothing less than to see you wait too long to accept God's gift to you. One minute too long, and you pay for it for eternity.

If you claim to reject Jesus, you are claiming faith in your own reason. So, what if you are wrong? Human intellect has been changing for thousands of years, are you willing to stake your eternal soul on a brain that admits that Jesus was real, and understands that there is a spiritual world, but rejects that a man can be raised from the dead by God? My God is powerful, and completely capable of resurrecting Jesus, performing miracles, healing people, raising them from the dead, exorcising demons, and turning 5 loaves and 2 fishes into a meal for 5000! Is yours?

My Personal Ethical System

            When trying to map out my personal ethical system I must begin with God. I believe that God exists. I believe in a completely holy, just, and good God who is loving and merciful and I believe that because He is relational, He wishes to participate in this world with me. Understanding that God is and always has been relational emphasizes the importance of community in my ethical system. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 ESV). Community was established in the basis of the trinity, and this God continually seeks to serve the other members in the trinity, the Father serves the Son and Spirit, the Son serves the Father and Spirit, and the Spirit serves the Father and the Son. Because this relationship is based completely on love, I know my God is holy, just, good, loving and merciful, and will deal with His creation in accordance.

Next, God is a God who is relational and wishes to be part of His creation, as opposed to a God who is deistic and merely stands back and watches everything play out. God has feelings like love, sorrow, pain, guilt and joy for His creation. Because I lean more towards open theism, I believe that God has chosen to give up some of his power and knowledge so that we may participate with free-will. 

As His creation, God has programed within all of us tendencies to act certain ways in response to certain actions. This is a “natural law” element that I claim as part of my ethical system. These natural tendencies explain why people who are not Christians can and do react in ethical ways even though they don’t base their decisions on faith as I do. We all react to being wronged with feelings of loss, pain, anger, and violation. These feelings are part of the image of God that is within each of us; they are a reaction to broken community. When community is enhanced, we share good feelings or joy, happiness, and unity.

As humans we are decidedly different than God, but we were the only creations who were made in His own image. We were created to be holy creations in community with God, each other, and nature but we failed to live up to our original purposes. We enjoyed very little perfection with God before we stumbled upon an apple in a garden and chose to think for ourselves. And no matter how hard we try to be independent, we will always be dependent on our creator God, and searching for ways to serve ourselves when we should be serving Him. God continues to search for us and try to reach us, calling us to participate in creation with Him. And when we choose to come back to Him, He is glorified and we are whole again.

Our moral responsibility was given to us in our original instructions. We are to honor God, take care of each other and take care of creation; in that we are to be humble and selfless. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). The Bible doesn’t seem to want to speak about the moral responsibility of any of God’s other creations, it speaks to us, and in our salvation we are made into new creations. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). As new creations we are to seek to be like Christ in all His ways. “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16).

            While my ethical system is based on faith commitments, reason has to be a rational part of it. I feel that emotions and intuition can play an important part in discerning right from wrong; however a reasonable base of knowledge about the situation is required before decisions can be made responsibly. But above all, my decisions are based on trust in my God, and my actions reflect that trust. I have Faith in God and I trust that He will provide for my every need, will help me navigate my life, and has provided me with the Holy Spirit so that I can discern right from wrong decisions.

            Human life has telos, as creations we are to find salvation in this life so that we can “end” this life and be in permanent community with our creator, in eternal life with Him. But this life isn’t just about the end, it’s about living with integrity, serving God in His purposes so that we may participate fully in spreading the Kingdom of God on this earth. In the end, God will ask us what we have done for Him, and we will be made to answer for the good and the bad, but I think that God is really searching our hearts. He wants to know “why”

 we acted the way we acted, was it out of stagnant moral obligation, or because we truly yearned to have His heart and served because we desired to. My ethics is based most on “being” God’s creation rather than on “doing” what He wants me to do. I truly want the desires of my heart to match what He wants for me, in everything. I want to achieve a virtuous life not for badges, but because it’s what I was created for.

            I believe that there is absolute truth in God, but that only He knows and understands that truth. My grasp and understanding of His truth is distorted like light in a prism as it passes through my human conscience, worldview, and levels of understanding. His truth is broken into slices so that I may understand bits and pieces, but I cannot ever claim to have His full truth and understanding. My ethical claim to “Soft absolutism” is based on this understanding of absolute truth and my perception of it.

            Regarding the spectrum of “determinism” I find myself in the “soft” section. God is sovereign, and is completely qualified to determine the future. Through study of God’s Word to us in the Bible we can see that the future is determined, but the exact path to that determination is not clearly detailed. I see the Apostle Paul and the ways that God was able to use his unbridled passion. Paul made mistakes, but God was still able to use Paul in wonderful ways to reach the gentiles with Christ. God didn’t determine every aspect and point of Paul’s but because Paul sought God’s guidance, the Holy Spirit helped Paul to determine where God needed him to go and why. Like Paul we must seek to always do better in following Christ, as a life of complacency is a life wasted. God wants us to participate with Him, but if we refuse He will choose someone else.

