Did He Mean It Literally?

Not much to say in this post.  Just wondering if we too often try to explain away the true meaning of this verse:

For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.  (Luke 18:25)

 Sometimes we would point to verse 27 which says, 

And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.  

This is true, and I'm in no way trying to discount that verse.  I believe that things that are impossible with men are possible with God, and in order to take verse 25 in context, you have to take verse 27 into consideration.  There is also the argument that the "needle's eye" was a gate in Jerusalem that was so small camels had to be unloaded and sent through on their knees.  I suppose that is possible, but I have also heard that theory tossed out.

This post is not intended to judge anyone or to determine an answer.  I simply wonder...what if Jesus just meant what he said?  What if it really is easier for a camel to fit through a literal needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God?  Assume I were to get a job that would make me rich somehow.  Perhaps I should be pouring the majority of the money into God's work instead of saving it for myself.  What good is it to die rich trying to push camels through needles' eyes and miss the Kingdom of God?  I'd far rather spend forever with Him than have a few measly dollars here.  It runs cross-grain to the American Dream, but in eternity the perspective will all be different.

"And he said, 'Lord, I believe....'"

Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, 

He said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" 

He answered, "Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?"

Jesus said to Him, "You have both seen Him, 

and He is the one who is talking with you."

And he said, "Lord, I believe."  And he worshiped Him.

John 9:35-38

Just prior to this passage, the man to whom Jesus was talking had been defending Him to the Jews.  The Jews were stubborn, hard-headed people, and they refused to believe Christ's claims that He was the Son of God.  He had given them proof time after time, but they simply refused to believe. 

This particular man would not have even had to worry about being called before this group of Jews if it had not been for Jesus.  Just a few short hours before he had been nothing but a blind man—overlooked, among the low-class of the society.  His position changed from one of basically no importance to anyone to being called before the big-wigs of society in very short order, all because of Jesus.

It wasn't that Jesus even did any major demonstration or made a big deal about his work of healing.  He just made a little clay, put it on a poor blind-man's eyes, and told him to go wash in a certain place.  Oh…and He did all this on the Sabbath….

Suddenly this man who these Pharisees would have likely overlooked a few hours before unless they stopped to give some alms so that they would look good, was bombarded with questions from people that didn't want to hear the answers.  Jesus had done something for this man, and he was excited!  He wanted to share it.  The Pharisees were like a wet blanket, but the man's enthusiasm was bubbling over. 

The Pharisees were intent on destroying Jesus.  They finally told the man that he should be giving glory to God; they said that Jesus was a sinner.  The man simply replied in a spirit of faith, "Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see."

After talking for awhile longer, the Jews finally reached the point of exasperation.  They were offended by the man's attempts to teach them about Christ, so they "put him out."

This is where Jesus steps in.  He knew the man's situation.  He knew what the man had just gone through for His sake.  The man had shown blind faith in Christ and it had cost him, but "Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him…."  Jesus cared.  He knew.  And He didn't just leave the man to suffer in his rejection.  He went and found him. 

Then comes a very straight-forward conversation. Jesus asked if the man believed in the Son of Man.  The man asked who the Son of Man was so that he could believe in Him.  Jesus just responded that he was talking to the Son of Man right at that moment, and the man didn't struggle.  He didn't question.  He didn't doubt.  He didn't even hesitate by all indications from Scripture.  "And he said, 'Lord, I believe…."  He just did it.

And then he worshipped Him.   That is an interesting phrase to me simply for the fact that "he" (with a little "h") worshipped "Him" (with a big "H"). 

L.  Thomas Holdcroft in his commentary on the Gospels says, 

Scripture vividly traces the blind man's growth in belief.  At the outset, he obediently followed Jesus' instructions....  He testified openly and enthusiastically, identifying Him as 'the man they call Jesus….'  He recognized Jesus as a prophet….  He defended Jesus and the reality of his healing in spite of the Pharisees' ridicule….  He endured persecution for his faith…. He continued to want to know more about Jesus…. He confirmed his belief and worshiped Jesus…. In these seven steps the former blind beggar reached the final stage of belief—the sincere worship of Jesus Christ.

Christ has called us; He has done something for us.  I could testify along with the blind man and John Newton, "I was blind, but now I see."  But perhaps sometimes we face doubts or confusion.  Perhaps we are faced with persecution as this man was because of what Christ has done for us.  But, you know, it really doesn't matter if we are "put out" by the world around us—a world that does not understand Christ.  What matters is when Christ comes to find us and asks if we believe in the Son of Man.  We may or may not have to go through the steps that this blind man had to go through, but one thing is certain—we will be face with a decision about whether or not we are going to believe in Christ or not.  If we will, then we, too, can live lives of sincere worship to Christ.  And that is a part of the highest calling there is in life….

