By Linda Rex

August 25th, Proper 16—There are hazards to being kind. We may open the door and find ourselves face to face with a stranger who needs help. Should we help them? Would we be unkind if we didn’t?

I remember years ago when I lived in a small duplex cottage in southern California, my roommate and I faced this question. At three in the morning, someone knocked on our door asking for help. I didn’t want to answer the door, but my roommate (who was much braver than I) did. This person wanted to come in and use our phone so he could get help with his car.

I’d like to believe that my roommate and I were both kind people. But opening the door at three in the morning to a perfect stranger under these circumstances was non-negotiable. We offered to make a call for him, but he wanted to come in and do it himself. We refused and sent him on his way.

I’m pretty sure we made the right decision, considering the situation, the neighborhood, and the time of day. But it’s really hard to be kind under those conditions. Our instinct of self-preservation kicks in. We realize it is easy for someone to take advantage of us, to harm us or steal from us. We realize we make ourselves vulnerable when we are kind, so we keep our guard up and resist the urge to be kind in some situations.

Yet kindness is a part of God’s nature, and we are designed to be kind as creatures made in his image. It was God’s intention to form in each of us as human beings his own way of being which includes lovingkindness. The lovingkindness which is a part of God’s nature is hesed, a kindness which includes loyal love, mercy, and favor. It is a gracious kindness which endures suffering, rejection, and a failure to love by the one God is in relationship with.

In Exodus 34:6-7, the God of Israel described himself to Moses:

Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

When we read the story of God’s people Israel, we find that they spent more time wandering away from their covenant relationship with God than they did living within it as they should have. They were easily distracted by the nations around them and how they lived their lives. They sought fulfillment in the pleasures of this life rather than in growing closer to the God who loved them and had delivered them from slavery in Egypt and had given them the land they lived in.

But God was kind—going out of his way to forgive and be gracious to them. Early on, when Moses had been on the mountain with God receiving his instructions, Aaron and the people made an idol. As Moses returned down the mountain, he found the nation had succumbed to idolatrous worship of a golden calf. Was God upset? Absolutely. He was more than willing to end the nation and start over with Moses and his children. But Moses reminded God of his nature, his lovingkindness, of how God had described himself (Numbers 14:11-19)—this was the truth of God’s being. And God relented, and was kind.

Over the centuries as his people turned away from him, God sent prophets to remind his beloved people to return—to turn back to him in devotion and obedience. It took quite a bit before God would say to them, since this is what you want, then you may have it and the consequences which go with having it. And the nation would go into slavery or subjection to another nation. But whenever the nation would experience the pain that went with turning from their Redeemer, the people would turn back and God would renew his covenant with them. This covenant relationship was tested over and over, but on God’s side, there was always faithfulness and lovingkindness.

God’s kindness to Israel has never ended, though the nation has been through many crucifixions over the millennia. God’s nature does not change, and he is faithful to his covenant even when his people are not. The greatest expression of God’s kindness to us is expressed to us in the incarnation of the Word. The coming of God into human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ expresses God’s lovingkindness in a powerful way, as Israel’s Redeemer put himself fully at the mercy of the humans he had created.

Jesus, while here on this earth, allowed human beings to do as they wished with him. But never to the point that his divine will was thwarted or his plan of salvation was diverted. Jesus was always kind, except when he needed to resist evil. There were times when Jesus, in his love for his people, spoke the truth directly to their hearts, calling them back to a right relationship with his Abba. This is when the greatest kindness he could show them was to point out their need to turn back to their God and to accept the One he had sent to save them.

Sometimes genuine kindness involves taking a risk and telling someone the truth. Sometimes it means drawing a line and saying, “You may not hurt me or my family, because that is not how God meant us to treat one another.” There is a time when kindness must be lovingkindness—a loyal love which shows favor, faithfulness, and takes godly action. A true kindness is the kindness of covenant love and grace, of refusing to be pushed away from our grounding in Jesus Christ and who we are as God’s beloved adopted children.

Today, is there someone you can be truly kind to? What shape will that kindness take? Is it time for you to take the risk of true kindness, of genuine lovingkindness?

Dear Abba, thank you for your heart of lovingkindness and grace. Thank you for being filled with compassion and concern for each of us. And thank you that the greatest kindness you showed us was in the gift of your Son Jesus. Thank you for pouring your lovingkindness into human hearts by the Holy Spirit. Make us open to receive your heart of kindness and to truly be kind to those around us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, / Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.” Psalm 103:8 NASB

By Linda Rex

August 18th, Proper 15—Years ago I recall opening an edition of the Worldwide News and seeing an article about the Holy Spirit. As I sat and looked at the title of the article, I realized that if what it said was true, it was going to change me and my life significantly from that day forward.

Why? What was the big deal about this? The reason it was so significant was because the message in this article was in contradiction to what my parents believed and if I followed this road where I knew it was leading—following Jesus by the Spirit to a new place in relationship with God—it might mean losing my relationship with them. It would mean losing the common ground of religious belief that had been ours since I was a little girl.

There are times in life when we are faced with critical decisions. The most critical are those in which God places before us the choice between following ourselves and those around us or simply following Jesus Christ and where the Holy Spirit leads. We can cling to what we believe now, at this moment, and resist any change or we can submit ourselves to the penetrating work of the Holy Spirit and allow ourselves to be changed from the inside out.

Choosing to follow Christ does not automatically mean the people in our lives will all choose to love us more. If anything, each of the relationships in our lives will be set in stark contrast to the one true relationship with Abba through Jesus in the Spirit. When someone begins to see Jesus in another person as they begin to live a life of obedience to the Spirit, it challenges them. It shows them where they walk in unbelief and how they fall short of the glory God created us to bear.