Our bodies are the temple of Christ, and as such we need to honor them and be good stewards of the creation we are. For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people (2 Corinthians 6:16). First we must love God and ourselves as His Holy temple. Through that love and seeing our value in God’s eyes we can learn how to love others unselfishly. Jesus commanded us: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). So, I must love myself first, but only so that I can fully understand and grasp God’s love for me, and with that understanding I can love others completely.

Consequences are an important part of ethics, however I don’t believe that they are the main focus. In any situation the desired outcome should be determined, but then the ethical choices should be made based on the wrongness or rightness of the means that lead to the desired outcome. Some means are just not ethical nor justified no matter how fantastic the end result will be.

Rules are a good foundation; God has given us several rules in the Bible that when followed provide guidelines for how to navigate life ethically. The Ten Commandments are a solid footing in how to love God, others, and ourselves. If we follow them we can have joy. When Jesus added the Golden Rule to “do unto others” he summarized many of the original rules. Jesus didn’t just give the golden rule, however, he went back to the Commandments and clarified, adding that merely hating was the same as killing, and looking with lust was the same as committing adultery. Jesus didn’t make things easier; he made the Commandments of “doing” more like the ethics of “being.” He didn’t just want us to act like good people; he wanted our hearts and minds to “be” good people.

That being said, I find that the principle of Love to be the greatest of the principles given by God. To clarify, the principle of Love is based on agape love; love which is manifested in benevolence and good will towards others. Other principals such as the Value of Life, Goodness, Justice, Honesty and Individual Freedom are important too, but are viewed through the scope of Love. When we have a correct understanding of our image as God’s children, we are prepared to consider others better than ourselves. It is then that benevolent love will correctly regulate the remaining principals. Value of Life, when based on benevolent love will have supreme consideration. Goodness, through the scope of agape love, will be expressed fully. Justice is God’s love and our love being distributed perfectly. It is important to express Honesty through Love, Value of Life, Goodness and Justice. Honesty is important to proper participation in community, as without it, anarchy will rise. Individual Freedom is important as well, but as Christians we need to remember that we are created to be part of the “body” of Christ in His church on Earth. As such, we must always consider the effect on the “body” of Christ as well as impact on people not part of that “body.”

Rules are a good start, but situations can’t be predicted, and simple rules just cannot cover the multitude of possibilities! When it comes down to a particular situation, the best possible grasp of knowledge is required, then a proper assessment of consequences and different means determined. We must apply the rules from the Bible to the possible actions to be taken. Then we must filter all of that through the principle of love. Is what we are opting to do loving God, is it loving ourselves, is it loving others, is it loving creation? How can we achieve the desired results while loving in the process?

Good Friday

Isachar, Hanan. Images of the Holy Land. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997.

Today we are supposed to be reminded of Jesus' death on the cross. Last Sunday was the excitement of Him entering the City of Jerusalem on a colt, complete with Palm Branches, crowds of happy spectators, a parade... You could imagine the feeling of anticipation, anxious excitement for the Passover feast was under way. Many Jews from the diaspora were making the long trek across many lands to come back to the great city. The city grew as much as three times! Sixty thousand to one hundred eighty!
   
Thursday, last night, Jesus prepared his disciples by celebrating the passover supper with them. Do this in remembrance of me; we take of the bread and of the wine. He tells them things that they don't understand, for they don't know that he will be betrayed in a few hours and slain. But he knows. He tells them that one among them will betray him, and he will be killed. They wonder who that could be, and then like children get distracted by another conversation about who the greatest disciple is.

He is in complete, harmonious understanding with God. He knows what is going to happen. He also knows that God has given everything into His hands. He is truly, the King of the World. What does he choose to do next?

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴ rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. ⁶ He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” ⁷ Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” ⁸ Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹ Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰ Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” ¹¹ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 

¹² When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? ¹³ You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. ¹⁴ If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. ¹⁸ I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ ¹⁹ I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. ²⁰ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” 

He washed their feet... The king of the World, lowers himself to the level of "foot-washer"

And then he predicted the denial of Peter. Peter promised Him that he would do no such thing... 

Next they head out to the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, to pray.  

It is there that Judas brings the officials, and Jesus is arrested... 

Peter tells people that he doesn't know Christ, three times... 

After all the miracles he witnessed, three times... 

After all the teaching and profound insight, three times... 

After all the thousands followed Him into Jerusalem less than one week earlier, three times...

After all of the precious time that he spent with Jesus, personally, three times...

How weak we are, after all the things we can see and hear and be part of!! 

But the amazing thing was that after Jesus rose on the third day, Peter saw his savior crucified and risen, and he was changed for good! Peter will never again deny his Christ. Peter will go to the death, any death, proclaiming God's love for the world, that He gave His one and only Son, to be the perfect sacrifice, our final and perfect passover lamb. How many of us are pre-resurection "Peter's?" How many of us are post-resurrection "Peter's?" Which one are you?