Beauty in Following.

(http://epiphany-lutheran.com)

There is a beauty in following Christ than is near-indescribable. It is a complex thing when you scrutinize it, but a very simple thing when you take it for what it is.

Why it is complex:

God created man. Man sinned. Man plunged into revolving darkness. Hope disappeared. Darkness prevailed. Light was shadowed. But then Hope was born in the most hopeless of times and places. Hope rose to live a life that pointed to attainable perfection to the law. Hope was the Messiah, the Saviour of Man. Christ abode in God, pleasing the Father and embracing His love. Christ died for sin, though sinless was he. Christ was buried in the grave, fully dead. Hope was buried with Him and darkness filled the world again because the hope found in Christ died when He breathed His last.

Then three days later hope broke free from the clutches of despair and rose with Christ with radiant light, casting off the tendrils of darkness. Christ rose from the dead and brought with Him life everlasting to those who accepted His call to repent and follow. And that's a key thing to note. Christ died for our sins so that we could be reconciled with God and be restored into His Kingdom and be able to live with Him. But then He arose to new life. For one, it was to fulfill the word of God; and another, it was to enable us to walk in newness of life. When Christ died, we were able to die to sin. When Christ rose, we were and are able to rise up again to life anew. And it is with this new life that we can follow Christ when He beckons us.


Why it is simple:

Christ redeemed us. It is only logical to follow Him in respect of gratitude.

Satan wants us to turn that simplicity it to irrationality. He wants us to fear. What if Christ leads us to treacherous places? What if we go alone? What if we get hurt emotionally or physically? What if He leads us to a completely foreign place to our expectations? What if...?

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. --1John 4:18

We have nothing to fear. When we follow Christ, we follow love.

 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. --1John 4:16

And that is the beauty. Wherever Christ leads us, we will walk in His love. Whatever we experience, we do so through His love. Whomever we meet, we encounter by the love of Christ. We have nothing to fear for what lies ahead or where we will end up because Christ is leading us in the love of the Father.

So follow Christ.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. --Matt. 16:24

Repent and Follow: The Heart of the Gospel.

(http://foundurself.files.wordpress.com)

It's like driving on a highway. First, you need to change your
mind about where you are at and where you are headed,
then choose to take the next exit that leads you to a different place.

The moment John the Baptist stepped onto the scene to announce the Messiah's presence, his message was repentance. The very first message Jesus brings is "to repent." The word repent is an important one. Often we blow it up, making it more complicated than it really is. The Greek word gives the idea to go against a particular thinking pattern as well as going with another pattern of thinking. To change your mind. Thus, Jesus calls us to change our minds--our minds about ourselves, about God, about the future of mankind, and about God's love. Why? Because the Christ is about to reign as King in Earth and in our lives. We ought change our minds that we can live how we desire. We can no longer view ourselves as our own, but that we are property of King Jesus. Turn away from self-ruling and turn to Christ-submission.

The next message Jesus has is on a more interpersonal level. He visits two fishermen. He goes to them and tells them to follow, or to come after, Him. Jesus wants us to stop what we are doing and follow after Him and do things His way. Jesus comes to us in our way of living and gives us the opportunity to come after Him, to follow Him. He then speaks to us on our terms and uses our skills and knowledge to fulfill His kingdom, should we choose to accept His calling. Jesus told these fishermen that He had a task of fishing after men. Of casting out a net and catching people for the Kingdom of Christ. They would use their skills on knowing how not to scare fish (people) off. They would use their skills of patience and endurance. All the while, they would be following Christ. Learning new tricks, learning new methods on how to add to the Kingdom of Christ. And it all starts with changing your mind and following after Christ.

That is the Gospel. "Change your mind about sin and yourself and turn away from the worthless pursuits of darkness and instead understand that Jesus is your King and choose to follow Him, learning His love and experiencing the society of the Kingdom." It's like driving on a highway. First, you need to change your mind about where you are at and where you are headed, then choose to take the next exit that leads you to a different place. Understand where you are with sin and the direction it is taking you (death), and then choose to turn away from sin and follow after Christ and take the road to a different destination (life).

Grace, Scars, and the Will of God.

"But God"...will show you His will.

