An Email to remember.

As a theology student we are encouraged to seek as much help as possible from our professors.  Heck as a student...hmm, as a human being it seems we are encouraged to seek as much help as possible for our benefit.  For me, this came in the particular shape and form of an email.

I usually am not one to email professors, let alone speak to them outside of class because the moment I open my mouth is the moment my mind goes in a million fearful, self-aware directions, and I find what I really wanted to ask is no longer a reality.  It somehow vanishes like smoke and leaves me painfully dumbfounded.  So, thank God for secondary motivations.

I am currently working on a research paper regarding the ongoing "problem of evil" and upon reading an article given to me by one of my apologetics professors I was really into.  I found the topics of pain, suffering and evil being the allowed event for a greater good to be super fascinating.  I found the issues with that to be very personal and in my excitement I started writing my own notes that really  had nothing to do with the paper.  They were "songs" sung from the melody of my mind and the harmony of my heart.

To the point.  I ended up liking the article so much that I wondered what the writer of it looked like.  I knew he was a philosopher and professor, and it turns out the moment I looked him up his email was shown.  Without thinking I wrote him and upon receiving a response I immediately regretted the content I sent (which was a mumble jumble of my thoughts) to which he kindly referred to as my appetite for a partner in conversation.  Boy was he right, but I would probably never try to be that obvious about it with someone I thought would actually respond!  I thought it was more like writing to Santa Claus, but with a little more hopefulness. haha.

To the real point.  I got a response, and then I wrote back, trying to contain my serious excitement that someone I respect so much and who's writings have spurred such a song in me would be real and in conversation with me!  (Even more personal is that it came at such a time when I needed it most, needed some affirmation or something because I was pressed by every one of my circumstances to draw closer and closer to giving up--give up writing, give up the things I loved most for something more "practical").  This is a reminder to me of several things that I hope, one day when I look back at this entry, I will remember:  we are to encourage one another daily for you never know when the Lord is using your time on one particular day to rescue the drowning soul of another, even if someone you know nothing of, and secondly that genuine encouragement (because there is such a thing as fake encouragement) received is a most uplifting and life-giving embrace much firmer than arms or gifts.

So without more rambling, here is the email from Doc Wykstra to me of which I cherish as "an email to remember" even if I'm silly to do so.  Thank you.

JmeGrey

Hi “Without-Expectations Jamie”!

     Let me just say that you can shift into a quite remarkable and unique writing style—a writing style that, I surmise, comes more naturally to you (?).   !  Last night, having a little extra time on my hands, and it seeming like not so much work as play (and, it being the  Lord’s Day, my not wanting to work) I I spent some time musing upon those thoughts that you inimitably sought to express.

    It struck me that if you are beginning to almost feel at home in philosophy, it might help to get you some comments from me that might help you tweak your singular writing style just a little bit, so as to make it something you can use a a starting place for launching your philosophical writing.  Philosophical writing (in the Anglo-American tradition at least) is as you know on the dry dusty analytic side.  Your own writing, if one can judge by the most recent sample, seems to flow orthogonally to this, having the feel of almost a parable or incantation bubbling up almost supernaturally from some quite un-analytic part of the mind, like a song perhaps sung in tongues.  So I will just call them “songs” or “songs-in-tongues.”

    I have never encountered such writing before, but I find it quite beautiful, stirring, and with its own kind of promise.  The $64 million dollar question is: how, if it all, can you incorporate this into a philosophy paper? 

   I would suggest two things here.  First, that after letting such a little “song” flow forth, then “interpret it” for the reader.   I suggest you do this in two steps.  First, just copy and paste it the sung paragraph into a new paragraph, and try to tweak it just a little bit by adding or adjusting a few words or phrases here and there that will “establish continuity” between its parts, by using the “same idea, same term” rule and a few other tools.   Last night, I tried to do this for some of your more incantational paragraphs, as you will see below.  I have no idea if I was correctly discerning what you meant to be saying.  But if you read my “tweakings” you will know, and I hope you will also be able to see the sort of tweaking you could try to do, if you  want your songs-in-tongues to be just a little easier for the reader. 

   Second, go on to treat those songs (or songs-with-tweaks) as something to be included within the essay, but as “indented blocks” rather like I have begun to do in including “stories” in that essay I sent you.  (I could send you a version of that essay in Word, so you could just take over the paragraph-styles that I use: let me know if that would be helpful.

    Today I worked from 5 am to 8 am on a new essay I am writing which has a new story in it, the story of Polly Anne.  I added a new sentence, with a footnote thanking “Jamie at Talbot”, for a brand new thought that I got from reflecting on one particular part of your song-in-tongues. 

