Joy Unseen

     Almost three years ago, in June of 2010, I was hit by a truck while riding my bike home.  I don't know what happened because I was unconscious until I was in the ambulance.  My bike was destroyed.  I had a gash in my head and road rash on my shoulder and back.  I was in the emergency room for about three hours, and when I left I had seven staples in my head and an undiagnosed broken collar bone; it was a few days later when I learned that it was broken.
     This was a terrible situation, and it's my sincere belief that God saved my life that day.  Saved me from what could have been or should have been death.  And I believe I must have realized this at the time, because what I remember most about that night is that I was filled with joy.  Strange to think it, stranger still to say it, but the most vivid thing I remember about being in the ER with a busted head and shoulder is how my heart was full with the joy of the Lord.
      If there's one thing that a lot of Christians aren't experiencing in their lives it's joy.  Joy is a funny thing.  We tend to think of it as synonymous with happiness, or as a heightened sense of happiness, but joy and happiness are two different things.  Joy comes from God.  It is a spiritual state, just as peace is a spiritual state.  It's a thing we get from God that has no direct connection to our physical circumstances.  This is why I was able to be joyful while bleeding from the head in the ER.  It's why I had joy over the next couple of months as my insurance company worked out a settlement and my wife and I tried to stay sane between doctor's appointments and medical bills.  I wasn't happy about the pain, the expense, the stress.  But I had joy in spite of it all.
     Like most everything in this walk we call the Christian Life, joy requires the sustained practice that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 4:18, that of fixing our eyes on the Lord.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

  We have joy in our life when we're focused on the right things.  Ironically the right thing to focus on is "that which is unseen," which must mean that, though unseen, we can still fixate on them.  It's tricky.  When I was in the hospital, there were many things to fix my eyes on: the nurses and doctors, the MRI machine, the cuts and bruises and breaks on my body.  But for some reason the unseen caught my attention and I looked there instead.  It was so much more rewarding to look at God and His goodness in the middle of my light and momentary trouble, rather than to stare at that very trouble and wonder, Now what?      If as the scripture says "The joy of the Lord is my strength," then without His joy I'm going to be weak.  Such has been the case in my life.  Regardless of circumstances, good or bad, I have found that this is always true: when I lean on the Lord and walk in His joy, I make it.  I get through the stressful times, the uncertain times, the times when money is tight or the arguments are plentiful.  I have the strength to continue in life because I have a strength that is not my own.  In fact, it is precisely in some of my darkest times that I can look back and see that I experienced the most consistent joy.  I had joy in spite of the circumstances because I always had God in the midst of the circumstances.      We are especially prone to forget this, but all we need in this life is to consistently fix our eyes on the Lord.

For the love of glory

   The following notion is a cliche, and that is a sad thing: lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  I say that this is a cliche not just because it is a widely heard proverb, but because it also means very little to us.  If you were to ask me what it means, I could probably come up with an answer, and it would be a very churched answer, couched in the vocabulary of American Christianity (which is itself quite cliched).  That any precept, teaching, or truth of God should become a cliche is not an indictment of God, but an indictment of us.  Cliches fall on deaf ears; they have been robbed of their power to be heard, and we have robbed them of that power.
   Here is the same cliche in different terms.

"[F]or they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God." (John 12:43)

   This was said by Jesus in reference to leaders in the Jewish community at that time.  These particular leaders believed what Jesus preached, but they were so concerned that they might lose their powerful positions in the synagogues that they said nothing.  Funny how so often the most powerful action a man takes is inaction.
   How true is this precept in our lives.  That is not a question; this precept is true, as true of many of us as it was of these Jewish leaders.  And while this scripture could easily fall on deaf ears, echoing as it does the cliche that we are used to, the cliche that we would rather ignore because it indicts our activities, it should strike us in it's significance.  Here were men who were religious leaders of the chosen race of the one true and living God, seeing the messiah that all of Israel had so yearned for, and believing that he was in fact the messiah of prophecy, but they would not admit they believed.  They kept silent so that they could keep their positions in the synagogues.  They willingly ignored the fulfillment of a promise for the sake of a position.  They traded the eternal for the temporal.
   There is more than cliche in these scriptures if we can tune our ears to it.  God is reminding us of something that, because we do it all the time, we are blind to it.  We are constantly pursuing the glory that comes from man with a fervor we would not dedicate to pursuing God's glory.  We are constantly laying up treasure on earth; constantly tucking our hearts away amid our stuff.  These truths are cliche to us because this is our way of life.  Of course I love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God!  Stop telling me what I already know!
   But we must not know it.  If we did know these truths, if these truths had roots within us, we would change.  If we really knew that we were trading God's glory for man's, many believers would react with disgust.  How many?  My initial estimate: not many.  And I think the reason is because very few believers know what the glory of God is.  Very few understand what is really to gain when we go after God.
   One explanation for this phenomenon - that few believers really know what glory God has for them - I can give from personal experience.  Many Christians have been taught that salvation is the end state.  We've been taught that the best thing God has to give us is salvation from our sins, and while this is inarguably the most important thing that Jesus has done, it ignores what he said to the disciples.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)