Experiencing the life of Christ in another and the joy of community they are blessed with as members of the body of Christ exposes other people’s need for Christ and the result may be anger, criticism, jealousy, rejection, fear, and a host of other negative responses. These responses come as a result of their own resistance to the work of the Spirit within themselves.

This is why Jesus warns us that following him involves a cross. It involves the rejection of those who want to stay in power and control what happens to us. Jesus walked the road each of us faces when we choose to live and walk in the way of Abba, where humility, service, grace, and compassion are preferred over power, prestige, popularity, and pleasure. Sometimes there is pain in the Christian walk and it does hurt when the people we love reject us and criticize us because of what Jesus is doing in our lives.

Following Christ is a counter-cultural path. It doesn’t mean we suffer constantly. But we do walk the path of the cross where we die to self and live to Christ, and this may mean difficulties in the process. The blessing of following Christ is that by the Spirit we are placed into the body of Christ, the church. We are surrounded with brothers and sisters who are walking the same path we are walking—we are one in Christ Jesus. As one member suffers, we all suffer together—carrying one another, praying for one another, and lifting each other up. In healthy spiritual community there is a bond of love and grace, and a spirit of joy in their unity and service to others.

For some people, the church becomes their new family. The rejection of family members cuts deeply, but sometimes those ties need to be significantly loosened or ended because of the harm family members are doing to us. If we are being harmed in a family relationship, we may need to set healthy boundaries, especially when addictions or abuse are a part of the problem. This isn’t to cause permanent separation, but to create an environment for love and healing to flourish.

The church can be a part of this process by providing a safety net for those struggling in such dysfunctional family situations. The body of Christ, the church, can offer safe relationships, prayer, and other meaningful support. The church can guide those who are struggling toward the resources, help, and counseling they may need. And the church can act as our spiritual mother, providing nurture, spiritual counsel, teaching, and guidance which can help us grow up into Christ and begin to participate in healthy ways of living and being.

When the Spirit moves us to turn away from ourselves and this world and to begin to follow Christ, changes happen. The Spirit puts new desires and longings in our hearts and begins to remove our ungodly passions and desires. It is a slow and difficult process, but we can participate with it as we focus on Jesus Christ and seek to grow deeper in our relationship with him.

When we find ourselves stuck in our spiritual life, it is helpful to ask ourselves whether or not there is some place in which we have refused to receive and follow the Spirit’s lead. Where are we stubbornly insisting on our own way and our own agenda? Surrender, submission, and relinquishment are the everyday rythyms of our life—follow Christ and listen to and obey the Spirit. We draw our strength and our life from Christ by the Spirit, we live in community with our fellow believers, and no matter what those around us may say, we keep on the journey on into eternity.

Abba, you call us out of this world into relationship with you and others in the body of Christ. You pour your Spirit into us and begin to transform our hearts, minds, and lives. Thank you for holding us in the midst of our struggles, enabling us to bear the rejection and criticism of others. Grant us the grace to follow Jesus wherever he leads and to respond faithfully and obediently to your Spirit, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

“Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division;…” Luke 12:51 NASB

By Linda Rex

August 11th, PROPER 14—A while back, my son was telling me about a group of people who believe the world is flat. They have their own website where they seek to convince others that this is the reality of the earth we live on. Because they believe what they do, they have come up with many arguments to explain away what someone like myself would consider sound, logical proof the world is round.

Because of how I was raised, I find it difficult to even entertain the possibility that the earth is flat. My beliefs have been formed around the scientific information I’ve studied and things I was taught in school. I have learned new things about my world and my physical body as I have grown older, but in all these years I have never had any reason to change my belief about the world being round. I am still convinced that I live on a lovely orb set as a jewel in the heavens, held in the loving hands of our Abba.

Indeed, what we believe directly affects how we see our world and ourselves. We often believe things about ourselves which are inaccurate, but which guide how we interact with our environment and with one another. For example, if we are convinced that we know what is the best thing to do in a situation, we will act in accordance with that belief, doing our best to convince others that our ideas and preferences are the ones which should be heeded and that any other person’s opinion or preference is to be disregarded or ignored.

The sad thing is that we often do not make the effort to get to know who we really are. Many of us do not realize how we impact the people around us. For some of us, our behavior, words, and attitudes are an affliction on those around us because we work out of an inner paradigm of conceit, arrogance and pride. Or we may believe we are only worthy of rejection and abandonment, and are so filled with self-loathing that we believe we have nothing to offer this world or the people in our lives. Our inner belief may create discomfort and frustration in the people around us, causing them to avoid or reject us.

These beliefs about ourselves impact how we interact at home, at work, and in the marketplace. If we are in Christian ministry, these beliefs affect how we care for the people God places in our lives—we influence others by the way we view ourselves, the world we live in, and God himself. Our false beliefs about God, ourselves and everything else provide the evil one with plenty of ammunition in his efforts to kill, destroy, and to create division. As the father of lies, he’s really good at convincing us of lies about God, ourselves and others.

Have you ever considered the possibility that what you believe about someone might be wrong? That you might be seeing God through the wrong lense? Have you ever thought that maybe the inner voice you listen to all the time may be lying to you? We need to be willing to step out of the box and try new ways of looking at ourselves, God, and the world around us. We may discover what we have believed all these years was wrong.

In the book of Genesis, God came to Abram in a vision and told him that he would have an heir. Since he and his wife were beyond childbearing years, this was a jaw-dropping proposition. Then God also promised Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. In spite of how astonishing this news was, Abram believed.

