X Does Not Equal Y

"I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them." 

 - Bob Goff, author of "Love Does"
(mandatory must read for the summer...)

Recently I had a conversation with someone who was creating doctrines out of "one-liners," essentially judging the behaviors of others with consequences they saw fitting from the Bible based on one single sentence in Scripture.

X = Y.

This is dangerous business, the doling out of judgments, biases, and "God's" reprimands.  This is what denominations and religions and cults and cliques and exclusive clubs within Christianity have been built on for ages and in more recent years, I personally see it gaining momentum.  A momentum which is building even in light of all the free love and acceptance that's preached on any given Sunday.

This business alone is God's.  Just God's.  God revives hearts.  God's mission is all of us.  God is the miraculous.

How very helpful we must feel to point out the imperfections of others...you know, because God can't see them on His own and all.  And what we have to show others in being right and proving their wrongness will sure teach them and inspire them to want to be more like us...urrr, God, I mean.

Sin is real.  And sin is painful.  And we all sin.  And the truth is, we don't sin exclusively, meaning, it doesn't only affect us, it affects our relationship with God and our loving relationship and connectedness to other humans.  Sin is a big deal.  But not so big that God can't forgive it...and never so big that we can't go to Him and receive renewal in His grace, every day, fresh each morning.

It seems it's only the humans who want to keep pointing out one another's suckiness...

I can think of two specific examples where God gave "X = Y" a swift kick in the pants.  There are tons more, but these two I've been chewing on more recently.

• One is when the super spiritual people of the day approach Jesus and ask him about this blind guy, stating, "Who sinned, the man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?"  The Message answer reads, "Jesus said, 'You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines."
• Another is when the spiritual ones brought to Jesus a woman who had an affair.  They pointed out the laws written stating she should be stoned because of her behavior.  Rocks would hurt.  They would definitely kill her.  I wonder how many of the spiritual ones said stuff like, "Well, she deserves it, I mean, she's the one who had the affair..." And then Jesus said, "The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone."  And then it says, "Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone."

Then let's just chuck it all.  I mean, pointing fingers and segregating throughout the course of church history has clearly made the world a better place.  Either chuck it all, God, baby, and the bath water, or, better yet, because this has definitely been more effective:  let's surround ourselves with people who believe the exact. same. things. we do and then let's point out all the ways in which everyone else doesn't measure up to what it is we believe.  Yep.  That, for sure, will convey God's supernatural, unconditional love, grace, forgiveness, and Sacrifice to a hurting world.

How is it, then, that we should live?  "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’  These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” - The Message, Matthew 22:36-40

So then what?  Just love God with all your guts, and love everybody else and yourself as #2?  Is it that simple?  

And yet it's almost excruciating at times, because usually what we hate the most in others and are able to see blatantly in the behavior of others is what we most readily recognize within ourselves.
  
Radical love isn't pointing out one another's shit.  It's walking through it together.

The Written Word

Every. Single. Day. All. Over. The. World. Things. Happen. That. Are. Horrible.

And I don't understand. 

But instead of being gripped with fear, overcome with worry, or lashing out in anger, I go to The One who sees the bigger picture and I sit.  I sit before The One Who was and is and is to come.  And that's the root of this post...

I'm a sucker for the past.

For those more modern lovers of the past, nostalgic things of days gone by may be referred as: retro, vintage, mid-century modern, even antique, or archaic, though that one's been around a while.

I'm retro (circa '70's), my parent's are vintage (post-war), and my grandparents were antiques (early 1900's).

I love history, the ways in which it has shaped us, as well as the impact it has on our hearts for how we view today and the future, even how we love people.

Specifically, I like pens and paper.  As one bent toward writing, I'm nostalgic for ink and a notebook, the beauty of cursive and creative expression that transfers from heart and mind onto paper, whether just for myself, or for the encouragement of others, brings life to my bones. 

This year my word is #INTENTION.  Intention with God.  Intention with myself.  Intention with my family and friends.  Intention in the day to day, the little things, things which others may find trivial.

I guess I'm a sucker for believing God can speak to me any way He wants, without a giant cathedral or pulpit, "popular" speaker or teacher, without formal training in a man-made seminary.  I'm a sucker for moments when the thoughts that are smarter than ones I could think up on my own are poured out onto the pulp in front of me, in real life.

And so I sit with pen and paper and an open heart before God.  Because boxing Him in hasn't worked so well for me in the past...and I'm still learning this.

I sit.  I wait with #INTENTION.  And as I sit, mouth closed, ears open, heart ready, pen in hand, He speaks.  Just as He has throughout history, He speaks today, using the true words scribed in the past, making it alive today because of the Holy Spirit at work in us.