He will not hide it under a log for you to dig up. He will not dangle it in front of you among five other options and have you grab at one like on a TV game show, hoping you get the right one.
God created you for a purpose He wants to fulfill in you. And that right there is a blessed thought. Because of this: Sin will not so much disqualify you from fulfilling that as it is you turning away from God's path and choosing your own way.
Yes. Sin is stupid. Yes there are consequences. It destroys so many things. But God is greater than your sin. He can overcome it and use your weakness to show Himself strong in you. He will take your flaws and turn them into beauty. He will bind up your wounds so you can in turn point those who have been injured like you to the Shepherd and the Healer.
Sin is stupid. And Life isn't a movie where you ought to pursue after flaws and look out for those plot twists like God using your flaws to expand His kingdom. We are going to screw up enough on our own without intentionally keeping it in our mind that the Grace of God upholds us.

Maybe I am the only one who does that. I find myself in such a constricted world. I enjoy writing and I enjoy pondering in the creative mind. That is how I come up with potential conversations in my head. If I am supposed to have a meeting with someone, then I will recite my lines and concoct all sorts of rivers that the conversation could flow--for better or worse.

And I've somehow become of a mind that says: if you're going to screw up, then screw up big time. That way you can minister to people better. They will see how flawed you are and realize that if the grace of God extends to me, then it will definitely extend to the as well. It's a movie of sorts. The drunkard of a street bum sobers up, starts ministering to street youth to keep them from the dangers of alcohol. Then he seeks out those already in the clutches of their addictions and points them to the Saviour who can break every chain. He will point to his old "home" stained with the spillage of his drunken stoops. He will point to the scars on his body where he barely escaped alive from a car collision that he caused by being drunk behind the wheel. He will then take them to the cemetery where the teenager he killed by his recklessness rested in peace. Then he will raise his arms and, with a tear in his eye, proclaim in a silent roar: "How great is our God! He has broken my chains of greed and lust and addiction. He can break yours, too."

That is what God can do, sure. But it is a thing that ought be far, far away from our mind to pursue in order to further the kingdom. We should never seek to drink the darkness of sin so we can minister to those drunk with the darkness. We should drink of life so we can boldly and with full assurance offer the water of life.


So you were made with a purpose. God created you to be a engineer or a doctor or a teacher or a pastor or a missionary or a mechanic. He gave you experiences and joys and hobbies and passions that has fashioned you for His will. God doesn't want you to have to guess. The faith He requires of you is not choosing the right bend in the fork in the road. But rather this: To take a step in his way even when it seems scary or hard or painful. It is to trust God to provide and to keep and to protect.
The disciples were told to follow Christ. To give up their lives and follow Him. They were placing faith in which road to take, they were placing faith in the fact that if they followed, they would have nothing.
When Zaccheus chose to follow God, he knew that he should stop swindling people out of their money. He had to trust God to provide when he repaid everyone fourfold. He had to trust God not to be murdered on the spot when he came to each house to repay.
Abram was given a direction to go with little else information. He had to trust that God would keep him safe during the journey. He had to trust God to provide him with the land He was leading him to. Abram had day by day instruction, but never the final destination until he reached it. He wasn't making a guess, he was following God strictly.

So we, too, ought to follow God. Not as if we have to hope we jump out onto the right invisible platform. But we should follow Him knowing this is where He wants us and trusting Him to keep His word. If we decide to turn away from Him and we get scraped up, we just need to turn back to Him. Then along the way share with those we meet the truth that turning from God produces pain and wounds that run deep.

So may we follow God. Maybe where we are at now is not the final destination, but the road to make it. We are here to learn, to impact others, and to continue on. Not impulsively, but by God's decree. Trust God. Follow God. Love God. And abide in Christ.

Raking in a Leaf Storm

It's that time of year. Fall in full swing and Winter is knocking on the door. Leaves are changing colors and the lawn is covered in leaves. It is a somewhat comical to watch someone rake leaves and more fall to the ground either while is raking or an hour later. There are two ways to deal with that if you don't want to rake then rake then rake.
One is to let all the leaves fall to the ground and then work to rake them up. If you have a big tree or lots of trees, then the task could amount to incredibly sore arms and blisters on your palms. Perhaps even a bad case of chapped lips.
Another is to cut the tree down and rake up the mess. It's a big option, but if you want to stop raking leaves, then that's a good option. After all, the tree is alive. It isn't death. It just drops off its dead products to the ground. So that's the problem. It is a healthy tree, so why cut it down? It's thriving, just going through a period where it sheds death every five minutes. Your tree could be nice. It could provide fun with a swing or a fort. Or it could provide relief from the heat of the day.