  Below, unedited, is what I wrote last night in response to your most recent startling email.   I interweave my advice and tweaks right into your own writing, using italics.  I hope nothing I say will sound dishonoring of your style.  It is so utterly unlike anything that I felt the best way to honor it was to give you my full “reader’s response” as I read it.  I have actually begun my “retirement” (or, as I prefer to put it, my permanent self-funded research sabbatical”) so have a little more freedom do invest my time and energy in things the Lord may bring to me that are ‘out of the ordinary’—as your “without expectations” email was.  I hope you enjoy and benefit from my own tweaked versions, because it is my best effort to give an interpretation of your songs-in-tongues.  And if I have totally misunderstood their meaning, I hope you will send me a tweaked-and-improved  version of my tweaked version.  

Warmly,

Doc Wykstra

Excel in this grace

“During a severe testing by affliction, 

their abundance of joy 

and their deep poverty 

overflowed into the wealth 

of their generosity. 

I testify that, on their own, 

according to their ability 

and beyond their ability, 

they begged us insistently for the privilege 

of sharing in the ministry to the saints, 

and not just as we had hoped. 

Instead, they gave themselves 

especially to the Lord, 

then to us by God’s will. 

So we urged Titus that just as he had begun, so he should also complete this grace to you.”

2 Corinthians 8:2-6

“Now as you excel in everything — faith, speech, knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love for us — excel also in this grace.”

2 Corinthians 8:7 

“I am not saying this as a command. 

Rather, by means of the diligence of others, I am testing the genuineness of your love. 

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.”

2 Corinthians 8:8-9

Excel also in this grace.

It is the fountain from which all of you should flow out of.  This grace.  This grace of Jesus: who for you became poor so that in His poverty YOU might become rich. 

Have you known this grace? 

This is tested and validated by when you have nothing (no money, no wisdom, no happiness, no resources, no clue!) you find that you still have something to give: your self for others.  Though it is not much, it is according to whatever ability you have (to speak to hug, to sit with, to listen, to visit) and beyond your ability (you thought you could not encourage but you end up doing so, or that you could not lead but you end up being the leader)...and with whatever you have you willingly pour out of yourself.  

This is the test that reveals how well you excel in the grace you claim to know. 

Perhaps you realize you do not know grace very well according to that test.  You realize your love is not genuine (self-giving) but rather more giving that's convenient or comfortable.  If you have a day off then you'll schedule in a time to serve someone or if you have an extra $100 then you'll spend $15 to buy someone lunch.  But you realize if you have $15 it will not overflow to buy your friends lunch or if you have no time you will not drop one of your agendas to put the needs of another before yours.  

This is sobering.  Not to say that we must all give and give and give otherwise we are not Christians.  But to show that the genuineness of our love for God is only as genuine as our love for others.  Why?  How?

As Paul writes here: 

“I am not saying this as a command.  (We are not commanded to give our money and time)

Rather, by means of the diligence of others, I am testing the genuineness of your love. 

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.”

This just helps us see our selves more clearly.  Most naturally we justify our selfishness.  "I can't buy you lunch because I don't have money (for you, only enough for me)" is this wrong?  Not at all!  But it just shows who you value in that instance more:  your neighbor or your self.  And knowing the grace of Jesus is to know that Jesus put you first before Him even at the very cost of His life.  You have a gift by grace of which without it you would have perished forever.  He gave you something.  If you know what He gave you you know why Paul says this is not a command but a test of your genuine love.  Do you have this love from Jesus?  Is it really His gift that you have received, the one given by grace?  Paul says "excel in this grace"

Do you know you are rich? 

How rich do you believe you really are? 

It will show by the way you give yourself to others. 

To be rich with the wealth that Christ gave you is what?...

Is to know that your wealth is promised and secured.  You know what Christ died to give you or you think you know but you don't really believe it.  Or you just don't know!  

It's to know the riches of what Christ gave you is so much that it literally overflows!

It does NOT FEEL LIKE A COMMAND.

It feels like a PRIVILEGE. 

There's the area where you can bring in your feelings.  Does what you do feel like a command or a privilege? 

Then from there ask God with open hands and an open heart to help you excel in the grace you've been given.  If we mishandle grace in our lives we will mishandle every endeavor because our first and foremost purpose is to give ourselves to God for His will and THEN to others as a by product.  Not the other way around. 

This doesn't necessarily mean stop what you're doing (or maybe it does) but it is more to be aware and constantly realigning your heart to God.  We might find ourselves habitually doing something day to day, whether that's prayer, serving, or stewarding our finances and family--all of which are good things, BUT we must excel in the grace we have been given as Paul wrote.  The grace of knowing that we do what we do not from a need but from an abundance! 

Sigh. 

I need this reminder every single day!