   Salvation is only the beginning of the Christian life.  As the scripture tells us, we are moving "from glory to glory," not moving to glory and then staying there.  And we're not just moving toward any old glory, but towards God's glory.  Since Jesus has gone to be with the father, that's where we're headed, too.  And not in some distant sense, only after we die, but right here and right now and tomorrow and the day after that.  From the moment that we accept the free gift of God in Jesus, we have the opportunity to come into the fullness of glory that Jesus promises.  In fact, this is exactly what we should desire.
   This may be a hard thing for some believers to grasp: that we should desire glory.  In ignorance we have embraced humiliation and thought it was humility.  But there is glory to be gotten, and it's glory that we've been promised.  Walking in the glory of God requires humility, but it also requires passion: a passion for Jesus and the things of God.  And the glory of God is for His glory, not ours.  What the scripture shows us in the words of Jesus is that we are going to long for some kind of glory, either of men or of God.  We'll not hesitate to say that God's glory is better, but our lives usually reveal that we believe the opposite.  To the question of which we should pursue, God's glory is the obvious right answer, but life is not lived by answers, it's lived by actions.
   So this is what the love of glory comes down to: the choice between that which comes from man and that which comes from God.  There is no third choice.  And there is no abstention, because we will choose one or the other.  In the end we have the same cliche, as some will hear it.  But I hope that it will be less a cliche than it has been when we truly consider it, and consider what may happen if we choose the glory of God.

A Call to Arms

   Christianity is under assault, and this is a call to arms.  But be not deceived: this assault is not new.  Jesus told his disciples of his time that they would suffer persecution.  In fact, the theme of much of Paul's writings is that persecution should be both anticipated and welcomed.  "To me," he said, "to live is Christ, and to die is gain."  If death was gain to Paul, then life must have been difficult.  That is not a fair summary of his words, but it's one interpretation.
   This call to arms isn't like others you've heard.  Many times we hear calls from indignant Christians to do things of little value: boycott something offensive, write to your congressman, gather around the flagpole to pray.  These things take effort and make a show, but they do not move heaven.
   What can move a mountain?  Little faith; key word: little.  What can move the heart of God?  Belief, humility, the admittance of truth.  When the father saw that the disciples could not heal his son, Jesus assured him his son could be healed - if he believed.  And so the father said, "I believe; help my unbelief!"  This kind of statement moves heaven.  It is the spoken heart of one who believes.
   When the Cannanite woman came to Jesus looking for healing for her daughter, she could not be turned away.  She cried out so much that the disciples were annoyed.  And Jesus tested her faith.  "I cam only to the lost sheep of Israel," he said.  "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."  But even at this slight she wouldn't relent.  "Yes lord," she said, "yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table."  Her daughter was healed instantly.  She spoke the deep, true belief in her heart and moved heaven for her daughter.
   This is the call to arms: believe.  God is looking for believers.  He doesn't need an army of pamphleteers, or a hundred programs for the categories of lost.  He does not require the best buildings in the right locations.  God does not need proper funding.  Our God is on His throne and all of His power sits at His right hand at the same time as it sits in each of us who beleive, and yet...we are weak.  The kingdom suffers violence.  Well, violent men take it by force.  Men, women, and children of violence; violent passion.
   This is the call to arms: find passion for the Lord.  Jesus came to earth to bear the wrath of God for all mankind, and yet it is difficult for us to give him this small thing: our lives.  When we beleivers decide that nothing is worth more than Jesus, then we'll get violent and we'll take the kingdom into our hands.  We'll lay claim to the authority that's in the name of Jesus Christ.  We'll heal hearts and bodies, we'll work miracles on the tableau of nature, we'll rock the foundations of evil across the world.  And we'll spread the word of God.  People will fall for the Lord when they see how passionate we are for His goodness.
   Christianity is under assault, just as it's been since Jesus began to preach the gospel.  And the call to arms still goes out.  Remember what Jesus said: "In this world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world."