Jonathan Evans

Revival: Prayer

 A spontaneous gift is sudden and unexpected to the recipient not to the giver. Revival is the sudden and unexpected outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It’s sudden and unexpected to the church and to the world, but not to God.

 

MY HOUSE

 

The 19th century in America was an age of progress, innovation, great human energy, and the birth of “the American spirit” and the self-made man. It was also the century when the understanding and definition of revival changed.

 

Revival changed from what is sovereign, what only God can do, to “a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means” (Charles Finney), what man can do; from what we prepare for by seeking God to what we organize, plan, and even schedule on the calendar; from what begins in a community of people to what begins in a crowd (the more people the greater the chance of securing, producing a revival).

 

In the “old” understanding of things, Jesus ascended and is the source of all, continuing his work on earth through the Holy Spirit. But in the “newer” understanding of things, Jesus ascended and now the church is the source of all and continues the work. 

 

But Jesus enters the temple of God and says, “It is written, ‘My house…’ .” My house. 

 

“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18) The church is not built on or around a man, but on Jesus himself, “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mat. 16:16-17) Jesus has promised that he will build his church. The implication, then, is that he also has promised not to build our church. Revival reestablishes the ownership and purpose of the church. 

 

HOUSE OF PRAYER

 

What marks the house that belongs to Jesus? Prayer. “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” (Matthew 21:13) We might have hoped for a different word to describe the church, but in it Jesus sums up his understanding and definition of the church. 

 

Yet Jesus is speaking of something beyond the activity of praying; he’s speaking of the character of prayer. Under pressure I might perform honestly, but this doesn’t mean I am honest. An honest character performs honestly both while under pressure and while not under any pressure. The house marked by prayer is a people whose face and heart is always turned towards God (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

 

But we are not only turned towards God for ourselves. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 56:7, “these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” God is promising that one day he will bring “these”, the Gentiles (the lost, foreigner, outcast, separated), into his house. A house of prayer is both a place where the lost will come and find God and a people who will pray for God to seek and save the lost.

 

In revival the care, concern, and compassion in the church for the world is intensified to a great degree. The birthing of revival produces the travail of prayer for the lost (the travail can’t produce the birth), and leads to the joy of salvation, the new birth of many souls (John 3:3; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 1 Peter 1:3).

 

DEN OF ROBBERS

 

We, the people of God, tend to wander, to grow cold, to forget. Jesus looks under the activity in the temple and sees its character. “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?” (Jeremiah 7:9-11) The house is marked by a lack of care, concern, and compassion for the lost. The people are committing crimes against the very ones they are called to pray for; they have become a curse rather than a blessing. 

 

The enemy of the church is not the culture. The enemy is the Devil. When the Devil comes to tempt the church, he tempts us to sin and do evil, but he also tempts us not to do good. The evil becomes attractive, the good unattractive. The first good things to usually go in the life of the church and of the Christian are our devotion to God’s Word and to prayer. But they are both essential and irreplaceable in all centuries, under all circumstances, and before all activities (Acts 6:4).

 

In the end the temple was destroyed, but not God’s purposes for his people. “It is written”, says Jesus –  established, determined, defined, understood – “my house will be a house of prayer for all peoples”. There is neither a time nor a place where this promise will fail. But now God’s purpose in blessing all peoples rests ultimately not on our prayers, but on Jesus’ intercession. “(He) is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25; see Romans 8:34). When revival arrives, it will find us in prayer and intercession.   

Unforced delight

 

I haven’t always enjoyed sunsets. There was a time when the idea of sitting on the shore of Lake Ontario would have been boring, the farthest thing from fun in my mind. Today, when I watch from my front porch the colors filling up the sky, the hardest thing for me to do is to not grab my keys and drive towards 10 1/2 Street.

 

Delight, true delight, is unforced. Without being commanded to, it arises out of the heart freely.

 

Blessed is the man who… his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2)

 

When the Psalmist says that he meditates on the law, God’s instruction, “day and night”, does he mean that every thought originating in his mind is all day and all night focused only on God’s word? 

 

It cannot be that every thought, both day and night, is directed towards God’s law. 

 

To meditate on God’s word is not simply, not only, to direct one’s thoughts as a matter of discipline, obedience, love, worship. There is that. But underneath meditating or thinking is delight. 

