Wilderness Wonderings

Wilderness Wonderings

love

The Love of the Kingdom

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You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:43-45

Jesus has already mentioned that hatred towards your brother is the equivalent of murder borne in the heart. However, here He revisits hatred and moves from hatred towards someone with whom you are bound to in a covenant relationship to someone that is outside of that intimate relationship. In fact, He says that we ought to not only love our neighbor but to also love those who actively seek to destroy us.

For the fourth time, Jesus shifts the topic of His message to contrast the heart of the Mosaic law to the traditional practice found in non-Scriptural sources. “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” The Kingdom law of the Moses dictated that you shall “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Period. There is no additional commentary beyond this. In fact, Jesus said in another episode “The second [greatest commandment] is [like] this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The first greatest commandment of course is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart (kardias – affection) and with all your soul (psuche – life force) and with all your mind (dianoia – will) and with all your strength (ischus – physical strength).” (Mark 12:31, Greek commentary mine)

In fact, the transitional phrase “The second is [like] this…” is can literally be translated as “In the same manner, the second greatest commandment is…”. In other words, just as we are commanded to love God with every bit of the essence of our being – our emotional affections, our life, our will, and our physical capacity – we are commanded to love other people. Jesus makes no distinction here between friend or foe. He makes no distinction between brother, sister, or stranger. Put simply, the entirely of the law is summed up in four words “Love God. Love people.” Anything less than these two simple statements is sin.

Now in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does address the nature of two different types of relationship. He addressed the nature of hatred towards a brother / sister – someone with whom you have an intimate relationship, but harbor resentment and unwarranted anger towards. Then He takes it a step further and commands that we love our enemies – those who actively seek to harm and abuse us. Those who seek to take advantage of us. Those who seek to spitefully use us for their own selfish gain.

Furthermore, He contrasts the difference between those who would follow His teaching with those who are not His followers: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” The tax collectors of Jesus’ day were despised as traitors because they were often Jewish citizens who submitted to the authority of Rome and were often known to take advantage of the taxpayers. It’s easy to greet those that are you friends, but far more difficult to greet those that are your enemies and make them feel at home. Even the cultural outsiders love those that love them. Emotional love is easy, but love that transcends emotion often requires a difficult act of the will.

A personal spiritual hero of mine is Corrie ten Boom. She and her family were arrested by the Nazis during World War II for hiding Jews in a secret room carved into the wall of her own bedroom. She and her sister Betsy were sent to Ravensbruck prison camp – or more literally, a death camp. Together, they would endure the hardship of the harsh treatment of their Nazi captors and even the jeering and mocking of their fellow prisoners. More importantly, in spite of their circumstances, and much to Corrie’s own consternation, Betsy would choose to love her fellow captors in spite of their mockery. The last thing that Betsy would tell Corrie before she would succumb to typhus were two simple words: “Don’t hate.”

Corrie would take these words and they would go on to transform her life. In the midst of her mourning, she would encourage her fellow prisoners until one night her named was called out. Shaking in fear, believing that she was on her way to die, she bravely declared the gospel of love to her fellow captors. She gave her smuggled Bible to one of her fellow prisoners and encouraged her to cling to it. Within a few hours, Corrie was on her way home – released due to an apparent “clerical error”, when all women prisoners her age were sent to the gas chambers just 2 weeks later.

Until her dying day, Corrie would travel the world teaching about the grace and love of God and teaching us all to love our enemies. She even had an opportunity to put this teaching into practice as one of her tormentors approached her after one of her teachings and declared their newfound faith and begged her forgiveness for her treatment in Ravensbruck. Corrie, pushing back the tears and anger and bitterness, extended her hand in grace and love towards this former prison guard, recognizing that they themselves had been a prisoner of their own guilt and released them to the freedom of grace.