When I do church ministry, go to the gym, study theology, mentor one of my high school students, host a dinner party for friends, feed the homeless, care for the hurting, give to someone in need, or commit time to help out with someone's idea, all of this must be checked in my heart.  Is it an obligation or a need of mine or is it flowing from the abundance of my joy and poverty?  

Is it a privilege to serve or my duty? 

Do I work and speak and do things from an abundance?  Or do I feel like I'm so needy and so I do things, say things, and work at things? 

Paul exhorts the Corinthians to test the genuineness of their love, because whatever you do apart from Christ will be in vain.   Better to let go of 20 years of work done in vain (not genuinely from love) and begin one day in genuine love than to remain there for the sake of quantity.  

Work, study, speak, meet, and do all things out of an abundance and the feeling of privilege not out of need or the feeling of duty.  And when you find yourself miserably "stuck" in the latter...

Excel in this grace:

Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.

Jmegrey 

The existence of God, the problem of evil, and free will.

Some tangential notes on "free will" that got me thinking...and I can only hope and pray that the pain of my own idiocy will not come to haunt me in the future.  If I am mistaken about my thoughts or ideas I hope God will give me the humility to be so. 

The topic of free will is very personal to me. (Because I've had a painful past of bad choices) 

The following is from my interaction with my professor's book chapter on evil, who by the way, is someone I highly respect and appreciate as a brother in the faith (even if I don't necessarily agree with his ideas)

Professor Ganssle (my philosophy professor at theology school) writes:

"Whether we choose to do what is right or to do what is wrong must be up to us. It must be within our ability to do either." -on being free moral agents 

But must omnipotence be within our ability as well to be "free" in the fact that choosing what is right from wrong will have pure rightness or wrongness all the ought the course of what follows that decision? 

He writes:

"if God creates free moral agents, they must be able, by definition, to choose evil as well as good."

Just not the ultimate good (God) so they are kind of free...in a way (but not wholly free since all it takes is one restriction to corrupt the term "free").  So did God create free moral agents from the beginning or only after the fall?  Or were we FMA before the fall only? 

G:

"if God wants creatures with significant moral freedom, he must allow the possibility of evil."

Sounds like God throws in evil to the mix as part of what completes our freedom?  If so, then that seems more problematic about God's goodness than of His not stopping or preventing what He himself threw in!  Clearly that cannot be the case.    

Does God want creatures with significant moral freedom? 

What does God intend to do with the creation of making mankind free moral agents?  For freedom's sake?  Do I choose one doughnut over the other for the sake of being able to choose or do I choose one over the over for the sake of satiating my desire and adding to my delight and satisfaction? 

So what is the reason behind a free will?  Freedom or God? 

What is the meaning or intention of the author of free will?  Then we can interpret and understand how free will works. 

Does He want creatures who will, in completion of their freedom rather than stemming from their freedom, choose to love Him and obey Him because it is their purpose of existence which is good?  

If God wants free will to be the cause of our ability to choose Good (and freely reject evil), it must be inferred that it is also what ables us to choose God, because God is the sources of all good including morally good choices with unending goodness as a result of it being chosen) 

However, if God wants free will for something else, something beyond power and choice, I would contend that free will is given to desire Good.  So how then did the first pre-fallen human choose evil?  Perhaps this "free will" had the capacity to choose Good, as well as the capacity to choose evil (which is anything counter to Good, such as disobedience to the source of Good).  Upon choosing evil, the capacity to choose Good was broken.  Why?  Because God cannot commune with anything that is not good.  He is goodness in Himself, and it would be a logical contradiction for goodness to relate/connect/mix with evil.  You cannot have an all blue lake with green patches, otherwise it becomes a partly blue lake with some green patches.  

Likewise you cannot have an all-Good God in relationship with a disobedient (evil) person without a stark separation of the two.  There is good God and then there is evil person.  But there is not a Good God who is with an evil person in a way that is together.  You cannot become one with God the way a married couple's bodies become one (in heart, mind and body) if you are not of the same nature--if you are not wholly good. 

Therefore evil exists because sin exists.  Sin exists because Adam used his free will to choose evil (disobedience).  Adam's free will was created by God to choose Good, which is to choose obedience to God.  Free will is a vehicle with one purpose: to choose Good DESPITE the presence of evil.  Free will is not the ability to just choose between good or bad.  It is the ability to choose Good in spite of the presence of evil.  Therefore, Adam had the ability to choose Good because before he chose evil he could be in the pure presence of God.  But all it took was one wrong choice and he was banished from that communing pure presence with God.  From there on out we were contaminated with enough evil to make us unable to be with God.  

How then did an all knowing/powerful/present God handle this?  

Why did he give us a free will?  Because He gave us something good, Himself.  