How that belief was worked out during his life took many turns, some of which seemed unfathomable to Abram. Years passed and he had no child of his own—it seemed as though God had forgotten his promise. Abram agreed to have a child by a custom of the day, through Sarai’s handmaid. The complications which arose then, and have arisen ever since because of the issue of unbelief, are innumerable. What if Abram had believed God so completely that he had told Sarai no? How would his life have been different? How would it have affected the nation of Israel centuries later?

However limited Abram’s faith was, God still counted it as righteousness. It is a comfort to you and to me that what we believe about God, limited though it may be, is still valuable. God comes to us, reveals himself to us in Christ by the Spirit, and we believe—and our lives are never the same again. However fragile our faith may be, God still honors it.

The reason God embraces our limited faith is because the Word of God came into our human flesh, trusted his Abba completely even to the point of death on a cross and placed himself into his Father’s hands as he prepared to die. Jesus’ faith was perfect, complete, and unbreakable, even in death. We find now, that you and I participate in his faith—our fragile, imperfect faith is completed and upheld in his perfect faith.

The apostle Paul called for us to put on the shield of faith. He told us to take “up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” We need to have Jesus reform our view of God and ourselves—understanding the depths of Abba’s love for us and how we are beloved, chosen, and accepted by God. Satan will use any means necessary to get us to believe lies about God, ourselves, and others, but Jesus stands in our stead, on our behalf, as the truth of our existence and the truth of our heavenly Abba. He gives us his faith by the Spirit in our inner being, enabling us to believe when everything around and in us is telling us not to.

We don’t need to drum up a deeper faith. All we need is Jesus’ faith. And by the Spirit we have it, as we receive what Jesus has done in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, trusting that he stands in our stead and on our behalf. Jesus’ faith becomes our shield, freeing us from Satan’s lies about God, ourselves, and others. We participate in Jesus’ faith as we put on more and more of Christ, growing in our relationship with him, worshiping and praising him, and learning more about him and his ways. As we come to know him more deeply, we stop believing the lies we have embraced and begin to live and walk in truth, shielded by the faith of Christ, our living Lord.

Dear Abba, thank you for including us in your perfect relationship with your Son Jesus in the Spirit. Renew our faith. Free us from false beliefs about ourselves, you, and others. Enable us to live and walk in truth, through Jesus the living Truth and by your Spirit. Amen.

“After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great….Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:1, 6 NASB

By Linda Rex

August 4th, PROPER 13—This week the TV caught my eye at the veterinarian’s office where my daughter was having her cat given her yearly checkup. I saw people taking old furniture and revamping it, giving it a more modern feel. Some of the results I liked, some I didn’t like.

Usually this channel is full of stories of how people take an old fixer-upper house and renovate it, selling it for more than what it was worth originally. The process of “flipping” a home seems very challenging to me because there is always the danger of hidden problems such as asbestos removal, an unstable foundation, or damage to critical structural elements. But I feel there is something ultimately satisfying about taking something broken and dirty and turning it into a masterpiece. Maybe this is because this is what God does with us.

The thing is, we can be so focused on the externals of our existence that we don’t tend to the internals as we ought. What I mean by that is, God wants us to attend to the internals of our souls more than the externals of our human existence. We are responsible to do what work is necessary to provide for ourselves and to care for what belongings are ours. But the God who takes care of the birds and the flowers is quite capable of caring for us when we allow him to, trusting him to help us meet our obligations and to provide for our needs (Matt 10:29-31; Luke 12:6).

Indeed, there may be some of us who want to live free from any responsibilities or effort and yet have every luxury at our fingertips—our culture encourages this. We may pursue a carefree life without responsibilities or the need to work or provide for anyone but ourselves—this is especially true for those who have parents or others who are willing to carry the responsibilities we should be carrying. However, the apostle Paul writes that if a person isn’t willing to work, then he or she shouldn’t eat. This is a reminder to carry our own load, to be responsible for ourselves—to do our part. (2 Thess. 3:10-11)

Even though some people seem to have all they need with no financial or personal struggles, some of us may be constantly in motion, working every moment to create our perfect world as we envision it to be. We may work very hard just to get ahead only to find ourselves bound by debt or health problems or broken relationships. Wouldn’t it be nice to actually be able do what the rich man Jesus talked about wanted to do? He had a bumper crop, and decided to put everything up into storage, and to tell himself, “You have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” (Luke 12:16-21)

But Jesus had words to say about such a life philosophy. He reminded his listeners and the man who was focused on getting his share of his family’s property that what really matters in life becomes truly evident when we are faced with death. Death brings everything in our lives into focus—showing us our humanity and the transience of our existence. We can make all the plans we want, we can save up all the money we want, and it just takes an instant or an event out of our control and it is all over. Everything we worked for goes to someone else—and we can’t even control who gets it all after we are gone.

Ultimately, each of us must humble ourselves under a recognition that God is God and we are not. Even as Christians we can be pretty arrogant and atheistic when it comes to money and providing for ourselves. Life can go well for quite a long time, and our diligent efforts can bring us great success and abundant wealth. But the externals of our human existence are transient and one day they will disappear. If we depend upon them or count on them, we are placing our life on an uncertain foundation.

As followers of Jesus, we can even embrace the idea that if we live good lives and do everything right God has to bless us and make everything go right in our lives. This sets us up for great disappointment and tests our faith when bad, unexplainable things occur in our lives. We may try to, but we cannot control the decisions others make nor can we protect our loved ones or ourselves from the evil or brokenness of the world we live in.