Thoughts From a Morning At the Beach

This morning I walked by the ocean.  The sun had just risen and its orange-yellow rays shooting from behind the clouds spoke of hope—of a new day—a fresh start.  Those rays bridged miles and reflected on the mirror-like sand by the edge of the sea.  The ocean's ceaseless waves rhythmically rolled onto the shore, keeping time with some melody that I could not hear.  I wished that I could walk in the edge of the water, but I had kept my shoes on.  Once in awhile a particularly aggressive wave would come frolicking up the shore almost seeming to laugh that I would be fearful of a little bit of water around my feet.

This morning I sat by the ocean.  It was the ocean in particular that caught the attention of my mind this morning.  It is so big, so powerful, so vast.  Most of us only ever see the very surface part of it, except in some documentary or photo journal that some fortunate person puts together so the rest of us can get a limited glimpse into something so much bigger than us that we really cannot even comprehend it.  There are life forms that we don't see anywhere else on earth.  There are depths to which man cannot even venture without extremely specialized equipment.  There are so many places under the sea that have not even known the presence of men.  Who's to know what is left unexplored or undiscovered?

And then God brought a thought to my mind.  How many times do I walk along the edge of the ocean of I AM—the ocean that is God in all His glory, grace, love, power, strength, presence and everything else that composes such an immortal, intangible Being?  How many times have I scurried to get away from God as He reached out with a particularly generous wave of His grace or mercy?  How many times have I "had my shoes on" and wasn't ready to receive what God had for me right then?  How many times was I unprepared or scared of what might happen if got wet? 

It is a strange thought that God would allow Himself to be limited….  Surely if He wanted He could just send a extra large wave and wash me right into Himself.  And He could, but He has given me, and you, and everyone else a free will.  By doing that, God has, in a sense, placed a limit on Himself at least for the time.  Anytime you give someone other than yourself a say in anything you are doing, you place limitations on yourself, and that is what God has done with us.  It's not that God couldn't just pull us in and make us go the way He wants us to; He could.  But He is duty-bound to honor our free will because He gave it to us.

And so, we can go through life jumping every time a wave of God comes near and running up the sand of life any time God reaches out to us.

God will let us do that, but each wave is an invitation—an invitation to step into the water, to go deeper, to allow ourselves to be submerged in the power of Who God is.  See, the interesting thing about the ocean is that if you start messing around with it and getting wet, the tendency is just get keep getting wetter.  It's some irresistible pull about the ocean that just asks you to come in deeper, and then suddenly a wave comes along that is bigger than you expect…. 

God is like that.  If we will walk closer to Him, close to the edge of the ocean of I AM, He will begin to wash over our lives.  And the longer we spend with Him, the more of Him we want.  If we will surrender to the power of that ocean, we will be pulled deeper and deeper….  And as we go deeper, we will find things we never knew about, places we have never explored, truths that had never occurred to us, blessings that we had never experienced, grace that we had never needed before, love much greater than any we had ever known, peace that passes all understanding, holiness that we had never previously comprehended or been able to attain; we will be immersed in I AM—an unbounded, infinite, never-ending ocean of holiness and power and awesomeness.

But it all starts with the first step of surrender when I let the ocean wash around my feet and invite me deeper—that first step where I surrender my will to have my way and stay dry….

The Heavenly Dream

I said goodbye to my cousin this evening.  It was strange.  This has been a strange couple of weeks anyway.  I have been doing a lot of growing up spiritually.  God has really confronted me with being serious about following Him.  I suppose some of this comes from the fact that in less than three months I will be graduating and moving out into the world to…do something….  Life begins to take on a more serious perspective when you look at it that way.  I've been doing some soul-searching and surrendering as indicated by the previous post.

See, I want God to move in my life.  Or…actually, I want my life to disappear and take on the form of Christ's life.  I want to lose my identity in Christ.  It's hard to explain the thoughts and emotions of the past couple of weeks.  Some of the things I have been thinking about are hard.  There are a couple of specific things that I have been thinking about and praying about.  Both of them are areas that I want to be surrendered to God. 

One of them is especially hard for me, and I'm not even completely sure why.  Probably a lot of it has to do with pride or jealousy, and that's part of why I really want to get that particular area completely surrendered.  I don't want those things to have any place in my life.  If I were to give advice to someone about surrendering an area, I might just tell them that they need to "just give it up" or "just give it to God."  It doesn't have to be complicated; I know that.  But…if you've ever tried to surrender something you want, especially something close to your heart and/or something you have to face on a daily basis, you know that it's not always as simple as just saying, "Ok, Lord, this is Yours" and walking away.  If you can do that, I give you kudos, but for some of us, death comes slowly as a daily process, rather than instantly by gunshot. 

