God went into the Father Business?

Paul tenaciously collects threads in scripture to weave an astonishing message: true all along.  These Romans verses picture God’s promise and great love for us as Father. 

Inspect a $20 bill.  See its red and blue flecks?  Those scattered threads make no pattern, but they mean everything to the Treasury’s electromagnetic detectors.  So, scattered verses in Romans weave God’s powerful truth.  He is Father to us.  Let’s gather those threads.

This calls to failed fathers, like me.  We fail as fathers in myriads of ways: a child doesn’t achieve well.  Dad on TV do it all better, and a relationship goes south.  If you are a dad and have failed pointedly so everyone knows, welcome.  If your dad might use this, then you can send it.

Once upon a time there was a communion called God.  He still is three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit is important, but not a central character now.  Now, we sing the Father and His Only Begotten Son.

Paul sings in Romans 1:7: “To all [ya’ll] (he was really from Texas) who are beloved of God, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!”  This Jewish Ph.D. in theology sings, “We wouldn’t have known!  We had no idea!  We thought God was about being good and law-abiding.  If it hadn’t been for Jesus we would have never gotten God as Father!”

God talks to us in Jesus.  The single new thing He says in Jesus is that He, God, is Father. 

We rightly trumpet dead-beat dads and abusive fathers who injure kids and wives, but we do what Blaise Paschall warns against: “God created us in His image, and we return the favor.”  He warned against projecting on to God our failings.  Let’s not. 

Remember what were the first things you knew of God?

In a new love with Jesus did you love life?  Did you love release from dreaded terrors?  How wonderful to bring your failures, your naked self to God?  Do you remember “the Clean”?  Can you recall deep joy in being loved, even though He deeply knew you?  Recall an incredible lightness in first loving God as Jesus’ Dad?  That’s the point of Jesus.  He helped me fall in love with Papa, knowing nothing could nix my clean, or being His child.

Did time steal the first blush, your first pang of love?  God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  He is still the One I first loved.  If one of us changed, it wasn’t Him.  Did you try everything Paul tried in religion and mistake those for growth?  God in Heaven shows us the most important thing in His Son.  The Proud Father dispatched angels to tell us it was His Boy down in that manger!

A soccer dad watching his girl get massacred as goalie did a “dad thing”.  He left the stands, walked around, hugged his girl, and stood behind her the rest of the game. 

In Romans we see God work in history.  Having made a garden of Eden He tried to be Father to Adam and Eve.  Perfect God.  Perfect Garden.  The kids not close to perfect. 

Again, God is perfect, but fathers can see God knows our stories.  God gave it His best shot, and still things unraveled.  My failures to my sons are clear.  God differs from me: He’s perfect.  God even knows I gave it my far-from-perfect best shot.  God gave Adam His absolutely-perfect-best shot, and we both as fathers, have watched our failures flounder. 

As reverently as I can, please hear that God knows things go wrong.  God knows fathers can start with powerful possibilities and end with messes.  God knew Adam’s epic fail would take the life of God’s perfect Son?  Think on this sort of love.  God knew.  He still let Adam and Eve have kids that led to us and our loving God through His First Son and still fail!  What love is this?  It is a love entered into only by faith. 

In Romans 4:11-12. Paul mentions another father: Abraham.  What did Abe do to “be the father of all who believe . . . that righteousness might be reckoned to them?”  Paul separates out what Abraham did in faith [circumcision, Promised Land.]  God gives no fatherhood formula.  A father can only act in faith to a life he prays is best for his children.  Abraham acted in faith for us “who follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham.”  As fathers we faith for our kids. 

Verse 16 concludes, “For this reason it is by faith” we love God.  Paul touches Abraham and Sarah’s faith to become parents, “In hope against hope [Abe] believed, in order that he might become a father of many nations.”  Paul as a Jew claims Abraham as their father in bloodlines.  Good.  God smiles on us differently says Paul.  We are Abraham’s kids as we follow Christ in Faith.  As Abe followed in faith, so must we.  So we are God’s kids and Abe’s kids.

Hear it again.  I am Abe’s descendant, so God’s covenant with Abe is mine as I was adopted into the family.  I’m in God’s family not by blood, but by faith.  I’m in Abe’s covenant, not by lineage, but by adoption.  That is how God’s fatherhood comes “to” me. 

How does it go out from me?  God seeks to take more Christian fathers, and build what you have in Christ into children not born into Christian families.  If we are to change the world, more fathers must adopt more spiritual children.

Maybe you have children who love the Lord.  That is great! May God reward you for being such a father.  Amen.  But to grow in Christ, you must become as Abraham was.  To be like Abe you must multiply your number of children-by-faith. 

I see dads adopt youth.  Many do it informally.  Some as teachers adopt students.  Many give their lives to adopt kids in scouting.  Some become spiritual father to young husbands and fathers.  God needs more.

In Abraham’s day the family was topsy-turvy like today.  God sends single moms and dads to His church to find spiritual parents.  God sends youth who need Jesus, and are recovering from divorces, abuse, and absent fathers.  God calls you, dad. 

You, failing fathers, and you, fathers blessed by your kids, may I ask you something?  Do you yearn to invest some of your of your counsel and love into God’s next generation?  Abraham has more spiritual children than blood kin.  Do you see God’s multiplication?  Paul only had spiritual kids: Tim and Titus.  Who do you think put that desire in your heart, dad?

Rand flew to New York to be in Jeff Paoletti’s wedding.  The Wergins adopted Kirsten and Jeff.  Jim and Cheryl Wilkinson were in Tulsa to see Marci light candles at Ann Munn’s wedding.  Why?  Three years ago, Adopt-A-Student finished.  A week later the Wilkinsons came here.  A week after that Jim asked Ann if she had been adopted.  She said, “No.” The Wilkinsons adopted her.  How big is that to Ann?  In a room with 64 invited guests for her wedding and sit-down dinner, four were Ann’s adopted family: the Wilkinsons.  Ann was no disaster.  She came as DIL (Daughter-In-Law) material!  Fathers, Jim and Rand are blessed to be used by God in the lives of Jeff, Kirsten, and Ann.  God put that hunger in your heart, father.  But what if you’re not worthy?  

Look in Romans 6:4 for a Father snapshot: “We were buried with [Christ] through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the Father’s glory, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  God takes us as children after we die.  All of us dies.  God sees in us His completely new children.  All the rest dies in baptism.  My mistakes keep dying, and I keep on being born anew.  He continually bury parts of me as dad, and God makes failed parts new. 

I’m transformed.  I’m new.  Any baggage with me, I had to bring it, I foolishly chased and claimed in baggage claim.  God as Father starts me over.  My Heavenly Father knew every father must start over, and over, and over.  He also knew starting over is hard!  So God said:  “You have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you received a spirit of adoption as sons (and daughters) by which we cry out, “Papa! Father!” Romans 8:15.  Now the Holy Spirit!  He empowers us to call God, “Papa.”  “Go ahead, call Him ‘Papa’.  Start over.  May your kids see you start over, Dad.”  Now for sons and daughters of failed fathers.  God stands with you as the Father you wished you could have had while getting massacred all alone as goalie in front of everyone.  God is with you to assuage horrors and give you the ability to be the father or mother you think is impossible. 

Maybe you think the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father is not strong in you.  So Paul gives one last “father” blessing.  Romans 15:5-7.  This is how God is Father.  This is how we encourage all dads, especially failing ones.  “Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus; that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  So, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to God’s glory.” 

I began by saying the Holy Spirit was not in central casting until later.  Later is now.  The Holy Spirit whispers this love song, “Father God is everything the others were not.  His Son told the Truth about the Father.  They tell the Truth about you.”

We take up the song not if we accept each other like tolerance roars, but as God preaches acceptance.  An old prophet entered Jesse’s house saying, “I’ve come king hunting.”  God dared father and prophet to see what God saw.  The old prophet, himself a failed father, and the father of the boys, looked at all Jesse’s boys.  God said no to all, almost.  The littlest was out tending sheep.  And God chortled from heaven, you didn’t see it, did you?  You missed him because you missed David’s heart!  Davey has a king’s heart!  Father God saw it in Solomon.  He saw it in Deborah, Esther, and Ruth.  God as Father is “first believer” in a boy or a girl and then shows His assessment right to everyone.  God calls and believes first and proves it to the rest of us!

We see this picture’s tail end easily.  At every prison deathwatch, we see a mom who is the last to believe in her baby boy or girl strapped to a gurney, awaiting a lethal injection.  Give us first believers as fathers.  More men must step up and invest in children who the Father of Lights brings when a biological father fails.

That is what communion is about.  The Father who believed in you first, who salvaged you with His perfect Son.  The Father who gave His successful Son for your failures invites you to communion: a family meal!  Amen.  Profess Jesus as brother, and get God as Father.  Adopted.

If you hunt them, these verses were in the Bible all along, like scattered threads. 

Psalm 68:5. A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, is God….

Psalm 103:13 as a dad has compassion on his kids, so God has compassion on us who fear Him. 

Proverbs 3:12 for whom the Lord loves He reproves, like a dad a son in whom he delights.

Isaiah 9:6 a child will be born to us, a son given to us.  And His name will be called … Eternal Father. 

Isaiah 64:8 O Lord, Thou art our Father.  We are clay, and Thou our Potter.