 

The Psalmist is becoming aware that during the hours making up the day and the night, he finds himself thinking about God’s law. His thoughts are arising naturally, freely, uncoerced, unforced towards God’s law. When, for example, the day’s labors are finished and he sits to rest, free to turn his mind to whatever he wishes, his mind turns to God’s word. His thoughts run after his desires; his meditation runs after his delight. 

 

No one obligates you to do what you delight in. You do it freely, without external compulsion or obligation. (I’d like a cup of coffee, dark roast, french-pressed, please.) So it is to be with God’s people and God’s word. To not delight in God’s law is to find that you are never or rarely thinking about God and his word freely or spontaneously. It isn’t that God precludes you from thinking of other things; his word doesn’t exclude other things from being delighted in (Philippians 4:8); but to delight in God’s word is to find yourself, your soul, your entire being, being drawn to God and to his word during both the day and night hours. You’re thinking about him, feeling towards him, talking with him, not only because you plan to, but also because you didn't plan to – suddenly and unexpectedly, your activity or rest is interrupted and flooded with thoughts of God and of his word. There’s coming into existence a life, a new way of living, where you no longer are disinterested or unfeeling towards the Bible, but now can’t begin to imagine or enjoy life without God and without a delight in his word.

 

Delight closes the distance between your heart and God’s word. To finally “see” the beauty in one sunset is to long for the next, to think about seeing it, and savoring it, again.

Unselfed Gospel

 

I've sung sing it with my kids while driving:  

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you know what happiness is to you

Because I’m happy

Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

 

No question, it’s a catchy song. It’s also the guiding principle of a culture: Whatever makes me happy by making me feel good must be the right thing for me to do.  

 

Today, we believe one’s individual desires are the locus of authority and self-definition. (Long gone is any sense of individual responsibility to a larger community of which I am a part, unless I can use them to advance my own interests. Long gone is any individual commitment to sacrifice what I need or want for the good of another, unless, in the end, it gets me what I want.)

 

We consistently find this “truth” in the stories and songs of our culture. We also find this “truth” in the sermons in our churches. We hear messages telling us that not only must we believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, but we must also, of equal importance and necessity, believe in ourselves. God’s word and promise is dependent upon man, rooted in man, and oriented around man. Without our positive thinking and confession, God’s hands are tied. 

  

This preaching says that God demands nothing of me, because He’s chiefly concerned with making me feel good. God is sought only as a therapist, to solve my problems, to help me find fulfillment, and never inquired of as Holy God and Sovereign King. 

 

Some of the mantras of this gospel are, “Do your best”, “Believe in yourself”, “Say to yourself”, “Think positive”, “You’re a child of the Almighty”. Now, it’s true: a Christian is a child of the Almighty. But being God's child presupposes something radical, anti-culture, and now anti-church-culture: The gospel.

 

The Biblical gospel is concerned with the objective truth: God over man and man before God. A Biblical gospel preaches that God demands and deserves everything from me (love, obedience, passions, desires), because he is holy, and that I have chosen not to give it to him, because I am a sinner. 

 

The Biblical gospel presupposes God is love and God is holy, and he is never one apart from the other. Sin goes deeper than just doing bad, feeling bad, and having problems (Luke 18:10-14). There is the offense: our sin. There is the offended: God. There is the offender: you and I. There is the cost to be paid: a sacrifice. At the cross, God’s wrath and love were poured out on Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:17). In and through him, God’s holiness was upheld and his love is offered freely to all. Our salvation. 

 

The salvation offered in Jesus Christ goes deeper than just doing good things, having good feelings, and having no problems. While God’s salvation can and does change our whole lives, making them better and happier, God saves us to re-orient our lives around him, not him around us. Whatever “better and happier” looks like or feels like, it now comes as a result of denying our self and dying to our self daily (Luke 9:23).

 

In all that he has created, God can be absent nowhere but the human heart enslaved to sin. Yet, God is present nowhere else in all of creation like he is in the redeemed heart of man.  The gospel – Jesus’ death in my place – is the entry point, not the end point of the unselfed life, a life that starts with Jesus, not with the self; a life where Jesus is at the center, not the self; a life where knowing Jesus is worth the loss of everything the self holds closer (Philippians 3:8).

 

(Adapted from a longer version of this post)

Idolatry is a well-worn path

 

If I have an hour or three to go anywhere, I always find my way to water. Whether a stream, or a river, or the lake, there’s something in the sight, sound, and feel of the water that is satisfying to my soul. So I go there.

 

Have you ever looked at the path across a bridge, how it is faded in the middle from a thousand steps? Or down your stairs, the variation in the color of the carpet or wood? Or through the woods, how the paths are trodden and worn? 

