Ode to 2012! The Year of Astonishment.

"There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father who is over all in all and living through all." 

Ephesians 4:5-6

As this year wraps up and I recall all that has happened, I'm convinced that it has been the most sensational 365 days of my life. If I could give it a name, I'd call it Astonishment. And what a roller coaster Astonishment has been!! The Gospel isn't a stagnant message, but is a crazy ride so full of magnificent sights that it is difficult to breathe normally as each revelation provokes a gasp of disbelief! It's the feeling of living. It has been a year of intense conversations, immense thought, and (to steal a phrase from my pastor) lots of learning, unlearning and then re-learning.

I remember ringing in the New Year 2012 as my husband and I resolved to read through our one-year Bible together. We were desperate to try anything that might stir our hearts to love God and others. Three weeks later, it was obvious that it wasn't working. Around that time, I was listening to a podcast put on by two missionaries in South America that I found somewhat intriguing for a few days. They invited a guest speaker and as I listened to him, I became horrified. His subject was hell and how it was his motivation for evangelism. He would walk the streets of Atlanta daily, while carrying a large wooden cross in order to spark conversations with people about the afterlife and whether or not they wanted to spend it in Heaven or hell.

I got a sick feeling in my stomach and knew I should stop listening, but I didn't. He addressed the audience as his "friends" and continued with a message that reminded me a lot of Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon about sinner's in the hands of an angry God. Then he addressed the "backsliders" of the world - people that had made a commitment to Christianity, only to continue living a worldly life...people that, he claimed, were still in danger of hell. He had a twenty-point checklist that would help a person determine if they were in fact "backslidden". All twenty points described me. No exaggeration. I finally turned the podcast off, feeling beaten to my very core. You have to understand, I had not heard a message that portrayed God in this light since high school. I knew better. I knew that most of my friends who preached the goodness of God would find it ridiculous. The problem was that I had never become fully convinced of the goodness of God myself, and so fear seized me.

I spent the entire day angry and depressed. I had zero patience or enjoyment of my seven-month-old son in those hours. All I wanted to do was sleep or watch a movie so that I could escape "reality". I apologized to God and told Him that I could not love Him if this these things were true; if we were meant to be drawn to Him out of fear rather than His infinite kindness. I begged Him to bring me peace before I'd go to bed that night. When my husband came home from work and we ate dinner, I couldn't even speak to him because I knew I'd crumble into a lump of hopeless tears.

As I lay down to sleep that night, restless, I felt Abba holding me and whispering, "Peace, daughter."
"How am I suppose to feel peace if I'm scared of you, repulsed even?!"
"It's not me you're repulsed by. You are repulsed by the Accuser. He is trying to convince you to worship him by making you think that he is Me. It's the same deception he's always tried." Hope began rising in my heart.
"How do I know? How do I know that this is you speaking to me right now?"
"What are the fruits of my Spirit?"
I recited them from memory, "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."
"Yes. Sound doctrine, true doctrine will always cause you to produce those things toward me and toward others. Today you have experienced anger, bitterness, impatience with your son and husband, hatred toward me, and restlessness in your heart. Those are the rotten fruits of fear and death. You will produce them whenever you agree with the Accuser; whenever you agree with a lie."
"This sounds too good to be true."
"That's the point of worship: Astonishment."
I melted and slept in a heavenly kind of peace. And so began the ride.

The next day a friend introduced me to the grace teachings of Joseph Prince and shortly after that I discovered the blog that I mentioned in my introductory post. I had never heard anything that so exalted the beauty of what happened on the cross. It seemed so simple. My husband and I listened to him everyday for the next three months as we became endeared to Jesus. From there, it got even better when we discovered evangelists John Crowder, Andre Rabe, Francois du Toit and Baxter Kruger. I am convinced that their presentation of the Gospel is the purest goodness and truth that has been preached since Paul, John and Peter! My heart burns when I hear their declarations of the love of Father, Son and Spirit and the implications of that great love. I become overwhelmed with love for God and love for my fellow man. I become myself.
I can no longer accept a Gospel that's anything less - anything less than the Father, Son and Spirit's decision to include all of humanity in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus - anything that threatens to steal from this bliss cannot be the Gospel.

For the past 15 years of my life I have wished for the boldness to preach the Gospel unashamed, to feel love for the unlovables, to learn splendid things from the Holy Spirit through the Bible and personal encounter. I've wished to be free from judgmentalism, selfishness and laziness. I've wished to know God as He knows me. I've longed to witness miracles and supernatural manifestations. I've hoped for contentment and thankfulness in all circumstances. I've wanted a desire to pray.

And after so many years of striving, of trying to figure out how to develop the character and nature of Jesus, of spending hours confessing my sins in accountability groups and with partners, of crying out to God in massive assemblies for revival, I was no closer to attaining my goal than when I first started. I believed in a god that doesn't exist.