Paul says, like scattered threads, God knew we could not put the threads into a pattern, so He sent His Son in flesh, pulling together all the threads and pointing to the Father.  So, He sends us men to show us how to spend ourselves as spiritual fathers and mothers.  What say you?

Hitch, Holiness, and Faith

Hitch comes with Jesse, who rescued him.  From what and how bad we can only guess.  But nothing of that colors his demeanor.  Jesse and Hitch are close, maybe inseparable.  He is wholly devoted to her alone.  Hitch cocks one ear up, the other hoping to rise.  He’s so cute people ask to pet him.  Better dogs tour on circuits and work for their supper. 

Hitch is part Corgi, part Aussie Shepherd, part so white his nose sunburns, and part indomitable. 

I say, “Indomitable”, yet Hitch trembles as if shivering to survive a snowstorm if it thunders.  Still, indomitable.

We hiked in the Rockies, the Sangre de Christos yesterday.  Aiming for Maiden Lake, we expected snow drifts.  Loading up, we met folks, who made it to a swollen creek and turned back.  We reached the creek.  The website says people place logs across the stream, “but it’s still impassable.”

The stream flowed over most logs.  Jill, my wife, and Jesse began dragging dried Aspen logs.  I balanced out maybe halfway.  We doubled the logs to maybe twenty, fashioned poles, and began redistributing packs.

Hitch shivered. 

Myska, a Huskie/Aussie mix was long legged enough to recover if she slipped.  Hitch would not.  I unpacked my Camelbak day pack, Jesse lifted Hitch up and we stuffed hind legs, body and dog almost to his neck.  We closed the overload straps, turned Hitch to face Jesse, handed her a pole, and she cradled Hitch.  He did not move.  Trusting.

We made it across with two rebalancing gyrations. 

Hitch shook like a vibro-message, but never moved in his cocoon. 

We unloaded, redistributed packs, wending our way up the mountain.  Myska and Hitch chased, herded each other, and went nuts in snow.  Close to the lake, we turned back from snow banks, ate by a thunderous fall, and headed down.  Magical.

Hitch and Myska played, and tumbled, maybe subdued by fatigue. 

Reaching the stream, I sat shedding my pack, to redistribute items.  Hitch examined the creek, trotted up, and plunked down by the pack: shivering. 

Superdog.  Scared to shaking, he sat by a pack he must fill, face his owner, and cross a creek already quaking him. 

How many pallid, bald children with sunken eyes reenter hospitals, where they’ve undergone radiation and chemo – to trust doctors and meds their parents brought them to – again?  Frightened, but trusting. 

How often must we confront swollen, torrential fears, shaking, but awaiting loading onboard whatever conveyance God has arranged, again? 

If needed, refer to Hitch.  When loading him, scratching his ear and bumping noses helps. 

What helps you?  Indomitable does not exclude trembling.  It means loading up for the ride. 

Prayer beyond knowing, beyond passion, beyond anything.

The Heart of the Message:

Part One “And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness”
Part Two “for we do not know how to pray as we should”
Part Three “but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; Romans 8:26

Greek Words in part Three
stenagmos; a groaning.  This is the only time this word refers to God.  It’s the only time it appears in this form.
huperentugchano; from huper (super abounding) and entugchano (to intercede) ¾to make petition for.  This is the only time this word appears in this intensive form.
Alaletos — inexpressible, too deep for words.  This is the only time we see this word in Scripture

We have in us places deeper than we know.  God talks with us there, sketching in our lives, our futures, and the deep truths.

We see God’s heart here.  He yearns with great ardor for us to know Him intimately. 

Many good things flood to us in God’s grace.  Rather than condemn us, He condemns sin in us to kill it, to remove it.  God fashions our escape from the law of sin and death.  He casts off our slavery.  He indwells us, adopts us, and allows us to call Him Papa as joint heirs with Jesus.  God empowers our life, in peace and resurrected power.  He lets us suffer and be glorified in Him, to reap the Holy Spirit’s first-fruits in us. 

This next truth stands alone in scripture.  If “all of creation groaning for the revealing of God’s sons and daughters” is Mount Everest.  This is K2.  No verse in God’s word promises more!  Many climb Everest every year.  Steel ladders help up the west wall.  A Sherpa broke the record of 18 hours for climbing to the top from Base by 6 hours!  Few climb K2.  Few dare its daunting heights.  Few climb verse 26’s dizzying heights.  Paul reveals three pieces we must know to climb these dizzying heights.

Piece # One:  And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness (NAS) or in the NIV helps us in our weakness.  …the Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness (Living).

The Christian message thunders our strength in Christ, while we hold to our weak parts.  We live in Christ, yet still cherish dead things in us.  We grow in Christ, while still stunted.  Do not trust her who whispers all about you is marred.  Dump his podcasts that, on the other hand say we are nothing but potential (to him you’re a potential consumer).  We are both strong and weak; alive and dead; growing and stubby.  We are the only beings in God’s image who must die.  We’re the only animals to be redeemed.  Weakness comes to us.  Weakness need not hunt us to find us, so God’s spirit helps in our weakness.  To soar prayer’s dizzying heights, grasp NOT your strength, but your weakness!  Seize it to scale prayer’s depths.  My friend was so sick with cancer she could no longer pray, but someone left her a mystical, magical bear she could press… it sang her favorite prayer for her. 

Piece # Two:  “For we do not know how to pray as we should (NAS), we cannot see the future.  We do not know what we ought to pray for (NIV), we cannot predict all consequences of one act.  God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along.  If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter (Message).

You may be eloquent or poetic and still not know how to pray as you ought.  The disciples followed Jesus for years before realizing they did not know how to pray.  Paul wrote this after spending three years in a desert practicing his prayers!  Paul knew he did not know how to pray.  Do you know as much as he did?  Do you pray and then humbly ask God to shed light on how to move in spite of your blind prayers?  We don’t know how to pray.  Like climbing K2 for the first time, and trying alternate routes!  Moreover, we can’t guess if our prayer has cut deeply enough! 

Do you sense how deeply your last prayer cuts into all you love?  Hannah prayed wordlessly before Eli, moaning back and forth, appearing drunk, to ask God for a child.  Did Moses say, “I’ll return to this mountain with your folks?”  Did Isaiah know that saying, “I’m here!  Send me!” would cut deeply into his life and times?  Some prayers are too much to grasp, even if you say the words.  Some prayers are too deep to plumb.  So I don’t know how to pray, what can I do?  1) I pray what I know.  God makes up the difference.  2) I pray to know God’s corrections as He makes them.  3) I pray for Holy Spirit, and courage, insight, and humility to act on all He shows me.  Two things:  I know I’m weak.  I know I don’t know how to pray through this. 

Piece # Three has three “onlys” (groanings, superintercedes, too deep for words):  The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (NAS), or with groans words cannot express (NIV).  He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans (Message) The Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words (Living).

The English word intercedes is tepid.  Paul says He super-intercedes.  He aboundingly, with no limits intercedes!  Intercede here is supercharged compared to verses 27 and 34.  You need no saint to intercede for you.  You have God’s Spirit!  Dispense with angels or “spiritual guides”.  Tap the angels’ Boss!  God’s very Spirit super-intercedes for you! 

This is the only place we see another word here for God.  God’s Spirit groans!?  My own depths I do not know, God prays in those!  How?  Fears I’ve not overcome, God prays in them.  How?  Hopes I haven’t courage to hope out loud, the Spirit intercedes in those, but how? 

The Bible speaks of groans throughout, but they’re our groans save here in Romans! 

The Hebrews groaned under slavery in Egypt. Exodus 2:24, 6:5. 

The Hebrews groaned when beaten in the Promised Land, Judges 2:18

Job groaned under God’s heavy hand. Job 23:2

David groaned to make God hear. Psalm 5:1

David groaned at the devastation of the afflicted, and the needy’s groaning. Psalm 12:5

David groaned when he felt forsaken by God. Psalm 22:1

David’s groans pierced his silence about his sin with Bathsheba. Psalm 32:3

Prisoners and the dying groan. Psalm 102:20

We will groan at our latter end. Proverbs 5:11

Wicked rulers make us groan. Proverbs 29:2

A harsh reality made Isaiah groan. Isaiah 21:2

Silence from too much pain makes us groan, gasp, and pant. Isaiah 42:14

Jeremiah was weary with groaning. Jeremiah 45:3

Jerusalem groaned when naked and broken. Lament. 1:8

Ezekiel asked himself, “Why do I groan?” ¾ often. Ezekiel 21:6-7, 24:17, 23; 26:15; 30:24

The prophets groaned deeply.  Joel 1:18; Malachi 2:13.

Today in this verse we see, we hear the only time God groans with us.  His groans are indescribable, too deep for words.  Then scripture says something totally different about our groaning after this. 

We groan to leave this flesh, to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. 2 Corinthians 5:2 &4

God groans with us!  He groans in a depth words can’t touch.  If Christ is your Lord.  If you professed Jesus as Lord, baptized in His Name, then this groaning, this intercession happens for you, know the Holy Spirit super-intercedes for you. 

1)  Can I train to hear God in my weakness, to find Him when I know I don’t know how to pray, to hear His groaning for me?  Moses taught Israel, Be silent, and listen! You have now become God’s people!  Deuteronomy 27:9.  David: When you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent, Psalm 4:4.  Solomon says there is a time to be silent, Ecc. 3:7. The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him Habakkuk 2:20.  Be silent before the Sovereign Lord Zephaniah 1:7.  Have trouble with silence?  Try blowing bubbles.  Absorb a sunset.  Walk quietly. Watch the night sky to practice awe and silence. 

