TRINITY SUNDAY--24

I have just been in church on the Sunday called Trinity Sunday. The minister seemed to struggle with the Trinity, as if he were trying to present the entire Trinity in half an hour.

What if we were to read what Jesus said about believing in Him, His Father and the Holy Spirit? Could we find a singular path into the Trinity which does not overwhelm us?

I think we can.
Let's begin with the famous John 3.16. Jesus said He came to humanity because His Father sent Him. What would He mean at this time by, 'believes in Him'? It can only be that the Father sent Jesus, that the world would be saved through Jesus. Jesus goes on in John 3.18 to say that if someone doesn't believe in Jesus, he doesn't believe in the Father. He's judged already because what is at stake is belief in the Father and the Son.

In John 3.35,36 indicates the Father has given all things to the Son, so that not believing in the Son is not believing in the Father.

Then in the next chapter, John 4.21 that worship is worshiping the Father. In fact, the Father is seeking worshipers. He even declares the Father to be spirit, thus uniting the Son with the Father with the Spirit.
In John 5 Jesus unites His work with the Father. John 5.17 says--My Father is working until now and I Myself am working. He will say the same thing two verses later, 5.19. The religious Jews understood what Jesus was saying, they accuse Him of making God the Father His own Father; they were absolutely right but could not swallow it.

And in John 5.20 Jesus says He not only does what the Father is doing but if you could see the works of Jesus you could see the works of the Father. In fact, whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. This is revealation of an exalted order. What this means is to believe in the Father is eternal life, to refuse to believe in the Son is to reject eternal life.
Later in His life, Jesus will make this so plain it is raw. In John 15.23 He says--He who hates Me hates the Father, also.

And then Jesus goes even further. He says eternal life, being saved, is believing in the Father. In John 16. 27 says--The Father Himself loves you because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from the Father. So believing in the Son is believing in the Father. And believing in the Father is eternal life

That is why we study the Trinity.

CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY--Week 23

Christian spirituality is a blend of God's presence through the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of God through His Word.

We prepare ourselves for the presence of God through prayer, awaiting His spontaneous presence as He chooses to reveal Himself to us. And to recognize Him--to enter into His presence--we study the Scriptures.

If we were to trust every impulse which we think might be God, we will wander off into our own psychology. After all, the Scriptures already say God's ways are not ours, they are higher. And yet, to limit God to propositions we believe are logical is to suffocate our capacity to receive His presence.

So we pray, we wait for the sponteneity of God's presence while we learn who He is in the Bible.

God is ultimately not like us and He is not like 'gods.' He is not like us in that He does not lie (Ps. 89.35), and He is not like other gods because He lives (Romans 14.11). Wood doesn't live, metal doesn't live, mental ideas don't live. Gods die, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lives. Jesus says, Before Abraham was born, I am, John 8.58.

The Sermon on the Mount speaks of three aspects of spirituality from God--alms(giving), prayer, fasting. Alms is generosity, prayer is humility, fasting is denial. We give ourselves and our money away, we approach God in humility and love, and we deny the world to see God.

That in the Sermon Jesus mentions almsgiving first tells us Christian spirituality comes through the church. This is true of publications by the church and the church's presence in society even if we aren't there.

Then Jesus mentions prayer next. We cannot have Christian spirituality without prayer, as prayer is our seeking after God from our spirit to God's spirit. Today, churches don't really pray as the seeking after God, so we don't always pray by ourselves. It's always good to keep a journal of prayers and God's answers. It's amazing how many prayers God answers.

Then Jesus mentions fasting. This is probably practiced less today than any spiritual practice. Maybe we think it's a kind of religious work, but my experience is that the denal of the flesh is the opening of the spirit. This, really, is to be expected since Jesus lived as a human while He was God. When Jesus went out into the desert to be tempted by Satan, He used fasting to protect Himself, Matt. 4.1. How strong is your protection?