Corrie’s mission in life was to deliver a very simple message, delivered to her by her dying sister Betsy: “There is no pit so deep that God’s love isn’t deeper still.”1 No matter how dark your world may be, or how strong your enemy comes against you, God is capable of giving you the strength to love them and set them free from the chains that bind their hearts. Grace transforms the heart in ways that set us apart from the world. Grace makes all the difference.

  1. Corrie ten Boom, Elizabeth Sherrill, John Sherrill (1971). The Hiding Place. Guideposts Associates. ISBN 0-912376-01-5.

The Passion of the Kingdom

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You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Matthew 5:27-30

Our basest human desire is the desire for love. It is the desire for relationship and attention from someone who genuinely cares about our best interests. This is followed very closely by our desire to love another. But all too often, when we don’t feel love, we default to lust. And this leads to more problems than you can possibly imagine in the world.

At its root, lust can be defined as the selfish objectification of someone or something that is not rightfully yours. And this extends beyond mere sexual lust, but into the realm of covetousness as well. A lust for power. A lust for sex. The lust for life. These are mere examples, but they demonstrate the animalistic, objectifying nature of our default human existence as a result of sin. And in our society, we excuse this sin more than any other because it appeals to our basic human appetite for affection and attention.

Lust is not simply restricted to the male gender; women are susceptible to lust as well. For men, however, it is more visual because God designed men to be hunters. Women, on the other hand, tend more towards emotion and the need for security. Now before you get all offended and accuse me of chauvinism and not being “woke” enough, I’m not saying the women are weaker than men and require the security of a man in order to have value. Men and women are both uniquely created and designed by God to complement one another, not to compete with one another. As such, because we are created by God in His image, we ought also to treat one another and look upon one another as such, rather than see each other for what we can gain from them.

The primary difference between love and lust is this: lust seeks to take another unto oneself, whereas love seeks to give of oneself to another. In the English language we have just one word for love, and it takes on a variety of meanings depending on the context. In Greek, there are four different words for love, each with its own contextual meaning: 1. storge – familial love, 2. phileo – brotherly love or friendship, 3. eros – erotic love, 4. agape – sacrificial love.

For a long time, our society and even the church has treated eros as an evil kind of live, or at the very least, a lesser form of love. God designed sexual attraction for the purpose of recreation between a husband and wife and procreation as a natural product of that love. The sexual act is designed to be a picture of the intimacy of the spiritual unity that God desires with His creation. However, our sinful nature has perverted this gift and we have allowed it to destroy humankind on so many levels.

In the United States alone, the sexual exploitation that defines the pornography industry generates over $12 billion annually – more than the combined annual revenues of the big three broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC. That’s an average of over $3000 every minute. It is estimated that between 20 and 40 million people around the world are trapped in modern slavery, with more than 80% of those in sex trafficking, which profits roughly $150 billion a year, with nearly $100 billion of it from commercial sexual exploitation. The average age of a person entering the sex trade in the United States is between 12 and 14 years old. Globally and estimated 71% of all enslaved people are women and girls, with 98% of them in the sex trade. And if you think that men are the only perpetrators of sexual exploitation and partaking of this trade, you’d be sorely mistaken; it is estimated that closer to 25% of such perpetrators are women, and that number is climbing annually. (See footnotes for citations.)

So if you think lust is a “victimless” sin or at worst “self-harm,” you’d be very wrong. Lust belittles the personhood of one of God’s image bearers to the level of an object to be desired, rather than sees them as a person to be loved. It reduces men and women to the level of nothing more than a product of animalistic passions rather than people of inherent, created value.

And God’s passion is for the benefit of His creation. His passion is to see you as a person of worth. His desire is for us all to see one another as He sees us. And He wants us to be passionately aware of our value to Him. When we start to see one another as a person of worth that God created with value, that changes the way we treat them. If we want to see an end to human trafficking, we must find a way to change the heart of traffickers and the hearts of buyers. There must be a transformation of the heart so that we do not see human sexuality as a commodity to be traded on the market, but rather as a gift to be given within the confines of Biblical marriage between a man and a woman, as God designed us to complement one another.