Stuff happens. Death occurs. Illness breaks our health. People steal our money. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes destroy our homes. And all our precious plans go out the window. Then we start asking the tough questions: What am I going to do? Where is God in all this? Doesn’t he care? Why did this happen to me?

Here in the middle of the brokenness, death, and destruction we are meant to find new life. God wants to meet us in the middle of this place and show us what we should have known all along—the life we are seeking is above, hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3). The real peace, joy, and comfort is found in Jesus, in the One who took on our humanity, joined us in our broken, sinful human existence, and brought us through death into resurrection and ascension into life with God both now and forever. Jesus redeemed our broken existence—God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21 NASB).

Our real existence, the one which will last, is in knowing and being known by our Abba and his Son Jesus Christ in the Spirit. What we have in this life is passing away—what we have in Christ is everlasting. This is why Paul says to keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, not the things on earth (Col. 3:1-2)

We are to consider ourselves dead to greed, which is a form of idolatry. Greed and covetousness, along with the other passions of our flesh, are a way in which we go about life focused on and drawing our life from the things which are transient and will one day disappear. Like worshipping idols made of gold and silver, our worship of our human efforts or goals or the physical trappings of our existence—nice home, good job, wealth, power, fame, ease and pleasure—is an insult to the God who made us and called us into relationship with himself, and who came for us and redeemed us in Jesus Christ. All of this idolatry hung with Christ on the cross—in Christ we are dead to our idols, so we might live in the newness which is ours in him.

God created the earth and all its abundance for our enjoyment and pleasure. God means for us to work and to take pleasure in the fruit of our efforts. God wants us to work hard and be responsible for ourselves. But nowhere in all of this are any of these gifts meant to replace the Giver. Nothing is to take the place of the One who took our place and stands in our stead on our behalf as our Redeemer and Savior and Lord—Jesus Christ. The spirit of greed, lust, envy, selfishness, or any other demonic or fleshly spirit is never meant to replace the living Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is meant to fill us with God’s love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, and so on—to be the dominant Spirit in our being, to rule our existence both now and forever.

We have been given the greatest gift of all, life in Christ by the Spirit. We are called to live humble lives, in all godliness and honesty, sharing with others all we have been given, so that as one, we are joined together in the body of Christ as Abba’s children, together living in the new lives forged for us by Jesus out of our broken human existence and poured into us by the Holy Spirit.

When we have been given something by God, perhaps it is so that we can share it with others, or maybe he means for us to use it in furthering the scope of the Kingdom of God. God’s gifts are meant to create gratitude and praise, to move us to rejoice in the gift of our blessed hope and to live as the adopted children we were created to be, loving God and one another both now and forever as true image-bearers of the God who is love.

Dear God, thank you for all the gifts you have for us in our everyday existence—food, clothing, shelter, friendship, companionship, work, and so many other things. Keep us focused in the midst of all our blessings on you, the Blessed One, who blesses us with everything we need for life and godliness. Fill our hearts with gratitude and praise, for you are more than worthy. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen

“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. … Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him…” Colossians 3:1-3, 9-10 NASB

“Then He said to them, ‘Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” Luke 12:15 NASB

By Linda Rex

PROPER 12—Reflections on when I was first baptized remind me of the disconnect there was between my baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection and the rest of my Christian life. Even though the baptism focused on repentance and accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, it seems that once that event took place, then the rest was all up to me, even though I was a recipient of the Holy Spirit.

Of course, I had been taught the scriptures since I was a child, and had to memorize many for school. There were instructions about the ten commandments and the way of love, and warnings that I would reap what I sowed. I lived in constant fear that I would fall short of God’s enormous expectations (and I often did) and believed that God would reject me. My participation in taking the bread and wine once a year was often a desperate plea for forgiveness and an acknowledgement of my unworthiness in his sight. Even though I may have felt forgiven as I came to the table, this experience was short-lived—guilt and shame were my constant companions.

Unfortunately, I was laboring under a false concept of what it meant to be baptized and to be saved. In some ways, I understood what it meant, but at the same time I did not grasp the significance of dying and rising with Jesus. I did not realize that my death and subsequent life in Christ was always and ever a participation in Christ’s perfected and finished work. It was not all up to me—it was completely all up to him; I was saved by grace through faith.

Jesus, who was God in human flesh, did not need to be baptized and yet he obeyed his Father’s command given through John the Baptizer to be baptized for the remission of sins. Jesus was not baptized for his own sins, but for the sins of the whole world, identifying with each human being in our broken, sinful humanity. When we are baptized, it is a participation in his perfect work of baptism as well as a symbolic sharing in his death and resurrection.

This participation in Christ through baptism is merely a beginning of the new life which is ours by faith in Jesus. By faith we receive the anointing in the Holy Spirit by which we share in Jesus’ perfect relationship with his Father. Our life becomes a life of walking in the Spirit by faith in Christ—a new way of being which has its roots in the Son of God.

We do not suddenly become perfect and yet we are at the same time perfect in Christ—there is a paradox, a tension, to our lives. While on the one hand our perfected humanity is hidden with Christ in God, on the other this perfection is being worked into us daily as we live and walk in obedience to the Spirit. We are fully justified in Jesus but are daily being sanctified—we walk by faith, not by sight. We do not always see in ourselves or others the perfection which is ours even now in Christ.

Our focus is so often on moral perfection. This was the struggle in my early years as a Christian. But this is not God’s focus. He has already resolved the issue of moral perfection in Jesus. What he is working on now is our faith in Jesus Christ, our personal walk with him in the Spirit.