It was only when I heard the Good News declared to me, "You're already like your Father revealed in Jesus, not because of anything you've said or done or believed, but because of what Jesus has done and believes" that I began to live and experience the life I always dreamed. The things that seemed impossible before are beginning to feel easy now; not because I've discovered the secret of discipline or will-power or dying daily to self or becoming a better person. In fact, I haven't done anything! I just heard the truth and, even that, I didn't believe out of my own good choice or decision. I only believed because I was persuaded. Otherwise I could not have just forced myself - willed myself - to believe. Sometimes we admit that grace is a free gift, but we want to hold on to the one good work that we think we have to offer, the one part we have to play: Faith, our free choice. This used to confuse me so much as a kid. I would hear someone say, "Jesus' grace is an absolutely free gift. You can do nothing to earn it. But you still have to believe in order for the blood to cover you." Somehow, if a person didn't believe then it wasn't true for them. It only became true, they were only included, once they accepted it. Until then, they were outsiders to the grace of God. What an immense amount of pressure this places on the work of faith! Then it becomes a labor to figure out, what must I believe and confess exactly to be saved? Well, you you must believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, was God in the flesh, was the Son of God, died on the cross to take away my sin, and rose again three days later (or one of the many variations of this). Funny, I believed all of this for years without experiencing the joy of my salvation. Maybe I was believing wrong? Maybe I wasn't sincere enough in my confession? Maybe my faith wasn't great enough? How many times have I repeated the Sinner's Prayer hoping that maybe this time it will stick?

One of the most wonderful treasures of 2012 was becoming convinced that my faith doesn't save me. But God's faith does! When I realized this, the roller coaster of my year peaked! I cried thankful tears of relief. It no longer was a burden of "What do I believe about God", instead it became the wonder of discovering what He believes about me!!! Make no mistake, it is wonderfully elating to uncover truth about God, but His heighth and depth and width and breadth will take an eternity to begin to comprehend. I do not have to understand everything or have it all figured out. The pressure is off and has been replaced by a peace that FAR transcends my own understanding. You see, if our salvation is dependent on our own faith, then we MUST figure out exactly what we believe. We must draw lines and create denominations when disagreements come about for fear that we might get it wrong, we might be led astray.

Imagine the freedom, the barriers that would crumble if we knew that only God's faith, that He revealed in Jesus, saves us; if we believed there is only one faith...His...and He is the author, perfecter and finisher of it. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and that, not of yourselves! It is the GIFT of God." Ephesians 2:8. If we get this, we may finally begin enjoying our salvation! We could stop trying to figure out how to become more holy or righteous or how to tell people to get saved and realize that His faith already believes it's done! Proclamation of the truth encourages people to believe and be the saved people they already are!

Do you want to know my favorite thing that God believes? He actually believes that it is finished. He believes that the sin of the entire world was destroyed in the body of Jesus. He believes that ALL things were made new in the resurrection of Jesus. He believes that Jesus poured the Spirit out on all flesh...hey, that includes me and you, whoever you are! He believes that we're holy, blameless and spotless before Him. He believes that by His stripes, we were COMPLETELY healed. He believes that death has been defeated. He believes that as He is - standing face-to-face with His Father - so are we in this world. He believes that He has successfully found everything that belongs to Him. He believes that everything belongs to Him! He believes that He is all in all and that He fills all things. He believes that we're free, that we're His beloved sons. He believes that laying down His life was enough to justify, sanctify and make us righteous. He believes that He's reconciled the whole world to Himself. He believes that He's made peace with every man through His blood. He believes that He is Immanuel, God dwelling with us and in us!

So, either He is insane or it's all true! Not true for some, but for all! It's not held for some future date or event, not true when you believe it, but true right now, despite apparent contradictions. Faith is the substance of what we hope for, evidence of things unseen. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So when we hear what the Word of God believes and declares as truth and His faith becomes awakened in us through hearing, we finally see what has been real all along! We recognize the substance of the unseen...the thing that is unshakable by circumstance or what is currently experienced. Faith allows us to, at last, enjoy reality. Hell and the uncertainty of our lives disappear as reality chases away illusion.

I'm definitely not implying that personal faith isn't important or necessary. How can someone revel in the vastness and glory of the Grand Canyon if they sleep through it? Or imagine that I own all of the money in the world and find a pauper and deposit the money into a bank account with his name on it. He is now a gazillionnaire. But if no one tells him the truth about who he is; if no one says, "Hey, you're rich!" he will continue to live the life and have the experiences of a pauper, even though it's a lie...a complete delusion. In the same way, if all of humanity has been reconciled to God, cleansed and justified and righteous and restored to perfection in the love from which they were originally created, but no one tells them; or if when they're told, they're still too wounded or hardened by the experiences and disappointments of this life to believe something too wonderful for words, they will continue living the life of someone alienated in their minds from Him. Even though it's a lie...a complete delusion.

God's union with humanity in the person of Jesus is undoable. We had no free choice in the matter because we were incapable of making a good decision. How can a slave make a "free" choice? We were slaves to sin who couldn't choose another master even if we wanted to. If we could have, there was no reason for Jesus to do what he did. He could have just told us the truth and we could have chosen to believe him or not. But he knew we were utterly infected by sin and its hold on us. We were blind, deaf and didn't know our right hand from our left. We needed a Messiah to save us from ourselves by making the decision for us! Our faith is not the one good decision we ever made, our faith is just His faith, His unshakeable faith, persuading us of the truth - the truth of who we are and the truth of who He is, as revealed in Jesus. It's the Good Shepherd gently leading us away from a cliff and into green pastures.