As believers, we must be careful of what we expose ourselves to in our entertainment. I need to be careful of some of the more “innocuous” programs that I expose myself to as well. The books that I read. The music that I listen to. The art that I purvey. Are these forms of entertainment glorifying God? Am I allowing the window of my soul to be open so far to allow the pollution of the world to corrupt my heart? Are you? I urge you, please be discerning of what you willingly allow yourself to partake in. If the lyrics of the song objectifies another person, turn it off. If the books you read, celebrate the immorality of our world, put it away. If the art you peruse treats displays another human being in a manner that is unfitting of their God given value, walk away. If the program you are watching objectifies men or women, turn it off.

I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying we are all going to be immediately aware that what we are viewing is not what we should be. But if we start to see our fellow humans, man and woman alike, the way that God sees us – as people of value worthy of love, respect, and dignity, then it will start to come more naturally. I’m not perfect, but I’m getting better. And I still have a long way to go. And by the grace of God, I will get there.

Statistical Footnotes:
https://enough.org/stats_porn_industry_archives
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-human-trafficking

Killing the Hostility

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“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” (Ephesians 2:13-16)

Growing up in the deep South, I am no stranger to the evils of racism. I’ve seen it perpetrated upon others. I’ve experienced racially motivated hatred towards myself from members of other races. All of it born out of a spirit of distrust between us all, in spite of personal best efforts to demonstrate an attitude contrary to the prevailing culture of the time. As a result, it perpetuated a continuous cycle of hate upon hate and hostility repaid with hostility.

I still remember the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election. It was my first opportunity to actually vote in a governor’s race. The options were between a known felon with connections to the mob who was later convicted of RICO charges and a former Grand Wizard of the KKK. Evil versus evil. And thus was my first introduction to the phrase “the lesser of two evils” as it pertains to politics.

I can recount innumerable times throughout my childhood, adolescence, and young adult life in Louisiana where race politics were not only expected, they were the norm. I have not followed Louisiana politics nearly as closely since 1996 because that is when I left the state for Texas, only returning briefly for 2 years to finish my undergraduate degree. At one time, I even entertained the fainting notion of running for public office due to my own youthful idealism only to realize that I would not have been able to stomach the perpetually spewing hatred from both sides of the aisle. Nor would I have been able to bring myself to do what was necessary in the realm of Louisiana politics to win a seat at the governing table.

Looking back over the years, there are a handful of people from my Louisiana days that I would have easily counted as friends who were of a different race than myself. From elementary school through high school, one such friend was Toni “Tee” Banks. She was and is still today a bright, intelligent, and supremely insightful young woman. I can recall some of the most challenging and educational moments of my academic life were conversations she and I would share back then. I can honestly say then and now that she was my friend.

In college, for one year I was a member of the intercollegiate debate team. My debate partner, Edwin Robinson, became one of my best friends in the world and that relationship still holds true today. I know now, as I did then, that if I ever needed anything in this world, even though we are hundred of miles apart, he would move Heaven and Earth to be there for me. And the fact that our different skin colors wouldn’t make a difference because it was our mutual love for one another and our love for Almighty God that binds our friendship for eternity.

In 1997, while I was in the midst of my own wilderness wandering period, abandoning my faith, I was befriended by a young Hispanic Lutheran ministry student named Mark Aponte. One day on my way to my bus, he picked me up and dropped me off at the stop and he asked me if I had a place to worship that evening. I politely brushed it off, but he firmly and lovingly reminded me of God’s command to not neglect the assembling together. To this day, I count him as one of my dear friends because he was one of several people in that one week that prodded me back into the family of faith.

Today, there are many colleagues that I work with of different races across the board. All of them, I carry with me the utmost respect and admiration for the integrity they bring to their jobs and their passion for the people that they work with is unmatched. One such friend is Michael Clayton. Last year he was diagnosed with cancer and my heart broke for him. As he chronicled his fight with cancer and I watched him and got to know more about him, I grew to admire and respect him even more. He is my friend and he is a survivor as he was recently declared to be in remission from his cancer. But what I appreciate the most is his love for his Lord Jesus that binds us together in brotherhood.