In Christ we are caught up into the inner life of the Trinity, of the Father, Son, and Spirit as they exist in perichoretic love and unity. We were created to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In Christ this is who we are as God’s adopted children. In his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and in the giving of the Spirit, Jesus stands in our place on our behalf, enabling us to participate as God’s creatures in true union and communion with the Father in the Spirit, and in union and communion with one another, expressed most fully within the body of Christ, the church.

What before was a fear and anxiety-ridden struggle to attain a tiny measure of God’s favor has been replaced in our lives by a grace-based relationship filled with God’s love, humor, compassion and understanding. All of life is holy now, blessed by and healed by the presence and power of God through Jesus in the Spirit. Our lives are a participation in the perfect relationship Jesus has with our Father and his perfect expression of love for Abba and for others in the Spirit.

We don’t have to beg God for the least bit of his attention. No, he anticipates and looks forward to our encounters, for Jesus stands in our place on our behalf, bringing us into the presence of the Father in the Spirit. We feel his pleasure as we pray and sense his joy in our everyday life. We know his presence and sense his comfort when we grieve or go through painful experiences—he shares all of life with us. Whatever evil we may encounter in this world, we find he is already at work within it to redeem, restore and renew. And whatever praise or prayer or gift of obedience we bring—it is already perfected in Jesus.

We do not need to spend all our time in abjection or slavish attention, but rather in real moment-by-moment relationship, in the true love, humility and service which come in a complete dependence on God, knowing and accepting our need for Jesus, and rejoicing in the power and presence of the Spirit in our lives. We can live our lives in joy, drinking in of the blessings God richly showers upon us for our enjoyment—the beauty of a new spring day, the glory of a mountain vista, the pleasure of a pet’s affection, and the ecstasy of an intimate relationship with a spouse. In moments of sorrow or struggle, we can rest in his arms, trusting he is holding us and helping us through them, working all things for our best benefit.

What God has given us is true participation in Christ’s perfect relationship with his Abba. We have a loving, adoring, compassionate Father who has done everything necessary for us to have a personal, intimate relationship with him and to share in what he is doing in this world to bring the fullness of his kingdom into every area of our existence. We get to share in Christ’s mission by the Spirit through prayer, loving others, resisting evil, and caring for God’s creation. All of these are a true participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, of which baptism is the initial step and our weekly communion the ongoing sacrament.

Dear Abba, thank you for including us in your life and love through your Son Jesus and by your Spirit. Thank you for allowing us to share in Christ’s death and resurrection, and in his life in the Spirit, symbolically showing our participation through baptism and our sharing in the bread and the wine. May you finish what you have begun in us through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,…” Colossians 2:6 NASB

By Linda Rex

PROPER 10/PROPER 11—The most significant way to change a person, and therefore a society, is to change what that person believes about themselves and the people in their lives. Often our response to a given situation is habituated by our belief system. We may not even realize why we do some of the things we do, even though we may realize they are inappropriate or unhealthy. We may not be even be aware of the belief systems that are at the root of such behavior.

Reflecting back upon the garden of Eden, we may see that Adam and Eve illustrate this point in how they responded to God after they had eaten the forbidden fruit. Before then they had freely walked and talked with God in the garden. But after they ate the fruit, they began to believe things about themselves and God which manifested in shame, fear, and hiding themselves. What a change occurred when they adopted the wrong frame for their view of God and themselves!

We see this at work in the nation of Israel as well. God told them on Mount Sinai that they were his people and he was their God, and this reality would be reflected in the way they lived their lives. But when God approached near to them, they responded in fear. They didn’t want God to speak to them personally—they wanted a mediator. What they believed about God caused them to distance themselves from their covenant partner who loved them with deep devotion and commitment. Over the centuries following, the nation of Israel acted out their mixed-up belief system, turning away to other idols and then turning back to God in remorse when things got tough.

One of the things Israel believed was that God was a fearful, judgmental God who needed appeased. They had adopted the belief system of the nations around them rather than the truth that God had chosen them as his adopted nation, his beloved people. They refused to believe and live in the truth that God had committed himself to them in covenant relationship. They wanted to live as though they were independent of God and yet at the same time have all the benefits of a good relationship with him.

They also did not grasp the need to internalize the word of God. The law was something external to them, becoming a prescription of how to be a good Israelite. In actuality, it was meant to be a description of what life looked like when lived in communion with their God. Love for God was to be so written on their hearts that their lives would resemble his law, his way of being, the way of love.

At one point, God bemoaned their lack of a heart of obedience and devotion to him. He said, “Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!” (Deut. 5:29 NASB) Many centuries later, the prophet Jeremiah told the people about a day when God would make a new covenant with the people. He said that God would put his law within them and write it on their heart. He would be their God and they would be his people. God’s word would cease to be external to them and would become the core driving force of their being. But this could not happen apart from God’s intervention—our humanity on its own is lost in unhealthy belief systems and a determination to operate on its own apart from God.

The apostle John opens his gospel with the good news that God the Word joined us in our humanity, becoming flesh and living among us. Getting to know God by coming to know Jesus Christ is fundamental to changing our belief system. To know Jesus is to know the Father. To know Jesus is to know and begin to experience the reality of God’s real presence in our humanity. The Holy Spirit, God’s presence in us and with us, reveals Christ in us and brings us into union and communion with God.

Jesus, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, worked the word of God into our human flesh. He lived in complete oneness with his Father while here on earth. He forged a new humanity which would love and obey his Abba by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus, our humanity is capable of new ways of being and living. As we turn to Christ in faith, as we respond to the Spirit’s work in us, repenting of our wrong beliefs and our wrong view of God and ourselves, God’s word hidden in our hearts through Jesus by the Spirit begins to be expressed in new ways. There is a new inner drive to love God and love others.