So the question rises: what do we dislike the most about the situation? Is raking really all that bad? Sure it looks bad to have leaves on our lawn; sure it is a pain to rake up the mess; sure we could even bear the marks in our hands where we have labored endlessly. But is it that bad? Is it bad enough to cut down that maple so we don't have to rake again?


We all have trees in our lives that shed leaves of death and decay. Trees of lust and of hatred and of power and of idolatry. They seem to be great. When they're in their ideal stage, we have a shade from the pressures of the day. We also have a fun escape to withdraw from what we fight for day in and out and just play 'house' in the treehouse. But then seasons change. Our trees go from looking green and lush to brown and crackly. One by one the leaves fall, crashing on us the shade of our rest. Now we have dead leaves laying around us that need removing. So we haul out the rake and scrape at our lawns trying to rid ourselves of the disgrace. Days are spent, but the leaves keep coming.

So what do we do? People watch as we foolishly rake up our mess in the midst of the falling down of our mistaken refuge. If we just stop and stare and let the products of death sprinkle around us, then we must endure the glares of our neighbors for having such an unkempt life. Once we get to the point where the leaves are on the yard, we must fight against massive layers of leaves, brisk winds.

Then our other option is to chop the tree down. But we remember the fun. We remember the relief. We remember what it felt like just to ignore the world and bask in our alter-reality. Can we really go through with that? What happens when the sun shines brightly and we must sit under the pounding rays and experience sunburns? What happens when we come home from a stressful day and we have no swing to allow the wind to soothe our head and heart?

That's when Christ sprouts up through the ground. He becomes our True Vine. He becomes the source of our shade and shelter and comfort and rest. He is the one we can latch onto and never die. He is the one we can gain energy and by Him our fruits can be produced in us. No longer is death on the ground by our roots, but we have fruit ripened all around us where people can see and even taste to discover that God is good and is faithful. We can't produce those fruits; we are just branches. But God produces them in us when we attach ourselves to His love and grace and mercy.


So let us stop raking in a leaf storm and start chopping our trees down. God gives us the tools. God gives us the strength. Once we cut the tree down, then we ought to burn the roots. Let's rake the leaves onto the root system and let the fire of God devour our dead life of sin. And then, when all is destroyed and we stand under the face of the sun, may we turn to the True Vine and abide in Him. Then watch as the snow falls all around us as our lawn and lives become as pure and white as snow because Christ love courses through our veins, because God's grace strengthens us day by day, because we have fruit of righteousness and of life because Christ produces them in us.



John 15
Romans 6
Psalm 1

The Power of Sin (but the Stronger Power of God's Love)

On the day the heavens burst out in spectacular light and the earth took form with waters and gases and rocks and plants and life, God knew us. More than that, He loved us. The moment He said "Let there be light" He knew he would create mankind, and He loved us.

He also knew that Man would choose to denounce the love of God and follow after the lure of Sin. Sin is a spiritual "deity" in the sense that it is not a physically seen thing. Satan is a pawn of Sin and not Sin himself--because Lucifer was lured away from God's love, too, by the power of Sin. Sin, therefore, is the opposite of God. God is holy, God is pure, God is light. However, Sin is unholy, Sin is darkness, Sin is all impurity. And God knew Man would be lured away by the power of Sin. And still He created us and loved us.

That love for us is what prompted Him to prepare for that day we chose darkness over the Light. He ordained His son to die as a sacrifice for Sin. Not to push it off as would happen on altars throughout the days of Adam and Noah and Jacob and Elijah, but instead remove it from our hearts completely. Because He loved us.

So Man was lured. Man declined. Man became tainted with darkness. Because darkness cannot exist in the light, man was banished from the presence of God. And instantly sacrificing became the norm of life. Adam taught his sons the way to make amends for their sins by sacrificing innocent blood of a lamb. After a while, Cain was lured by Sin and offered a displeasing sacrifice. Perhaps he thought he was doing fine by offering his first fruits by his duty of the land just like Abel was offering of the fruits by his duty of the livestock. But Cain didn't do fine. God wanted the burning of animal to permeate the air, not plants.