Last year, a dear sister who was one of my wife’s best friends for over 20 years, Brenda Gloria, from San Antonio went on to be with the Lord. Her uncompromising, but merciful and gracious spirit still resonates with my own. Her brother, Pastor Roland Gloria of Hard Rock Church in San Antonio, is a friend who I have the utmost admiration and respect for as his spirit and dedication to our Lord continue to be an inspiration for his congregation – a direct result of Brenda’s influence on his life. This loving Hispanic family will always be in my heart because of the direct impact that Brenda had in my life.

I attend worship at Great Hills Baptist Church here in Austin, TX. Our pastor often points out that we are a mutli-ethnic, multi-national, multi-generational body of believers. My Connect Group (Sunday School, Bible Study class) is made up of a wide variety of believers from around the world. Our teacher, Velu Kadirvel, who I count among my dear friends and as a mentor, hails from the Tamil region of India. Velu is one of the most intelligent and kind-hearted men that I know. His heart for God’s Kingdom and for seeing people know Jesus fuels his spirit with kindness and grace. There have been many times that I have needed that grace, and he has been loving enough to be there to provide arms of comfort, shed tears of grief, and cheer with me in my victories.

The common thread among all of these dear friends that allowed us look beyond our racial differences is our mutual understanding of the grace of Almighty God and our mutual understanding that we are all His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He has prepared beforehand that we might walk in them. We have a clear understanding of our value as children of our Creator and that we have a responsibility to steward that relationship for the sake of His kingdom because it is the good work that God has called us all to in Christ Jesus. It is the blood of Christ that allows us to stand together in unity because that is what has broken down the wall of hostility that society tries to put up between us.

It takes more than words and pithy sayings to break down the walls between us. There are centuries of humanistic logic that has built up these walls by elevating pride and ethnicity over humility and humanity. It takes a supernatural vision of faith, hope, and love that fuels kindness, mercy, and grace to tear down those walls and see each other for the fearfully and wonderfully made creations that God has made us to be. We can issues all the shallow, obligatory political statements in the world, but they are nothing but empty words unless they are backed up by a vision that sees people for who God created them to be. All the empty gestures in the world that do nothing but call attention to how good we want people to see us are meaningless, until we back it up with action that transcends our superficial differences and gets to the heart of the matter and reconciles one another in relationships that reflect the Divine Abba Father’s love for us.

Say what you will about the times as they are, but until you are willing to cross the street and help the downtrodden and create a relationship that means something, keep your mouth shut. We can all say what we think, but we all live what we believe in our hearts. And it’s high time our hearts undergo a transformation that only His grace can provide.

We Are His Workmanship

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“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV)

Mercy. Love. Grace. Kindness. Faith. Salvation. The great attributes that all of humanity aspires to know and experience, yet so few of us truly understand that they are all interdependent upon one another. Mercy extends from a heart of love. Kindness extends from a heart full of grace. Salvation extends from a heart of faith in the Father. Salvation fuels a heart that is filled with love, which feeds mercy. A merciful heart is a kind heart which extends grace. But without faith to be the spark that ignites the fire of salvation, the other attributes are shallow and empty.

It must first begin with faith in the Father and in His word and His promises. He is our Creator. And He created us all for His purposes which He ordained before we were even a twinkle in our Abba’s eye. We were created for His joy, not His judgement. We were created to live lives that are worthy of His grace and love and mercy and kindness. But grace and mercy both imply brokenness beyond merit. Grace and mercy both require us to love one another more than we hate the offense, just as God loves us more than He hates our sin. So much does God love us that He was willing to go to Calvary in the form of His Son, Jesus, to reconcile us to Him and pay the required price for our sin in our place. While we were not created for judgement, our sin requires judgement in order to facilitate reconciliation and the sacrifice of Christ on a trash pile outside of Jerusalem satisfied this debt.