The living Word Jesus Christ, written on human hearts by the Holy Spirit, is the basis for our new belief system. In Christ we have new life. We are forgiven, accepted and beloved. What we were as broken, sinful people has been declared dead and buried with Christ, and raised into new life.

What we believe about ourselves and God, then, is critical. Do we see ourselves as included in Christ? Or are we living out a belief system that says we are evil, sinful, and broken—forsaken and rejected by God? Do we believe that the wretchedness of our life is the fault of everyone else and all they did to us over the years? Or do we admit our own guilt and shame, knowing we are freed in Christ? And what do we believe about God? Is he a fearful, judgmental overseer or did he come himself to rescue us out of our wretchedness and to make us his own? Is he present, forgiving, loving, and accepting in every situation and difficulty we have?

If we are struggling with some unhealthy behaviors or are having a lot of negative thoughts, perhaps it is time to reconstruct our inner belief system. We can participate with Christ in doing that by internalizing the written word of God. If you struggle to believe God loves you or that you are worthy of love, dig deeply into the written word to find all the passages that tell you the truth—you are forgiven, beloved, accepted, and cherished. Write them on cards and begin memorizing the passages—give the Holy Spirit some ammunition to use in this battle.

And ask God for the faith to believe—to write this word on your heart. Thank God that he has given you Jesus’ heart—a heart which fully understands and receives his Abba’s love. But understand, any spiritual discipline in itself will not change you. It is the Word written on human hearts—Jesus Christ by the Spirit poured into you—that will change you. It is God at work within you that will make the change. You start by embracing the process of participating with Christ in his work by the Spirit. And allow God to do the rest. And he will, giving you abundant reason for praise and gratitude.

Abba, thank you for writing your word on our hearts, for sending us your Son and your Spirit to do this amazing transformational work. Today, give us a hunger for your word and your ways. Give us a desire to grow in our relationship with you and to study your Word—to learn more about you and your Son Jesus Christ, and the awesome Spirit who transforms our hearts by faith. Heal, restore, renew—bring our deep inner beliefs into agreement with the truth, the One who is our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

“But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.” Deut. 30:14 NASB

“…the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Col. 1:15-28 NASB

By Linda Rex

PROPER 9—This morning the thought came to me that perhaps we as human beings expend way too much energy trying to fix ourselves or even other people. It’s interesting how many books can be found under the self-help and psychology signs at a big bookstore. So many ways to straighten ourselves out!

Indeed, as Christians we can easily be tempted to turn our walk of faith into a self-help program or a means by which we make ourselves good enough that we will be fit for heaven. So often, people speak of their eternal future in question marks, wondering if they will qualify or overcome enough that God will let them in when the time comes.

And even when it comes to our relationship with God, we often believe, consciously or unconsciously, that we can only approach God in prayer if we are on his good side, having behaved properly and not having anything in our lives which might be cause for criticism or condemnation. So much of our lives may be lived by the rule book and living by the rules makes it easy for us to discern whether or not we are on God’s good side or bad side, so we know whether or not it is safe to approach him when we are in trouble. The only problem is, if we are honest with ourselves, no matter how hard we try to keep all the rules, we fail.

The struggle with guilt and shame is real. Some therapists and counselors teach methods of getting rid of guilt and shame as though it weren’t real, while others realize that these are symptoms of something deeper which needs healing and renewal. The truth is, God never meant for us to live oppressed by guilt or shame or any other negative, destructive emotion. God meant for us to live at peace with him and the other people in our lives, and at peace within ourselves. This is why he sent Jesus.

As the Word of God in human flesh, Jesus was full of grace and truth. In Jesus, we see God’s very Word written into our humanity—our way of being lived out in a tangible way here on earth, in a way which we could hear, see, touch, and experience. If we want rules to live by, we need only the Person of Jesus Christ, the law expressed in his very being written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit. In Christ, the truth of our being was accompanied by grace though, and was expressed fully as Jesus took our humanity with him through the crucifixion into the grave and out the other side in glory.

The problem we have with Jesus is often the reality that trusting in him and in his completed work means we lose control over the final outcome for ourselves and for others. In other words, it becomes a work of faith rather than a work of our flesh. Our acceptance by God is not won by our merit or our efforts, but solely by the Son of God who stood and stands in our place and on our behalf. We cannot boast about anything, as the apostle Paul points out, except “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14).

You may remember the story of Naaman, the captain of the army of the king of Aram who was afflicted with leprosy. A captive Israelite girl told his wife he should go to the prophet in Samaria so he could be healed. Eventually Naaman made his way to Elisha’s house. The prophet didn’t talk with him face to face, but rather sent a messenger to tell him if he went and washed seven times in the Jordan River, he would be restored and made clean.

This made Naaman furious. He assumed Elisha would do some great miracle-working action or would speak some fancy words over him. He knew in his mind what it was going to take to get well. Feeling insulted, he reminded himself that his nation’s rivers were better than the Jordan River. It seems he thought his healing should be on his terms—he believed this Israelite prophet was insulting and demeaning him by asking this simple request of him. So he began to head for home.

Thankfully, he listened to his servants when they reminded him that if he had been asked to do something big, he would have done it—why not do this little thing? So Naaman humbled himself and went to the Jordan River and washed himself seven times. In the end he was healed, but only because of this simple act of trusting obedience.

So often we refuse God’s simple instruction to us—wash and be cleansed. We want to follow a difficult plan or program to make ourselves better. It is good to practice spiritual disciplines, but not to make ourselves right with God and not to fix ourselves or anyone else. Spiritual disciplines such as prayer, meditation, fasting, and worship are ways in which we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit. In other words, they are ways in which we simply come and are cleansed in Christ’s perfect work and participate in an ongoing relationship with God through Christ in the Spirit.

