Prescriptions & Promises

If you were to watch me work for about 5 minutes (it doesn't take long) it wouldn't take very long for you to identify the fact that I have bad eyes. All the signs are there. I sit really close to the computer screen, I squint, I scrunch, I grimace, my mouth gapes... not a pretty picture. 

In thinking about this week's Small Group curriculum -- "Heart Idolatry" -- I wonder how many of us suffer from bad spiritual eyes. I wonder if our idolatry, our bent toward making small things into ultimate things, has made us blind.  I wonder if all the signs are there. I wonder if it makes us squint, strain, strive to see, to hold onto shifting shadow and scintillation but to no avail. I wonder if we grimace, if the malcontent oozes from our pores and permeates our actions. I wonder if our mouths gape from hunger, from longing, but are never satisfied. What's worse... I wonder if we can't see it when it's right in front of our faces. 

It takes a lot to make me see. A lot. At times, I wish it didn't take such a stern word to make me listen. It might be nice if the grip to keep me from wandering wasn't so firm. Yet, how terrible it would be to have those wishes fulfilled. What better word is there than a stern one given in love? What better grip is there than one that will never let go? For idolatrous and blind and depleting spiritual vision, there is no better prescription than a promise. So here... here are the lenses that I need to look through. Maybe you need them, too. 

1. "Oh afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony and your foundations in sapphires." - Isaiah 54:11
2. "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is perfected in weakness." - 2 Corinthians 12:9
3. "Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons." - Deuteronomy 4:9
4. "Therefore... consider Jesus..." - Hebrews 3:1
5. "Be anxious for nothing."  - Philippians 4:6
6. It's not about me. (Galatians 2:20)
7. "Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" - John 11:40
8. "Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you." Psalm 116:7
9. The cross is big enough, forgiveness strong enough.
10. Be strong and courageous. And do it. (2 Chronicles 28:20)
11. He hears. He knows.
12. His kindness leads us to repentance. Repentance leads to reconciliation. Reconciliation leads to peace. (Romans 2:4, Acts 3:19, 2 Corinthians 5:16-20)
13. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take / the clouds ye so much dread / are filled with blessing and shall break / in blessings on your head.
14. Kiss the rod of discipline. Embrace it. The Father disciplines those whom He loves. (Hebrews 12:3-13)
15. Whatever "this" is, it is not the end. THIS is the end: "Behold, I am making all things new." (Revelation 21:5)

The rest are for you to fill in. 

Nehemiah Was Man Enough To Wear Pink

Repentance

"They turn, but not upward..." Hosea 7:16

During the last few months... or 12 hours, more specifically... I've been thinking a lot about repentance. Those who have found themselves warming church seats for any considerable amount of time have heard the word "repentance" and its associated analogies. It's "turning to God, away from sin," "a 180 degree shift," and -- in perhaps its 'churchiest' incarnation -- a Sunday school felt board character doing a backflip and skipping away from the clutches of sin as children watch on in bewilderment. 

These incarnations, however, can be fairly cheap. They can be fairly impotent. When you're addicted to smoking and want to quit, holding a carrot between your first and middle fingers is a poor substitute for a cigarette. It doesn't fit the subtle curvature of your hand. It doesn't know the intimate rhythm of your breath. It certainly isn't soothing. (Unless you really like carrots. I mean, really like them.)

When it comes to the addiction of sin, the addiction of self, we certainly do not need carrots. We don't need to exchange the temporal for the temporal. We need to exchange the seen for the unseen. Turn laterally all you want -- but what you really need to do is seek up. 

During the last few months, the Lord has had the mercy and kindness to lead me to repentance. When I find myself scrambling, turning in circles to find a source of relief from the onslaughts of life, personal wounds, the waging war of sin and self, He intervenes with a simple truth: "Nothing is going to come and save you." Over and over, he says this. Literally. And He's right -- because He already did. There is complete and utter sufficiency in the cross of Christ -- past, present, future, forever. It is a fight to believe this unseen truth in our often contrary experience, but it is a fight worth fighting. If you fight to be the exception, thinking that "this" struggle is not covered by the cross, you fight battle already lost. 

The verse I mentioned at the beginning -- in Hosea -- goes on to describe the people of Israel as "a deceitful bow" since their repentance is not genuine and oriented toward God. Yet, as Martin Luther puts it, "God makes straight lines with crooked sticks." What a hopeful promise. No matter how deceitful the bow, it will be a straight shooter when wielded by Jesus. I hope we can all bank on this today.

"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12