But unless we have faith in this satisfaction and are reconciled to Him, we will never understand what it means to experience genuine forgiveness, grace, and mercy that begins the cycle of love and kindness to our fellow man. Without faith in Him we can never understand the required transformation of our heart to even be capable of genuine grace and mercy and Godly kindness that looks beyond our human weaknesses to see the person beneath the brokenness.

Until we look upon each other as the workmanship of the Almighty Abba and Creator of us all, having faith in His goodness, we will never see the potential value that we all have for the Kingdom to bring peace and hope to a broken world that is beyond human repair. Our humanistic efforts have failed and fueled our pride giving rise to our hatred that reigns in the hearts of man through all of time. Perhaps it is time we finally examine the evidence before us all and admit that our humanity is broken and that we need Someone greater than us to make us whole again.

WE are HIS workmanship
CREATED in Christ Jesus for GOOD works
which GOD prepared beforehand
that WE should WALK in them

We. Not you. Not I. We. All of us together are His workmanship. All of us together, regardless of our gender, ethnicity, our national origin, our skin tone, our disabilities, our abilities, our sin, our weaknesses, our failures, our hopes, our dreams, our selfish desires, our sacrifices, our imaginings, our fears, our ambitions. WE ARE ALL HIS WORKMANSHIP!! WE ARE HIS!! HOW DARE WE TREAT ANY ONE OF HIS CREATION ANY LESS!!!

This year I have cried more tears than I can count. More tears than I can remember over the last decades. I’ve seen friends become gravely ill. I’ve lost a grandfather. Many of us lost a hero to our faith. We’ve all lost a connection with our neighbors. And our nation and world is burning down around us because of fear, anger, and the baser emotions that God has called us all to overcome.

We are His workmanship. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, not destruction. He prepared our works for us beforehand, but we are ignoring His mandates to kindness, love, mercy, and grace. And I dare say there are precious few of us that are walking in those mandates.

It is my prayer that I am continually re-examining my own heart to ensure that my faith that ignited my salvation fuels my heart with kindness and love so that I might show grace and mercy. Those are the good works that we were created for. Anything less is rubbish and fit for the fires of hell.

To all my brothers and sisters and friends of color, I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I offer you peace that can only come from faith in Him. I offer you a hand of friendship and arms of comfort. I share your pain. I cry out to our Father to take it away. And I hear my Abba gently saying to my heart that it is our responsibility to perform the good works that He prepared so that We might ALL walk together in them in kindness and love, showing grace and mercy to one another, for the sake of His Kingdom.

To my brothers, sisters, friends, and family who wear the blue and carry the badge. I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I pray peace that can only come from Him. I pray wisdom upon you all that you might execute the responsibilities of your office to the best of your ability. I pray for your safety as you go about your duties to serve and protect those in your charge. You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should all walk in them, for the sake of His Kingdom.

To our elected leaders and officials, I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I pray that Godly wisdom will find its way into your hearts and minds to do the right thing. I pray that you recognize that we are ALL God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand that we should all walk in them. That includes you as well as you consider your legislations, as you consider the enforcement of our laws, as you ruminate over the judgements that you hand down. I pray that your hearts are ruled by kindness and love that are informed by a faith that produces salvation in your own hearts so that you are capable of extending transformative grace and mercy.

To the Church at large, I love you with a love that can only come from the Father above. I pray that your faith is genuine and real, and manifests the fruit of repentance that is characteristic of the salvation you profess. I pray that your hearts are fueled with kindness and love that extends grace and mercy from our Abba Father to all around you. For this is our mandate. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

I can never say it enough. We are His workmanship. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works. He prepared those good works for us to walk in them. It’s high time that we all get up off our our couches, turn off our televisions, seek out our neighbors, and show the world what the love of God is really all about. Until we do, nothing will ever change.

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