This may not seem like a big deal to some. After all, why does it matter if our faith makes the Gospel true for us, or if our faith simply recognizes what was true for us all along? Because it's the difference between seeing people as outsiders or insiders. It's the difference between seeing ourselves as beginning from a place of separation and being on the outs with God, and then, once we accept him into our hearts or profess our faith, we become one with Him, are granted forgiveness, etc. Rather than realizing that it's only because He's already forgiven that I can receive it. It's only because He already loves me that I can love Him. It's only because He is already kind that I can change my mind (repent) about Him and see His kindness. It's only because Christ is already in me that I can believe and see the truth, that has been hidden for ages, revealed! And it's only because He persuades me that I can believe. He has beaten us to everything!

For me, this clarification frees me from the fear of maybe not having it all right. It frees me from fear over whether or not my faith is genuine enough. And when I'm this secure and assured that my Father loves me and has done everything to ensure our reconciliation already; that when I was completely faithless and steeped in unbelief, He was still faithful; that when all I could see was a dirty sinner, He saw a holy, blameless and spotless daughter; I'm free to look away from myself. I'm free to love and live and consider others before myself. I'm overwhelmed with a desire for others to know about their union with God. I can look at anyone, no matter their belief or lifestyle or contradiction and I can proclaim Paul's words when he said, "I've come to the conclusion that if one died for all, then all died...I no longer regard anyone according to the flesh." I can understand the love that Peter was overwhelmed with in Acts, after his trance, when he went to Cornelius' house and said, "God has shown me that I must not regard any man as unclean!"

One of the hangups to the notion that our faith is more a persuasion of God's faith than our own good choice to believe the right way is that someone will ask, "Well then why are some not persuaded? And why are some persuaded immediately?" I probably do not have a satisfactory answer for you, but here's my thought:

We are all created as distinct individuals. Papa God through Jesus does not establish a relationship with the whole world while neglecting His relationship with each and every person. All of us come from different backgrounds, are raised in different families, surrounded by different friends. No two people have the exact same story. Not to mention, we all have incredibly different personalities. This is meant to be beautiful and to stir up awe and wonder as we engage in relationship with one another. Papa is not boring or unimaginative. He is patient as He enters into the lives of us all and works to reveal Himself through Jesus by the Spirit. I love this about Him. He doesn't force Himself upon us, but He gently earns our trust as He enjoys wooing us with His extravagant love, casting out our fear, while bearing patiently with our confusion and misconceptions about Him. He also leaves room for us to participate in this gigantic story! Those of us who are persuaded quickly run out to tell those of us who need to hear the truth one or two or 100 more times. His desire is that we would all be as intimately involved in one another's lives, and in the revealing of Christ in each other, as He is intimately connected with us. In John 17:20-21 Jesus prays, "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

I don't need to understand it all as much as I simply want to enjoy it. With childlike wonder, I'll watch the story of the world unfold and the stories of my brothers and sisters. And I'll dance with delight as Papa invites me to participate. I do love Him so. Jesus has accomplished the impossible and His accomplishment allows me to hope for all things!

Thank you Abba God for 2012. For persuading me of your goodness and leading me into truth. I know that you have been anticipating this year of my life since before you even formed me in my mother's womb. May 2013 bring new discoveries and may I participate daily, hourly, moment-by-moment in your romancing of the world! In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit! Amen!

Grace Beyond Your Wildest Dreams: A Guest Post by Luke Beling

***This post is written by a good friend of my husband and I. He and his wife, Kristy, have been fellow discoverers of the Gospel with us this year. Read to the end. Your heart will burn with delight!***

“Tell me, what’s the point of light that you have to strike a match to find?”- Josh Ritter

I’ve been scratching matches for most of my journey with God: to find His light, His abundant life promised in John 10:10. I’ve turned tables and cleaned counters in hopes of coming across just a fraction of the life that the gospel affirms. And every failed attempt has left me with the begging question singer/songwriter Josh Ritter asks: “What is the point of light if you have to strike a match to find it?” 

The image of God’s light, of what daily life should look like, has hardly been dull from the onset of my relationship with Jesus. But the availability and provision of His light manifested in my life has felt as sure as sinking sand. As a result, my thoughts for the past 10 years have been: “What am I doing wrong or what am I not doing right, preventing God from being present in my days?” 

The only conclusion for such questioning is a slow death governed by the hands of religion. For no man, save one, is capable of answering such a question, then providing a way out of this cold cul-de-sac. 

For ten years I tried to keep up with Jesus, but daily invoices collecting in pockets will make any man heavy as the sea. I was God’s number one accountant; keeping track, “gardening” my soul by pruning the rights and wrongs. I met Jesus before I met religion. When I met religion he fooled me into thinking he was Jesus and so began the deception. The good news slowly transformed from love to a life-long invoice, delivered by subtle snares of religion. If I met payment, the goods received were beyond this world. I paid for a while, and enjoyed the illusion of the "giving-receiving" gospel, proud of my efforts and hard work. The price, however, kept increasing and eventually I ran out of gold. So I fell asleep and kept the daily dues in the cubbyhole of my car, hoping God would forget to collect. But continually without words, in the deep of my heart, I would wonder and think: If the gospel is a life-long invoice that is scarcely payable, then what use is its glory and substance for mankind? 

At the beginning of January of this year (2012), I began to wake from that awful nightmare to the reality of the true gospel of Jesus Christ: A receipt for man’s deepest dreams and hopes, paid in full by God. 