2) I won’t get all of it.  I must obey with what I hear.

3)  Each test of my faltering faith brings me to a place of weakness, not knowing how to proceed… here He intercedes beyond what I can know.

4)  Pray knowing God never compares eloquence(s).  He plumbs your depths you may not know.  Catholics light candles to let God remember the prayer when they’re too tired.

Practice listening in obedience.  Heard a groan too deep for words?  Groaned for heaven yet?

The best I can give you for cleaning out your ears to hear silence better is clear confession.  Make clear, honest confession to God.

Birth Pains. Why Pains?

It seems “birthing” new, whole parts of us hurts, much as creation is pained until we become God’s sons and daughters.  What is God saving in you now?  That question may be the same as a doctor asking, “Tell me where it hurts.” 

This truth describes much of life!  Let’s scour the verses to see what God hints at.  These verses are thick, and … mystical. 

Before I get too mystical, trust this.  Some say they have a way to God’s glory sans suffering.  They lie.  See the truth in these verses.  Let’s map them.  The Greek words are highlighted identically with the English words. 

  Romans 8:17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him
sumpascho; sum & pasch; suffer with.  (One Word!)

  in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
sundoxazo; sun & oxazo; to join in approving, hence to glorify together. Again (One Word!)

  ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings
pathema; from pascho; that which befalls one, a suffering, a passion.
We get our word for paschal suffering or the “Passion” of Christ.

  of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is
doxa; opinion (always good), hence praise, honor, glory.
God’s opinion is the truest and best opinion of us.  His is the most glorious of us.

  With the glory that is to be revealed to us.
apokalupto; from apo & kalupto; to uncover, reveal. 
(Apocalypse, Revelation)

  ¹⁹For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of God’s daughters and sons.
apokaradokia; from apo & kara (the head) & dokeo; strained expectancy, earnest longing. 
We have thoughts about the way things should be. 
apokalupsis; from apo & kalupto; to uncover, reveal. 
(Apocalypse, Revelation)

  ²²For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
sustenazo; from sun & stenazo; to groan together.  .  (One Word!)
sunodino; from sun & odino; to be in travail or suffer childbirth pains together. .  (One Word!)

  ²³And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons,
stenazo; to groan within oneself, to complain, deep sigh, grief.
the redemption of our body.

apolutrosis; to release on payment of ransom; redemption. 
This is not the Body, the church.  It is me: my flesh.  It is my lusts, my angers, my humor, my soul. 

Now, read them again. 

Romans 8:17 We are heirs. We suffer with Him
that we may also be glorified with Him.
  ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings
we endure now are nothing compared with the glory that is
to be revealed to us. 

 ¹⁹For the creation’s anxious longing waits eagerly for us to be revealed as God’s children! 
²²We know the whole creation groans and suffers childbirth pains together until now.

²³We also, having the Spirit’s fruits in us we groan within ourselves,
waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters
 — the redemption of our body.

First, these verses show God as Father (Abba).  They show our status as His children is unshakable. 

Now, from these thick, rich words, explore some depths.  A warning: this one may finish fuzzy.  Why? I don’t know these depths.  I am one swimming over the Marianas Trench.  I can say, “Tall waves!” when the powerful reality is I am seven miles above the ocean floor!

Start here: we suffer.  Paul takes it for granted: you suffer.  So see two parts of suffering.  (Part One) Life comes with suffering attached.  Ours is a fallen world.  Alcoholic parents, anger, abusive people, depravity, gossip, divorce, cancer, dying children, dying friends, dying parents, war, bigotry, sexual damages, dementia, child exploitation, porn, money troubles, anxiety, anorexia, allergies, cheating spouses, depression, new diseases teaching me their initials as they kill someone close, and accidental anything — all come as part of life.  Can you possibly be untouched?  Life comes with suffering.  We live in a fallen world.  Any Christian message not dealing honestly with suffering is faux, fraud, a lie, a scam. 

Any preacher saying God only gives the good drives a Mercedes.  Any message shouting all sickness comes from unconfessed sin is nuts.  Easy religion sells.  Beware of who says “There is no suffering!”  Yes, liars are bold, but see who is listening!  Hear their listeners!  They’re angry, broken, questioning, and suffering.  Paul wades saying, “Suffering surrounds us!”  We live in a fallen world. 

That is not all to this broken Paul with visions and spells befalling him.  It is not all he wants you to see on suffering.  (Part Two of Suffering) Paul suffers for Christ.  He catalogues his sufferings a couple of times, beaten, cold, stoned, cast adrift and in peril.  He suffered for Christ.

A warning.  If you won’t embrace your suffering and trust God in it: if you won’t choose to suffer for the Lord — then the rest of Romans Chapter Eight belongs to someone else.  This is hard.  I repeat.  Paul builds the rest of this chapter on embracing this world’s suffering and trusting God in it, if you won’t suffer for Him any sacrifice or discomfort — then the rest of this chapter belongs to those trusting Christ here. 

What is built on this suffering and trusting?

You want intercession beyond words (26)?  You want all things working for good (28)?  Like being more than conquerors (37)?  DO YOU LOVE that nothing can separate us from God’s love (38-9)?  All these follow suffering.  You can’t reach the heights and bypass suffering.  Life brings suffering and God is in the middle of it.  You won’t follow Christ and NEVER suffer!  Jesus costs some fights … others hurt you.  Christ costs you gossip. Others hate that you don’t gossip.  He costs you anger.  Others see you as weak, and it all hurts!

You can’t reach the great stuff bypassing suffering.  See suffering sown among these great promises!  Great stuff is out there in Christ.  None comes before some suffering. 

We don’t like it.  We disagree.  Be careful.  With whom do you then agree?  “Buy this car, and drive happily ever after!”  “Wear these clothes, and be cool!”  “Use this skin care so your face looks happy!”  “If the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”  Did you miss Jesus’ holes in His hands?  Paul has welts on his back. 

Paul says suffering happens…can it compare to the coming glory?  Hmm.  We go to doctors like other patients, but we don’t tell them, “If my suffering passes into death’s portal into heaven, that will be glorious!”  More doctors would be shaken and come to Christ. 

Popular theology turns and twists everything.  I am not out to guilt you, but this is true.  We assume quietly, “God never intended me to suffer.”  The result?  More born-again Christians divorce in America than atheists! 

Do you hunger for God’s opinion of you?  Do you thirst for God’s great opinion of your kids, of you to be true?  Do you believe God’s opinion of (glory in) you is more real than your feelings about you?  Paul thunders, “Glory is truer in you!”  Hold out for God’s opinion!  Endure suffering beautifully, gloriously my child!   Why?

Glory is revealed to & in us.  That word revealed is the mysterious, convoluted word for Apocalypse and Revelation!  John’s Revelation is off the charts deep and mysterious.  He sees beings covered in eyes, winged beasts, horrors ride up from hell, unimaginable cities of beauty descend from heaven, and a wounded-in-love Lamb!  Mystical.  Magical.  Wondrous. 

Suffering men, women and children across this globe serve God and see healings, miracles, visions, and hope, and more suffering.  This painful, crazy mystery is building to an Apocalypse — a revealing of God.  We hunger to know the Apocalypse of eternity and Paul screams, “Big deal.  It’s coming.  YOU are the major mystery!  Who will you become?!”

(22) God hears seal pups groan to death for fur. God hears species extinguished.  Do you hear creation groan for us?  God hears millions of rainforest acres groan with a melting Antarctic.  They suffer under our subjection.  Creation sighs and suffers awaiting our being birthed.  They trust their Creator to make it worthwhile as we are revealed as sons and daughters. 

Hear the groans of children dying early.  They are now birthed as God’s daughters and sons.  On dying their glory is finished in Father’s face.  Children start, suffer, and leave us.  Jesus wept.  Either they die and their glory is completed before Christ, Who suffered for them or we’re a joke.  Do you believe their glory lies beyond their suffering?  Do you trust Christ enough to suffer through to His revealing what is truest, most glorious of you? 

Why is suffering so important?  Why is it so important to us as Christians?  Look at 22 & 23. 

We make choices in suffering.  Suffering is neutral.  Some men lose wives, rail at God, and discard their faith.  Other men bury a wife and draw close to God.  Some die of cancer testifying of the Lord.  Others grow angry at God over disease and leave Him. 

Don’t miss this.  All Creation suffers along with us, birthing us! 

The ideas are indissoluble.  Groans together with, and endures birth pains together with cannot be reduced.  “With” is built into “groan” and into “birth pains”.  No whale chose to be hunted, but suffers in its Creator.  A rhino killed for its horn so a rich Japanese businessman powders and drinks it … groans.  They groan with us… as parts of the creation.  See the irony?  We are attached to them as well.  We groan at some level as they suffer. 

Do you see the view from here?  We’re on top of the world here, in Paul’s letter.  Seriously, this is a pinnacle.  All creation, all that became through I Am, all that is spoken by the Word of God, Jesus, is for this single purpose: birthing God’s daughters and sons.  This is the climax!