 

As well-marked by their own footprints was the path God’s people took to worship…their idols.

 

“Look at your way in the valley” (Jeremiah 2:23), God says. The people of God had worn a path that was unmistakable in direction and undeniable in destination. God didn’t have to go looking for his people; he knew exactly where to find them.

 

When we feel sad, where do we travel to find happiness? When we feel in danger, where do we run to find security? When we feel rejected, where do we crawl to find acceptance? If we have a pressing problem or desire, we try to find our way to that place, that thing, that person, that we believe can ultimately save us. 

 

What paths are well-travelled in your life? Where do your footprints lead to most often?

 

In the end, we are all put to shame by our idols, that is, we are all embarrassed that having put all our hope in them, they failed to deliver what they promised us. All our idols “are false, and there is no breath in them.” (Jeremiah 10:14) They cannot speak to the deepest parts of us. They cannot heal our deepest hurts, satisfy our deepest longings nor deliver us from our deepest sins. 

 

But in Jesus (John 1:14-17), God’s grace is poured out towards us, and not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:10). It doesn’t leave us or abandon us or deceive us into believing what is not true. It redirects our feet, it makes a new path, it leads us into the truth of who Jesus is and who we are. In him our soul can find its deepest, truest, and fullest satisfaction forever.

The hardest and the strongest and the most courageous thing you can do

 

David Foster Wallace writes in his short story, All That, “This was the year, at five or six, that I learned the meaning of ‘reverence’, which, as I understand it, is the natural attitude to take toward magical, unverifiable phenomena, the same way that ‘respect’ and ‘obedience’ describe the attitude one takes toward observable physical phenomena, such as gravity or money.”

 

At the end of his life, Joshua says to the people of Israel, “be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left” (Joshua 24:6). This is in fact an echo of what was said to Joshua at the beginning of his life in leadership. 

 

Being chosen and commissioned after Moses to lead Israel into the conquest of the promised land, God says to him, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.” (1:6-7)

 

It is true that Joshua would need to be strong and courageous because of the more numerous and stronger enemies in the land; because of their well-built and fortified cities. It is true God would divide rivers and cause the sun to stand still; he would deliver kings and armies into Joshua’s hands. But above all these phenomena and more, the act requiring the greatest strength and courage would be Joshua’s obedience to God’s word: “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you.” This he must “be careful” to do, giving it his greatest attention to detail. 

 

In the face of adversaries, threats, and impassable and unassailable obstacles, obedience to God would be discouraged, called into question. Is it realistic? The observable, the tangible, the measurable, the visible, the audible would provoke great respect in Joshua and Israel. But God is to be more than respected; He is to be revered. He is the Holy One, the Deliverer, and the Savior.

 

Today, as Christians, we respect God, but often lose our reverence of Him. When God becomes associated with what is observable, we respect him so long as he is more observable than our trials or temptations. If we associate him with what is measurable, we respect him so long as we can measurably hold or feel more of Him, i.e. His blessings. But when and where God is only respected on the basis of what we see or feel, our obedience to him is tentative at best; it is conditional upon what is happening around us, that is, on what appears more real or more impressive, or on what feels to makes more sense than God and His Word.

 

But when and where God is revered, no matter what is happening around us or within us, we know that he still transcends all things, that he is still more Other than all things, that he is still over all things – that "from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." (Romans 11:36). This means that the hardest and the strongest and the most courageous thing we can do in this observable life is not to conquer what holds us back but to be careful to obey God and His Word. 

 

The surprising, challenging, often hard-to-accept and hard-to-explain observable earthly movements and developments in our lives are but a small reflection of the unobservable, eternal divine movements and developments in our lives. When all that is around us attempts to conquer or seduce our reverence – our obedience to, our worship of, our love for, our faith in the living, sovereign God – we don’t surrender. We are bold and courageous.

"What do you want me to do for you?"

"What do you want me to do for you?" asks Jesus (Mark 10:51). The blind man, we hope, will answer: "I want you to heal me." He wants to see! We want him to see!

Imagine Jesus asks you the same question. What is your response? Is it determined by what you need the most? Or is it determined by what you want the most? What if they were one, your need and your want?

Jesus heals the man and gives him his sight (Mark 10:52). Jesus is full of compassion. Then Jesus tells him, "Go your way". But he doesn't; he goes Jesus's way. The blindman now follows Jesus; Jesus now leads the seeing man. 