 Sin was vicious and demanded every opposite thing of God: darkness, death, pride, anger, hatred. So Mankind was lured again in recorded history and Cain murdered his brother in an act of hatred and anger. And yet God loved us.

God continued to reveal ways for His creation to follow after Light. He knew the end of Sin's way was death and that the end of God's was life. He gave laws: Do this, but don't do that. He gave priests to help people live right. He gave prophets to send messages on how to follow God. But Man continued to be lured by Sin, deeper and deeper into the darkness. But He loved us.

So finally God acted upon what He ordained the moment He created all. He sent His son to Earth to live with mankind. To experience human life. Christ ate like a man, communicated like mankind. He learned and taught like humans did. He felt pain both emotionally and physically. He grew up alone. He began His ministry and chose 12 followers as He became their Rabbi. They grew close, but soon He was betrayed. He was stabbed in the back by a kiss on the cheek. And then in a (not-so-fast) blink, Jesus was offered as the sacrificial lamb, putting an end to Death's reign and Sin's dominion. Because God loved us.

And that moment we allow Christ to forgive our sins and clean us from the darkness and implant His light into us, we can never regress. Never again will our hearts be stained by Sin and thus would cause us to be condemned from the presence of God. But we now have His Light abiding in us.

And thousands of years ago God knew we would struggle. He knew we would be lured again even after being given the Light. He knew we would trip and fall. He knew we would cry as we neared abandoning His Light. He knew we would deny His grace and give up. He knew we would cling to death and hatred. And yet He loved us and cleansed us.

And now He loves us. He looks on our weakness and our failures. And He whispers to us Life and Love. He informs us that even though we fail, we are not failures. Even if we follow after the darkness, His Light has not departed from us. Even though we are weak, He is strong.

God knows Sin has great power. Sin has had its grip on mankind for centuries and centuries. Sin even ripped out angels from Heaven. Sin is powerful. God knew we would give in to our weakness. But God is stronger. God can overcome that in which we wallow in defeat. God can show us Love so we can deny the false pleasures of sin. God can set ablaze a Light in our heart to ward off the darkness of Sin.

Because God loves us, He doesn't want to see us walk in darkness. Therefore He has given us His Light.
May we embrace that Light and denounce the darkness.
May we encounter His love so we can abandon Sin's hatred.
May we experience His Life so we can reject Sin's death.

Because the power of God's love is stronger than the power of Sin, we can overcome by the love of God.

Infatuation with Death.

For whatever reason, humans are infatuated with death. Religions across the world and time have created gods of death and underworlds where the dead reside. Holidays commemorate the dead throughout cultures. Gravesides leave lasting monuments to people who pass by, proclaiming their deaths and that life for them is just about to end in less than 80 years.

We fascinate ourselves with Autumn because the leaves change colors. But in reality the orange and red and brown are all the colors the dying leaves give off. Living leaves are mostly green.

Christians and Catholics look to the death of Christ daily, creating emblems and monuments to recount His death on the cross.

Christians celebrate the deaths of their addictions and sins.

But in death there is often life. Whether it is before or after the death incident, there was life. When Autumn comes, there were seasons of life. After Autumn comes those same seasons of life in a cycle. But we don't celebrate the leaves in the same way. We celebrate the death of winter, or the maybe actually the life of flowers. But we get old of living leaves quickly.

When Christ died, he rose back to life after three days. He conquered death and embraced life. Yet we don't preoccupy ourselves with His life. We don't make Empty Tomb necklaces or make pillars with the Empty Tomb etched in them.



And we don't pursue Christian freedom as a new life. We view it as a final death hold on sin: that moment we conquer a sin habit and live in freedom. But it is more than killing sin, it is resurrecting righteousness. When we pursue righteousness, we embrace Christ's resurrection. When we go about seeking to live different lives, it ought to be because we want to live, not because we want to die.

Christ calls us to die, only so we can live. We can't live in Christ if we don't die to sin. But our pursuit shouldn't be death, it should be life. We should embrace the Kingdom of the Living.

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses," --Col. 2:13

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. " --Eph. 2:4-5

The focus is not death, but life. We were made alive, even when we were dead, because God loves us. God brought us to life.

Am I Not Worth More than Ten Sons?

