Learning Grace

The more we walk in grace, and understand the ways of God, the less we will be rigid and legalistic. The Apostle Paul says that "The Law is a tutor that leads us to Christ." (Galatians 3:24). 

When we navigate by the letter of the Law, we are still learning that all of God's ways are steeped in a bath of grace. We have yet to learn that we could fulfill what God desires without unduly strict reinforcements. True authority is very gentle but very effective and powerful. Budding prophets can prophesy too harshly without the undergirding of grace. 

Budding evangelists can scare people with talk of hellfire rather than the love and grace of God. Budding teachers can give you lots of principles but not the seasoned life experience to show how that works out in real life. Budding leaders can see those they lead as a pack of wild stallions and pull back too hard on the reigns and hit too hard with the crop. They may focus on the task rather than the relational co-operation part that makes working as a team with a lot of strong members go forward as a joy rather than a job reminiscent of a chain gang!. We do not mature to a more detailed rulebook, but to the knowledge of who Jesus is. 

 As we move toward grace we begin to act out of deep patience and self-control, we see the ways of God and are not focused so much on the success or failure of the task at hand but on the relationship being built between us and God and between us and each other. Each of us, to mature in our callings, has to move from the legality of the rulebook to the grace of what is intended by the heart of God. Put down the rulebook today and ask God, "What are you trying to teach me?" Part of that will be greater grace and less rigidity.

Hope for Life and the Scent of Water

“For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 8Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; 9Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. Job 14:7-9

This morning, in the prayer meeting I was in, this verse was read. I’ve recently started to try to sprout some things hydroponically that I would have normally thought of as dead, done, or incapable of new life. I put an onion, rather mushy, in a cup of water and overnight it sprouted roots so long it took me aback. I did that with shriveled garlic bulbs, and now celery. I transplanted some motherwort yesterday and it drooped hopelessly until I watered it well. There is an important lesson here.

Think about the life that God has put in every living thing. We all need water to survive. We all like watching the sea, we like sitting next to water, we like to drink cold glasses of water on a cold day. Roots of plants gravitate toward water. In these verses from Job it speaks of a tree that is cut down and yet when it catches the scent of water it starts to bud. The scent of water. Not even water itself, but the mere smell of it gives hope.

I keep thinking about the onion though, it had been picked from a field somewhere in America, traveled in a truck or plane, sat at the store, then sat in my storage drawer til it probably almost lost hope, and then I put it in water and it showed its life springing from up from its depths. It’s continuing to put forth green onion shoots-- I don’t know how it makes them, but at night when I trim the shoots, by the next day, they grow back. Profound. Disturbingly, wonderfully profound: the strength of life.

I think I resonate with this because I can identify with the onion. Sometimes it seems like walking across a dry desert with no water in sight, and feeling like any hope of water is gone, but then encountering, first, the scent of Water from heaven, and then the Water of Life itself and suddenly coming back to life and feeling whole again. How powerful an experience! Animals in the desert know the scent of water, they know how to find their way to its life-giving place. We, too, have instincts for God. Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). The prophet Isaiah also says, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1). In the Book of Revelation a River of Life flows through the city of God.

There are things that cannot be quenched in our souls until we drink of that water.
And how shall we drink? How is this not just some kind of religious phrase that sounds good but doesn’t connect with reality? Jesus addresses this when the pharisee, Nicodemus comes to him at night to discuss spiritual things (John 3:3-13). Jesus tells him he must be born of water and the Spirit and Nick doesnt get it. He says, “What? Go into my mother’s womb again?” Jesus, he had to be shaking his head, “You are a spiritual leader in Israel and you don’t understand this?” 

We drink of that heavenly water through relationship with Jesus Christ. When we call out to Him, to quench our thirst, something in us is enlivened. Our spirit comes to life, like an onion responding to water, and we smell the scent of water, then drink of it. It is a spiritual process. I can’t explain how it happens just like I can’t explain how plants grow using just water. But the difference between drinking and not drinking is life and death. You know that. So go take a drink. And if you don’t know how, tell God about your thirst and let Him lead you to water. It will be then up to you to drink of it.

Is it I, Lord?

We are approaching the end of Passover and Matthew’s gospel gives us the chilling account of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. Judas had been out and about making preparations to betray Jesus but he sits down with all the other disciples at the Passover supper. Jesus is aware of what is happening, and I can’t imagine how painful this is to Him.

The text says, “As they were eating, He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me” (Matt. 26:21). The disciples are extremely shocked and sad, after all, it's not something you want to hear after living day and night with Jesus for three years. It’s not something you bring up during the middle of a holy meal, yet Jesus did just that. He did it in the middle of His community, because its not just His betrayal, it is the community’s betrayal. He is aware of who the betrayer is, aware of all that will happen later that evening, and yet here He sits in the middle of His family, of which one is the betrayer.

I think Jesus did this prophetic act so that later when the disciples thought of it, they would know that Jesus knew and that His death did not come by chance, but was something that Jesus knew He was headed for and destined for. There is something disconcerting about following a leader who doesn’t see it coming. There is something incredibly inspiring about following a leader who does see it coming and stands up into His destiny despite what it costs.

Jesus does nothing to try and talk Judas out of it, but he does say that it would have been better for HIs betrayer not to have been born. I can only imagine the face of Judas going white then going red with increased blood pressure as he realizes that Jesus knows. I can only imagine. I can’t imagine.

Jesus extends the question to all the disciples and it hangs in the air like a heavy cloud darkening the atmosphere of the celebration of the Lord’s saving act to His people so long ago. But here is my point. As He looks at each of His disciples, they one by one ask, “Lord, is it I?” Each of them had the heart to find out if it was they themselves that would betray Him.

I’m sure their hearts were not completely pure and like a searchlight, this announcement by the Lord would bring up any times when they doubted that Jesus was who He said He was or anytime they had been pushed past their ability to understand and had thought to leave Him. I’m sure they quickly began to wager a guess as to who it was as they pushed aside any sense of their own guilt. Yet in that moment, suspended in some sort of eternal moment of decision, they had the courage to ask “Is it I?”

What a penetrating question that struck deep into their hearts, separating soul and spirit. For whatever reason, even Judas asks this of Him. Perhaps it was to cover his guilt, to appear surprised, even to test Jesus, perhaps all those things. His question springs as a cover for guilt and not as a genuine inquiry.

It is a time to allow the Lord to ask us tough questions. He asks these questions so the deepest things in our hearts can rise to the surface to be helped. He did this from start to finish in His ministry and He was doing it there and then--but He is also doing it here and now. His questions are never because He doesn’t know the answer but because He does know the answer all too well and we do not. Our hearts are expert at hiding the truth, the real reason, the actual cause. Jesus!

Let us let You search our hearts, dear Lord! Look deep, ask us the hard questions, reveal, uncover, expose so that You might make us true and straight as an arrow shot from the quiver of God. Let every pretense, every hiding place, be searched. We needn’t be afraid to admit we need help. So, Lord, Help us! Make us “pure and holy, tried and true.” Please.