In each of these three areas, there is much in the Scriptures to learn. Some of these subjects are endlessly fascinating, but they all use our action. In the end Christianity is what we do, not what we merely contemplate.

CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY--Week 23

Christian spirituality is a blend of God's presence through the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of God through His Word.

We prepare ourselves for the presence of God through prayer, awaiting His spontaneous presence as He chooses to reveal Himself to us. And to recognize Him--to enter into His presence--we study the Scriptures.

If we were to trust every impulse which we think might be God, we will wander off into our own psychology. After all, the Scriptures already say God's ways are not ours, they are higher. And yet, to limit God to propositions we believe are logical is to suffocate our capacity to receive His presence.

So we pray, we wait for the sponteneity of God's presence while we learn who He is in the Bible.

God is ultimately not like us and He is not like 'gods.' He is not like us in that He does not lie (Ps. 89.35), and He is not like other gods because He lives (Romans 14.11). Wood doesn't live, metal doesn't live, mental ideas don't live. Gods die, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lives. Jesus says, Before Abraham was born, I am, John 8.58.

The Sermon on the Mount speaks of three aspects of spirituality from God--alms(giving), prayer, fasting. Alms is generosity, prayer is humility, fasting is denial. We give ourselves and our money away, we approach God in humility and love, and we deny the world to see God.

That in the Sermon Jesus mentions almsgiving first tells us Christian spirituality comes through the church. This is true of publications by the church and the church's presence in society even if we aren't there.

Then Jesus mentions prayer next. We cannot have Christian spirituality without prayer, as prayer is our seeking after God from our spirit to God's spirit. Today, churches don't really pray as the seeking after God, so we don't always pray by ourselves. It's always good to keep a journal of prayers and God's answers. It's amazing how many prayers God answers.

Then Jesus mentions fasting. This is probably practiced less today than any spiritual practice. Maybe we think it's a kind of religious work, but my experience is that the denal of the flesh is the opening of the spirit. This, really, is to be expected since Jesus lived as a human while He was God. When Jesus went out into the desert to be tempted by Satan, He used fasting to protect Himself, Matt. 4.1. How strong is your protection?

In each of these three areas, there is much in the Scriptures to learn. Some of these subjects are endlessly fascinating, but they all use our action. In the end Christianity is what we do, not what we merely contemplate.

CHRIST IN YOU--22

I wonder how someone knows God.

We certainly can learn about God in the Bible, we certainly can speak to God in prayer, but how do we know God?
I think we might know God as He is in us. The Biblical example is the Lord God breathing into Adam, making him a living being, Genesis 2.7. The breath that was in the Lord God is in Adam. And through Adam, this is true of everyone. In 1 Cor. 2.12 Paul writes that we have received--the spirit who is from God that we might know the things freely given to us by God. What has been given to us is that God is in us. The Greek poet Aretus said that in Him we live and breathe and have our being.


This is a great insight into the truth that what we contemplate of God we have in us. It is already there. What this means is there really is no great pilgrimmage to a place, there are no stages of spiritual growth to be attained. Meditation is already knowing we have God in us, it is a coming forth.

But we don't sit still. The result of this knowing what we already have is to see God in us more clearly, in closer detail, in particular use. So we study the Scriptures to learn that God is the Trinity. We pray to God to be aware of His closeness. We tell others about God as the way to reveal Him to others.

So we see from this that meditation is seeing what's already there, to see it more clearly, to know God more dearly, to make Him known to those around us. It is somewhat like this. If it is night, all is dark. But if one by one everyone in the world lit a candle, the night would turn to day. This is the coming forth of God in us which is Christian meditation.

We might compare it to waking up in the morning, when we see first light and merely 'know' it is day. One might make the case that all men and women everywhere simply 'know' that God is good. When my daughters were young, they drew pictures which they colored. They always put in the pictures a sun, yellow, and above all. They just knew there was a God, a source, a point of beginning of all things.

And we simply know that we are made in His image. If we are honest about the world in which we live, we simply know that we are not perfect in all our ways, that the world reflects what we are.

