Providers – Fathers and Sons II

Jehovah-Jireh – The Lord Will Provide. What more can we ask for?

As I look back on 1 Chronicles, the reality of the passage seems to be tarnishing slightly. By reality, I mean the sense that the Scriptures really are speaking the word of the Lord to me. To you who read this as Christians, you must have had this type of experience…when the Lord just spoke right to you through His word, hitting deep emotional centres and bringing joy, conviction, or clarity out in great measures. When you receive such a blessing, you note the lack of it all the more acutely when you get away from it for a time. This is tangential to what I want to talk about…but not really.

See, the Lord himself is called by the name Jehovah-Jireh, ‘The Lord Will Provide’, and provision is the gift of the Scriptures to the heart and to the soul. That’s something important. God the Heavenly Father is a great provider of gifts to His children, such as edification and splendour in His word. Look no further than James 1:16-17 for the basis of support for this: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

In the same way, David amassed materials for the temple so that the word of the Lord concerning Solomon would be fulfilled materially. One central point of a father’s blessing to his son, then, is to provide some material means by which the purposes of the Lord in the life of his son are to be fulfilled. This is not to say that the purposes of the Lord depend on the work that we accomplish towards them, but rather that the deposit we have been given regarding the purposes of the Lord – spiritual giftings, connections, desires, circumstances, and upbringing – is essential to remember in the work our Father has for us, and is meant as a provision for His plan.

It is not simply in the province of the fathers that we find this working itself out. Part of the Lord’s contract with David was that He would give Solomon rest, for the sake of David’s work to glorify His name. Solomon was expected to use this providence and add to it, and as David’s son, he was to fulfill the desire of his father’s heart in ways that David could not.

To be a man of God, then, is to honour your father’s sacrifices by multiplying his provision through them, doing great things as the Lord has spoken concerning you. Should the Lord see fit to bless a family with sons, it is part of the father’s responsibility to ensure a legacy for the Lord’s work, to provide something upon which to build.

Next time, Warrior.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Builders – Fathers and Sons I

I’ll be on the topic of fathers and sons for the next little while, springing from an encounter with 1 Chronicles 22 : 6-16. There are many facets of one relationship between a father and a son that come to light from this passage, but, as in all Scripture, there’s so much more when the Lord speaks through it. So I’m going to spend the next little while looking at what it means to be a son, what we are shown about being a father through Scripture, and a few more examinations of what we can really mean when we call God ‘Father’ I’ll also be interjecting comments on what it means to be a man of God from my point of view. Keep always in mind the greatest Father-Son team in Scripture: Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, and God the Father.

1 Chronicles 22 tells the story of David charging Solomon to build the temple, and the complete text is found in Representatives Series VIII, my last post. I’m going to spend a few days drawing some of the implications of that passage out, and then I’ll move on to a wider look from there. This time: Builders.

Men are fixers and builders. They accomplish tasks, take on projects, and work at things obsessively. It is an essential quality in their lives, because men must be responsible for building and maintaining their family as spiritual and, ideally, physical heads of the household.

How crucial it is, then, that David gives Solomon this task!

Fundamentally, Solomon is entrusted with a great responsibility to the Lord and to his father, who has laid up for him materials to accomplish this work. The crucial part is that Solomon must add to what David has already done. David directs him to add to the materials stored up, working for himself and learning how to accomplish things as he needs to. This is one of the most important parts of what it means to be, simply, a man.

So where have we lost touch with this? We look at men in sitcoms, proudly slovenly as they are, and we look at ourselves…

And we mimic them.

Thankfully, the new icon of manhood, Jack Bauer, is making his appearance on the screens of millions, and the men are coming back to themselves. I can’t say as I’ve seen 24, but I know many who have. And here we have a father, a fighter, a solver. Jack’s the guy who guys need to be.

But then, more importantly, so is Christ. A builder himself – his trade was carpentry – he worked at this for many years before he started his ministry. And who did he have to train him, to look up to when he was young…Joseph, his earthly father, chosen by God and lauded as ‘A righteous man’ in Matthew’s gospel among others. Master of his craft and well-respected, Joseph laid up in Jesus the materials to which he would add when he himself was nailed to the wood of a cross, rather than nailing wood himself. Here’s a meditation for you:

How many crosses might Jesus have made, connecting himself to the fates of so many others?