1 Samuel begins with the story of Hannah. She was the wife of a man named Elkanah. Elkanah had one other wife also whose name was Peninnah. Peninnah was able to bear children. Hannah, as we know, was unable to. She was barren. Well, in their customs, when a woman could not have children she would be considered worthless. Afterall, women were already lower than men and when you add to that barrenness, then what use is a woman?

Elkanah was a man of God. He would go to the temple yearly and offer sacrifices to the Lord there. When he sacrificed, he would give a portion to Peninnah and her sons and daughters. However, to Hannah he would give double portions, showing to her that he still loved her even if she didn't bear children. As the years went by Hannah got tired of seeing Peninnah bear children while she bore none. She was heartbroken. No matter what she did, she could not conceive a child. She stopped eating and started weeping. This caused Elkanah to be distressed. He turned to her and asked her what the problem was, why she was so distraught that she would quit eating. He was perplexed. "Am I not more to you than ten sons?"


God showed me how this relates to Him and our spiritual condition. We are married to Christ. Sometimes we have problems of sin habits that we can't conquer. We can't produce fruit of perfection. (Note that I don't believe in sinless perfection can be obtained and never dealt with again, but rather sinlessness can be a perpetual state that you fight for. You choose to sin, therefore theoretically you can choose not to sin continually.) However, while we are struggling with being barren, there are other people we see that have it made. They have many overcome sins. They have the social thumbs-up for their productive lives. And yet we get looked down upon for not bearing. That's when God gives us grace. He gives us special things like grace so that we can avoid believing God is loving us because He has to, but because He wants to.


Hannah could not bear children. She had to come to the point where she simply had to trust in God to provide for her a son. She knew it wasn't her husbands fault--Peninnah bore children. Therefore it was all on her. But, if you think logically, the only way for her to even be "eligible" to have a child is if she pursued a relationship with her husband. If she didn't, there would be no children. Logical. She had to do her part and trust God to come in and do his: take away her barrenness.

So is true with our situations. We cannot possibly ever bear the fruit of perfection if we do not pursue a relationship with God. If we simply stop going to God, then we will never overcome sin and we will never bear fruit. We must pursue a relationship with God and allow Him to bear the fruit in us.

And just like Elkanah looked at Hannah and asked "Am I not more to you than ten sons," God asks us a simpler question. "Am I not worth more to you than overcoming sin?" Our pursuit should not be to be free from sin. Our pursuit is to love God and better our relationship with Him. We ought to view God as being much more to us than having overcome ten sin habits.

God wants us to be free from sin. So He will bear those fruits in us. It isn't a question of whether he will or not. It is a matter of whether we will pursue a relationship with God. We cannot ever bear fruits of righteouesness if we never pursue a relationship with God. We must do our part by loving Him and pursuing Him alone. He will deal with the rest.

Tale of the Beautiful Bride (Who Thinks She is Ugly).

There was this bride. Well, she was more than just a bride--she was a wife as they have been married for nearly five years. The husband was a wonderful man, sharing everything good his with elegant bride. Sure, he was rich, but they didn't wed for the bank account: Husband would provide for every need Wife had, and sometimes gift her with extra money.
As much as Wife loved the extra gifts, she simply loved him for other things he's done for her. For example, one day she was traveling a side path in Africa (They had gone together on one of those extra-special gifts) and she lost her way. Night grew crisply and the frightening sounds of the African plains at night vibrated at her very bones. However, the most chilling sound was the gruff purring of a lion prowling in the grass. Wife couldn't see the lion, but she heard every step it took. It was circling her.
Suddenly everything went silent. The nocturnal critters seemed to stop their movements in what seemed to Wife as a somber moment of silence for the human slain. But what Wife couldn't hear were two things. One: the lion crouching for a pounce, for the lion trained every night to be more silent in its attacks. Two: the approaching all-terrain jeep, for Wife's nerves drove her to deafness as she breathed in her shallow breaths. In her bleakest of moments Husband blared his horn as he slid between them, instantly flashing his high beams and spotlights in the face of the beast. Frightened in its own danger, the lion darted away from the harrowing prey.

Yes, Wife loved Husband very much. Safety was found in his embrace. Love was found in his words. Passion was found in his hope for the future. As any bride, Wife felt unworthy of the deep love of her Husband. However, her feeling of unworthiness often provoked certain thoughts and actions that grieved Husband. For such thoughts and actions, let us immerse ourselves in one of their typical conversations of such.

