Walking With God
"When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."Genesis 5:21-25
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Exit Strategy
One day I was striving forward, kicking stones and leaping over obstacles. I trudged through the unfamiliar jungle, whipping my machete back and forth to cut down the forbidding overgrowth that tried to hold me back. I could hear the rushing water of our meeting place, though I was still a long way off. I could picture the deep green pastures there beside the freshwater stream.
Equipped with purpose and power, knowing that my Master waited there for me, having prepared an unbelievable picnic spread under sprawling trees and a tapestry of wildflowers, I fought through the chaos with the knowledge (not just hope) that He was there and that we would soon be together and delight in one another’s company with food, drink, conversation, and laughter.
But it was getting dark, and I was still quite a distance from my Master’s presence. I continued slicing my way through the branches, but I was becoming exhausted and thirsty; and I began to feel alone knowing I was deep in a treacherous territory where bands of thieves reside and where vicious beasts prowl waiting to devour me. It got to the point where I had to take more and more frequent rests to gather my strength while trying to remain vigilant. At one point, however, when I was most weary and very slow to get up, it’s then that I heard a strange yet familiar voice speak to me and begin to share with me a gentler, simpler path through the dangerous unknown.
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Faking It
I often struggle with the idea that my relationship with God is not real. It’s not me thinking that God isn’t real, it’s just me.
Am I just going through the motions pretending to be in love with Jesus, or is there something truly there? I don’t, for a second, think that Jesus doesn’t love me. Not for the smallest moment do I question God’s love for me. He has proven Himself to me time and again.
But is my love and devotion to Him real? Or am I just faking it? There are days when I feel overwhelmed by His presence, but then others when I don’t sense Him at all. There are days when I can’t stop talking to Him, and then days go by where I don’t speak with Him at all.
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Where Have Those Feet Been?
Foot-washing was a very common practice in ancient times, since all roadways were generally regular old dusty dirt . . . with an added bonus. Folks all wore sandals of some fashion, but those nearly bare feet, combined with often hours of travel, resulted in quite filthy feet indeed.
Keep in mind, of course, in those days, people weren’t driving Toyotas, Fords, Chevys or Subarus, replete with their toxic emissions. No, they were driving camels, oxen, sheep, donkeys and goats, replete with their toxic emissions! Such transportation and walking cargo did not “hold it” until the next gas station. The animals relieved themselves as they moved, which was on the very highway on which everyone else was traveling.
This means that those designer sandals did nothing but keep stones from piercing the soles of their wearers’ feet, failing to protect them from the literal filth on the ground. While the sandals would keep such stuff from squishing through their toes (nice and steamy in the early morning), it didn’t keep it off their feet.
So when people came to their own or another’s abode, how did they keep such junk from being transplanted into their home? Well, typically, they’d simply remove their shoes and wash their own feet before going inside. But if there were household servants present, then they would be tasked with the job of washing guests’ feet. Sometimes that same servant that was awarded the responsibility could then get up and go prepare a meal. And this courtesy extended to any visitor of the home, whether strange or familiar, for it was important that the filth of the world not contaminate their dwelling place.
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Slavery Is Easy
I know, I know. But let’s talk about this. Heading back to the Old Testament book of Exodus, we’re reminded that God led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, not to the Promised Land . . . but into the Wilderness.
Christians tend to consider the Wilderness as only that place of wandering we sometimes stumble into from time to time. But the reality is that the Wilderness is where we live, and there is no leaving it until such time as we are granted admission into the Promised Land at the end of our great journey.
We look at the history of the Israelites having spent several generations as slaves in Egypt, not knowing any other kind of life. In fact, God allowed them to remain slaves long enough to erase their memory and history of any other existence. And that’s why He inspired Moses to write down their history, so that they could learn where they came from after the fact.
And just like the Israelites, we too have no idea what life before slavery looked like. Our slavery to sin is all we’ve ever known. We were born into slavery, raised by slaves, and grew to become great slaves.
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Making the List
Blessings or curses. Wrath or favor. Heaven or hell. Why did we all grow up believing that either God rewards or punishes us based on our behavior? Where did we hear about this God? Was it our parents, using God as a “threat” against us for misbehaving? Maybe somehow the threat of eternal damnation was good enough to keep us in line… So they hoped. But did they even believe it was true, or was it just a tactic their own parents may have tried?