Next time : Providers

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Sufficiency – Representatives Series VIII

This will be the last post on re-presenting for a while. I’m going to be looking at fathers and sons for the next few days, because I was touched deeply by a passage in 1 Chronicles just the other morning. The passage is actually 1 Chronicles 22 : 6-16:

“Then he [David] called for Solomon his son and charged him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel. David said to Solomon, ‘my son, I had it in my heart to build a house to the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying “you have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth. Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever.” Now, my son, the Lord be with you, so that you may succeed in building the house of the Lord your God, as he has spoken concerning you. Only, may the Lord grant you discretion and understanding, that when he gives you charge over Israel, you may keep the law of the Lord your God. then you will prosper if you are careful to observe the statutes and the rules that the Lord commanded Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Fear not; do not be dismayed. with great pains I have provided for the house of the Lord 1,000,000 talents of gold, a million talents of silver, and bronze and iron beyond weighing, for there is so much of it; timber and stone, too, I have provided. To these you must add. You have an abundance of workmen: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, and all kinds of craftsmen without number, skilled in working gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Arise ands work! the Lord be with you!’ “

There’s much here. Most importantly for this post, however, is the record of how much David has already done for Solomon in his task. This is the foundation that has been laid, the work already complete. The ingredients are there, just put them together.

My thinking about this passage leads me down some interesting roads. As Christians, we’re taught that Christ finished the work of salvation on the cross, and that all we need to do is realize that and accept it. Easier said than done, because I don’t think we’re even aware of how much is done around us and behind the scenes on a daily basis. I live in a culture of self-sufficiency, achievement, and ambition, in which everything is measured by the ruler of how much, how many, or how fast. I take for granted all sizes of things, from the protection of a house to the ability to walk, or to breathe unaided. Where Christ really gets counter-cultural, and where we all need our hearts thoroughly transformed, is that Christ is sufficient, providence is sufficient. Two Hebrew names for God are thus : Jehovah-Jireh, ‘The Lord Will Provide’, and Jehovah-Shammah, ‘The Lord is There’. Can we honestly say we live in this knowledge? I certainly can’t. My daily life is not always lived in the expectation or the assurance of provision, or even in the knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes.

Aside from this rabbit-trail, however, my point is thus: David provided some of the material for the building of the house of the Lord, entrusting Solomon with the task of providing the rest – this point is where I’ll start my father and son posts – but the last word on Representatives for now is simply this: As Christians, we need to live a life that demonstrates that God in Christ and through Him is sufficient; he provides in times of need, whether that need be spiritual, relational, or physical; and He takes great pains to do it.

How great those pains are can be measured by the outspread arms of His Son as he lay stretched on the cross.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Humility – Representatives Series VII

You may have noticed this: People love to be served.

They just seek good service for the wrong reasons.

I want you to focus on two things, right now. The first is that people expect good service because they think that who they are warrants it. The second is going to be a bit more important. It is this: If we honestly look at ourselves, we find that it’s very hard to let people serve us, so hard, in fact, that when we watch the Passion of the Christ, for example, we can be more convicted during the foot-washing scene than we may be during the flogging scene.

But this is the most important service we will ever receive.

Let me look at this a bit more closely.

First, people expect good service because they think that who they are warrants it.

It’s not true.
At all.

Seriously.

Take it from me. But in this cynicism, and it’s something that I need to repent of, we forget to love the people we serve, and more importantly, we do not serve with the intent of glorifying God. None of us live without grace playing itself out over and over again. Polite ignorance when a faux pas is discovered at a party, for example. White lies told to calm or to soothe. Disproportionate forgiveness of faults or of blunders. We do not deserve what we have been given…no, not at all. But we are given it nonetheless. The problem comes when we credit it to our own merits or our own righteousness. We expect to be treated as the center of the universe, that which must be given to without ever hoping for recompense. That’s not God. That’s certainly not Jesus. That is the sin of pride, and that’s what got Morningstar himself kicked out of Heaven.

My second observation is tricky. I say that if we…at least if I…look honestly at myself, I can’t avoid saying that I have difficulty with the service some people seek to offer me.

I can’t stand being served in the forms that I most need.

Then, looking at Jesus as he washed the disciples’ feet, I see that it is required. John 13:8 “Peter said to him, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him ‘If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.’ “

As Peter could not understand a Saviour who served in the lowest form imaginable, so too do we not understand His act of foot-washing completely. We fight against help, being solitary but needful, and never admit that we are dealing with people wanting to step alongside, to offer assistance, or any other number of creative ways of helping.

But we have to seek a share with Him.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Christ : Supernatural 1 – Holy Spirit

Unpredictable. Dangerous. Powerful.