God calls us to renewal and says to you and me—wash and be clean. Christ’s blood and broken body are the place where we experience renewal and transformation, healing and freedom from guilt and shame. We can keep trying to free ourselves by our own efforts and in our own way, or we can simply be washed in Christ. In baptism we acknowledge that we died with Christ and rose with Christ—we are made new in him. The Spirit is at work in us bringing this reality to fruition within our beings.

Our efforts do not accomplish this. Rather, they are a participation in what Jesus has already done in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Healing, renewal, and transformation are a gift from God, as the Spirit makes the finished work of Jesus a reality in each of us individually. As we trust in Christ and respond to the indwelling Spirit of God—sowing to the Spirit, not to the flesh—we reap eternal life. We participate in Christ’s perfect relationship with Abba in the Spirit, and find we are cleansed, healed, and made new. And the only thing left for us to do is to give our gratitude and praise to God.

Abba, we thank you for the gift of new life, of healing, renewal, and transformation in Jesus. Thank you for your Spirit, your presence and power at work in us, with us, and for us. We praise you, for you are worthy. Finish what you have begun, even as you have promised. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

“Then his servants came near and spoke to him and said, ‘My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, “Wash, and be clean”?’” 2 Kings 5:13 NASB

By Linda Rex

PROPER 8—I did not write a blog last week as I was in Charlotte, North Carolina, attending the GCI Southeast Regional Conference. I attended this event with fellow pastors Jan Taylor and Mike Gass, as well as our outreach ministry leader, Pat Brazier. We joined with fellow pastors in learning about what it means to be a healthy leader and a healthy church, and how GCI (Grace Communion International) is obeying Christ’s call to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God and to follow wherever he leads.

In the gospel passage for this Sunday, the narrator Luke tells how Jesus responded to different people who sought to be his disciples. When one person said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go,” Jesus told him that unlike the foxes and birds, the Messiah did not have a place to rest his head. The price of discipleship often includes the loss of physical places we count on for comfort and personal safety.

Jesus said to another person, “Follow me.” Jesus had given this same command to Matthew as he was sitting at his desk collecting taxes and Matthew had left behind all his financial abundance and job security to follow Christ. When Jesus told the fishermen to follow him, they left their boats and families behind and simply followed Jesus. They left behind all that was comfortable and known in order to follow him.

But here, this man asked if he could first bury his father. In that day according to social expectations, it was the duty of a man to bury his father and give him an honorable burial a year after his death. This man, if he was the firstborn, may have been expecting a double inheritance, so he may have wanted to protect his future expectations. Either way, he wanted to wait till these personal and financial responsibilities were resolved before following Jesus. But neither of these reasons were sufficient to disobey Jesus’ simple command, “Follow me.”

Jesus replied by telling him to “allow the dead to bury their own dead.” He was being invited to truly live—to be in intimate relationship with Jesus. By dying to his past life and following Christ, he would begin a new life—a new path of discipleship. And Jesus’ instructions to him were, “Go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” The king of the kingdom was present in Jesus and this man’s calling was to let everyone know right away that this was so, not to wait until he had all his personal affairs in order before he did so. (Luke 9:51–62)

His calling is not any different than God’s calling to us today as believers. And it is God’s calling to the members of GCI. We are called to radical discipleship—to leaving behind what was before and embracing what God through Christ in the Spirit is leading us toward. We are to proclaim the kingdom of God, no matter the cost, even if it means leaving behind those places and practices we count on for comfort and personal safety. In following Christ, we cease our dependence upon our physical abilities and future expectations, and trust in the provision and future God has for us and is leading us into by his Holy Spirit.

To often we are like the man who told Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” We find a lot of reasons not to simply do what Jesus by the Spirit tells us to do. It is easy to allow the things of this life, our comfortable relationships, our social obligations, to distract us from simply following Jesus and proclaiming the good news of his kingdom.

Family relationships are important and should not be neglected. We are to love God wholeheartedly and to love one another. But the kingdom life Jesus inaugurated in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension is a radical shift from self-centered living into a Christ-centered existence in which our choice is moment-by-moment to follow Jesus wherever he goes, no matter the cost. Radical discipleship includes changing the way we think, talk, and live.

And radical discipleship also includes sometimes changing the way we do church and the way we act as spiritual leaders within the church. The way we do church can become so comfortable that we cease to grow and change or allow new people the opportunity to grow and change with us. Members of our churches and denominations may begin to so resemble the culture in which we live they lose their distinction as followers of Christ. Leadership can become about prestige, financial abundance, power, and authority rather than about Jesus’ simple path of humble service and self-sacrifice. Churches can become social clubs, exclusive and untouchable, or they can become so gracious and free-spirited that no one ever hears the truth about Jesus and his costly path of discipleship.

As GCI follows the lead of the Holy Spirit and continues in its growth of Christ-likeness, we will continue to be called down the road of discipleship where we must make the choice to follow Jesus in new and challenging ways. We may need to leave behind those comfortable, easy ways of doing church and embrace new, transformational ways of embracing our church communities and the people we encounter there. We will be called to quit hiding and stop running away from our responsibilities to share the good news of the kingdom of God everywhere we go.

This is the call to discipleship—a discipleship in which we were meant to call others into the same radical discipleship we were called into as Jesus said to us, “Follow me.” What that calling is for us individually and as a church is unique—we listen to and obey the Spirit as he moves in our midst and within our communities. We join Jesus in his daily work to let all people know the good news of God’s amazing love expressed to us in him. And we enjoy the journey, for we are caught within the love and life of Abba, Jesus, and the Spirit.