Evil separated us from Him, and He took it upon Himself...but wait, how did a good God take evil on himself.  Sounds like a logical contradiction!  He did so by being made into a man.  The second Adam, able to choose Good in spite of the presence of evil, yet chose evil-our evil-not from His free will (because free will is to choose Good despite the presence of evil), but out of the Father's will. 

God's will is of a freedom different than ours.  Being that He is wholly good, God's will is the source of goodness.  When God is willing He is not choosing good in the presence of evil, since He cannot be in the presence of evil, rather it might conclude that God chooses because God chooses.  In other words, there is no question of God's goodness if God is the source of goodness, He is simply present whenever goodness is present.  And therefore what He chooses to do is what He chooses to do.  

God chose to give His Son to die for the evil of creatures contaminated with any sin (even if you want to argue that Adam sinned, you will soon see that your ability to choose Good in the presence of evil will have been just the same).

If all it takes is one bit of "not good" or one act of disobedience to separate us from God/Good, then our fate was set in our nature of being made with a free will.  However, we could only commune with God under a willingness to do so.  This willingness is desire.  So then, choice, power, and desire will have the purpose of choosing God/Good, but it will not be given to us without someone taking away our evil first. 

Evil exists because Goodness exists.  Just like darkness exists because light exists.  To say that evil should not exist in order for a good God to exist is to say evil should not exist for Goodness to exist.  Clearly we know that goodness is only good because evil is only evil.  They are not related in the sense being the same, but they are related in the sense of being at all.  In order to know what good is you must know what is not good.  I know love is good because hate is bad.  I know my shirt fits until it doesn't fit.  I know my class is fun because I know it isn't boring.  There is evil because there is good, not because evil must be evidence of no good but precisely because it is evidence of good.  

 

So then what about preventable evils?  

That is asking something like: "you are good God but can't you be more good?"

Or conversely, "evil is evil but can it be less evil?"

The idea here is to show that an evil happens or exists within the confines of a circumstance not as proof of itself, but as a reality.  We all see and know of some evil in the world, and everyone probably identifies evil in themselves (according to the definition of evil being a thing outside of perfect goodness/a communal drawing up of Good from the source of Good) 

However, the notion of preventing evil must be redefined as well within our scope of our understanding of its counterpart "Goodness."

To "prevent evil" redefined as "avoid/expel evil" redefined as "cause goodness" redefined as "God's presence" would mean not that there is no evil at all but that a particular evil was vanquished by God's presence.  To prevent evil might then be more accurately assigned to the notion of presenting God. 

So then people ask "why did this evil happen to me?"  Or "How could a good God let an innocent fawn suffer and die in the forest?"  

And the only logical response would be "in order to present a Good God."  

Not that the evil is God, but that it is evidence of His presence, since we would not know or call something evil unless we knew something called "good."  We would not know something called pain unless we knew something called pleasure.  Or more pointedly, we would not know something as good as pleasure without knowing something as evil as pain. 

Therefore, although God was present with Adam and was in Himself always good, Adam was given a free will to know goodness despite the presence of evil.  But when he took evil, through disobedience, as a creature he used his God-give free will to perform this act.  This in turn severed his free will from the ability to choose a Good God.  Sin entered man by His free will, and when God became man and by His free will chose obedience to God, the choice to not have His will but God's, this laying down of the will for God's will (which was to put all evil upon Him who knew no evil), thus gave creatures the "free will" to be in the presence of God again where it was once wholly impossible.  

Free will is a grace to choose to be in the presence of God/goodness in spite of the presence of evil as a separate abiding place.  So then when evil is present, God is not, but where God is present evil cannot be.  Though they may both coexist as realities, they do not coexist as contradictions.  One establishes the reality of the other.

Because one is present does mean the other does not exist, but that the presence of the other is to be found elsewhere, and that knowledge is what fuels our "free will" to choose God's presence. 

Jmegrey

Notes on Hope (during hardships)

Hope kept for you: the imperishable inheritance kept for you is...

Praise, glory and honor FROM Jesus! 

“Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

According to His great mercy, 

He has given us 

a new birth into a living hope 

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ 

from the dead 

and into an inheritance 

that is imperishable, 

uncorrupted, and unfading, 

kept in heaven 

for you. 

You are being protected by God’s power 

through faith for a salvation 

that is ready to be revealed 

in the last time. 

You rejoice in this, 

though now for a short time 

you have had to struggle 

in various trials 

so that the genuineness of your faith — 

more valuable than gold, 

which perishes though refined by fire — 

may result in praise, glory, and honor 

at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

--is this Jesus getting praise glory and honor?  No He already had this!  This is our receiving what Jesus died to give us!  For the joy set before Him He endured the cross to give us what He had with the Father!

“keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him (we are that JOY!) endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne. 

For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, 

so that 

you won’t grow weary and lose heart.”  (Love is powerful when certain)

Hebrews 12:2-3--

You love Him, 

though you have not seen Him. 

And though not seeing Him now, 

you believe in Him 

and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, 

because you are receiving 

the goal of your faith, (praise, glory, honor!)

the salvation of your souls.”

1 Peter 1:3-9

“As the Father has loved Me, 

I have also loved you. 

Remain in My love.”

John 15:9

Because when suffering or hardships hit, you will need to be in a place of power, a certain and secure love! 

“Still, you did well by sharing with me 

in my hardship.”

Philippians 4:14

Hardship is good if it shows the genuineness of your faith, because it's too serious of a matter to just THINK you are saved and believe in Jesus.  Are you really saved?!  This is important to know!  It is about your soul!  It is about your eternal future, it's pretty serious since all of eternity hangs on this.  Hardship is the fire that refines your faith.  Hardship is what reveals to you the realness of what you believe.  If you try to avoid hardship or hide or run from it, rather than endure it, you miss an opportunity to build your faith up to be more evident and genuine. 

Don't be afraid of this gift.

Hardship and suffering is a gift because it reveals our living hope.

And this hope is an anchor for our soul, it is what produces our character, and it is what reminds us of the love we have that is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

“I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:14

What is the PRIZE? 

It is the imperishable inheritance. 

It is the praise, glory and honor from Jesus!

We get what Jesus has from the Father! 

We get what Jesus has. 

We are coheirs. 

This prize in eternity is what leads us through suffering in this life now.

“My eager expectation and hope 

is that I will not be ashamed about anything, 

but that now as always, 

with all boldness, 

Christ will be highly honored in my body, 

whether by life or by death.”

Philippians 1:20

That means everything in this life is a gift: whether it looks like life or it looks like death! 

Suffering is just as much a gift as blessing, if not more of a gift! 

“For it has been given to you 

on Christ’s behalf 

not only to believe in Him, 

but also to suffer for Him,”

Philippians 1:29 

We can suffer and have joy at the same time.  We can cry and still have joy. 

“May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, 

for all endurance and patience, 

with joy 

giving thanks to the Father, (why?...)

who has enabled you 

to share in the saints’ inheritance (the imperishable inheritance of praise, glory and honor!) 

in the light.”

Colossians 1:11-12

“God wanted to make known 

among the Gentiles 

the glorious wealth 

of this mystery, 

which is Christ in you, 

the hope of glory.”  

(We have what Christ has, 

because He died to give us this!) 

Colossians 1:27

What does it mean to be "born again"?

It means to have a "living hope" as 1 Peter 1:3 says!

Why do we need a "living hope"?

The people Peter are writing to are suffering people (trials, persecutions, pain, and hardships)...so the reason the term "hope" comes up is because there is no way to get through life unless you can get through suffering, and there is no way to get through suffering unless you have a hope to live for.  To hold on to a living hope is to go through suffering as an anchor for your soul. 

You have this hope, 

as an anchor for your soul:

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,”

Hebrews 6:19

Viktor frankl: Jewish psychologist in concentration camps.  If you lose hope you lose life.  You give up.  But you have hope, that through what's happening someone is watching you from Heaven, God, then you expose the foundation of your soul: life only has meaning if you have a hope that suffering and death cannot destroy.  The foundation of your personality is your future hope.  This will determine how you handle your hardships now.  

Some held on to the hope of gaining back their wealth, health and status in life when liberated, which when liberated they were so disappointed they went into depression and suicide.  They didn't get the finite things they expected to have for the amount of suffering they went through.  If you make any finite object into your hope, eventually you will lose hope.  Suffering was not a means to give you anything less than the weight of glory, the imperishable inheritance of Jesus Himself! 

And if you lose hope in life, you lose the will to live, because life is full of troubles.  

Unless you get an imperishable living hope, you will not be able to handle suffering--the stripping of things, that if you live long enough you will be stripped of everything, and your character is a function of what is your ultimate hope.

To suffer does not mean we feel no sorrow or grief or pain.  We lament in suffering, but we hold on to the joy set before us. 

Jesus grieved in the garden of gethsemane.  Suffering does not mean we are not perplexed with sorrow, crying out in pain and agony. 

We are both in sorrow and joy at the same time!

On the one hand, the average person says this is impossible!  How can you be rejoicing when the things you have are stripped from you?!  Because for the average person their joy/hope is a circumstance.  

“We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.

For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.  (For us!) 

So we do not focus on what is seen, 

but on what is unseen. 