This is the Holy Spirit, and when it comes upon one in power, watch out.

There are precedents for it, certainly. Samson, Elijah, Moses. All were men filled with the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit.

And then there was the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers gathered in Jerusalem.

This is the Counselor promised by Christ, the Helper who will attend to the believers after His ascension.

Here’s where the ground gets tricky, because this is probably the most unsettling experience of the believer’s supernatural. The Holy Spirit cannot be predicted, and it will not be stopped in its course. It has also been the most abused of the charismatic doctrines, in my opinion, and has led to more exclusionary tactics than any other. At the same time, it’s also a part of any true revival ( a fraught term), in various ways.

The heart of the matter is, however, that I believe the Holy Spirit does still work in power, and that it does do wondrous things. It is also very dangerous ground to base a theology on, because if you allow a prevailing belief in the primacy of the Spirit in worship or in defining what makes one ‘Christian’, you are throwing wide the door to experiential theology, removing Christ from its center and allowing a great latitude in what is defined as spiritual, and as Christian. And that, my dear readers, is heresy in the making.

Remember: In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, Aslan is never SAFE to take for granted; oh no, not that.

But he’s GOOD.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Christ : Supernatural 1 – Gifts

In tackling gifts, it’s important to make it clear where I’m coming from

By gifts, I mean the existence of gifts on two distinct levels: Supernatural gifts – prophecy, speaking in tongues, angelic ministry, miracles, and supernatural discernment form one level, while gifts of character and of spiritually-empowered abilities form another.

It’s an imbalance between these two levels that is in part the cause of many turning away from the church. Debate rages about the place or non-place, and the importance of, supernatural gifts in the West, while the gifts of character and abilities that could enhance or transform the churches are often unremarked upon or, even worse, ignored completely. As a result, congregations dwindle in ignorance because they are not equipped with every good thing to perform their ministry. So we have huge buildings designed to hold hundreds of people, now home to a few souls whose abilities may perhaps be forgotten, or whose lives could be so much more fulfilled if given a chance to exercise their spiritual giftings.

After all that, I say that the supernatural gifts have not ceased in the West, and most certainly not in the larger world, but that they have been corrupted by sinfulness and relegated to horror stories. Prophecy becomes fortune-telling, angelic ministry becomes angel worship and New Age transcendentalism, tongues becomes gibberish and perverted isolationism, miracles become magic tricks. We live in a world where sin is active, where Satan is active, and where nothing divides one from another so strongly as perversions of good or holy hypocrisy. And that’s where the gifts cease. Not in the Lord’s good plan, but in the crooked and sinful generations of man, who start to claim powers not their own and lord them one over another.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Christ : Supernatural 1 – Miracles

Why is it so hard to see miracles?

In the West, I would argue that it’s because we don’t want to, but also because we are presently under the sentence of Romans 1:18-32. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll note it again.

As an offshoot of being under the wrath on the unrighteous, we are given supernatural works by charlatans and heretics, and the time of the magicians is coming on us again. But what we need to recall is that, though there’s a lot of tricky ground, miracles are Biblically precedented, as are supernatural occurrences among believers.

I wanted to do a mini-arc on the supernatural because it’s been a subject of long debate for me. I know it exists outside of the church, but I believe that any outworking of the supernatural outside of Christ-centered, Biblically-mandated miracles or supernatural occurrences is Satanic. This position is one that’s tricky to define easily, because there are many churches that claim supernatural occurences and experiences that are not Christian by virtue of the fact that their congregations are not Christ-centered. So I’m going to start at the foundation…Christ.

The conservative evangelical megachurch Mars Hill in Seattle is one example of a congregation that accepts Christ’s presence in the entire Bible, the summation of all of God’s revealed word and the metanarrative for the entire Christian holy Scriptures. This is where I’m going to start, because it’s a position that I hold as well.

I believe that Jesus Christ is present throughout the entire Bible, in various forms and guises that were not the revealed Jesus of the Gospels. He is the commander of the Lord’s army in Joshua and in 1 Kings, the rock and refuge of salvation and the deliverer in the Psalms, the fulfillment of prophetic words in various books of prophecy found in the Bible, and
the prefigured atonement sacrifice even as early as Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. He is unprecedented, yes, but not unrepresented. As such, the miracles he performs are not unique to New Testament understanding of Christianity, but are shown throughout the Bible. For example, the feeding of the nation of Israel in the desert is only one example of the future feeding of the five thousand by Christ.