It’s easy for most Christians to agree that salvation and the Christian life is fueled by grace and the free gift of Jesus. But the outworking of that statement receives numerous and vast interpretation throughout individual believers and churches alike. While being duped by religion over the last ten years, I would have most definitely said that the Christian life finds its bedrock on grace and the free gift of Jesus. But then why did I struggle? If my relationship with Jesus was cemented on this free gift, then why did it feel like paying taxes? The understanding of grace and its practical implications for our lives, therefore, is vitally important. If even a hint of religion mixes with the purest good news, we no longer have good news. 

I believe that my core struggle with religion can be attributed to one basic misunderstanding of a beautiful truth: The gospel is a receipt, not an invoice. 

This statement is incredibly important and should be used to filter every aspect of the Christian life. A receipt is always an issue of proof regarding an object of desire that has already been paid for, but an invoice, no matter the cost, is the promise of the desired with a clause demanding payment. An invoice promises a future receiving. A receipt proves an already received. The idea of invoice Christianity is an advocation that the cross of Christ did not accomplish everything. If there is more that we have to do for healing, holiness, righteousness and completeness, then Jesus really didn’t take care of the sin problem entirely. The reason why healing, holiness, righteousness, and completeness are in correlation with sin is because if it were not for sin entering into our world, everything would be perfect. So if sin was completely destroyed and taken care of at the cross by Jesus, then holiness, righteousness, healing, and completeness are here in full and we are therefore living in an age that is even more glorious than the Garden of Eden. 

The receipt of God simply states: “Be because of what I have done.” The invoice demands: “Do to become.” 

Sometimes it’s easier to know what good news is when we know what good news isn’t. These are the invoices I’ve carried for the past ten years. Don’t worry, below them you will find the truth, the receipts issued by God for the entire human race. 

Invoice 1- Salvation is only for those who repent with tears, confess with a sincere heart, and recite correct words to God stating properly the understanding of sin, going to hell, and needing a savior for rescue unto heaven.

Receipt 1- “ Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits.” (Jas. 1) “He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world…”  (Eph 1.) We had no part in our salvation. God did everything. Salvation was accomplished for every man at the cross of Christ. When we believe, we are simply walking into that which is already true. The only requirement for salvation for every man is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Invoice 2- Human beings are designed sinners. We are inherently bad and prone towards sin. 

Receipt 2-  “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen 1:26).” We are made in the image of God. Our very design has been crafted perfectly by God. Man’s deepest desire is to be who he was created to be. Sin is only a distortion of that desire and not a reflection of the design of man. Sin for humans is like a car being fueled by water. It doesn’t fit. It is not what we are made for, believer or unbeliever. When someone has cancer, do we say they are cancer? Do we think that cancer is in cooperation with the makeup of their body? Sin is only a virus, not an identity. By identifying man as sinner (believer or unbeliever) we are calling him something that is contrary to his design and therefore his truest name.

Invoice 3- Humans have a sin nature and we must battle the flesh through a daily process, putting the old self to death. Make sure you feed the “spirit dog” and not the “flesh dog.” 

Receipt 3- “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24). Paul repeatedly states in Romans that we are dead to sin, we have been crucified with Christ, we should no longer live in sin etc. Why would he say such things if we are to battle sin? If we are battling sin, then we are somehow still alive to it. There is a huge difference between “sin covered” and “sin extracted”. I may believe that God has forgiven me of my sins, but only to keep sinning. Or, the truth, I believe God has forgiven me of my sins and eradicated the sin-producing factory inside of me that I should no longer live in sin because I am dead to sin. Paul uses the word “crucified” not “crucifying”. This is huge. Crucified means dead, not becoming dead. When did we die to sin? Paul says that we died to sin when Jesus died. The idea of any man battling sin because of an inherent sin nature is only an illusion. Truth confirms that every man was crucified on the cross of Christ. 

Invoice 4- Holiness is a lifelong pursuit of becoming more like God. We are in positions of righteousness but this righteousness must be “worked out” for it to be true. 

Receipt 4- “And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness…” (Eph 4:24). Often times, righteousness and holiness are deemed as lifelong pursuits to become more like God. If this were true then Jesus didn’t take care of sin completely. There is no other conclusion to juggle such thinking. This type of reasoning is invoice-Christianity: I have to do something to become holy or righteous. 

Other times holiness and righteousness get referred to as positions of standing with God. This is true and wonderful news, but it can be very misleading if it were the only truths about these words. God doesn’t accept us, while turning a blind eye to the “evil” within us. The only way we can be right with God is because we are right according to His design and original plan for our lives. Perfect in His eyes doesn’t mean theoretical perfection or God choosing to see us as perfect despite our darkness. It simply means we are perfect. We are holy. We are sanctified. If the very nature (the sin nature crucified with Jesus) causing us to be unholy and unrighteous is now dead then what conclusion do we have about perfection and holiness? We are perfectly like God now. Eph 4:24 states that the new self has already been created (not something to come) and that it is in replica of God in true righteousness and holiness. 

Before thinking that all of this is just too good to be true, let me ask you one question that I constantly ask myself. When we enter into heaven one day and see Jesus face to face and the entirety of the work that He accomplished on the cross, will our response be: “This is exactly how I imagined things to be.” Or will we emphatically proclaim: “This is just too good to be true!! Thank you Jesus!!” 

Every revelation of Jesus, his finished work, and his manifestation on earth receives a jubilant, “This is way too good to be true!!”