My wife’s exertion as she burst blood vessels in her eyes and sobbed: her trembling as she regrouped, sweated and her face burned red tell me we are birthed in pain: in another’s pain. 

I see three painful truths.  1) Did you arrive where you are in Christ, costing other souls much pain?  Did you thank them for what they endured for you?  We are self-absorbed, but can grow to see their pain, and thank God for them, and thank them for Christ in them. 

2) We make lousy midwives.  We allay others’ pain, when God intends the pain to birth a new thing new in her.  We prescribe for each other, substitute ourselves for the Comforter, and preclude what God was birthing in them.  Hear God.  Suffering and pain’s demise are promised only in heaven.  Down here, suffering and pain may be God’s midwives at the birthing of a child of the Living God. 

3) Why so much pain?  I’m attached to dead things in me, and He must tear them from my living soul! 

God is, in verse 23, redeeming even our bodies.  I saw one man’s addiction to pornography transform into his burning passion to tell others of the Lord.  It hurt.  Oh, he suffered, but God birthed something eternal that has saved others.  Don’t sin as a Gnostic thinking God saves my soul, but the body is a loss.  God is buying back even your body’s most painful parts! 

How precise is He in redeeming?  8:1 tells us He does not condemn us.  In 8:3 He condemns sin in us. That means the Physician’s scalpel cuts only necrosis.  It assures us that His laser comes for cancer cells only.  It assures that arthroscopy snakes in me for necrotic horrors only. 

Everest climbers say the height is dizzying, the air too thin and dry and hurts, the sun too bright, the cold too piercing to stay.  Maybe suffering is too wonderful for them to miss, as they express awe, ineffable wonder from the roof of the world. This chapter, these verses form the roof of our world.  How much will you endure to see the view from up there?

The Bible warns that others will not want you to be birthed, or to help birth others.  (John’s Apocalypse, the 12^th chapter).

BLESSING FOR YOU:  If you cry out to Him in pain.  Look out from that height to be astounded at how high He brought you in your suffering.  If you exclaim how beautiful it is, be not surprised if He smiles to say, “That beauty is nothing compared to what I’ve done in you, My child,” as He hands you a mirror.  Go in that great grace.  Amen. 

Have You Ever Been in Love?

The question insinuates itself occasionally. 

As a boy two answers saw me through.  First, I hoped I was in love with Christ, with serving Him, the joy of seeing people’s lives bettered.  Second, and I only thought to answer this to a girl/woman, “No, but with the right person with the right qualities (think “babe for Jesus”); we might share an abiding love.” 

How many people was I privileged to see married all their lives to construct an idea of “abiding” love?  I missed costs or continual sacrifices they paid to still be married when I came along. 

Then came Jill.  She never asked, but we discussed it.  I was engaged once already.  She was twice.  She had a font of questions, so I took the position of the “sure” one.  Walking in falling snow in Minneapolis’ Minnehaha Park she finally erupted, “I thought I was in love twice before.  How do I know you’re not just the third time?”  With boy-faith I stopped to say, “I’m not the third.  I’m the one.”

We weather tests and trials.  On passing one, a new one emerges like this: studies show more older couples are splitting.  I thought we arrived where everyone stays together.  Not so.

So, have I ever been in love?  I have three working hopes.  I need three, when one might have sufficed for that boy talking to a girl. 

One, Yes.  Probably.  Maybe.  I am selfish, prideful, an ass thinking I am spiritual.  Those tarnish, they downgrade any answer.  So I learn in marriage seminars, and talking to others, and failing and asking forgiveness.  God must make up the difference between my answers and living.  I now know my falling short is more frequent like a sunrise.  I invent small ways to fall short.

Two, and this is important.  I was “in love” from my first breath.  I had mom and dad, who assisted in my delivery as a newly minted MD.  But my mom’s mom stood outside Labor and Delivery doors enrolling me in Sunday school at the age of a squawk.  Much later I saw that my bearing Mammaw’s beloved’s name, Thomas L., was their only hope to pass on either name.  Childless, they adopted mom.  They named no boys.  I was “in their love” early.  Dad’s parents weathered a public affair.  Many others held me “in love.”  I was rich.  Undeserving.  Unaware.

Three.  All of that calls forth from me much for others, and much in His Name.  See above for failings, shortcomings, and selfish manipulations of that sacred truth. 

So yes.  Mostly.  Undeservedly.  I have been in love.

Now, the face I see as I answer the question is not some babe, but One with holes in His hands. 

Birth Pains.  Why Birth Pains?

It seems “birthing” new, saved, whole parts of us hurts, much like creation is pained until we become God’s sons and daughters.  What is God saving in you now?  That question may be the same as a doctor asking, “Tell me where it hurts.” 

This truth describes much of life!  Let’s scour the verses to see what God hints at.  These verses are thick, and … mystical. 

Before I get too mystical, trust this.  Some say they have a way to God’s glory sans suffering.  They lie.  See the truth in these verses.  Let’s map them.  The Greek words are highlighted identically with the English words. 

  Romans 8:17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him
sumpascho; sum & pasch; suffer with.  (One Word!)
 

in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
sundoxazo; sun & oxazo; to join in approving, hence to glorify together. Again (One Word!)

  ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings
pathema; from pascho; that which befalls one, a suffering, a passion.
We get our word for paschal suffering or the “Passion” of Christ.
 

of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is
doxa; opinion (always good), hence praise, honor, glory.
God’s opinion is the truest and best opinion of us.  His is the most glorious of us.

  With the glory that is to be revealed to us.
apokalupto; from apo & kalupto; to uncover, reveal.  (Apocalypse, Revelation)

  ¹⁹For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of God’s daughters and sons.
apokaradokia; from apo & kara (the head) & dokeo; strained expectancy, earnest longing. 
We have thoughts about the way things should be. 
apokalupsis; from apo & kalupto; to uncover, reveal.  (Apocalypse, Revelation)

  ²²For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
sustenazo; from sun & stenazo; to groan together.  .  (One Word!)
sunodino; from sun & odino; to be in travail or suffer childbirth pains together. .  (One Word!)

  ²³And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons,
stenazo; to groan within oneself, to complain, deep sigh, grief.
the redemption of our body.
apolutrosis; to release on payment of ransom; redemption. 
This is not the Body, the church.  It is me: my flesh.  It is my lusts, my angers, my humor, my soul. 

Now, read them again. 
Romans 8:17 We are heirs. We suffer with Him
that we may also be glorified with Him.
  ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings
we endure now are nothing compared with the glory that is
to be revealed to us. 

 ¹⁹For the creation’s anxious longing waits eagerly for us to be revealed as God’s children! 
 ²²We know the whole creation groans and suffers childbirth pains together until now.
²³We also, having the Spirit’s fruits in us we groan within ourselves,
waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters
 — the redemption of our body.

First, these verses show God as Father (Abba).  They show our status as His children is unshakable. 

Now, from these thick, rich words, explore some depths.  A warning: this one may finish fuzzy.  Why? I don’t know these depths.  I am one swimming over the Marianas Trench.  I can say, “Tall waves!” when the powerful reality is I am seven miles above the ocean floor!

Start here: we suffer.  Paul takes it for granted: you suffer.  So see two parts of suffering.  (Part One) Life comes with suffering attached.  Ours is a fallen world.  Alcoholic parents, anger, abusive people, depravity, gossip, divorce, cancer, dying children, dying friends, dying parents, war, bigotry, sexual damages, dementia, child exploitation, porn, money troubles, anxiety, anorexia, allergies, cheating spouses, depression, new diseases teaching me their initials as they kill someone close, and accidental anything — all come as part of life.  Can you possibly be untouched?  Life comes with suffering.  We live in a fallen world.  Any Christian message not dealing honestly with suffering is faux, fraud, a lie, a scam. 

Any preacher saying God only gives the good drives a Mercedes.  Any message shouting all sickness comes from unconfessed sin is nuts.  Easy religion sells.  Beware of who says “There is no suffering!”  Yes, liars are bold, but see who is listening!  Hear their listeners!  They’re angry, broken, questioning, and suffering.  Paul wades saying, “Suffering surrounds us!”  We live in a fallen world. 

That is not all to this broken Paul with visions and spells befalling him.  It is not all he wants you to see on suffering.  (Part Two of Suffering) Paul suffers for Christ.  He catalogues his sufferings a couple of times, beaten, cold, stoned, cast adrift and in peril.  He suffered for Christ.

A warning.  If you won’t embrace your suffering and trust God in it: if you won’t choose to suffer for the Lord — then the rest of Romans Chapter Eight belongs to someone else.  This is hard.  I repeat.  Paul builds the rest of this chapter on embracing this world’s suffering and trusting God in it, if you won’t suffer for Him any sacrifice or discomfort — then the rest of this chapter belongs to those trusting Christ here. 

What is built on this suffering and trusting?

You want intercession beyond words (26)?  You want all things working for good (28)?  Like being more than conquerors (37)?  DO YOU LOVE that nothing can separate us from God’s love (38-9)?  All these follow suffering.  You can’t reach the heights and bypass suffering.  Life brings suffering and God is in the middle of it.  You won’t follow Christ and NEVER suffer!  Jesus costs some fights … others hurt you.  Christ costs you gossip. Others hate that you don’t gossip.  He costs you anger.  Others see you as weak, and it all hurts!

You can’t reach the great stuff bypassing suffering.  See suffering sown among these great promises!  Great stuff is out there in Christ.  None comes before some suffering. 