The underlying purpose, implicit or explicit, behind this and every miracle Jesus accomplished was to remove the spiritual blindness that prevented the physically sick and the spiritually sick from being able to see who He really was. Why? So that they might love, follow, and obey Him for who He truly was: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." (John 14:6) 

This is the one purpose in all that Jesus does: to reveal Himself and to bring us into His way, and along that way, into a true and clearer and fuller knowledge of Himself.

Yes, we have physical needs which we should confidently ask Him to meet according to His power ("give us our daily bread"). Yes, we have particular wants and desires which we can gladly ask Him to fulfill according to His wisdom ("your will be done"). But the one true need in every true prayer, the one true desire in all true praying is for Him. 

"What do you want me to do for you?" Our greatest need should be our greatest want: "We want to see you!"

Unselfed-church

What are you natural at? Is it math? Is it sports? Maybe art? Music? What about talking? All of us are good at something, that is, all of us have something that we do without effort and without hesitation.

 

Love should come natural, without effort and hesitation, to the church of Jesus Christ.

 

TESTED

Having died and risen from the dead, Jesus has richly poured out the Holy Spirit on His church (Acts 2:33; Titus 3:4-6). We read in chapter two of Acts that great power was given to the disciples, that the church grew by thousands and that the fame of the disciples spread. But the pouring out of the Holy Spirit went deeper than power, size and fame.  As Paul says, “...God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5) The Holy Spirit brought a new dimension and experience of the love of God to those who by faith believed in Jesus Christ for their salvation by grace.

 

Furthermore, the coming of Jesus Christ and subsequently the Holy Spirit inaugurated “the last days” (Hebrews 1:1-2; Acts 2:17). Though no one knows the day nor the hour (Matthew 24:36), we are living in the last days before the second coming of Jesus Christ. This is important because Paul warns us (2 Timothy 3:1-2), as Jesus did (Matthew 12:24), that in these last days the church, Jesus’ disciples, will be tested. Yet, what will be tested in particular will be our love. The battle will be between love for self and love for Jesus. Will we be lovers of ourselves and of pleasure (what pleases us) or lovers of God and of His will (what pleases God)? 

 

“...many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” (Matthew 24:10-12) When Jesus returns we won’t be commended by our power, size or fame, but by the condition of our love for Him. Neither power (miracles, signs, wonders) or size (how many attend a church, how many decisions have been made) or fame (how reputable, innovative and authentic our services and speakers are) will be the concrete evidence Jesus is looking for.  

 

INVOLVED

Jesus involved Himself in creation, in humanity and above all in our salvation at great cost to Himself out of love for us. The gospel – what Jesus has done to rescue and save sinners – is the perfect expression of love.

 

By next year, it is speculated that the average person in America will consume around 15.5 hours of media (using 30 different forms of media like satellite radio, tv, internet, etc.) Today our attention will shift about every 3 minutes. We are distracted! So, the question is, If we’re consuming and distracted during most of the day, when do we have the time to put out, to give away, to focus and to involve ourselves? As the church, this is critically important if it’s true that the main way the world will know Jesus has come and that we are His disciples is by our love (John 13:35). 

 

The gospel enlarges our hearts and involves our lives at a cost to ourselves out of love for others. But are we too busy, too distracted, too self-preoccupied? Blessed are those who have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires and have inherited NOT only the kingdom of God BUT the passions and desires of The King. We are blessed when we are oriented around and centered in Jesus Christ. 

 

“WHEN”

In a parable on the Day of Judgment, Jesus describes two kinds of people whom He will encounter (Matthew 25:31-46). The first kind are those who served The King by involving themselves in the lives of those The King calls “the least of these”. The second kind are those who did not involve themselves with “the least of these”. But, and this is central, both kinds of people were UNAWARE of what they had and hadn’t done. Their common answer begins with the key word, “When”. Both kinds of people were living what was natural to them. They both were without effort and hesitation living out of what they were on the inside. 

 

For a local church (as for any christian), “When” represents a supernatural, natural way of living. It represents the unselfed life, a way of living for Jesus and a way of loving Him that is so normal that we do so without question and without thinking; His love is so richly dwelling within us by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that we forget ourselves. 

 

A church obsessed with itself is not a church filled with the Holy Spirit. Such a church is looking inward (what do I want) and outward (what can I gain from the world). But a church filled with the Holy Spirit is a church consumed with the love and work of Jesus. It is looking outward (what do they need) and upward (adoring and pursuing Christ). 