Similarly, I believe that miracles continue to happen in the present age, and that there are precedents for them. As the Old Testament prefigured and included Jesus, so has Jesus’ historical ministry prefigured His work today. It is a continuous story. But ultimately, it’s all for Christ’s glory. And that must be the foundation of any ministry of the supernatural in this age.

So the ministry of miracles is an acceptable one, but it must be accomplished in the right heart. None of this is ours except by grace, and none of it is deserved. Miracles are not for my glory, nor are they even for the glory of those who witness them or are transformed by them, but they are Christ’s alone.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Glory – Representatives Series VI

Criss Angel’s Mindfreak.

It disobeys the rules of what we see as normal.

It frightens, but what’s more, it causes one to question.

But then there’s Peter, who had the courage and the faith to step out of the boat and walk on water himself.

But to whose glory is it?

See, the thing with Criss Angel is that it’s not clear who he’s doing his miracles for, other than for the crowds who watch him and for himself. There are certainly precedents for some of the things he accomplishes, Biblically, but those precedents are in Christ, and for Him. Matthew 14:22-33 gives us the story:

“Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. and after he dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said ‘it is a ghost!’ and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’
And Peter answered him. ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’”

This post marks a departure from the Representatives series for a mini-arc on the supernatural Jesus that we see in the gospels, because I’m going to need to talk about that in a few different ways in order to bring it to you. Here’s where the territory gets tricky, but hold on, because I think it’s going to be good.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Character – Representatives Series V

There are so many who claim Christ as their head, and then in character destroy Him. We’ve been hitting this point from various angles – Confusion as to what one is supposed to believe, what they’re supposed to look like; disobedience to one’s own better nature, freedom to act rightly and with love. They all fall under one thing…the radical polarization between Christ’s character and our own.

Character causes conflict. To be precise, personalities will conflict when brought into proximity with one another. Not everyone is going to be able to relate to or live with another person’s failings, or their blessings. For the hard-hearted single, the damage may be simply to be unable to enjoy the couples that they are friends with. For the controller, to step aside and be passive may be the conflict. I guess what I’m really trying to get to here is that we let our flaws define us on more than one occasion.

We need to embrace those flaws as parts of our character that can be changed or modified, rubbed smooth with love despite the jagged bits, and that’s what Christ, in essence, did. He moved around the spikes, the sharp and sharpened edges. He was a man, identifying completely and with complete sympathy with and for his fellow humans. But he was also God, incarnated to experience the range of humanity and willing to extend the hand of love and fellowship to those in need.

So those who argue Christ as a great moral teacher, or those who look at Him as a figure of myth and legend, or those who simply see the historical Jesus…they forget that His character is that which remains central to the Gospels. All of them. And they forget that for the Christian, the hope of glory is that we will be made Christ-like in character. So what we truly need to remember is that people see character before they see gospel. In fact, they might never see gospel except by character. So we need to be people of integrity and of honesty, and of grace and humility.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Freedom – Representatives Series IV

It is in obedience that we are free.

Transgression is freedom given false expression. It is self-will towards the actualization of alternative codes of conduct. Essentially, it asserts the self above others.

Disobedience is actually enslavement, because we are acting to benefit ourselves by breaking the codes that others have imposed upon us. We are thus captured by the need to be our own people.

Let’s look at some Bible for a minute, so you can see what I mean.

Romans 6:15-23
“What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I ams speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What’s the importance here, you might ask? Why do I need to think about where I’m ‘free’, how I define it, and what it means to me?

Because we all have prisons. We all look at the world, no matter where we stand in relation to Christ and no matter how successful we might be, as somewhere that can’t contain our ambitions. Or as something from which we need to escape, through drugs, alcohol, parties, or by any means necessary.

Not to put too simple a strain on it, but what is it we feel we need to escape from, whether in the mind or in the body? And what in the Hell is going on?

Stop and think about this for a minute. Biblically, Christ died to free us from sin. “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”(Galatians 5:1). Obviously, He had to set us free from something. His life, lived in obedience, was in fact a life that was lived towards freedom. But those many who deny Christ’s life as the expression of obedience unto freedom…

are still trying to escape from slavery.

Those who do not understand the message of the Bible are still aware of its practical working out in their lives, because they still feel the need to escape from the nameless things that surround them, and so turn to self-sufficiency.

And this hits the heart of Christians, too. Many of us are imprisoned by work, or by service, or simply because we are still living on our own terms, trying to accomplish everything by our strength and by our will.

But ultimately, there are still two things remaining. Freedom, and enslavement.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.