We don’t like it.  We disagree.  Be careful.  With whom do you then agree?  “Buy this car, and drive happily ever after!”  “Wear these clothes, and be cool!”  “Use this skin care so your face looks happy!”  “If the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”  Did you miss Jesus’ holes in His hands?  Paul has welts on his back. 

Paul says suffering happens…can it compare to the coming glory?  Hmm.  We go to doctors like other patients, but we don’t tell them, “If my suffering passes into death’s portal into heaven, that will be glorious!”  More doctors would be shaken and come to Christ. 

Popular theology turns and twists everything.  I am not out to guilt you, but this is true.  We assume quietly, “God never intended me to suffer.”  The result?  More born-again Christians divorce in America than atheists! 

Do you hunger for God’s opinion of you?  Do you thirst for God’s great opinion of your kids, of you to be true?  Do you believe God’s opinion of (glory in) you is more real than your feelings about you?  Paul thunders, “Glory is truer in you!”  Hold out for God’s opinion!  Endure suffering beautifully, gloriously my child!   Why?

Glory is revealed to & in us.  That word revealed is the mysterious, convoluted word for Apocalypse and Revelation!  John’s Revelation is off the charts deep and mysterious.  He sees beings covered in eyes, winged beasts, horrors ride up from hell, unimaginable cities of beauty descend from heaven, and a wounded-in-love Lamb!  Mystical.  Magical.  Wondrous. 

Suffering men, women and children across this globe serve God and see healings, miracles, visions, and hope, and more suffering.  This painful, crazy mystery is building to an Apocalypse — a revealing of God.  We hunger to know the Apocalypse of eternity and Paul screams, “Big deal.  It’s coming.  YOU are the major mystery!  Who will you become?!”

(22) God hears seal pups groan to death for fur. God hears species extinguished.  Do you hear creation groan for us?  God hears millions of rainforest acres groan with a melting Antarctic.  They suffer under our subjection.  Creation sighs and suffers awaiting our being birthed.  They trust their Creator to make it worthwhile as we are revealed as sons and daughters. 

Hear the groans of children dying early.  They are now birthed as God’s daughters and sons.  On dying their glory is finished in Father’s face.  Children start, suffer, and leave us.  Jesus wept.  Either they die and their glory is completed before Christ, Who suffered for them or we’re a joke.  Do you believe their glory lies beyond their suffering?  Do you trust Christ enough to suffer through to His revealing what is truest, most glorious of you? 

Why is suffering so important?  Why is it so important to us as Christians?  Look at 22 & 23. 

We make choices in suffering.  Suffering is neutral.  Some men lose wives, rail at God, and discard their faith.  Other men bury a wife and draw close to God.  Some die of cancer testifying of the Lord.  Others grow angry at God over disease and leave Him. 

Don’t miss this.  All Creation suffers along with us, birthing us! 

The ideas are indissoluble.  Groans together with, and endures birth pains together with cannot be reduced.  “With” is built into “groan” and into “birth pains”.  No whale chose to be hunted, but suffers in its Creator.  A rhino killed for its horn so a rich Japanese businessman powders and drinks it … groans.  They groan with us… as parts of the creation.  See the irony?  We are attached to them as well.  We groan at some level as they suffer. 

Do you see the view from here?  We’re on top of the world here, in Paul’s letter.  Seriously, this is a pinnacle.  All creation, all that became through I Am, all that is spoken by the Word of God, Jesus, is for this single purpose: birthing God’s daughters and sons.  This is the climax!

My wife’s exertion as she burst blood vessels in her eyes and sobbed: her trembling as she regrouped, sweated and her face burned red tell me we are birthed in pain: in another’s pain. 

I see three painful truths.  1) Did you arrive where you are in Christ, costing other souls much pain?  Did you thank them for what they endured for you?  We are self-absorbed, but can grow to see their pain, and thank God for them, and thank them for Christ in them. 

2) We make lousy midwives.  We allay others’ pain, when God intends the pain to birth a new thing new in her.  We prescribe for each other, substitute ourselves for the Comforter, and preclude what God was birthing in them.  Hear God.  Suffering and pain’s demise are promised only in heaven.  Down here, suffering and pain may be God’s midwives at the birthing of a child of the Living God. 

3) Why so much pain?  I’m attached to dead things in me, and He must tear them from my living soul! 

God is, in verse 23, redeeming even our bodies.  I saw one man’s addiction to pornography transform into his burning passion to tell others of the Lord.  It hurt.  Oh, he suffered, but God birthed something eternal that has saved others.  Don’t sin as a Gnostic thinking God saves my soul, but the body is a loss.  God is buying back even your body’s most painful parts! 

How precise is He in redeeming?  8:1 tells us He does not condemn us.  In 8:3 He condemns sin in us. That means the Physician’s scalpel cuts only necrosis.  It assures us that His laser comes for cancer cells only.  It assures that arthroscopy snakes in me for necrotic horrors only. 

Everest climbers say the height is dizzying, the air too thin and dry and hurts, the sun too bright, the cold too piercing to stay.  Maybe suffering is too wonderful for them to miss, as they express awe, ineffable wonder from the roof of the world. This chapter, these verses form the roof of our world.  How much will you endure to see the view from up there?

The Bible warns that others will not want you to be birthed, or to help birth others.  (John’s Apocalypse, the 12^th chapter).

BLESSING FOR YOU:  If you cry out to Him in pain.  Look out from that height to be astounded at how high He brought you in your suffering.  If you exclaim how beautiful it is, be not surprised if He smiles to say, “That beauty is nothing compared to what I’ve done in you, My child,” as He hands you a mirror.  Go in that great grace.  Amen. 

He Who has it all, has Me.

He Who has it ALL has Me. 

26 …The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Knows all that the mind:  oida; to have seen or perceived, appreciate, understand.

28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Causes…to work together: sunergeo; helps in the work, works with.

All things: pas; every, all respects or things, constantly, continually, every, everything, forever.

For good: agathos; good, generous.

Purpose: prothesis; specifically the showbread in the temple.

[See three levels of “the good”]

                                                               

God’s Glory

Me

Things and Circumstances

Physicists religiously hunt a theory to explain everything, to explain all.  God already has. 

In the Bible’ most misquoted verse, see some mistranslations in case one is yours.  “Well, everything happens for the good.”  “Every cloud has a silver lining.”  “Everything always works out for the best.”  Those are impotent Band-Aids … for a heart attack. 

Again: start with verse 26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because He intercedes for the saints according to God’s will.  God searches my heart by means of His Spirit.  Again the Spirit intercedes for us.  God understands. He absorbs all the Spirit brings Him; concerning you.  Why?  God as His Holy Spirit ferrets out what is most true about you… we know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.

We know God sunergeo; causes things to work together.  Calvinists, say God helps nothing.  He’s in charge.  He ordains.  He predestines.  God dictates. all else follows.  Paul visits predestination later, but hear this verb — sunergeo.  God works together with.  He responds.  He orchestrates the pieces. 

See three possibilities.  (Godet, 1870) All things work in concert together: like ecology.  Everything is in ML King’s “inescapable web of mutuality”.  Another possibility: all things work in common with God, under His direction: cue the universe’s Conductor.  A last possibility is where we take a turn.  All things work in common with a believer, aspiring for His good. 

God causes and we work with Him aspiring for “the good”.  This is Joseph’s word to his brothers.  They sold him into slavery.  Bloodied his coat.  Lied to his parents that Joseph died.  His brothers now stand before him in Egypt, him who they worse-than-killed and Joseph says, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.[1]  How hard is this to trust?

God made his brothers hate Joseph and barely back off from killing him?  OR God used the brothers’ hatred of Joseph?  God used their animosity?  God let his brothers “send” Joseph ahead to Egypt?  Which?  Ask this, “Which is more amazing — a puppet-master God, Who makes brothers hate and almost kill Joseph, or the One who works with the brothers’ actions?

All things is pas.  Paul says God works together with — all, all respects, all things, constantly, everything.  This God numbers hairs on heads.  For me that’s increasingly easier.  This God lets no sparrow fall to ground but that He knows.  He causes all things.

May I suggest practicing using this bit word, all in your life in Christ?  Some people deride baby Christians, who pray for everything, like parking places. 

What if we place more of our lives for review by God?  We might ask Him about little things like what we eat, smoke, and drink.  We can pass our entertainment to God’s all things column.  Many small things make up “my all”.  Nissan taught me this. 

I called Nissan to replace an AC condenser covered in my extended warranty.  A pleasant lady told me Nissan would not pay for the condenser because, I love this, I could buy a condenser in smaller parts.  If it were a clutch, or a bit or small part, they would cover it, but since I needed the whole enchilada… an entire condenser… she could not pay.  She hung up.  I needed a day.  It cost two more calls and I got heated, but Nissan paid for one, entire condenser.  The point is this: You can’t say you want God to make ALL work to the good and then exclude component parts.

Small bits of my life make my ALL.  Each second with my wife makes the ALL of our life.  Each business decision makes the ALL of my business.  Back to parking places from God.  If I never bother with millions of small bits, then I exempt most of my life from the ALL I hope He uses for good in my life.  Don’t hang the heavens on parking, but examine small life bits in Him. 