 

The praise and love of man is tantalizing, but also anesthetizing and paralyzing. The praise and love of Jesus is holy, transforming and freeing! A church that lives for the glory of Jesus is a church that is filled with the presence and power of Jesus. And it is only His presence in the midst of His people that makes both a clear contrast between the world and a profound impact on the world. 

 

Love. Love is how we will endure to the end (Matthew 24:13). Love for Jesus and love for others. Love that is often unassuming, unannounced and unobtrusive, yet always demanding nothing, expecting nothing and giving everything.

 

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

(1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

Unselfed-worship

I was thirsty. I walked down the stairs into the kitchen and to the fridge. I grabbed the pitcher of apple juice and begin to fill my cup. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember that what looked like apple juice didn’t taste like apple juice at all. It was a type of oil! Even now, I feel the thick consistency down my throat. 

 

INVISIBLE DIFFERENCES

I don’t know why I didn’t notice the difference when pouring, but visibly I made no distinction between juice and oil. So it is that there often are invisible differences between two things. Two men may appear to look, dress and behave exactly the same, yet are in fact completely different. 

 

When Jesus came to earth, He introduced a new way of thinking about self in conjunction with challenging what people thought about Him. He said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross on Sunday and follow me.” No, he didn’t say exactly that. He said to take up your cross “daily” and follow Him (Luke 9:23). Jesus wasn’t chiefly concerned with morality: behavior reformation. Certainly, as christians our behavior should change, but what Jesus was after was character transformation. 

 

The difference between a good, moral person and a christian is not one of degree, but one of essence – the root, the disposition, the direction, the orbit of their lives.

 

Today, it’s widely broadcast from pulpits that God has mercy on people so we can become better at who we are and what we do. But God didn’t have mercy on us so we could become better versions of ourselves; God had mercy on us so we might become a new and holy people (2 Corinthians 5:17). There is a world of difference. 

 

TRANSFORMATION

 

In short, to be a christian is to be saved  both from a life enslaved to sin and  for a new life of freedom in holiness. Still, there are many aspects to salvation: 

 

JUSTIFIED before God (Luke 18:14) – We are now in right-standing before the living and holy God. On the cross, the righteousness of Jesus Christ becomes ours and our sin becomes His (2 Corinthians 5:21).

 

TRANSFERRED – God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13)

 

UNITED – “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his...Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” (Romans 6:5, 8)

 

SANCTIFIED – “And such (sinners) were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” ( 1 Corinthians 6:11) Our position before God is one of sanctified or holy. Yet, our daily experience and condition reminds us that we are being sanctified: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23) 

 

For example, when my four children were born they were born Evans. There position as an Evans will never change. But they still need to grow and mature as an Evans, because the hope is that they will become fully what they are intended to be as adults. Sanctification, then, is the moving away from selfish immaturity to maturity in Jesus.

 

Sanctification is the transforming of self into the image of Jesus Christ. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Corinthians 3:18) But how does this happen?

 

NEW DISPOSITION

 

Paul, writing in Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Transformation – sanctification – happens by or through the renewing of the mind. Paul helps us even more in Ephesians 4:22-23, when he says, “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and (to) be renewed in the spirit of your minds”. 

 

It is the “spirit of the mind” that is the difference between two people who on the outside appear exactly the same, but who on the inside are completely different. There is a new disposition, a new direction, a new orientation in one that’s not in the other. This new disposition is the direct result of the mercy of God, apart from which every intention of the thoughts of our heart is only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). 

 

Recall the apostle Paul, who before his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus was known as Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:1-9; 13:9). Saul was full of passion and incredibly intelligent. Yet, when Jesus saved Saul, He didn’t give him a brain transplant nor did Saul become lazy or less intelligent after meeting Jesus. Rather, Jesus changed the disposition and direction and orientation of Saul’s mind. Same brain, different mind, intelligence still brimming. As christians, though, we often mistakenly believe that now that we are saved, we have to undergo some sort of transplant either in our body or in where we live, work, play or study. In reality, Jesus saves us and most often keeps us in the context or culture in which He found us in (same friends and strangers, same workplace and school, etc.) But by finding and saving us He changes us, so that we can, and we will, live differently right where we are. The same passion and intelligence and skills are being applied as before, yet now with a new intent, motive and purpose behind them all.