These things are not manufactured, they are realized. We meditate on these things in order to hold them within, and when we do God gives us more understanding of Himself that we might become more like Him even as we are.

Yet, while we are living on this planet time inserts itself between our thoughts of God like chaff amid wheat. It delays us, it distracts us, it makes us feel uncomfortable in our meditation until we prefer the world over God. We'd like for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to disappear so we could get right to the weekend, but we need those days to put our humanity before God. This is our preparation to meet God who is without the same time which distracts us. In time we come so that God would be in us without time.

As time is a gift, so is place. This means that a place exists when God comes. We often think that God can be anywhere; this is because when God comes, that is our place with Him. He prefers, as the poet Milton said, the upright heart and pure over any temple, but He comes when He comes.

VIEWPOINTS--21

When we look at the book of Revelation, we see more than one viewpoint.
For instance, when Jesus spoke to the church at Philadelphia, He says in Rev. 3.10--I will also keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth.

But to the church in Smyrna Jesus does not say the same thing. He tells them--you are about to suffer. Behold the devil is about to cast some of you into prison that you may be tested and you will have tribulation ten days, Rev. 2.10.

One church will be kept from testing, the other church will be tested.

We have different opinions. Some say the church will be raptured out of this world before any tribulation comes--as those in Philadelphia--and some say the church will go through the tribuation--as those in Smyrna.
We would expect to go through tribulation, if we have read of the prophecy in Daniel 7. There, in verse 25, Daniel says of a king--he will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the Highest One...and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. So we see that the saints go through the tribulation (time, times, and half a time) at the hands of that king.

Peter seems to agree with that. He says in 1 Peter 4.12--Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.

But when Paul addressed the church at Thessalonica, his tone is one of escape just like the church at Philadelphia--For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout..we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord...1 Thes. 4.16,17.


So we have to see that prophecies of the end will show more than one viewpoint concerning the tribulation and Christians.

We might think of this as John writing of the churches as a whole in Rev. 1-3 and John writing of individual Christians in chapters 5-19.
In Rev. 5.9 John writes of--men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation... In Rev. 6.11 they are called, fellow servants. In Rev. 11.9, John writes of--those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations... Are they the same ones as in Rev. 5.9? They may be.

Then in Rev. 11.18 the saints are mentioned again, and in Rev. 12.11 as--they did not love their life even to death. Then in Rev. 13.10 there is the--perseverence and the faith of the saints.

Of course there are other references to individuals, as saints. Why is the church mentioned in Rev. 1-3 but individual saints mentioned after that? It may be that God knows each saint indivudually who will be raptured, live in the tribulation and endure to the end. If God knows the 144,000 who were sealed in Rev.7, even to the point of John writing that--I heard the number of those who were sealed...then we might conclude God has individual saints in mind.

God knows who He knows

SIGN OF THE TIMES--Week 20

Should you be able to tell if someone is a Christian?

What would that person undergo to be Christian?

I think the idea of 'becoming a Christian' might be thought of as running a gauntlet, being put through tests until some great thing is accomplished, like an initiation rite.

A classic sequence would be John 3.22-30. The subject is baptism. Jesus and His disciples are in Judea. John the Baptist's disciples are discussing baptism as purification. But how much water does it take for you to be pure?

Is baptism a rite for purification?

At the wedding at Cana, the water Jesus turned into wine was water for purification, John 2.6. Can water make you pure?
When John's disciples come to him to complain that Jesus' disciples are baptizing also. John has the insight--A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven, John 33.27. In other words, it isn't the water for purification or water for baptism, it isn't who is doing the baptism or how much is enough purfication. It is simply the gift of God.

Now when we look at our souls we have to see that whatever one is, he or she has the gift of God. We might not be aware of the gift we have been given, we might not like that to which we are called, but it is the gift of God. If we are a gifted musician or writer or businessman, it is from God. If we have been given an opportunity which few have been given, it is from God. If our life seems mundane, ordinary, simply modest and reserved, it is from God.