For what is seen is temporary, 

but what is unseen is eternal.”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9, 17-18

A living hope, since it's not based on circumstances, means this:

when your circumstances get terrible, when they are stripped away from you then the sorrow actually drives you into your joy!  Sorrow kicks on the joy!  Because our joy is Christ.  Our joy is what we have in Him: glory, praise and honor from Him--the imperishable inheritance!  We get what Jesus has from God!  

Sorrow is the fire that refines and brightens the gold. 

Not only does sorrow INCREASE your joy, the Joy actually enables the sorrow!  

They work together as our gift from God. Both joy and suffering are a gift.  We must hold suffering as a gift that opens our eyes to see our joy!  And our joy is a gift that enables our sorrow to be expressed as Jesus did. So that our hearts are always being full and filled.  Not empty or void.

Running from sorrow, or the opposite of sorrow is to get mad or indifferent.  Someone hurts you, and you think "I hate you" or "I don't care about you", but when you sorrow over what has hurt you, the sorrow kicks on the joy, your heart is softened and it's always big and full!  

The former hardens your heart and disables your ability to be loved and love others.  The latter softens your heart to remain open to love and loving others.  You know the pain of love and the joy in sorrow. 

“Now I am coming to You, 

and I speak these things in the world so that they may have My joy 

completed in them.

I have given them the glory 

You have given Me. 

May they be one as We are one.

I made Your name known to them and will make it known, so the love You have loved Me with may be in them and I may be in them.”

John 17:13, 22, 26

How do we activate this living hope?

You love him.

How did Jesus endure suffering?

For the joy set before Him: us! 

We look to Jesus and love Him because He first loved us, and laid His life down for us. 

Jesus did not die for the joy of heaven and having the Kingdom of God. 

He didn't suffer for the glorious crown, he already HAD that!  His living hope was: us!  

“Out of the anguish of his soul 

he shall see and be satisfied;

(see what?) 

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, 

my servant, 

make many to be accounted righteous, 

and he shall bear their iniquities.”

Isaiah 53:11

He died and found joy in the suffering when He saw us being accounted righteous! 

So likewise, we suffer and find joy when we look at Him who loves us and delights to give us the promise!  Our hope is the imperishable inheritance given to us though His love!  We will be praised, glorified and honored with the righteousness of and from Jesus!  

We have this great wealth in jars of clay (our decaying mortal bodies).  

We look to the unseen, because our life is now hidden in Christ.  

Therefore, when circumstances strip us of the things we want, we are shown what really lasts.  

Our hope in the imperishable! 

And we fall more in love with Him who died to give us this living hope, a hope that will not disappoint.

“Not only that, 

but we rejoice in our sufferings, 

knowing that 

suffering produces endurance, 

and endurance produces character, 

and character produces hope, 

and hope does not put us to shame, 

because 

God’s love has been poured 

into our hearts 

through the Holy Spirit 

who has been given to us.”

Romans 5:3-5

My prayer for you and for me for every hardship in life: 

Holy Spirit, please pour the love of the Father into my heart every day, so that when circumstances or feelings or pain happens I will be fueled to endure and set my eyes on Him who reveals my future glory, my true treasure more clearly seen when everything that makes me "happy" is stripped from me.  For the joy set before me, help me to endure all suffering.  Jesus you died to give me the imperishable inheritance!  I forget this, and suffering is a gift to remind me what I truly live for, who truly loves me, and shows me who I love most.  

Jmegrey 

Free to live, dead to punishment

“Since I am speaking to those who understand law, brothers, are you unaware that the law has authority over someone as long as he lives?

Therefore, my brothers, 

you also were put to death 

in relation to the law 

through the crucified body of the Messiah, 

so that you may belong to another — to Him 

who was raised from the dead — that we may bear fruit for God."

-Romans 7:1-4

When we say that we die what do we mean?

We all pray that we would die to our self and that we would be new creations, leaving our old ways behind.

Yet, many of us continue to stay with the same bad habits and inclinations toward sin.

What exactly does it mean that we were put to death? 

Paul begins with the example of marriage.  He uses the law to show that if you're married then that in itself means something.  It means you belong to your spouse, so that if one of you goes off and sleeps with someone else you have broken God's law of marriage and will be punished.  However, if one of you dies then you're technically no longer married.  A living person cannot be married to a dead person.  So that if the living one remarries they do not break any law because once their former spouse died they were set loose from that covenant vow.  They became single again.  

Paul emphasizes this abiding law.  The power of punishment was only present when both people were alive in their marriage.  When one died the law no longer mattered because their was no more connection.  The living and the dead do not and cannot be connected so neither does the law uphold its authority when one is lost to death.  And since the living person is now single the law is now present for him or her as a single person.  Meaning that person is allowed to marry again without punishment for breaking the law.  The law is for those abiding in life.  Because the law has to do with how we live.  