Husband walked into the house. In his hands were the groceries he had bought after a three hour excursion. Wife was always grateful when he picked up the task of grocery shopping, especially when she was feeling down. She didn't always tell him why she was disheartened--but that didn't mean Husband didn't know, she figured.
And he did know. In one of the bags held a box of chocolate and drink packet of lime-aide. He quickly stirred up her a glass of lime-aide and sat at her feet, massaging her sore heels after giving her the presents. She sighed her appreciate and looked at the crown of his head.
"Do you love me?" She asked the question as quick as an arrow out of a bow.
Husband didn't pull back his hands from her toes, but kept massaging. His heart twinged. He hated that question. Not because he didn't love her, but that his love for her was very immense. He never failed to make evident his love for her, yet she pestered him with the question weekly.
"Yes, I love you. Until all the suns of the universe explode, devouring all things and a new universe is formed from the ashes. That next day will I still love you and devote my love to you to the same end."
Wife ignored the flowery words. Not because he didn't mean them--he did with every atom in his body. But because she didn't believe it wholly. She looked away from him. "But look at me: I'm ugly." The words were slow this time.
This time he stopped rubbing her feet. Husband looked into her eyes and placed his hands on her knees, clutching one of her hands in his fingers. "You are beautiful. More beautiful than the feathers of a thousand peacocks."
"No, no. My heart is ugly. Remember what we talked about last month? You know...where I've been looking at other guys with lust in my eyes?"
It was Husband's turn to sigh, but it wasn't out of appreciation. He tilted his head in remembrance.
"Well, I did it again. Neighbor across the street went running today while you were shopping. It was so humid that he kept his shirt of while lapping the block. I tried to look away, but he kept making laps. Somehow I found myself pulling up a chair beside the blinds and peaked through them each time he rounded the corner. He moved on to the next block toward the gym after a half hour. I was disgusted at myself after I watched him with my lusting eyes, though. I ironed all your shirts in the closet for work. I made you two pitchers of tea. I weeded the garden and even planted a purple tulip for your sake."
"Butterfly, nothing you could do will erase my love for you. It's as constant as salt in the ocean, or stars in the sky. I appreciate what you did after you realized your violation of my love, but all I want you to do is to love me. That's the best thing you could do." Husband touched Wife's face with his thumb. "You are my love."
"But I'm ugly. You don't understand. I feel it in my body--even my smile is ugly."
"No. Your smile is elegant. Even though you have two smiles..."
"Two smiles?"
"Yes. One smile is when you smile at other people. Your friends, your family. Even Neighbor when he takes his trash to the road at the same time you do. It's a beautiful smile. But kind of broken. Not ugly, but broken. Broken because you are half-joyed. You feel a slight flutter in your heart when you are with your friends and family in their love, and it radiates to your lips. It's even radiates when you try to look more attractive to Neighbor when getting the mail. It's that smile in form number one that is broken, however the smile that is perfect and purely delightful is the smile you bear when you think of me. When I stepped into the hall with the bag of chocolates and lime-aide your face brightened and your smile made my heart jump for joy. That's the smile that I love the most: when your heart is so thrilled at my love that it overflows into your face and smile."
"So you love me when I'm ugly?"
"You are not ugly, so there is no special love for your ugliness. When you lust, I love you. When you try to earn my love, I have loved without interruption. Of course I would much rather you not lust for other men. In fact, I beg you deeply not to. It it absolute violation of our love. When we made our marriage vows those five years ago, we made sacred bonds to each other to love until death do us part. Those sacred bonds weren't just mere words, they connected our hearts together with iron and steel. But though you've made a slip to remove yourself from your end of our love, I have never ceased to love you. My deepest desire is for you to love me with your everything. I want your eyes to love me, your heart to love me, your thoughts to love me, your spirit to love me."
"And when my ugly heart refuses?"
"I will love you yet the still. My heart breaks in many pieces. In one when you deny your love for me. In another when you think my love for you changes with the seasons of time. And yet another piece when you reject my words of love and believe yourself to be ugly. You are beautiful. There is no ugliness in you because when our hearts connect in love you burst forth with ever-glowing beauty. My love for you drives out any ugliness and creates in its place beauty that can't be fathomed. When my love runs dry, your beauty will turn to ash. You know very well when my love will end, and therefore you must believe with every atom in your body (and every time your heart pumps) that you are beautiful."