Let me assure you that I mostly definitely believe in prayer, worship, and active relationship with God and am not advocating a passive Christianity. However, every activity and motivation in the new covenant must come from a place of rest and an understanding that we are holding receipts because of the price that Jesus paid. There is no future event or activity (no matter how holy) that will bring anyone into more completeness, holiness, or healing. For all of this was accomplished on the cross. The only process is the process of illusion fading into reality. And illusion is always illusion and reality is always reality, no matter the belief or experience of any man. 

A year ago I would pray to receive, worship to appease, and do in hopes of becoming. But now I pray because of the knowledge of abundance, worship because I am thankful, and do because I know what manner of man I am. Our good deeds simply spring from a reflection of who we are; not because we are trying to accomplish and transform into people who we want to become.

The gospel has always been a receipt, even when we didn’t believe or respond appropriately to it. I’d like to say that I’m a new man since learning these truths, but I’m only the man I’ve always been because of a God who stopped at nothing to rescue, save, heal, sanctify, perfect, and deliver me completely and entirely, in only one day. 

Luke Beling

***To check out Luke's blog that is full of his own poetry, short stories, songs and more, click here.***

Abba' s Justice & The Movie: Blood Diamond

"He is my son. I am his father. I must go find him. Go ahead, shoot me if you want, but I will go find him."

Solomon Vandy in the movie Blood Diamond

In my first three posts, I've put a great deal of emphasis on the loving, good, kind and gentle nature of God. As I was reading through some of the things I've written, I was reminded of my former, fearful way of thinking and I could hear that twisted mindset asking in a most accusing manner, "Ah, but what about the JUSTICE of God? You've forgotten to balance all of this with JUSTICE."

I remember having a dream once, five or six years ago, and I could see a man from my church hunched over the steering wheel of his truck with his head down. I asked him what was wrong and he told me he was really bummed out over some sin he had stumbled into. I tried to reassure him, saying, "It's okay! God is merciful." And he responded in sadness with, "Yes, but He's also just."

Somewhere in our darkened mindsets, we've created an illusion that somehow Abba and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are divided against themselves; that the Justice of God is in contradiction with His mercy. We believe that He is bound up in legality and that sin actually dictates whether or not He can show mercy. In actuality, I think what has happened is that we've taken our own, fallen, legalistic definition of justice and ascribed it to our Divinely, loving Papa, completely forgetting that He is, first and foremost, relational. The only law that He will EVER be bound by is the law of Love. Or do we wish to make Jesus a liar?

Most of us view "justice" as being synonymous with "revenge"; a person getting what they deserve or getting "what's coming to them." But I think it's high time we redefine justice through the lens of the cross, redemption, restoration and the beautiful law of Love. Jesus certainly redefined it in his famous Sermon on the Mount when he begins showing the people the selflessness of Love: You've heard it said 'An eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth' but I say that if someone strikes you on the cheek, turn and offer him the other one also'.
And Jesus certainly isn't one who holds to the philosophy of 'Do as I say, not as I do.' No, he took love and his new definition of justice to the EXTREME!

In the Garden of Gethsemene, knowing that Judas is about to betray him for 30 pieces of silver, Jesus invites him to come and kiss him. 'Do what you came to do', he tells him.
When Peter rises up with the old, twisted view of justice and slices off the ear of one of the men ready to arrest Jesus, Jesus rebukes Peter and heals and restores the man's ear!
He allows the godless Romans to slap him around and mock him and scourge his back 39 times. He never stands up to defend himself against the false charges of blasphemy that are railed against him. He allows the Jews, his chosen people, the people that He delivered from the hand of Pharoah and led into the Promised Land, to sentence him to death by crucifixion. He carries his own cross to Golgotha, the place of the Skull, the place of death, Hades. And he allows them to nail him naked to this tree when he had a legion of 10,000 angels ready to be released at his disposal. As they gamble off his clothing, he, for the first time, utterly identifies with fallen man as he understands the weight of what it is to feel forsaken by the Father...alienated from Him in our minds. (He knows this isn't the reality, which is why he began reciting Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The latter part of the Psalm goes on to confirm that, in fact, God has not turned His face from the afflicted. In truth, Abba Father was right there in Jesus reconciling the world to himself). Then, to finish off this display of love, the great wrath of the Lamb, says, "Father, forgive them. They know not what they're doing." This is a man, our God, bound by nothing but his freedom to love. (God is love. If you need more info about the nature of Love, check out 1 Corinthians 13. It describes our Papa revealed in Jesus perfectly!).

Wow. Are you astonished? I hope so. Jesus loves to amaze us. I feel the Holy Spirit testifying within me, crying "YES!!"

After that it feels like anything else I say will be anticlimactic, but I still have more to share about this great, liberating justice. So getting on to my title: Abba Father's justice in the movie Blood Diamond. I should warn you now that if you've not seen the movie Blood Diamond, these next few paragraphs contain spoilers, so you may wish to stop reading.

Blood Diamond is one of, if not, my favorite movies of all time! I love all of the beautiful, though devastating, shots of different countries in Africa and I love the characters. The story is intriguing and is based on true events. The plot revolves around a guy, Danny Archer, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is your run-of-the-mill, self-centered diamond smuggler. He is so wrapped up in his own fear and he so badly wants to make enough money to leave his country and find a less war-ravaged place to live that he doesn't care what it costs. He is apathetic toward the fact that his diamond trade literally tears families apart and empowers war lords to kidnap children and make them soldiers. Basically, he's a jerk and the viewer feels he deserves to get killed in the crossfire of the war.