Santa Claus has become pretty much the same thing. Parents have latched onto the idea of Santa (as a God replacement) as some magical being who holds their children’s fate in his hands (or sack). Based solely on a child’s behavior, they can look forward to receiving that long-awaited gift… or the dreadful lump of coal. And because of this idea, kids the world over attempt to “win back favor” with Santa to stay on or get back on the “Nice” list during the last days before Santa shows up and their fate is decided. Christmas morning, they rush to the foot of the tree to discover whether or not they were “good enough” to be in the Christmas Club, praying they are not a tragic recipient of the dreaded Coal Award.
Just like Santa, we’ve come to believe that we’re either in or out of God’s grace because of our deeds.
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Slaves of Righteousness
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Romans 6:5-7 NIV When one is enslaved, he has been taken against his will to live and serve a new master in constant fear. Initially, the slave’s desire is simply to escape and return to what he used to know. But as a result of the pain and suffering he must endure under the charge of his new master, his desire soon changes to simply getting through the day without injury or recourse.
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True Crimes
For many, the concept of committing a “sin” is a tough thing to grasp. Before I knew Jesus, I’d heard tell of those who professed to be sinners and attempted to convince others of their morally superior perspective.
At that time, the basic concept of sin didn’t mean anything to me. It was used in the context of having broken some secret rules, or at worst, having committed some kind of crime against God. But to me, these always seemed like victimless crimes, since He was God and surely anything I could possibly do wasn’t that big of a deal. Of course, once I was exposed to the Word of God in the book of the prophet Isaiah, this sin idea began to gain traction:
Look, the Lord’s hand is not too weak to deliver you; his ear is not too deaf to hear you. But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God; your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers.
Isaiah 59:1-2 NET But still, the term sin itself didn’t mean much, and I confess that, even after 20+ years, it still seems rather powerless to me. While many of us may have diminished the term’s true effect without realizing it, recently I discovered that I had.
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Second Skin
“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” Mark 2:22 NIV
Did you realize that as reptiles grow, they shed their skin to allow for further growth? This is because, unlike our skin, a reptile’s doesn’t grow as they grow. Instead, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles must shed their skin regularly as their old skin is outgrown. (Technically, humans shed their skin too, at the rate of about 50 million cells a day.)
So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away – look, what is new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17 NET
As Christians, when we speak of being a new creation, it is important that we see ourselves as “reborn.” When we believe, we are as newborn infants, having restarted from a place of wonder and childlikeness, wholly dependent on the One who gave us rebirth. Having begun again in these new skins, we find ourselves in a constant state of spiritual growth, even as we continue in the constant state of physical decay in which our earthly bodies must endure.
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The First Communion
A couple of years ago, I got in my head the idea of investigating the true meaning and purpose of Communion (The Lord’s Supper) beyond my own elementary understanding of it, and ignoring the different traditions that surround it. Sure, we all understand and appreciate this mirroring of the Last Supper on the night before Jesus’ death on the Cross, and how sharing in it as a church body reminds us of that Cross and the suffering Jesus underwent on our behalf.
We get it. But for me, this wasn’t good enough, because the way the Catholic church teaches and practices it, both in substance and form, differs from how the Lutheran church teaches and practices it, which differs significantly from how the non-denominational (often evangelical) and other Protestant churches practice it (without much instruction)—not to mention the frequency of its practice, be it daily, weekly, monthly, special occasions, or never.
While I knew it wouldn’t be particularly useful for me to investigate those disparities, I did think it valuable to discover its true origins, according to Scripture, and try my best to understand the history and tradition behind the origins of the Last Supper (and Passover) itself, while discarding the traditions of the evolving Christian church beyond the first century, being able to examine more intimately how and why the first century Church believed, taught, and practiced it.
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Can’t Fix It From the Inside
When a piece of equipment or a device fails, it is impossible to repair it using the parts of the broken unit itself. We must always employ the use of a tool or replacement part outside of that system in order to affect the repair.
Sure, we’ve seen things like the movie Apollo 13 where they were able to fix things using material already on the craft. But in that instance, they scavenged components from the abandoned lunar module (spare parts) to solve their problem.
The human body, in all its wondrous goings on, cannot heal itself without the food, energy and water required for the cells to do their work. And this fuel comes from outside the body. It does not create its own fuel.
And no repair we ever make is lasting. Even at its best, the body’s efforts are also in vain. Eventually, everything fails beyond repair to the point that a full replacement is necessary, where available. And then, from where shall that replacement come?
It’s a great wonder, then, that we are so often convinced that we can fix the broken pieces of our own lives by utilizing the very components we’ve a desire to repair!