So this means if you are married and you cheat on your alive spouse then you are subject to the requirements of the law, which is punishment.  Because God's law says "thou shalt not commit adultery."  However, if your spouse dies, then that law no longer pertains to you because you are no longer married.  You can marry someone else and it would be totally legal. 

Okay, I hope we all understand that point.  

Two living people = married.  

One living + one dead = not married.  

“Since I am speaking to those who understand law, brothers, are you unaware that the law has authority over someone as long as he lives?"

So if he's dead the law no longer has relevance to him because it's for living people.

Now let's look what Paul says a few verses later...

"Therefore, my brothers, 

you also were put to death 

in relation to the law"

Okay so here one of us is no longer subject to the law of God!  I mean, that almost sounds heretical.  So what does Paul mean? 

We were put to death in relation to the law.  

This means that at some point before we met Jesus we were abiding in the law of the living.  The law of the living is that law that God gave to Moses about what a human can or can't do in the world that He created to flourish.  Breaking the law (which is sin) will lead to all kinds of forms of death: sickness, spoiled relations, depression, isolation, and everything that leads a person's steps toward self-destruction.  Why would we want to stop abiding in this?  

Because this law never helped us abide in it, it only showed us why we were self destructing.  

It outlined the things that were bad for us, but it had no power to help us not do those things.  We had to rely on our choices and will power to stick to the guidelines to life, but apparently not much has changed from back then because people still know better while choosing what's bad for them.  Why is that?  Because our will power is corrupted and weak.  We don't make good choices because we don't have perfect goodness in us to do so.  In other words, we are unable to make the kind of choices that will benefit our lives to the fullest.  We can make some good choices, but eventually we will fail at some point in the law, and in fact we will see that we fail at every point of the law because that's how dysfunctional only one sin is.  All it takes is ONE sin and we are screwed.  So the law showed us why we were screwed by showing us how we needed to live--exposing how we don't live like that.  In other words it was a good thing or a light that shone on our bad stuff.  The law was always good because it was showing us the way to God, but it was not in itself the way to God--More like the brochure to get to Him.  So we all had this brochure and it would say something like "in order to get God you need a million dollars made of white gold from the Swiss alps and dipped in stardust and sprinkled with rocks from the moon."  And people would try and attempt to get this but nobody could ever do it.  So in that silly analogy the law showed us what we needed but it didn't help us get those things on the list.  

So Paul is saying something like: when you were living before Christ you were abiding by the law of the living, and that list continued to show you how impossible it was for you to get God.  The law of the living said you needed to be a certain kind of person, essentially a perfect person, a holy person, if you wanted to get God because God is perfect and holy.  And of course everyone wanted to get God at that time because they knew God was all goodness, love, security, and eternal.  To get God meant to get life.  To miss out on God was to go down the path of self destruction.  Without God we were not abiding in life, we were more like prisoners in a concentration camp standing in line for the gas chambers and we had no way of escape because we simply did not have what was required to be free.  The powers of sin were stronger than our power to escape.  

You might ask or wonder why?  Why were we so weak and incapable?  Why couldn't we somehow just have the power to do what the law required for us to have God and live life?! 

Well, we did at one point.  Way back when the first of our kind was created, and instead of making God's Word right he and his wife made it doubtful.  How many of us doubt God's Word today?  We got that from our parents who got it from theirs who got it from their parents who got it from their parents who got it from their parents all the way back to Cain and Seth who got it from their parents: Adam and Eve.  Because all it takes is ONE sin to mess up an entire race.  

Maybe you think if you were the first man or woman you would not have doubted God's Word, or more specifically that you wouldn't have eaten that Apple.  I am allergic to apples so I for sure would have stayed away, but what if it was a juicy pear that God said "Jamie, you can eat anything you want, except that pear tree."  Every time I walked in the garden I'd see PEAR TREE.  I'm pretty sure one of those days whether in 2 or 2 million I would have cracked and ate it.  I don't like the idea that I cannot have something that appears good.  None of us do.  I don't like when I can't have something I might really want.  Do I know that I want it, not always, in fact, hardly am I ever 100% sure that what I desire is what I truly want because it's good for me.  Most of the time I want what I want for no deeper reason than the fact that I think it might be good.  If I didn't think it would be good I wouldn't desire it!  

So Adam and Eve were in a sense always destined to fall.  God created humans to enjoy them by their free will, and He knew they'd screw up.  But God allowed the fall to happen probably because He knew something was going to make their freedom even more beautiful.  

