You Are Afraid

I once had a man ask me, "If you could have only one wish, what would it be?" Without hesitation I said I wanted to go to heaven. He replied, "Well in God's time, but what do you want now and here?" My answer was still the same. He couldn't understand my desire to go to heaven right then. This man was a professing Christian, and a good man. But it got me thinking as believers why would we not want to go to heaven?

Of course his statement on God's time is correct. Regardless of what I do here in this life, my life won't end until He's ready. So what's wrong with being eager? What's wrong with having an overwhelming desire to be there now? If we're honest with ourselves; not having that desire should cause us some alarm. A desire for His promise of no more death, or sickness, or pain. It's not hard to look around at the decline of this world and wish and yearn for something better. Something Heavenly.

So why do so many want to go to heaven but just not now? One word: FEAR! Fear of leaving people behind. A fear of leaving a life of comfort behind. A fear of possibly the unknown. If we have true faith, should there really be any fear in death? Or should death be the goal. In fact Jesus and His disciples spoke on dying quite a lot. Philippians 1:21-23 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. Here Paul states that for him to live in Christ will be fruitful labor, yet his desire is to die and be with Christ for that would be far greater.

Charles Spurgeon said, Depend upon it, your dying hour will be the best hour you have ever known! Your last moment will be your richest moment, better than the day of your birth will be the day of your death. It shall be the beginning of heaven, the rising of a sun that shall go no more down forever! Solomon the son of David wrote in Ecclesiastes 7:1 A good name is better than fine perfume and the day of death better than the day of birth. Now how could people desire death so much? Simply because they had no fear. Or in other words, through the grace of Christ there is no need to fear death!

We found out today that my uncle passed away. When I asked about arrangements I was told there will be none. He simply requested nothing. At first I could not understand why there would not be some form of memorial. I was told that he only had a handful of people that even really knew him. I'm happy to say I was one of those. I don't think my parents were even aware that we had talked on many occasions. My uncle had many questions on Christ and The Scriptures over the last couple of years. I have no fear or doubt that we will talk again one day.

But the fact of having so few to mourn, or lift up praises over him still bothered me. This has been my fear for sometime. The fear that when I'm called home, there will only be a handful that remember me. Then as our gracious Father often does, He spoke to me. He reminded me that when He was dying on the cross, there were only a handful of people there to mourn him. His devout followers had all scattered in fear. It was a humble death. To the world so few brings sadness and emotions of feeling sorry for him. To me the few and his request shows me a lack of fear for what this world wants, and his desire to just go home.

Transitions are always difficult. It is hard to hear the Spirit tell us to leave a familiar place where we have once seen Him work, and to go to another place of which we know little. In this hour it is also greatly difficult for many to leave the sheltering arms of Babylon when they have known nothing else. Many are torn about leaving, especially when they see so many of those they have known saying that things are still fine in Babylon and that they have no intention of packing up and heeding the call to come out. The enemy seeks to defeat those who would set their face toward Zion. If he cannot frighten them from taking this road, he will seek to waylay them and in some means keep them from their destination. He would also seek to get these pilgrims to become wearied of the way and confused about their actual destination, to blur their vision of where they are going, that he might turn them back to what is familiar.

Fear of change and fear of where God wants us to go can be a powerful tool in the enemies arsenal.
We fear what we can't see or understand. It's easier to stay in our bubble of comfort than to venture out into the unknown. Christians have no reason to fear death. God has promised wonderful things after death for those who believe in Him. One of my favorite verses come to mind, it's in Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing in this world or the world we can't see; not even death can keep us from the love of Christ.

Mathew Henry once said, “He whose head is in heaven need not fear to put his feet into the grave.”
Don't let fear run your life. Embrace death; because in dying, you gain eternal life in Christ.

May You Be Blessed With Peace And Understanding

A Cult Of Personalities

What do you think about when you hear about a Cult? You probably picture a group of people blindly following a person that promises them hope and a new life. You probably picture a group of people living together away from the normal society of the world. A group of people who have handed over all their possessions. However it's usually led by someone who is misleading and taking advantage of others. Whether it be mentally, sexually, financially, etc. The world and those selfish people that begin the cults have painted this lifestyle as crazy, out of the ordinary, and foolish.

A cult by definition is: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister. synonyms: sect, religious group, denomination, religious order, church, faith, faith community, belief, persuasion, affiliation, movement; a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.

I don't think I'd be off based by saying that sounds like a description of Christianity. Religious devotion towards someone, living in a small group of people that are perceived as strange or differing from the normal world around it.  (Romans 12:2) Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (1 John 2:15-17) Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Sounds to me that this was the exact culture and way of life Christ and His disciples instructed us to live in. We and those who believe as we do should live in a way so apart from normal culture and ways of the world, that we will appear; in the world's term: Cultish. Not in the way this lifestyle is shown through those worldly people; but in a way that the world will look at us, our love and kindness, and the way we live and thirst for it. Does the modern picture of the Church look like this, or just another version of the world itself? (Acts 4:32-35) All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

Acts makes it seem so clear, so easy. All these problems with inequality would evaporate if we lived in such an exemplary and faithful way! This is a picture of the ideal community, one in which no one lacks for anything! Everyone gives to those who need. No statements like "Why should I help them if they don't work?" Or resentment towards those who aren't exactly like us in appearance, nationality, financial status, or a plethora of other selfish reasons. Things are more complicated than this as we know too well. Often times, Christians have turned to the Acts of the Apostles hoping to find there the perfect church or at least a really good model of what church might be like. We hope that if we could just do church the way the early church did, we would be in a much better place.

This passage is one key motivation for these nostalgic hopes. Acts notes that this is a community of “one heart and soul.” Doesn’t that sound like what we yearn for most? In a world where many of us don’t know our neighbors, where we are so easily divided over political questions, where we can’t seem to agree on anything, where we legislate the privileges of some over the simple liberties of others, don’t we yearn to be of “one heart and soul?” Now, notice that this is a community that talks the talk and walks the walk. They love one another by selling their possessions. And why do they do this? We find the answer in a verse we too often miss. Verse 33 reads: “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”

They were not of one heart and soul because they tried really hard. They did not sell their possessions because it was the right thing to do. Instead, everything they did was because of their belief in the resurrection. They so believed in Jesus who defeated death and promised life to us all that they trusted every bit of their lives into the hands of God and their neighbors. They so trusted each other that they gave all that they had to one another so that there would be enough for all. They believed because if God can raise the dead, then surely God will provide our every need. They believed in God who can raise the dead and in this way discovered what it meant to be children of a God of hopeful abundance.

In the beginning of chapter five we see what selfishness and worldly desires do to the community of believers. Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
Right after this community begins to unify, the greed of one couple starts to tear the community apart. As soon as this community starts to come together, as soon as everyone’s needs are being met, it all starts to fall apart. And perhaps this was inevitable. We know what we are really like. We are not all that surprised that we have established systems that privilege some and neglect others. This is what we do!

The Gospel calls us to imagine what it would be like for us to live in such a community. The gospel calls us to wonder what would keep us from selling all we have for the sake of the other. The gospel calls us to wonder whether our stuff has become our “stuffing” in life. Does our stuff give our lives shape and meaning? Or might it just be that our stuff is a gift not for us but for others? That our stuff is never about us. That our stuff didn't belong to us in the first place, but to God. What might it be like to trust, really trust our neighbors with all we had? And an even more radical thought for many of us: what might it be like to rely on God to form me into a person and us into a community worthy of such precious trust?