Moments lingered, wading through thick thought-waters. Finally, Wife stood to her feet. She spoke nothing, but she set her glass down on the end table and walked to the garage. Husband remained where he knelt, staring into the blackness of the open garage door. In two minutes she returned with a paint bucket and roller brush that they had been using for their library. (It was a special paint: chalkboard paint. They would write quotes from books on their freshly painted walls reminding them of different things they've learned.)
Wife tore off the curtain rod to the window she lusted from and laid it out in front of the window sill. She peeled off the lid of the paint can and dipped the roller brush into the blackness with a sideways lilt. She scraped the side as she pulled it out and slapped it on the window, lathering the black paint across the panes.  In moments the entire window was blackened out. She threw the brush into the waste basket and closed the can. She returned it to the garage and came back with a fan and a box of chalk. She positioned the fan to quick-dry the window.
In a few minutes, the paint was dry. She withdrew a chalk stick and wrote on the window. She set the chalk on the counter and walked back to Husband and sat down next to him, placing her head on his heart.

"I am beautiful. My heart shall forever overflow with your love and I shall cast my overflowing love back to you."


~A story of Jesus and his Bride, the Church.

The Dirty President

There was once a president over a fairly large nation. He had many admirers, but at the same time he had many antagonists in his presence. Often people berated him, accusing him of various injustices because actions committed by the president hurt these people. Even still, this president loved his people. He would do anything to remain in seat of command.

One day news spread throughout the nation about this band of ragamuffins who were nomadic. Often they lived in the president's nation, often they moved north or south to find better sources of food or shelter. These people were poor. They lacked the money to buy any variety of food, so any question of new clothes or soap with water was out of the equation.

Local law enforcement saw these people as an eyesore. They felt the economy failed wherever the nomads were for people refused to eat in any restaurant that reeked of them; people hated to enter the same store they were in, and people dared not walk down the same street lest they contract some unknown disease or brush against their grime. Therefore, the local law enforcement sent their arms to capture every nomad and lock them up in prison. Shackles and everything.

Days passed, nights crept; and the people found a way to survive the horrible conditions of the jail. They had no other option than to live and sleep in their own filth. Food was scarce, and people began to die. However no body delivered the unfortunate lost souls out of the prison for proper burial or cremation, rather they were left alone with their surviving friends and family.

As months passed, the disgust of the nomads' prison was unimaginable. However, as issues were left untouched over the weeks, people soon forgot anything ever happened. Businesses were cranking out economic figures and people were happy. Everyone forgot about the enslaved nomads. Everyone but the few jailers who kicked food into the dreary hallways. Everyone but the few souls who linger around the jails seeking some new adventurous excursion to release boredom.

These adventurers soon discovered these nomads through a small window carved out of the stony wall. At first they thought it was like an open sepulcher, but as they drew nigh they heard moans. Naturally they assumed ghosts and were interested, but their excitement was all but shattered when they realized the moans came from living--though barely--souls deep in the prison of the nation. The adventurers saw the shackles. They saw the pain; the filth; the dead; the dying.

The adventurers pulled away from the prison window aghast and appalled. Surely this was disgustingly overlooked and no one actually allowed this atrocity to persist. They rushed to the guards and exclaimed how there was moaning and crying out from the lower level of the prison. However, the jailers simply shrugged it off as another feeding time and went with their buckets of slosh to feed the enslaved souls.

Such apathy to the horror shocked these young men who looked for answers within themselves. Finally, they turned and ran to the president's capitol building and sought aid from him who loved all.
They fell down before his feet, panting at the many mile run. Unable to look at his face, they poured out their spirits to his feet, crying out with a gnawing pang in their hearts. They clenched their fists, pounding the ground with defeated dismay.

The president knelt down by them and brushed tears from their eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. He anguished with them, for he knew already of the disaster in the jailhouse. He, however, spent months planning some sort of rescue attempt, but he was left with only one option: To go down there himself and pull them out of the grimy hole in the ground they were living in. The adventurers cautioned against the proposition, but the president bowed his head longingly, lovingly. He was the only one who had enough love to actually touch them, to rescue them.