In our passage John immediately realizes he is the bridegroom to the Bride. He realizes he is the messanger, that he must decrease so that Christ can increase.

How did he realize that?
We begin and end with our chosenness. Ephesians says we were predestined before the foundation of the world, Eph. 1.4, to be holy and blameless before Him. So before the foundation of the world, we stood before God holy and blameless.

What was that like, before the foundation of the world?
When we look at Romans 8.28 we find a certain language and approach. We find that God causes all things to work for good to those who love Him. Jesus had said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind, Matt. 22.37.


All of this means being chosen before the foundation of the world has to do with loving God and believing in God. According to John, this 'already' is a gift. Our Christian life consists in realizing the role of love and belief in our own souls. When we realize this, our life comes to us.
John realized who he was and who Jesus was by knowing--He who comes from heaven is over all, John 3.31. The apostle Paul was told who he was and what he would do in Acts 9.15,16.

What about us? We know that to love God is to know Him. Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2.10 that some--did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. When we receive the love of the truth, we will know God in Jesus Christ, to be saved.

WHAT IS THE CHURCH?--Week 19

John 3--about Nicodemus--is about an entrance. As we know Nicodemus comes at night, when the Sanhedrin to which he belongs is meeting. Did they wonder where he was?
Nicodemus says--Rabbi, we know that you have come from God...God is with you, John 3.2.

Jesus then gives Nicodemus two tests of the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is seeking God but he must be born again in order to see God's kingdom and to enter it. Jesus says Nicodemus must be born of water and Spirit. This is the baptism in the Jordan for repentance and the baptism in the Spirit which will come at Pentecost.
So Nicodemus asks how these things can happen--how can these things be, John 3.9.

First Jesus criticizes Nicodemus for not knowing this already. Then He tells Nicodemus that--the Son of Man (must) be lifted up, John 3.14. This might be a reference to Jesus on the cross, but for Nicodemus that night Jesus says 3 times--whoever believes in Him...whoever believes in Him...He who believes in Him, John 3.15,16,18. Evidently being lifted up is belief in the heart.

Up till now it seems that it is Nicodemus who must believe in Jesus to be born again, that belief is a work of man as if everything depended on it. To contradict that, Jesus ends the passage with Nicodemus by saying his--deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God, John 3.21.

Jesus has brought Nicodemus from being born again to believing in Jesus to his deeds being wrought in God. What is being said here is that the Christian life is all of God and yet it is all of us. The NT writers cannot think of their own soul without thinking of the Spirit of God; they cannot think of the Spirit of God without thinking of their own soul. The spirit of man and the Spirit of God embrace continually.
God decided at the fall of man in Genesis 3 that man cannot live without Him; when Adam had a chance to deal with Satan upon the protection of God's Word--Gen. 2.15,16--he failed. When the Lord told Cain, Sin is crouching at the door and you must master it--Gen. 4.7--Cain failed. Man cannot live without God.

God decided at the cross that He will not live without man. He became a man.

There is a passage in the OT which dramatizes this moment when God decided He will not exist without us. It comes from Isaiah 59.16--
Now the Lord saw and it was displeasing in His sight
that there was not justice,
and He saw that there was no man,
and was astonished that there was no one to intercede;
then His own arm brought salvation to Him;
and His righteousness upheld Him.
And He put on righteousness like a breastplate,
and a helmet of salvation on His head;
and He put on garments of vengeance for clothingand wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.


From that moment on, God was with man in His side. From that moment on man was with God in his soul. The idea that God is with us and that we are with God is the basis for the church. Heaven is the church glorified; the church is heaven dramatized with us.

So in Revelation 5, John saw an angel say what he wrote--
a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice,
'Who is worthy to open the book and break its' seals?'
And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or look into it. And I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it; and one of the elders said to me,
'Stop weeping, behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its' seven seals..'
God is with us, we are with God. That is the church.