He comes into contact with a man, Solomon Vandy, whose son was kidnapped, his wife and daughter are in a refugee camp and he has just escaped the slavery of the war lords. Solomon, driven by love for his son, is forced to partner with Danny. Danny uses Solomon to find a rare diamond that Solomon found and hid during his enslavement. Solomon agrees to help him in hopes that he will find and rescue his son along the way. Over the course of time, this love of the father toward his son begins to bring light into Danny's darkness. He witnesses the power of Solomon's love drive him into great danger as he frees his son, Dia, from the grip of the rebel army, and then breaks through Dia's brain-washed mind as he helps him remember that he's not a ruthless soldier, but a loved little boy that likes to play soccer. By the end of the movie, Danny lays down his own life so that Solomon and Dia can escape. In that moment, when Danny sees and believes the truth and beauty of Love and its exposure of the ignorance of evil, his selfishness is proved to be destroyed and he becomes truly human. His life is redeemed!

I think this is a wonderful picture of how the justice of God works. His justice destroys his enemies in the most genius way: by befriending them. His justice restores everything that was lost and stolen by sin. Sin is what He has destroyed; not the ones He loves that have been afflicted by it.

The Apostle Paul, following in the wake of Jesus, said in Romans 12:17-21, "Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' says the Lord. 'But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Upon first reading of those verses, parts can seem harsh if you divorce your interpretation of them from the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. So allow me to offer some thoughts.

Firstly, let's talk about feeding your enemies and heaping coals and such. When I used to read this part, I thought, okay, so if there's someone I hate that has greatly offended me, I am to kill him with kindness and one day God'll get him with hellfire! So basically, I'm to act like I like him while anticipating the day that he gets his! I somehow forgot Jesus' putrid distaste for hypocrisy. Jesus wants us to actually love our enemies as he does, not just pretend we love them. And the "heaping burning coals on their head" is really quite beautiful if you think about what it means. Do you remember another time in scripture when burning coals are mentioned? If not, look up Isaiah 6:5-7 and the light will dawn. Isaiah is being commissioned and says, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips." Then a seraphim touches his lips with a burning coal and says, "...your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven." The burning coal declared his lips clean without harming him in the process! So if loving enemies heaps burning coals on their HEAD, does this not mean that we're declaring their mind cleansed? That our love awakens them from their confusion and stupor and they realize their value?  That verse is one that Paul is quoting from Proverbs 25, and the end of it actually says that "God will reward you." The reward for feeding and loving our enemies is the destruction of that enemy because friendship is ignited!

And as far as the other parts of that passage that speak of God's wrath and vengeance, well it's revealed right there in that last verse: His wrath overcomes and utterly destroys evil with good! We are instructed not to repay evil for evil, because He never will. The kind of vengeance He repays is destruction of enmity between man and man, and man toward God.

If you're afraid that I'm being too liberal with the scriptures, I'd assure you that I am being most conservative! When you look at the cross and teaching of Jesus, I dare you to come to a different conclusion without changing the very definition of Love! Justice and wrath are not qualities of God that exist apart from his love, but are wholly included and in agreement. I love the way that Baxter Kruger puts it; that His wrath is the divine "No!" to the destruction of His creatures by sin and His eternal "Yes!" to His determined, loving purpose that predestined Man for adoption as sons before the foundation of the world. His purpose will not be thwarted.

If this does not cause you to marvel in gratitude toward the Father, Son and Spirit, please reread those last two sentences until the cobwebs clear and you can see!

To clarify, here's what I'm NOT saying: I'm not suggesting that we stop putting murderers in prison or that women stay in abusive relationships or that we allow heinous crimes like sex trafficking, etc. to go unpunished in the name of forgiveness. As long as even one person remains ignorant of their true identity and God's true identity as revealed in the Gospel and how much they're loved and valued, the world's system of government and law remains necessary and good. They're in place for our protection and peace, as far as they are capable of enforcing it.

But, the world's system of government functions like bandages on a leper. They can attempt to hide the symptoms and the ugliness and they can try to protect others from being harmed, but they can never cure the disease and restore total health. But Jesus' "government" changes minds and reveals hearts of stone as hearts of flesh. Papa's love is the only thing that can bring justice, in it's truest sense, and peace.

The other thing I am NOT saying is that sin has no consequence. Of course it does, and the consequence remains the same no matter the sin: death. Adultery leads to the death of a marriage, slander and gossip lead to the death of trust in a friendship, and on and on. The consequence of sin is as unbending as the law. The word "sin" means to miss the mark that our existence is intended for, so to miss that mark is to decline into nonexistence....death.
BUT, BUT, BUT... the gospel reveals Jesus as bringing life out of death! The consequence of sin was and is no match for his love that is life! Jesus has fully and completely, once for all, dealt with sin and its consequence, so much so that He actually has no more to say on the matter because He remembers them no more!!!! Hallelujah!! If ever you feel you've screwed up beyond all measure, redemption is yours! Your innocence is restored! Even if your circumstances seem contradictory to what I'm saying; if you've been the victim or victimizer of a relationship destroyed by sin, trust Abba's love for you AND within you. As the Spirit leads you in the world of freedom, His glorious victory will be revealed!