The other area is not so much something that I feel like I am clinging to, but has to do with my future—what I'm going to do after I graduate.  There are a couple of ideas I'm tossing around in my head and praying about.  Ok, "tossing it around in my head" makes it sound like it's a light-hearted thing.  Really these are serious thoughts, and things that I seriously want God's guidance in.  The surrender in this aspect comes in not putting what I want in front of what God wants.  Although this particular issue may not be such a big deal (meaning that I'm totally willing to do whatever God wants me to), I still may be influenced by personal feelings about it, and I don't want to talk myself into or out of a particular decision based on my own personal feelings.  I really want God to guide me.

All that to say that tonight was somewhat strange as well.  My other cousin and her husband left for South Korea just a few days ago and will be there for at least a year, and now this cousin is going to South Africa probably semi-permanently.  It's a strange feeling of peaceful morbidity to think about it.  So much separation….

Yet as I thought about it after I left him this evening, really this is what we are for.  We really weren't made to all gather in one spot and make ourselves happy.  I was just talking with another friend earlier this evening about not wanting to live the American dream.  I'm scared of the American Dream—making money, having a wife, kids, nice car, nice house, 9-5 job, etc.  I hate the idea.  Oh…it's not that I don't think about it sometimes and think that it might be nice to live comfortable with the pleasures of technology and modern convenience at my fingertipes.  But when I really think about my life and the things that I would like to do…when I think about the fact that I would like to have something at the end of my life that would actually count for something…I reject the idea of living the American Dream.

I would far rather live the Heavenly Dream.  And I think that's what my cousins are doing.  It's what I hope to do someday.  It's hard to leave family.  I've experienced it in a small scale so far in life in going to college 1800 miles from home.  But my cousin is going around the world to live in a whole different place far from family and the familiarity of American culture.  And I don't know what God is going to do with me, but I could very easily do something along the same line.  Missionaries of the past have a set a similar example, especially in the days before travel was so readily available.  Some would leave and never see their families again.

But tonight it crossed my mind that it's really not so strange if you think about it.  I mean…we say that this world is not our home right?  Heaven is our home. And if we're all headed there, if we really believe that as much as we say we do, we're going to meet up there someday anyway.  So it's really not that weird for us to be apart here if that's what God wants.  The thing to keep in mind is this: God has promised to be with us as believers.  If God is with each of us, then we must all be with Him as well.  Which means that thousands of miles really aren't that far after all.

Perhaps we must remove our minds from the physical, tangible things of earth and begin to think in terms of the spiritual, eternal things of Heaven.  Physically we may be far apart, but spiritually we are together because we are all in Christ.  It's all part of the Heavenly Dream….

I Surrender All--The Doug Wiseman Version

Verse 1

Lord, I don't know what to do

I can't see my way through.

I'm tryin' to let go, tryin' to trust You,

But in my weakness I wish I knew….

I have desires, and I have plans

And things that call my name.

But, Lord, I wanna let go; Lord, I wanna trust You.

I wanna get out of my own way.

And I want You more than anything.

I want to see You move.

For You are full of glory,

And I want You to move in me….

Chorus

So I surrender all—everything to you.

I place my hand in Yours; I'm trusting You.

Everything I am and all I hope to be,

I give You all my dreams; I lay them at your feet.

And with this act of love, I cease to be.

I find my life in You, You Who set me free.

And You are now my dream; You are the breath I breathe;
The bread of life I eat; my living water stream.

If You would ever leave…. 

If you were ever to leave….

Without You...

I'd cease to be….

Verse 2

Lord, I'm tired of my own way.

I'm tired of worrying from day to day.

I want the peace that only You can give.

To live the life that only You can live.

But I am broken; I am empty.

So many times I've let You down.

Lord, I want live this life,

Take my broken life somehow.

Take my fears and sorrows, and worries for tomorrow.

I trust my future solely to Your hands.

And here I am,

I will be Your feet, Your hands.

Please Empty me of me;

Make me clean;

Flow through me.

Spirit, flow through me….

Chorus

I surrender all—everything to you.

I place my hand in Yours; I'm trusting You.

Everything I am and all I hope to be,

I give You all my dreams; I lay them at your feet.

And with this act of love, I cease to be.

I find my life in You, You Who set me free.

And You are now my dream; You are the breath I breathe;
The bread of life I eat; my living water stream.

If You would ever leave…. 

If you were ever to leave….

Without You…

I'd cease to be….

In Opposition to Legalism

I was just working on answering some questions for school when I ran across a scary and convicting passage of Scripture in Mark.  It's Mark 7:6-8.