 

SACRIFICE AS WORSHIP

Christians, therefore, are a new humanity – not a better humanity – but a new humanity where the human potential finds fulfillment not in self, but in Another. In Jesus we find ourselves – our life, meaning and purpose. Christians find there joy and satisfaction within the constraints and boundaries of living for Jesus and not outside those constraints and boundaries in living for self. For the christian, freedom lies in sacrificing anything and everything for the sake of Jesus. Whereas the idea of sacrificing what I want for another is more like captivity to the person living for his or herself. Sacrifice is embracing Jesus and replacing self.

 

In the end, because of His mercy, to offer myself in worship as a living sacrifice to Jesus is not only logical but desirable (Romans 12:1-2). Worship is understood and experienced as the dual response of my mind and my heart to my self and to Jesus, and is ultimately the difference between the unselfed life revolving around Jesus and the selfish life revolving around self.

Craft & Enmity: The heart of the matter

“I have a question for you,” my father said. In my childhood, when my father wanted to get to the heart of a matter (an incident or behavior), he often used a question.

 

Jesus asked a lot of questions in order to get to the heart of a matter, to the center of a person:

 

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

 

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

 

Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and not do what I tell you?

 

Where is your faith?

 

But who do you say that I am?

 

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

 

Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?

 

Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me? 

 

Whom are you seeking?

 

Do you love me?

 

Jesus often implied questions. One day he cast out a demon from a person and the group of witnesses was split by the demonstration of His power. Some said Jesus was casting out demons by the power of the devil, to which Jesus responded, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul” (Luke 11:17-19). No. Jesus is not working with the devil: “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you”  (Luke 11:20). Yes. Jesus is the “finger of God”, the focal point and locus of the kingdom of God (Luke 17:20-21). He is the Son of God and “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

 

And then Jesus draws a line in the sands of time and history and eternity: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters”  (Luke 11:23). The implied question is: Are you with me or against me?

 

The background of this conversation is a spiritual reality Jesus has just brought to the foreground. The devil is a strongman (Luke 11:21-23), an intoxicator and abductor of human hearts who has captured them to do his will (2 Timothy 2:25-26). The home of the human heart is in fact a stronghold, a prison, and the devil is fully armed, fully alert and fully secured. Yet Jesus is stronger. He overpowers the Strongman’s will, craft and enmity, and sets the home free.

 

Now what? The Strongman is gone, but the heart remains. The heart has experienced grace and power, and as a result engages in activity: sweeping and putting things in right order. Grace always produces activity – spiritual momentum and religious activity. But the heart, while it is active, remains empty (Matthew 12:44). It is at leisure; there’s a pleasantness about the place. Perhaps a new coat of paint has been applied; some repairs have been made; new art is hung. There’s a moral reformation occurring, which isn’t bad. It’s better than what was. But this kind of moral reformation has a peculiarly soothing and dangerous therapeutic effect. “I like the way I feel. I like what I’ve done. I like how I behave.”

 

But moral reformation is an empty substitute for true, lasting spiritual transformation. It’s also a more attractive opportunity and less powerful obstruction to the Strongman when he returns, and he always does.  When he returns to “my house” (Luke 11:24), to the heart which has experienced and received grace and power and deliverance and healing, will he find a moral makeover but a vacant heart and spiritual vacuum, or will he find a cleansed heart (Psalm 51:10) and a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)? Temporary, temperamental, palliative spiritual experiences are not what Jesus is after. He is after a created, steadfast, radical – to the root – change of heart.

 

“I have a question for you,” asked Jesus: Are you with me or against me? (Luke 11:23)

 

There are two kingdoms, one heart. Consider Colossians 1:13,“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,” and Colossians 1:21-23, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.” Note the conditional, inspired word “if” (See also 1 Peter 2:9-10; 2 Peter 2:19-20; John 8:11; 5:14). What are we doing with what Jesus is saying to us? With what He is doing in us? We can receive what Jesus gives, yet that doesn’t mean we serve Him (Luke 8:13).

 

Daily we must choose who we will serve. The question is not, “Whose side is God on?”, but, “Whose side am I on?” (Joshua 5:13-15). God serves no master. I choose who I battle against when I choose who I serve (Joshua 24:14-15). Spiritual vacancy is not an option; spiritual neutrality is an impossibility.  Our response to Jesus determines everything, both our present and our future.

 

God’s deliverance doesn’t mean I become preeminent in all things to God, but that Jesus becomes preeminent in all things to me (Colossians 1:17). That’s the heart of the matter.