God is not out to get you. He's not angry with you or burdened by you or disappointed in you. The only reason that we can administer His kind of justice to others is because He has first administered it to us. It's all His initiative, His heart dream. That is why, deep in your gut, you know that what I'm telling you is true. It's not alien or foreign, but resounds perfectly at home in your chest because it's how He created and designed you: To house His perfect love and live the bliss of expressing it.

So let's get about our joyous business of revealing what is done in Christ as we are free to believe this Good News and become overwhelmed with an urge to share it! No more of this need to "balance" love and grace and forgiveness with some sobering form of "truth" and "justice." It's unnecessary and does much more harm than good! His justice is mercy and compassion, and His truth is love. Grace and peace to you friends!

Isaiah 30:18
Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

Zechariah 7:9
This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.'

Proverbs 28:5
Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully.

The Laughing Covenant

" Sarah said, 'God has blessed me with laughter and all who get the news will laugh with me!"' Genesis 21:6 MSG

Now that I'm beginning to discover the truth of who my Father is as He revealed himself in Jesus, I've had a huge craving to reread the Bible starting from the beginning so that I can enjoy it from a much rosier perspective. My heart actually flutters within me when I go to open its pages because I know that I'm about to be wooed by His love. It's such a drastic change from the way I used to approach scripture: fearful and expecting condemnation. Or with a secret agenda that I hid under the guise of "intensive biblical studies" as I searched grievously trying to read between the lines of scripture and find something fresh so that I could impress people with my knowledge. Remember when Jesus rebuked the religious folks for studying the scriptures, trying to find eternal life in them, but in all their scholarship they missed the whole point of what was written or, more accurately, WHO was written? That observation describes my former way of thinking perfectly. The scriptures all point to Jesus, who is Life, and they can only be interpreted through him, his life, his death, his resurrection and ascension. And as two of my favorite evangelists, Francois du Toit and Andre Rabe, like to say: The scriptures are all about Jesus and Jesus is all about you! The scriptures reveal Jesus and Jesus reveals the true you!

I feel the need to throw in a disclaimer here: I've had no formal biblical training. I do not know all of the nuances of the Greek and Hebrew. So I like to take the same attitude that Robert Capon takes (although he is very learned in the Bible), which is to enjoy the scriptures and feel free to play and imagine with them as the Holy Spirit guides me into truth. Thankfully, we are the children of a childlike God who is innocent of evil and likes to bring us joy and make us laugh (more about that in a moment). In light of that, I will never reject a single verse, but I feel more than free to reject mine or anyone else's interpretation of any verse that doesn't line up with the self-giving, long-suffering, merciful love that I see displayed on the cross. I'm not at all against knowledge, after all it's the knowledge of the truth that pulls our experience of life out of the pit of Hades, which is ignorance and darkness, and into the freedom of light. I'm against the kind of knowledge that is empty of love and full of worldly reasoning that keeps people trapped in a system of hierarchy and shame.

Being a full time Mom and a part-time receptionist has made my read-thru a slow-going process, but if there's one thing I'm learning, it's that time is the least of our Father's concerns. He is never in a rush, but His love is of the utmost urgency. That is why He is always so happy, so ready to reveal Himself!

So at this point in my reading, I've recently come across Abraham and Sarah's story. Abraham is the man that God elects to make His covenant with and chooses to be the father of all nations. He isn't elected at the exclusion of everyone else, but for their inclusion! "All the families of the earth will be blessed through you."  Many of us that have grown up in evangelical traditions have a very warped, and sometimes terrifying, view of election or being "chosen" that ignores the fact that the One always represents all. It was true with Adam, it was true with Abraham, it was true with Israel and is now true with Jesus Christ! That is why their actions had a tremendous effect on everyone they stood representing!

(Rabbit trail: Aren't you glad that Jesus represents you? That everything that is true of him is true of you? We thought that we were killing only one man by crucifying him, but what we didn't realize is that he is the fullness God! Everything that exists, exists in him! If he dies, everyone dies! If he's raised new and glorious, everyone is raised new and glorious! If he ascends to the right hand of the Father, everyone ascends to the right hand of the Father! That's what I call some pretty glorious atonement baby!!! As he IS, so are we IN THIS WORLD!).

We know from the New Testament that we (uncircumsized gentiles) are included in the covenant that God made with Abraham. We also discover that we are not children of the slave woman, which is a reference to Hagar and her son, Ishmael, and the fact that he was a product of human effort. But we are children of the free woman, which is a reference to Sarah and her son, Isaac, who was a product of God's promise and God's faith. But the thing that specifically tickled my heart as I read this section of Genesis is the meaning of Isaac's name: Laughter. God chooses this name after telling Abraham that the son through whom He would establish His covenant would come through his elderly, barren wife, Sarah. Abraham falls on the ground laughing and once he recovers, God says to name his son, Laughter.

A few chapters later, God visits Abraham to tell him that, by this time the next year, Sarah would have a son. Sarah is eavesdropping on the conversation and when she hears this news, she also starts laughing. When she finally gives birth to the son that she never believed she would bear, she says, “God has blessed me with laughter, and all who get this news will laugh with me!"

