The Book

I fell in love with books back in the day when my mother took me to the library and signed me up for a summer reading program.  Even today going into a library filled with shelf after shelf of books and quietness is like entering a sacred sanctum.  Later I became a collector of books.  Once read and placed on the shelf, they become like old friends.  Some books are about entertainment.  Some are about opening your eyes and heart.  Some are read and finally closed with a sense of reverence and awe.   

From the very beginning of my history with books, the Bible was regarded as different and special.  When my mother gave me my first Bible, it was a big deal.  She taught me Bibles were to be handled with respect.   A Bible was not an ordinary book.  I could not have imagined back in the beginning days the way that one book would change and shape my life.  When I travel, it is packed to go with everything else.  It is the one book which never has a place on the book shelf except when it becomes so frayed it is retired.  The Bible stays close.  It is almost never out of sight.  Unlike some books that I may have to hunt, I always know where it is.   

Some may find it strange that a book would be regarded as a writing inspired by God, but such is how it is regarded.  It is not a book where advice is found, or a book where answers to life's questions are found.  It is a book where the voice of God has thundered across the centuries.  It is a book which has led millions to faith in God.  It is one of the places where God has chosen to make Himself known to us.  The Bible is not a book to be read, closed, and put on the shelf, but a book to be carried into every circumstance and corner of life.  It is a holy book which always seems as new as the next page.  It is timeless because its words are eternal and equip us for the life we were created to live.

Unexplainable

Standing deep in holy mystery is a humbling and overwhelming experience.  Who among us deserves to be graced with the presence of God?  Who among us has any right to a single gift from our heavenly Father?  Who can understand the ways of God?  Why are some prayed for day and night only to be lost to us while others are still here among us for no other reason than the grace of God.  It is beyond what we are able to comprehend.  Why do some receive the double portion (II Kings 2:9-12) and others what seems to be no portion at all.  Questions abound for us as we experience holy mystery.  Answers are few.   

What can we say other than not one of us is forgotten by God.  What can we say except that He knows our name and cares for each one with the heart of the Good Shepherd the Apostle John describes in his gospel (John 10:1-18).  I first started struggling with questions about the ways of God as a seven year old boy whose father went to work one day and did not come home. I am now so far from seven that memories are heavy with the dust of the past, but still I look for answers I am not likely to know in this life.  

There are times when our hearts can only whisper, "Lord, have mercy."  There are other times when we look at what cannot be known and are left with the words, "Thank You, Lord.  Thank You for this gift of grace."  The farther I walk with Jesus the more I see the clouds of holy grace ahead above the way much as the Hebrews walked through the wilderness with the cloud of presence leading them.  (Exodus 13:21).  God's grace has always been sufficient (II Corinthians 12:9) and because it is grace, it is unexplainable.

What is God Thinking

We never know where what we do for Christ is going to go.  In the past few weeks I have gone twice to the theater to see "A Great Awakening."  The second time was as impactful and as powerful as the first.  "A Great Awakening" is the story of the ministry of George Whitefield, an English evangelist, whose preaching brought to pre-revolutionary America a revival so widespread it is known in history as the Great Awakening.  Watching the movie about this moment in American history was experienced in a way that brought revival and renewal in my own heart some 250 years later.    

Out of the blue, pieces of a hymn came to mind this morning and I could not rest until I found "Blest Be the Tie That Binds" in a hymnal enabling me to sing it properly.  A man named John Fawcett wrote the hymn in 1782.  The hymn writer was born to poor parents in Yorkshire, England in 1740.  He became a Baptist minister and served a small poverty stricken church for fifty years.  Early in his ministry, he was called to a prominent and influential church in London.  He and his family packed the wagon to leave, decided they could not leave, and stayed there the rest of his days.  Though he became well know through writing and preaching, he stayed where he started and never made more than $200 a year.  It was the fellowship and communion experienced in this single church which inspired him to write, "Blest Be the Tie That Binds."   

Oh yes, there is one other thing.  John Fawcett was converted at the age of sixteen through the powerful preaching of George Whitefield.  Is it not amazing how God uses what we do for Him?  Is it not amazing that what we do for Christ can have effects which ripple far beyond the span of our meager years?  Who would have thought of using George Whitefield to convert John Fawcett who would write a hymn which is blessing the church 150 years later?  It makes us wonder what God is thinking about doing with what we are doing for Him in the present moment.

The Spittin' Image

My father's death when I was seven years old was a moment that was then impossible too comprehend.  As I slowly moved toward the days which were awaiting me, one of the things I relished most was being told that I looked like my father.  "He's the spittin' image of his Daddy," was an oft heard comment and one that caused me to stand a little taller.  As a boy I would stand in the mirror and try to imitate the smile in the picture, or study the blue in my eyes which everyone said I got from him.  As a boy who had lost his father too soon, I wanted to be like him. I wanted to look like him.   