And he [Jesus] said unto them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, But their heart is far from me.  But in vain do they worship me, Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.  Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men.  (ASV)

He was speaking to the Pharisees—a group that had totally gotten lost in a system of rules and legalistic practices.  They found their identity in their rules rather than in God.  In the CEV, the last part of verse six reads: "...All of you praise me with your words, but you never really think about me."  These people had rules, standards, and guidelines.  They had them to such an extent that they had gone far beyond what God's Law demanded.  They were no longer Scripturally based.  There was no relationship with God by which they received guidance on how to live their daily lives.  It was just a legalistic following of a system of rules and regulations.

God help us, as 20th century Christians, that we would not praise God with our words and never give an actual thought to Him; that we would not try to live the life without the relationship; that we would first think about God and then live lives that bring praise to Him.

God help me, as a young person, that my teaching and my influence on other people would reflect the precepts of God.  May I never teach as truth my own ideas.  May I search the Scriptures and relate truth as God reveals it to me through His Word.  May I have a part in ensuring that tradition never takes precedence over the commands of God.  May tradition be sifted through the Word of God and weighed for relevance and truth.  May I never be so hard-headed as to think my way is the only way; for only one way is the only way, and that is God's Way.

To Live To Die

Tonight I feel the need to die.

Not in a physical sense of course.  That is not for me to decide, and I'd just as soon live awhile longer.  But in a spiritual sense…I need to die.  There are some things pulling on my heart that must be surrendered to Christ.  My will on these matters must be given up.  I sense a struggle inside--a struggle between my own way and the way of Christ.  See…the interesting thing about it is, I don't even know that what I want is something contrary to the will of God.  Really I don't even know for sure that I want what I think I may want.  But I feel that the issue is not so much what I want as that I want it.  There is a struggle inside that says, "If you don't take this opportunity, you're going to miss it, and there will never be anything better."  But I don't feel the go ahead from God on these things. 

And so…I must die.  My dreams must be sacrificed so that they will not be in the way of God's greater plans.  For all I know, the things I want are included in God's plan at some point, but they may not be.  If not, I know He has something far better than anything I can conjure up.  I would hate to miss God's best because I wouldn't give up my little dreams.

See part of the reason I need to die is because the fact that I'm scared of missing a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity indicates a lack of trust in God--an attitude that says God may not update me on some step I should be taking.  It's putting myself above God in a sense because it's saying that I may know better than Him or that there is something I should know that He's not telling me. 

A walk with Christ demands my full allegiance, my unquestioning surrender, my resolute trust.  It requires a death to my desires, plans, and the things I think would be best.  But through this death is the path to life--life that will be more fulfilling than anything I have ever known.  Only believe….

"I have died, but Christ lives in me. And I now live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me."  (Galatians 2:20 CEV)

So Much....

Have you ever wondered how much "so much" is?  Like…if I tell someone that I "love them 'so much,'" how much is it?  "So much" said by itself is really an expression of our finiteness--our inability to express ourselves fully.  It is basically saying, "I love you more than I know how to tell you." 

But it is also possible to assign a value to "so much."  If I were to say someone, "I love you 'so much' that I'll buy you a candy bar," it would be an indication of how much I really love them.  Now, if I'm buying them a candy bar when I have an opportunity to buy them a filet mignon, I'm probably don't love them very much, but if I'm buying them a candy bar with my last fifty cents in the world, I probably love them a whole lot. 

For some people the candy bar level is not enough, though.  They have to up the ante.  So we get scenes like you might see in a movie.  Guy: "I love you."  Girl: "How much?"  Guy: "So much that I would die for you!"  This level suddenly brings a level of seriousness to the love.  This guy, if he really means what he says, loves this other person, this woman, more than he loves his own life.  For some the idea of this kind of love is almost staggering.  To love or be loved this deeply is almost beyond comprehension.  For the battered soul who has been betrayed and rejected, it seems impossible that any person could love a reject more than their own life.

"So much" may also be assigned a negative value.  One may say, "I hate you so much."  Or "You annoy me so much."  Once again, these in themselves have no defined value.  They are just an infinite expression indicating a level of the stated substance (i.e. love, hate, etc.) that exceeds human definition.

But as I wondered how much "so much" is, I thought of God and John 3:16.  The CEV says, "God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die."  (John 3:16)

God loved people "so much…."  But there is a value assigned to this "so much...."  He loved us so much that if we will simply believe in Him, just simply place our trust in Him, we can have eternal life.  We will never really die.  Yes, our bodies will die.  They have to.  But our souls will live on.  He loves us so much that He gave us the opportunity to be restored in relationship with Him.  He loves us so much that he gave us the opportunity to begin eternal life while we still live here on earth.  He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to give up His life so that we could be saved from ourselves and from sin.  He died so that we can live.  We were just ugly, selfish people, but God saw beauty in us and said, "I love you….  So much…."  How much?  This much--"...that he gave his only begotten son...."  And that makes all the difference.