Thus the president left his capitol building. He sprinted down the road to where the jailhouse stood against the shallow light of the rising sun. He pushed past the guards who tried to keep him away from the cellar, but they eventually grasped their position in light of the intruder and backed away. The president pressed on down the cold stairs, lights flickering with every breath of wind that whispered through the hallways--wind, mind you, that reeked of the nomads. The president suppressed his instinctive gagging and continued down the hall to the increasingly growing moans. He reached the large locked cell where the nomads were kept. They aroma hit him harder as he unlocked the cell. His feet slipped into muck. He took a few steps tripped over the chains of a deceased nomad and fell face-first into thick mire. He pushed himself up to his feet, dripping from the sludge. Again the aroma wrenched at his gut, but he successfully held himself complete.

The nomads looked at the dreary figured stumbling before them and wondered who the new prisoner was for only a moment before they caught a fluttering glimpse of their president. They cried out in sorrow for him to abandon them in their sludge-filled abode so that he would not contract a disease he would regret. The president gave them no regard for their outbursts and fell down at the socket of their chains and hoisted a large stone and shattered the bonds. He ushered them out the door, nudging them with his shoulders. He took the hands of those surrounding him and led them up the steps, out the jailhouse, and into the splintering light of sunrise.

The president led them to the river, fresh with rushing waters. He stepped in and his legs were washed of the grime, filth, and muck. He plunged deeper and his clean face was seen again to be recognized. He held out his arm for the first person to be washed by the waters and led her to be plunged beneath the swells of the river. As the frail woman surfaced, the beautiful, radiant glow of her skin and face shone in deep contrast to the refuse floating away down the river.

People rushed into the water to be cleansed of their slime and dirt and sorrow. The first woman danced upon the bank, trilling songs of jubilation. She twirled and jumped and clapped, joined by those stumbling onto the bank with cleansed bodies. As she danced more, her outpouring joy turned to instant confusion and slight sorrow when she spotted a handful of nomads still standing in their filth. She urged them to be washed by the president, yet they refused. To portray these souls as ungrateful to their rescue from the jail would be a false representation--for they, too, sang the songs of rescue and jubilee. They simply would not enter the river.

This trouble the woman greatly. He joy turned to mourning and sorrow as she reminded them of how the president entered their prison and experienced their grime and was plunged into their filth. Her heart ached with the president who was still holding his arm out to plunge them into the rushing, cleansing waters. His heart could not fathom why they would choose to remain in their grime and not be washed clean.

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So is the story with many Christians. They have been rescued from their bondage, from their chains of sin--yet they do not plunge into the cleansing waters of the Spirit to be renewed. They still drip of the grime of their habitual sins. They still sing and worship in their stained clothes and bodies. They still choose to return to their familiar sins.

It's a crazy thought. A ridiculous thought.

God shows his love for us in the while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:8)
While we were still sitting in our own filth and grime, Christ came to us, wrapped his arms around us, and lead us to redemption. Why, then, should we continue in sin? "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:2)
"Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness." (Rom. 6:13)

Poverty.

I was musing some things in my pre-class moments, and a little during class. The thought came to me: "Why should we care for the poor?"

It's a noble thing, a nice thing, perhaps even a humane thing. But we does God so strongly instruct us to care for the poor; and the widows? (And orphans).

Then my teacher said something that struck a chord. He was discussing the history of the United States and how the poor got poorer, and the rich got richer. He, in someway, said the system was set up so that people could, by their efforts, get higher up in the world. They couldn't just sit on their bum all day and get richer. They got the fruits of their labor: work a lot, get paid a lot, get richer. And the opposite holds true. He then explained how this one guy was different from the other millionaires, in that he would work hard to get money, but then use the money for greater purposes. Feeding the poor, helping the needy, etc. Because of the fact that sometimes--or often times--working hard doesn't pay off. Poor people get into debt, work really hard, but can't pay things off in time before interest sets in and they owe more money.

That's when thoughts connected for me. That's why God wants us to care for the poor. Because they do the best they can, and yet remain poor and needy. We might have to become "poor" so the poor can be rich.

God wants us to care for the poor because it is a picture of His relationship with us.
We are poor and needy; He is rich and wealthy. We can do nothing to get out of debt because the interest keeps adding up. We work, work, and work harder and nothing can make us richer. Therefore, God came and became poor so we can become rich. ("For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." --2 Cor. 8:9)