Good: agathos.  Good: do you trust it?  We define good in a zillion ways.  Some of our ways are lies.  We’ll bypass the trap of what is good, and look at a wiser version.  Whose good?

For whom may things work out for the good?  See three circles.  In the outer circle, we have the good of my things or circumstances.  Things work out for my dog, my car and house. 

What’s good for my things?  It is good if I’m happy or I get it.  I want a house.  Pray that I get a house.  I want “us” to happen, so pray for us and pray we’re happy. 

As goal-oriented people, we get caught in this.  How did I do on grades?  Did my job go well?  Have a nice trip, date, buying spree or negotiation?  Did “the thing” happen?  Are you “happy”?  Did you finish your race, or go to a doctor, and did those turn out well?

We busily hope church was good, club went well, and work went well.  The outer ring to analyze this verse is “did things and circumstances turn out how I thought good should be?  Did everything come out well, as good as I hoped?”  

This verse does not insure that.  Sorry.  I often think wrongly what would be “good”.  I twist ideas of good-for-me.  Joseph got sold for dead, and yes, it turned out wonderful, but it didn’t start that way.  Joseph took some nose dives, and people Jo helped forgot him for years. 

That’s why Paul says I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed to us” (verse 18).

Circumstances go awry.  We die in prisons so Paul says the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (verse 21). 

Saul hunted David.  Wars happen.  Deserts kill.  Kings tortured Isaiah and other prophets.   Jews died in Babylon, Germany, and Israel.  Esther’s predecessor was discarded like a used tire.  Other women in Boaz’ fields paid sexual favors to glean behind the men.  Tell the truth. 

In this outer circle, I learn to celebrate any kindness, any victory as God’s gift, not as what I earn or deserve.  A promise of all things in my favor is magic; not faith.  Satan dangles magic’s false promise to enslave people all day.  Be smarter than that. 

Pelagius: Whatever we do or suffer out of love for God grows into a reward for us.[2]  Theodoret of Cyr: This is not true of every one but only of believers.  Nor do things simply work together… they work together for good.  If you ask for something which will not contribute to your good, you will not get it, because it is not good for you to get it. [3]

In the outer circle of circumstances coaches pray for victory.  One country’s priests prepare men to fight with a mass, another’s chaplains hold a prayer meeting, who wins the battle?  All those things lie in the outer circle.  God does not bleed your school colors. 

Consider the second (middle) circle. Where is my hope if not in how circumstances pan out?  What is “good” in what I hope?  If my things do not all happily succeed, how does good work?  Perhaps it is IN us that things work out for the good. 

What lies in the second circle?  I do.  Do things work out for my good?  It depends on my criteria for good.  If good means I will always be healed, then no.  We wear out and surely die, unless Christ returns.  What did Paul write before sharing I can do all things in Christ? [4]  He wrote: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  Circumstances rise and fall.  Who am I in the rising and falling?  Who am I becoming in all this?  What have I learned?

Paul gave us something else.  For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.[5]  Does this truth color your definition of “the good?”  Truth: going Home is better than staying.  Dying and being with Christ is better.  Slaves and soldiers hummed this.  Can I?  Passing from here to Heaven is better, it is gain, it is wonderful.  Does that define your good?  Going Home to Heaven is good. 

Truth: circumstances do not define good.  I was more alive in a hospital close to death than anywhere else.  Maybe you experienced a deeper joy in a funeral home than in worship.  Good lies not in externals, it is a choice I believe.  I hunt the good in hope in my character.

Who are you becoming as a soul, a person of character and honor?  The second circle is important.  Your character is a good.  Is it most important?  No.  With Christ as Lord, move to the most important circle.  Move to the inmost circle. 

“The good” is larger than me, my family, my church, and my country.  The good ultimately rests in God’s hands.  My grasp of the good must bring Him glory and honor.

Jesus struggled with this, Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.[6]  Jesus leads us into “the good’s” inner circle.  Jesus says “yes” to God.  He died for us to show us how to do good, be good, even in horrid circumstances.  Move to this good for God’s good, for His glory.

Jesus showed us this good.  People die in Christ’s name, as He died obeying the Father.  Are their deaths “good”?  Balthasar Hubmaier was tied to a stake and recanted.  He returned teaching a believer is baptized after knowingly professing Christ as Lord.  They tied him to a stake again.  This time he begged for a hot fire to finish well, to rub Sulphur in his beard.  People laughed, told him he was a fool, and asked if he wanted to recant again.  These people were the last thing in this world Balthasar saw!  Was his death for good?

Does your definition of “the good” pull you into the inner circle?  The inner circle brings God honor and glory.  Chrysostom said “even things that seem most painful: tribulation, poverty, imprisonment, famines, or deaths, God can change them into the opposite.  God can make painful things appear light to us, and turn them into helpful things.”[7]

God turns even opposition and disappointment into good. This happened in Paul.[8]

Step into the inner circle and face, “To be called according to God’s purpose is to be called according to “the will.”  But is this the will of Him Who calls or the will of us who are called?”[9]

How about it, His will, His good or yours?  Can you see why so many in the world consider us to be no threat?  You can live for God’s will over your own! 

In the inner circle we meet a strange word.  Prothesis; specifically showbread, was sacred, consecrated.  Priests displayed this “bread of face” by the curtain to the Holy of Holies.  When I fell in love with God, I knew to do the good He asked.  God makes us indistinguishable from Jesus.  When you touch that inner circle, you rest in God, you rest in His purpose for your life, and you live out of depths others want. 

Why use such old sources?  They wrestled as do we.  They knew long before us.  They lived and died well. 

Do you see how the Bible defines “love God?”  You are called according to His purpose.  You live as one who has seen His face. 

---

[1] Genesis 50:20

[2] Pelagius Commentary on Romans  AD 370

[3] Interpretation of the Letter to the Romans  AD 430

[4] Philip. 4:12

[5] Philip. 1:21

[6] John 12:27

[7] John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 15.3 390 AD

[8] John Chrysostom Homilies on Genesis 67.19  392 AD

[9] Cyril of Alexandria  Explanation of the Letter to the Romans  444 AD

Much Obliged, Really.

Much Obliged, Sir.

My obligations bring me, what exactly?

Paul rapturously proclaims what God does for us. God places us beyond condemnation.  He lavishes on us His Spirit, the part of God empowering Jesus and raising Him from the dead.  In the Spirit, God frees us free from wrath, sin and death.  He condemns sin in us, to help us overcome it.  God enters us to dwell in us.  WOW.

Now Paul turns to our response. 

So what is our response?  Paul: Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation.[1]  We stare at the Builder generation to ask, “What is this obligation business?  It’s not our style.  We love Christ’s love and free stuff!  Thanks so much!  See ya!” 

The Builders knew obligations.  The world called on them to lift us from a depression, fight World War II and Communism.  The builders responded when the world called.  They left their footprints on the moon. 

Who now takes their places?  Men and women were obliged to mortgage homes to start an economy.  They were obliged to teach scriptures, love friends, paint, change light bulbs, and sacrifice driving new cars to give to the Lord.  Who now takes their places?  People were obliged to sense God’s call on them and serve ‘round the world.  Who now takes their places?

Paul says you will take their places, if you love Jesus.

We live with obligations.  Do you know the seven dwarves’ song in the original Snow White?  “Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it’s off to work I go!”  I laughed to see a bumper sticker on the back of a Benz in Miami.  “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!”

Jill’s sister trained employees for Amex.  She said new, young ones are a bit scary.  They know what they want.  They clearly see what Amex can do for them, but have no sense of what they owe the company in return.  She found some are hard to train.

This study is about doing God’s work — building His Kingdom as we owe Him so much. 

Paul recites God’s amazing works in Christ.  We obligingly respond asking God to do great things in us: amazing things through us.  Look at vows: If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.[2]  The word, issar, is a bond, a binding obligation.

Mr. Marshall’s knees were scarred.  He promised God that if he returned from World War II he would go to church … on his knees.  He did: two miles.  His knee pads helped for 500 yards.  He painfully kept his vow.  Is your vow your bond?  Can God bank on your word?  How strong are your obligations?

The sense of obligation springs from early ideas of revenge and law.  In a personal offence a transgressor became a debtor to the injured party (I hurt you. I owe you).  Only an injured party can liquidate revenge on a debt owed to him.  That moved from personal revenge to national law, and the guilty party became a debtor to the law.  (Dump oil in an Alaskan harbor, and you owe America.  See you in court.)  In Israel it also meant a guilty party owed a penance to God.  So, if I hurt you, I may owe you, the law (nation), and God all three!

A sense of owing a debt to a virtue derives in Greek thought.  I’m obliged to fairness and honesty. Again, Greeks spoke of inner obligations.  The Jews owed debits to the Law and God.  The Greeks aspired.  Jews guilted! “He died. What’s it cost?  Two bulls and a ram?)  Philo merged both streams so we are obliged to Someone higher.  Out of Divine Law, we cherish a sense of the sacred … to be good or courageous.

The Jews got stuck thinking our relation to God is a legal relationship. Indebtedness marks our relation to God.  Jesus bridged the gap, even before the cross where He leveled the playing field.  Jesus told a story.  Do you know it?