Thank you, Jesus, for calling us to follow you. Give us the courage and faith to do so, no matter the cost and no matter what the future may bring. Enable us by your Spirit to embrace all the new you are doing while holding fast to what you have taught us in your life, death, resurrection and ascension. Grow us up into all that you are. By your Spirit and for Abba’s glory, make your body, your churches, specifically our GCI churches, into places of life, healing, and renewal. Make us all a clear reflection of your glory and grace. In your Name we pray, amen.

“And He said to another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.’ But He said to him, ‘Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.’” Luke 9:59-60 NASB

By Linda Rex

TRINITY SUNDAY—The older I get and the more I learn about God, the more I realize how misinformed about God I really have been. The cool thing about God is the more you get to know him, the more there is to get to know and understand. The best I can do is be in relationship with him—understanding him fully isn’t something any of us can do.

Many of my God-concepts were formed within a religious context which saw God as a family of Father and Son in which the Holy Spirit was an energy or force or God’s essence. In those years I did not believe the Holy Spirit was a Person and did not believe in the Trinity. The God I believed in was stern and critical, demanding perfect obedience if I wanted his love and acceptance.

Even though I was well-versed in the old testament scriptures, I did not realize how often in the old testament distinctions with regards to the attributes of God were made—for example, wisdom is personified as a woman who was with God when he created all things and God’s glory was pictured as a burning fire or radiant person.

I remember the first time I began rereading the old testament scriptures in view of the Triune God. God began to look a lot different than I had thought he was. I was astonished to find all three Persons of the Trinity present at creation—the Spirit was present at creation hovering over the water while God and his Word were active in creating all things. The apostle Paul called Jesus the wisdom of God—in Proverbs we read wisdom personified was present at creation (Prov. 8). While Jesus often called himself the “son of man” during his ministry here on earth, in the book of Daniel, the “son of man” came into a heavenly scene and took a seat at the right hand of the Ancient of Days.

Jeremiah used the expression “Now the word of the LORD came to me saying” when he described hearing God speak (Is. 2:1), while in 1 Sam. 3:21 says, “the Lord revealed Himself … by the word of the Lord.” The Word of God John spoke about was the Logos or reason of God who always was with God and was God, and who came into our humanity as God in human flesh. The living Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ turns out to be the one through and for whom all things were created.

There are a lot of places in the old testament and in the new—I won’t take the time to enumerate here—in which God reveals himself as one God in three Persons. I was so amazed when I understood that the Spirit had all the attributes of personhood—the Spirit was a person to be worshiped and obeyed along with the Father and the Son. When I began to interact with God as he really is rather than as how I had mistakenly thought he was, there was a distinct change in my relationship with God. I began to hear God’s word and understand it personally in a new way, and my thoughts and behavior began to change as my relationship with God became more real and personal.

It is always tempting for us to follow our creeds without ever investigating for ourselves what the truth of the matter is. The Spirit of truth wants to bring us into a deeper, closer relationship to the Father in and through his Son Jesus Christ. The Spirit’s efforts aren’t to make himself more visible or evident but to reveal to us more fully the Father and the Son, and to draw us deeper into fellowship with God and one another.

We can get so focused on what is or isn’t true that we miss the reality of our real inclusion in the intimate relationship between the Father and Son in the Spirit. We are called to go deeper, to rest more fully in, the love of God—this love which was so fully expressed in the gift of the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. Here we find God personally involved in our lives and our broken existence, drawing us to himself in spite of our rejection and failures to love.

The extravagant, overwhelming love of God expressed to us in Christ is made increasingly real to us as we respond to the work of the Spirit. Opening ourselves up to the Spirit’s work allows us to toss away false views of God and of ourselves and enables us to begin to apprehend God’s love, glory, and goodness and how we are meant for that to be expressed in and through us as God’s image-bearers. Responding to the word of God which comes to us from the Father through Jesus by the Spirit means beginning to walk in the truth, in Christlikeness. But this all has its source and fulfillment in God.

What indeed are humans that God would take any thought of us? But he did. He gave you and me such dignity and worth—crowning us with his righteousness, making us rulers over all he made, and ordaining and obtaining for us an eternity as his very own adopted children. The Son of Man, our Jesus, has been crowned king of kings and lord of lords, and he stands in our stead and on our behalf at the Father’s side. At this moment, we are hidden there in Christ in the presence of the Father—sharing in his glory and goodness, and being looked upon with delight as Abba’s beloved.

As time goes by and I grow in my relationship with God and my understanding of his word, I see more clearly the evidence in Jesus’ own words in the book of John. He spoke quite freely about the Father and the Spirit and himself being in intimate relationship of mutual submission and love. As we turn to Christ and respond to the Spirit we are drawn deeper into intimate relationship with our Abba, and are able to rest both now and forever in the abounding love of God as his adored children.

Thank you, Abba, for loving us so much, for giving us your Son Jesus and your precious Spirit of truth. Continue to draw us closer to you. Open our hearts and minds to receive your love and to come to know you as you really are, and to believe you really do love us completely, just as we are and are working to bring us into the fullness of all you meant for us to be in Jesus by your Holy Spirit. We thank you and praise you that you will finish what you have begun. Amen.

“What is man that You take thought of him, | And the son of man that You care for him? | Yet You have made him a little lower than God, | And You crown him with glory and majesty! | You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; | You have put all things under his feet,…” Psalm 8:4-6 NASB

“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” John 16:13-15 NASB