This is the perfect picture of the New Covenant. Our Father loves to bless us with jubilant, deep, guttoral laughter! If the version of the Gospel that you have been presented with doesn't cause your heart to bubble over in gleeful laughter, or at least provoke a bright smile, chances are you've heard a very diluted, watered-down to ineffective, non-gospel: full of conditions, laws and fear tactics. So don't feel guilty if you've never laughed over the goodness of the Gospel. Most likely, you've just not heard it aright and it is my prayer that Abba Father will make His appeal to you as the Holy Spirit shows you who He is, as revealed in Jesus and who you are, as revealed in Jesus. I hope that you will hear his loving voice whispering,

"Come to me you weary and heavily burdened. I am gentle and humble in heart. I will give you rest. Drink freely of my water and streams of living water will flow from your belly. I remember your sins no more! I am patient and kind. I keep absolutely no record of your wrongs. I am Love. I will never insist upon or force my own way, but I will help you discover that my way is for your utmost pleasure. As I persuade you of my goodness, your belief in me will melt your will into mine because you were created for truth and freedom. I choose you and woo you and find you; not the other way around. I am full of grace and truth. I dwell in you and never leave or forsake you. There is nowhere you can go to escape my presence or love. My judgment is mercy. If you believe lies that cause you to be faithless, I am still faithful. If you deny me, I'll never deny you, but I will deny the lies that you believe about me and yourself. I can never agree with a lie. If you reject me, I'll reject your rejection and keep pursuing your heart. My calling is irrevocable. I'll never stop helping you to change your mind about who I am; to show you that I'm not angry or disappointed, but in love with you. I even became a man, just like you and allowed humanity to pour all of their anger and wrath upon me, becoming your scapegoat. I let you curse me and kill me, and I did not cling to my rights as your God. My rights and dignity are nowhere near the importance of winning your love and freedom. As William Paul Young puts it: On Good Friday, I was God in the hands of angry sinners. I did not seek revenge. You are my treasure. I knew you before I even formed you and you are of great value to me. You are holy, blameless and spotless before me! I will show you that there is no love greater than this. Nothing, not even death can separate you from my love. My greatest desire is that my perfect love will cast out all of your fear of me; that you will no longer feel ashamed or that you must hide before me, but that you will see yourself as I see you: A clear reflection of my very own image and likeness. And that you will forever enjoy being in union with me."

I hope you are giggling or at least smiling as you allow His infectious joy to permeate your entire being. His covenant was meant to make you laugh with its goodness. Don't let the wolves, even when they're in their best sheep's disguise, lead you to believe otherwise. You'll know that they're wolves because they'll try to ravage your joy, weighing you down with guilt, condemnation, shame, rules and the sneakiest forms of idolatry that say that Jesus' work on the cross wasn't enough to justify you. Be oh so careful of these! Many are well-meaning and scared and have just been deceived themselves. But their doctrine will destroy you with hopelessness. Remember Jesus' warning to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Their leaven begins with fear and a false doctrine of separation that leads to a system or formula of impossible demands and expectations. Baxter Kruger says something along these lines: If you start with a perception of separation from Father, Son and Spirit, you will get a dead religious system that demands that you work for something you've already got. But if you start believing the union that was revealed in the person of Jesus, you will get a life of freedom to explore the depths of the love we were created for and you will experience utter astonishment at the goodness of Father, Son and Spirit.

Do you see why this distinction is so important? The Gospel message that we have to offer to the world is not: Do this so that you can become that. It's not: Repent and confess so that God will forgive you. It's not: Pray this prayer so that you can go to Heaven and be with Jesus when you die. It's not: Jesus died for you, but you must now apply the blood to your life in order to be vitally forgiven. It's not: You are currently the child of the devil, but if you ask God, he'll adopt you as his own.

Our Gospel message DOES NOT start from a place of separation to which our union or perfection or sanctification or righteousness is dependent on something we must do, nor is our remaining in that state dependent upon something we must do. Our Gospel message is from faith to faith. That means that it originates in God's faith and when we discover what He believes, our own faith is ignited. From faith to faith. We declare WHAT IS. The Good News is that Christ has done it! In Him, the fullness of God dwells and in Him all things-including humanity- consist. Jesus reveals the union of Man and God. He has included humanity in his own relationship with the Father in the fellowship of the Spirit. Through his death, He reconciled the whole world, whom He loved, to Himself. This is HIS faith. This is HIS conviction. We now have the exciting joy of participating in His ministry of reconciliation and telling the world of what has happened to them in Christ. So whether someone is a believer, unbeliever, atheist, Jew, Muslim or Christian, you can joyfully proclaim to them that they were included in the death and resurrection of Jesus and that Jesus is the full revelation of the Father AND Jesus is the full revelation of their true selves. They have been successfully reconciled to the Father and the Spirit now makes his appeal to them to be reconciled.

As Andre Rabe likes to clarify, the appeal to "be reconciled" is not to be mistaken as an appeal to "become" reconciled. No one can become what they already are. But you can certainly cease striving, cease believing a lie and be what you already are. You can stop acting and living as though you were cut off from this great love. You can be the transformed person that you already are as your mind is renewed to the truth.

This great love invites, hopes and anticipates a response, but the response is not the condition for making it true; it's not "your part" of some legal contract. The response is just the joy, the laughter, the belief, the love that arises from your heart when you hear the truth of the proclamation of Father's affections toward you and how He sees you! It is the participation in what He has already accomplished!

Isn't it great? God has given me laughter and all who hear the Good News will laugh with me!!!!! Amen.