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began settling them, workers brought him one who owed ten thousand talents. (Think trillions.)  [This slave] had no means to repay. The king commanded him to be sold, with his wife, children and all he had, to make the payment.  The slave prostrated himself before the king, saying, “Have patience with me, and I’ll repay everything!” (In a thousand lifetimes if you never eat or sleep!)  And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But the slave went out, found a fellow slave who owed him [a hundred bucks].  He seized him and began choking him, saying, “Pay back what you owe me!”  The king calls the forgiven servant to ask, “Should you not also have mercy on a fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’  And his lord, in anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. ‘So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.’[3]

Jesus says we’re obligated.  Our first obligation forgives others as we have been!

Paul lived out a deep obligation to Christ’s amazing grace.  Reread this letter’s opening: I am obliged both to Greeks and to barbarians both to the wise and to the foolish. [4]  Paul begins with his obligation to us because of Christ.  Now he includes us so brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  [5]

The verse sounds so odd!  It’s a rhetorical tool, a meiosis, where less is said than intended.  This meiosis is more than what is not said, in it the direction of the thought changes. 

Let’s say I tell you how excited I am for my wedding anniversary: how Jill puts up with me, blesses and loves me.  How she makes each day possible.  As I build to a climax to say, “Thanks for the years, Jill,” I say, “I owe so much of our years, not to Elon Musk!” 

The weirdness hits you.  Elon and I are not an item… never married.  I owe him nothing.

This meiosis is even stronger.  Let’s say I tell you how thrilled I am to leave a hospital after ten surgeries … on being hit by a drunk driver.  I thank doctors, nurses, therapists and chaplains.  I build to a climax: “And I owe so much, not to the drunk who hit me.”  I stop.  What you want to fill in screams at you in its absence.  Do you fill in where Paul stops?  

Read the verses again.  Paul never answers the second half!  Do you? 

Brothers and sisters, we have an obligation ¾ but not to the sinful nature, to live according to it???  For if we live according to the sinful nature, we die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the body’s misdeeds, you will live, because we who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s children!  For we did not receive a spirit making us slaves again to fear, but we received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.”  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit (my most true self) that we’re God’s children.  Now if we’re children, then we’re heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order to also share in His glory. [6]

Sin in me, law, religion, anything less than Christ’s miracle in me, in my soul, is worthless.  Paul: I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ![7]  If you lose nothing, give nothing, obligated nothing, you miss this truth. 

Jesus promises.  We leave behind our debts our obligations as we forgave others.  And forgive us our debts, (failed obligations), as we forgive our debtors, [8] Jesus’ word is the one Paul uses: opheiletes; a debtor, culprit, indebted, owed as failed obligations!

Jesus explained further: If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father also forgives you.  But if you don’t forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

Jesus hates wrecked obligations.  Woe to you, blind guides! You say, “If I swear by the temple, it means nothing; but if I swear by the temple’s gold, I’m bound by my oath.” Blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?[9]  

Do you think we have a problem with obligations? We thank God for His gifts, yet spend 2% of our incomes on philanthropy.  How much are you obliged to God for His gift in Christ to you?  Skip smarmy sap.  Look at your scheduling app and check book.  Read the truth there. 

Do you think losing obligations affects us?  Bankruptcies fell to 683 thousand last year.

A lawyer friend recently remarked how many people are criminally irresponsible in finances if they have no picture of obligations.  Why is all this happening?

Alexander Pope described a man he despised.  Pope condemned the man saying he blamed everyone else for his shortcomings.  Worse, he made a timid foe and suspicious friend.  Even fools and flatterers dreaded him.  The worst, though, was that “He was so obliging, that he ne’er oblig’d (sic)” [1607].  People have ducked obligations for a long time.

Bankruptcy, divorce, cheating in marriages, workplace theft all show missed obligations. 

Is there a minimum amount of obligation…say for moms?  Governor Mike Huckabee and the courts agreed with Marie Riggs. She deserved to die. She was executed within two years of her crimes, at her request.  She asked for morphine and potassium chloride: she used them on her babies.  Marie told jurors: “I want to die. I want to be with my babies. I want the death penalty.”[10]

People need at least our minimum obligation in Christ.  In Jesus’ story of a failed minimum. a master vested a servant with a hefty amount, one talent.  As others doubled each trust, he buried his.  Felt bad doing nothing.  Fretted over his follow-up interview with the lord.  He wasn’t immoral.  He didn’t lose it.  He sat on it fearing his master.  Jesus says the servant of the failed minimum was banished to darkness: with weeping, gnashing of teeth and maybe Marie Riggs? 

See another thing.  Our highest obligation is a calling to stagger the imagination: those led by God’s Spirit are His daughters.  You did not receive a spirit making you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  By Him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit: we are God’s children.  Now if we’re children, then we’re heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings we may also share in His glory. [11]  What an obligation!

See then a wide range of obligation. In a bare minimum slaves and unhappy people work all the way up to the astounding reaches of being God’s sons and daughters, heirs worth their word!

Blessing:  When you find yourself out in life this week, and hear God’s greatest confidence in you, your deepest obligation, be thrilled, “I knew I could count on you, my child.”

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[1] Romans 8:12

[2] Numbers 30:2ff

[3] Matthew 18:23ff 

[4] Romans 1:14

[5] Romans 8:12

[6] Romans 8:12 ff

[7] Philippians 3:8

[8] Matthew 6:12 

[9] Matthew 23:16ff 

[10] (USA Today, May 3, 2000, page 4A).

[11] Romans 8:14 – 17

David, WYSIWYG

David wrote the Psalms. Those Psalms have comforted people for thousands of years.

David was deeply spiritual.

David was a warrior. He and his Mighty Men killed tens of thousands of enemies. He exterminated cities. He utterly hated his enemies, except for the Mighty Men from those enemies. He loved them.

David was diametrically opposed to, ugh, David.

David loved God. Unreservedly. He trusted God always. Except in the Psalms when he is asking God, “When will you show up?” “Where are you? I am dying here.” “Deliver me from my enemies. Heal me. Kill my enemies.” “And I love you, God. You know that.”

David did not try to hide ugly parts of himself from God. David never put on airs that he was better than he was. If David loved God one instant, and was anxious the next second, it is there in the Psalm.

What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) took years of programming to put on your computer. For David, it was his divided consciousness, ADHD soul from early on in life.

David never intended to hide his ugliness or sin, except for that thing with Bathsheba where David had his friend, Uriah, a Mighty Man killed when he refused to bed his wife and cover for David unwittingly.

WYSIWYG. David confesses his sin for use in church hymns for the country of Israel. He leads the country in worship, even when it offended his wife, Michal. Maybe he got a little excited, but he refused to apologize, and never slept with her again.

And God describes David as the Apple of His Eye.

I tend to dress up for God, present my best self in my prayers even when confessing sins. I know, like changing underwear for the God with X-Ray vision. David never bothered. David brought his most intimate self, immediately, unreservedly to God.

WYSIWYG. God loved the guy for putting on no faces, not dressing up, not trying to put a good spin on his self-presentation.

David says it another way: When I hid my sin, my body was wasting away!

He dwells and indwells where invited

10 But for you who welcome Him,
in whom [Christ] dwells —
even though you still experience all the limitations of sin —
you yourself experience life on God’s terms.

11      It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God Who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? 
èWhen God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. 
èWith his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s! Romans 8:10-11 (The Message.)

 

When I was four, my family lived on 22^nd Street in Beaumont, TX.  Our 1940s house held high ceilings.  A tall, glassed in book case filled one wall of my brother’s and my room.  I know it was tall, as my brother stuffed me high on a shelf for being four!  Those high shelves were the next to the last place I dreaded!  The last place I wanted to be “in” the house was the porch.  It had two large white eyes in the dark cement.  My older brother told me the two circles were angel eyes watching if I ever lied to him.  I never told a lie on that porch.  In fact, I avoided that porch.  I loved the house, but avoided porch and our shelves because unseen things dwelt there, unbidden. 

We hold two sorts of places in memory.  Some we avoided, dreaded.  The other places we loved.  Maybe your loved place was Granny’s attic, or closet where you hid.  Was it a fort you built in the living room or out in the bushes?  Was it under your bed consuming forbidden foods?  Remember those places to grasp two words: dwell and indwell in verse 11.  Consider a favorite place where I dwell I love.  I feel safe.  I am comfortable there.  Places I must indwell, must change before I can stay, or I must grow up to live there.  The eyes must come out of that concrete before I sit there to enjoy a snack!  Or, I can grow up, and be unafraid to sit on that porch at age 24.  I drove by and saw the house was for sale.  I stopped.  I had to know if the eyes still were in the concrete.  (They were.)  I sat there to watch cars go by.  Smiling.

The places I love and avoid can be close together.  I avoided some places in my house on pain of death: like my brother’s desk, and older sister’s dresser.  I never went in my parent’s bedroom if the door was closed — ever.  I might die in the hallway, but that was preferable. 

So I had places where I dwelt.  I had life and flourished in them.  I had places where I felt as a visitor or trespasser.  Paul says that is how the Holy Spirit feels about parts of our lives. 

Romans 8:10-11 “And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

11But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
èHe who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life
to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.

Use some imagination now.  Visit your imaginarium, or doff your imagining hat.  Suppose you dwell in a lovely country with mountains, deserts, rain forests, volcanoes, and beautiful coasts.  Let’s call your country Mexico.  You dwell in Mexico.  You love your village and extended family, but you your crops have failed for two years.  There are no jobs.  You dream of a place called America where families have as many jobs as they want.  Their children, can you believe it?  Drive cars!  They spend more time worrying about taxes than worrying if there will be enough to eat this week!  Some houses have three bedrooms, even the cars have bedrooms!  You dream of indwelling America, to immigrate there.  How hard will it be?  How wonderful?  Would Norte Americanos let us indwell among them?