The Bible makes it clear that we are children of God.  He is our Father.  There is something within us that speaks of the "spittin' image of the Heavenly Father."  Such casual language is not meant to be disrespectful, but a way of speaking of how we are created with the imprint of God in our life.  We bear His image.  (Genesis 1:27).  Too soon we lose sight of who we are.  Holy is who we are.  His image is not seen as we behold our physical appearance, but is instead, a word which points to our unseen inner nature.  

This inner nature is transformed from who we have become to who we were created to be as the Holy Spirit is allowed to dwell and transform our heart so that more and more it outwardly expresses the spirit and heart of Jesus.  Theologians have a word for this powerful transforming work of grace in the heart.  Sanctification is the word which points to this work of grace.  In some circles, sanctification is spoken of mostly as an event confined to a moment, but more correctly understood, it is the process by which the Holy Spirit takes a surrendered heart and transforms it in such a way that it begins to bear the image of the Christ.  "May the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly..." (I Thessalonians 5:23)

The Way of Christ

There was a time when I thought I could live on the farm, never see anyone, never speak to anyone, and be content.  One of the things I learned about myself after some time had been spent at the farm was that while I value solitude and silence, being completely alone is not who I am.  The ancient Desert Fathers and the mystics did it, but I have a need for people that I simply cannot ignore.  

When God was doing the creation thing about which we read in Genesis, it was not enough to create man.  In the Creation narrative, we hear the Lord God saying, "It is not good that the man should be alone."  (Genesis 2:18).  In a short time there were families and communities where people shared life together.  There may be some who are called to live as hermits and find fulfillment in that lifestyle, but it is not something for the most of us.  We need one another.  We need the touch of others on our life and we need to touch the lives of those around us.  Even as the Garden of Eden speaks of the woman being a helper, so do we all need helpers in our life.  It matters not if we are male or female.

To acknowledge our need for helpers is to recognize that others need us to be their helpers.  In the letter to the churches of Galatia, the Apostle Paul wrote, "Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2).  Those words can be understood as Paul reminding the community to love one another.  We cannot bear the burdens of others, or love others in isolation.  It can only happen in a community.  The community may be small or large, but we all need one because it is within the community that we fulfill the way of Christ. 

Why Not Sooner

One of my favorite Hudson Taylor antidotes recorded in the biography which is a current read tells about a man named Mr. Ni, a long time resident of Ningpo.  Mr Ni was a Buddhist who had never come in contact with the gospel until he met Hudson Taylor.  When he heard about Christ, he was converted and became a student of the Bible.  A conversation is recorded between Mr. Ni and Taylor.  Unexpectedly he asked the missionary, "How long have you had the Glad Tidings in your country?  Taylor reluctantly replied, "Some hundreds of years."  The ex-Buddhist said in surprise, "What!  Hundreds of years? My father sought the Truth and died without finding it.  Oh, why did you not come sooner?"  

The church of our day has lost the urgency of the gospel.  We live in a culture where believing in something or anything is an acceptable alternative to believing in Christ. This position of accommodation has taken away the uniqueness of the Christ of the gospel.  Such a compromise may be embraced to keep from offending anyone, but it also refutes the reality of the Incarnation, the saving and forgiving power of the blood shed on the cross, and the victory accomplished through the resurrection.  

Jesus was not just a man who preached a message that merged with human created systems of theism. Neither did He come to become as a choice on the buffet table of religious thought. Instead, Jesus came as a presence who enables us to know the truth of God with us.  To truly be faithful to its calling, the church cannot speak of Jesus as being less the only One sent from God to show us the way to eternal life. So many people around us have not heard this message.  So many have not encountered Jesus. To paraphrase the convert from Buddhism, "Why are we waiting?  Why is the church not proclaiming Christ crucified and raised from the dead now instead of later?

Faith Based Missions

Before I finished a recent read about George Muller, a 19th century saint and caretaker for thousands of orphaned children, I was reading about one his contemporaries, Hudson Taylor.  Taylor is known for his mission work in China.  Like Muller, Taylor depended on God for providing funds and people to serve alongside of him in the mission work.  He, too, was a man of prayer as well as a man who trusted God without reservation.  In his day "faith missions were unheard of, the only organizations in existence being the regular denominational boards. "  ("Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret" by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor).  

The Zoar Church was one of the churches on my first Charge.  Every fall the church had on its schedule a week long Missions Conference.  As a greenhorn preacher, I had no idea what to expect when several missionaries from the Oriental Missionary Society came for a week to share their mission work and invite the members of the Zoar Church to make faith commitments to support their mission work.  These were missionaries who could not go back into their work until they had raised financial support from local churches like Zoar.  They gave flesh to mission work as they told stories of the work they were doing for God in far away countries.  

The missionaries who came to Zoar were spiritual descendants of Hudson Taylor.   Like him, they believed and practiced a faith based ministry.  My denomination sent and funded missionaries, but these folks were different.  They practiced a risky faith and they came to visit churches which supported them.  For many of us it was our first contact with a real missionary.  Taylor was passionate about presenting Christ to the people of China and those who serve Christ today in faith based ministries walk in his steps.