His words bring life to our bones.  And every word has been, and always will be, part of His love story with us...

Here's a visual:

I'm so thankful for the day my parents told me my Bible was a book in which I could write notes...

*Are you a sucker for pen and paper?  What are some of your favorite ways of recording or remembering the promises and whispers of God's love to you?

INTENTIONAL PUPIL

God’s been having me write out some scriptures for myself to study and really chew on, if you will.  

For me, writing it down, or typing it, helps get it into my heart more and more.  

He’s really put it on my heart to be an intentional pupil of His Word, like basically back in college, getting a Major in God Studies :)  

(That's the last page of the Bible...and across the page are Noah's footprints from his last night on earth...)

Some of them are being spurred on from a Daniel study I’m doing by Beth Moore.  But He has put it on my heart to encourage others, as well, and for my own accountability.  Please don’t think I’m trying to re-write scripture.  I’m just stringing it together for the overall message, into one challenge to myself, for a complete thought.  I hope it encourages your hearts, too, on your own journeys.  

Love, Ade xoxox

It’s from The Message, Hebrews 12, John 11, 1 Peter 1 & 2.


“Do you see what this means – all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on?  It means we’d better get on with it.  Strip down, start running – and never quit!  No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.  Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in.  Study how he did it.  Because he never lost sight of where he was headed – that exhilarating finish in and with God...when you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through.  That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!  God is educating you; that is why you must never drop out.  This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it training...it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.  Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall...Help each other out.  And run for it!  When Jesus got the message, He said, “This sickness is not fatal.  It will become an occasion to show God’s glory by glorifying God’s Son.”  So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives.  Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing.  You didn’t know any better then; you do now...let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness.  You call out to God for help and he helps – he’s a good Father that way.  But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living.  Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God.  Even though it has only lately – at the end of the ages – become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you...drink deep of God’s pure kindness.  Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God.  Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, offering Christ-approved lives up to God.  To you who trust him, he’s a Stone to be proud of...for the untrusting, they trip and fall because they refuse to obey, just as predicted.  But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high-calling...God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you – from nothing to something..Friends, this world is not your home, so don’t make yourselves cozy in it.  Don’t indulge your ego at the expense of your soul.  Live an exemplary life among the natives...then they’ll be won over to God’s side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives...good citizens...It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society...cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in.  I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime.  Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine.  When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.  The Day is coming when you'll have it all – life healed and whole.”

What I'm chewing on...

I wanted to share some scriptures that I'm going to be meditating on this week, or for however long. I could type a million words here, but there is nothing on this earth more refreshing to me, whether I want to hear it or not, than God's Word.

My sweet friend a few years back made me a box of hundreds of scripture cards, all laminated and in pretty colors...yes, she was an Elementary school teacher...anyway, I keep it on a coffee table in my bedroom and while I feed Ryan I flip through these cards that are much more than just cards, but literal food for every part of my being.

In Jason's line of work it is common place, though heart-breaking, to encounter starvation and malnutrition.

In America it is common place to encounter over-eating or over-consumption, yet we rarely, if ever, equate it with the same definitions: starvation and malnutrition, lack or being without.

In America, we have so much. We have plenty. We have more than enough and even some of the most impoverished people in our country are better off than many of those in 3rd world countries.

And, in America, in American Christianity, there are many that on the outside look well-fed and nourished, yet on the inside are truly starving, barely surviving.

I lived like that for years...trying to follow Christ without getting to know Him in His Word...

John chapter six talks about Jesus being the "bread of life." In the wilderness when the Jews were wandering, God provided literal food, manna bread, for the people to ingest. For years, thousands of them, people have taken that sign as something with which we are to fill our lives with...we find comfort in it.

I found comfort in it for years...

The Jews were very comfortable knowing they'd find manna each morning out in the wilderness. Of course, then they started grumbling since they were eating it every single day...they longed for variety.

Jesus is that variety. He satisfies in a way we are unable to explain so that when our lives are in transition, holding patterns, complete chaos, knowing and trusting Christ brings a peace that no meal could satisfy.

Anyway, that wasn't what I was going to share...I was going to share the scriptures that I am chewing on, feasting on, in the days ahead. I hope they are an encouragement and challenge to you, as well.

• "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." NIV Psalm 51:12 Here's The Message version that ROCKS!
  
• "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." NIV John 15:4 Here it is in The Message.
• "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." NIV Galatians 5:22-23 Here it is in The Message.

It's so cool how these were the first 3 scripture cards in my little box this morning...and how they progress as you dig deeper into each one.

So that's what I'm chewing on. Want a bite?