Your dream of indwelling to America could consume you.  Indwelling to America may be your favorite topic at church, at home, and at work, but the reality is you dwell in Mexico.  You spend every sleeping hour in Mexico, no matter where your dreams take you.  Though you aspire to Indwell America, you dwell in Mexico.  This is how the Holy Spirit feels watching me sin!  I get in trouble and pray, “Dear God, please come and clean up my mess!”  He responds, “I can.  Would you also like Me to indwell and clean and claim it?”  I answer, “No, I just want you on stand by for clean-up, thanks!” 

Say you live in Juarez, down from El Paso.  You see the place of your dream, America, up on a hill.  Maybe you clean houses in El Paso, in America.  Maybe you shop in America, but dwell in Mexico.  You have no rights and no power in America.  That is how God’s Spirit feels in me many days. 

God dwells in my soul.  Why?  Because if I asked Christ Jesus to save me, that part of God that is the Holy Spirit came in to fulfill the bargain.  Now, in God’s Spirit (the verse says) God dwells in that part of me guaranteed to live forever — my soul.  Part of me is packed for eternity.  God dwells in there. 

Read the verse again: if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you[1] (there are still places in me God wants to INdwell).

Look at the clue in the last phrase: He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.

The Greek word for dwell is the word for house.  It’s your crib, tent, cave, palace, or shanty.  In your dwelling you live, you relax, sleep, retreat in calamity, and love it if you have no other place you have to be.  The place looks like you.  If you are a gerbil, it looks like it. 

The word, indwell in Greek uses that preposition — in. 
We in habit a place. 
What is interesting, is that the word indwell is ONLY used in a spiritual sense in Scripture. 

“What has the temple of God to do with idols?
èFor we are the temple of the Living God; just as God said,
è‘I will indwell them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’” [2]

DO you see all Paul says here?  We must throw away “house idols” hanging around in us, since we are the temple of the Living God.  And God walking among us might be uncomfortable!

“Let the word of Christ richly indwell you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God,” [3]

Obviously, God should indwell my worship.  Maybe I should attempt more joyful noises, or maybe let Him indwell my face with a little joy?

God says that I listen to sermons, and sing spiritual songs, to focus on my places uninhabitable by God’s Spirit to date.  I must let Him indwell those areas, so the Spirit can transform them. 

“I am mindful of the sincere faith within you,
which first indwelt your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice,
and I am sure that it is in you as well,” 2 Timothy 1:5. 

Timmy’s hometown of Lystra was a small, frontier garrison town: a cultural and religious crossroad.  Lois taught her boy how to be different from everyone else!  Do you hear a challenge?  If I have Christ, then I, build differences in me.  I show how God’s Spirit indwells new areas of my life for all to see.

Do my friends and coworkers think I am still growing?  I must be learning.  I must help others see Christ indwell me.  Do people watch you give, witness, or serve?

Guard, through the Holy Spirit
Who indwells us,
the treasure
which has been entrusted to you. 2 Tim. 1:14

Hmm.  God made a beach head in you when you professed Christ as Lord.  He pitched a tent in your soul: prepaid for eternity in Heaven.  Amen.  How do you know?  Look!  He placed treasures in you!

How much of you do you want to go to heaven?  Seriously.  Where did you learn the most about going to heaven: from All Dogs Go to Heaven, or Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait), or Robin Williams?

That is the same question as “How much of my life, have I asked God to indwell?”  Beyond a tiny, guaranteed soul-overnight-package, how much do I give Him on weekdays?  Ten minutes in a morning?  How much of your character, of your spirit and of your mind have you deeded to God? 

See it another way.  How many movies from this year are repacked for your eternal trip?  How many conversations this week can you send ahead?  Bear in mind, heaven is perfect.  No guano allowed.  Heaven is holy.  No trash whether it’s in your hand or your mind — it’s inadmissible. 

CS Lewis toyed with this in The Great Divorce.  Every Tuesday, a bus left hell for heaven.  If you wanted to you boarded the bus.  You could stay, even.  Lewis showed something that colors my thinking. 

I may think what is headed to heaven is ethereal, insubstantial, ghostly, a shadow at best.  Lewis thunders, “Just the opposite!” 

Lewis (and Jesus) counter that          (Heaven and earth will pass away
but what is eternal My Words
are MORE substantial                        will never pass away!)
than what we are. 

He counters that what is eternal is MORE substantial than what you are. 

Physics supports this.  Take a BB and place it on the fifty yard line in a football field, that’s your proton.  The electron is spinning around in the end zone.  That is a HUGE invisibility in the atom!

That is right, the end zone holds your electrons for your tiny nucleus of one proton.  That is the old Bohr model.  The electron cloud theory says that there is a slight chance your electron from your proton is miles away for an instant.  That is a lot of space in a molecule.  We have mostly space in us!  Scripture says we’re like a morning mist on a lake, gone by noon.  We’re the ghosts!  We’re the blow away souls!  We’re insubstantial!  This indwelling is how we become substantial. 

What the Spirit invades and packages for eternity in you has more substance than the leftovers of you.  Your leftovers blow away like ash in an incinerator.  We’re fragile, insubstantial, and unkind to each other.  We are ghostly, and cling to our insubstantial dark pleasures, proclaiming our freedom, rather than working at becoming substantial, eternal, lasting men and women. 

When was the last time you denied yourself anything: a meal?  When was the last time to discipline an hour rather than entertain yourself?  When was the last time you served the Living God in some way commanded by scripture?  What the last hour you packed for heaven that you did not spend in church? 

The 25 cent word for this is “sanctification.”  Sanctification is any hour, thought, or place in me that I asked God to indwell, and then acted on his changing me, empowering me to do something different?

Sanctified means I take a thought and ask God to indwell it.  I take my humor or anger, and ask God to indwell it.  I take my passion and ask God to indwell it.  He changes lust and porn to loving people enough to give them Christ. 

Sanctified means I use my entertainment to grow me in Christ, to build eternal “new” in me.  Being sanctified, I invite God to indwell my business hours, so I grow in character, and others see Jesus where I work.  Do you say, “God, thanks for saving my soul, but the rest of me is mine to waste!”  Can you hear how silly that sounds on death’s other side?  How much of you now lives eternally?

Some Christians say terrible things about each other.  It starts like, “Well I love Tom, but….”  Jesus isn’t fooled.  Leave the “Well, I love whoever” part out, God is not fooled.  If it stinks like gossip, grieves the Spirit like gossip, and makes the soul of hearer and listener ghostlike, it is gossip.  Don’t like this part?  Ask it another way.  Do you wail about reasons the Lord can’t do anything around you, rather than live as though He indwells you to do all He promised? 

Ask it another way.  How much of what you do here is eternal?  Do you “cover for God” that, “Many people make little invisible decisions.”  Wouldn’t you rather see, “what the Holy Spirit did in him, her, and in me?”  Eternal stuff is substantial.  Visible to anyone looking!

God indwelt Mount Sinai, so you saw it for miles and people were drawn to it and had to be warned to be careful near it as they were drawn to it, but not clean to touch it.  

God indwelt the temple and a cloud chased everyone out that first morning! 

God indwelt Paul and his merry band, no matter how messed up a town they entered, people came to Christ.  No matter how stupid Paul acted toward Jon Mark or Barnabas, God still changed lives, and in time changed Paul.  If you say God indwells you, but you feel dead, guess what this scripture says? 

And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit Who indwells you.

Parts of me are dead due to sin.  See it?  Where sin dwells things die.  They pass away. 

Parts of you live because of Christ’s Spirit in you.  Where Christ lives, things live, already eternal. 

The rest of you: emotions, past, life, choices — do you ask God who raised Christ from the dead to indwell your mortal, dying areas?  Ask that He empower those if His Spirit now indwells those areas.  My used-to-be dead parts, now in God’s power that raised Christ from the dead, now live in Him.  That’s it.  God indwells, enlivens, makes eternal.  He raises what was dead to life, as with Jesus: the Prototype. 

Will Saint Peter unwrap a bag of chips that was you and sad at the label’s warning: “Some settling of contents may have occurred in shipping.”  Peter says, “Not much here, but the wrapper made it!  Give him a room.  He’s missing his entertainment, his laughter, and best friends.  Sad!” 

OR, will you be substantial?  Will God’s indwelling be substantial?  Will the movies, friendships — She brought 20 friends; conversations — see how our Lord entered his conversations! “She avoided conversational cesspools to love her friends!”  Will the areas God indwelt you be empowered in the same way God raised Jesus from the dead?  Will they be indwelt by the Spirit, and so be eternal, substantial?

Do you speak of Him, but have never asked Him to indwell you, taking up residence in your soul?  You might say, “I go to America, so I am an American!”  The reality is, no, you complete a citizenship process for it to be true in you.  You may say, “I go to church, so I must be a Christian!”  The reality is no, you must submit to His dwelling you first, and then ask Him to indwell new parts every day!

Won’t you?

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[1] Romans 8:11

[2] 2 Corinthians 6:16.

[3] Col. 3:16.