"through the crucified body of the Messiah, 

so that you may belong to another — to Him"

God had it planned from the beginning that Christ would be the way for us humans to have God.  Christ would be the way and not our abiding in the law.  The law was there only as a preface to show that Christ was the way.  The law was there to show us that we were not given a free will to choose God, but that our free will was what would show us how much God loves us!  We choose to doubt, we choose to sin, we choose to give up or turn around and quit, we choose to disobey what God asks of us, because as free beings we hold an awareness to our choices.  How aware are you of your choices?  

We are so aware we end up hating ourselves 

or blaming others.   

So Paul writes "you were put to death in relation to the law through the crucified body of the Messiah."  All your free choices were now detached from the law.  You no longer were subject to the law.  It doesn't say "you were put to death."  Clearly we are still alive in the physical sense, but in relation to the law we are dead.  The law no longer impinges on our free choice to choose God.  The law no longer shows us how we screw up at getting God.  Now the law still reveals how bad our free will was in living life, but it does not hold us back from getting God.  The list has been torn in the body of Jesus.  The only person able to tear that list was God Himself!  He came and said, I'm taking all your free willed choices, the bad ones, the wicked ones, the selfish and greedy ones, the self loathing ones, the blaming ones, and the worst one of all: the doubting God ones.  He took all those choices that broke the law and died the death meant for a million billion people.  He was our penalty of death substitute.  He took our place in line at the gas chamber, and he set us free from the camp.  He set us free from how our free will to disobey God was liable to punishment.  We were there because we chose to make bad choices.  Jesus allowed us to keep our free will but made it more free by taking away the punishment for our bad choices!  He took away the death! 

This is really mind boggling.  This is the gospel.

Paul writes: 

"who was raised from the dead — that we may bear fruit for God."

Jesus died our death, took away our obligation, our trying, our attempting, our efforts, our working, and our punishment for failing to do so, so that all we had in the end was His winning, His success, His finished work on the cross, and His life for us.  We have life without the law because Christ completed the list on the law once he died.  He completed it and then tore it up.  Then he raised Himself up from the dead to prove that He would now do the same for us who believed in Him!  

Now we don't try to earn or work or succeed at life.  We look at Jesus as our new law.

Jesus shows us true freedom. Jesus gives us the life we all always wanted but never could quite will ourselves to reach.  Now we have a free will that is covered by His blood.  

So immediately the question might arise:

"What should we say then? 

Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?"

We died in relation to the law.  We are no longer in line at the gas chamber.  Why or how could we still be in line?  We died to that! 

Absolutely not! 

How can we who died to sin still live in it? 

Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 

Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life. 

For if we have been joined with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”

Romans 6:1-5

So my question is this:

What kind of death have you died? 

Have you died in relation to the law? 

Or have you died in some other way....? 

What kind of death have you died? 

There is no half death.

We have either died to the punishment of the law or we have not.  

If we have then we have the life that it promised through Jesus who finished the list for us. 

So what kind of death have you died? 

So then when we fall into sin we bring those law breaking choices to God and leave them at the foot of the cross.  Every single one of them.  And we walk away sin free, we walk away perfect. 

We die with Christ by no longer being affected by our sinful choices as to be enslaved by them or in fear of the punishment of them.  Instead we use our new freedom to ask God to show us the way and to show us what is keeping us in bondage to sin?  But we do all of this freely, because it holds no punishment for us.  We are in a maze to find Life and God is allowing us to look through every crevice with the promise that Jesus has finished it and we are now free to experience each part of the maze without fear of losing or not making it.  

So as we go about our lives in the maze or the matrix or whatever analogy you want to call the unexpected and unknown, we carry the Life of Christ given to us.  

We have Life, now what is it that you really want from Life? 

Or in other words, what kind of death have you really died? 

I want goodness, love, joy, and intimacy from Life.  I have to die to competing and comparing.  To envy and self loathing. I have died to those things that bring me death.  The life I now live I live by faith not by my body.  

Jmegrey 

Psalm 88 (my PMS)

“Lord, 

God of my salvation, 

I cry out before You day and night. 

-I haven't exactly cried out to God day and night but I sort of gave up and let myself be distracted by YouTube (namely the tonight show with jimmy Fallon) yet I felt the cry in me being reigned in.  I felt myself too tired to let it out.  Too lazy.  I didn't want to cry because I chose not to search for Him for comfort.  God seemed to be failing me the last few days in the area of comfort and so I stopped going to Him.  It was as if He was broken or His line was always busy.  Jimmy Fallon made me laugh, at least, and that was some comfort....though never satisfying enough.-

May my prayer reach Your presence; 

listen to my cry. 

-so I set aside the feelings and the discouragement and I am praying now.  I am crying now, and I hope God...I want You to hear me and see me crying.-

For I have had enough troubles, 

and my life is near Sheol. 

-wave after wave of instances that bring me down have caused me to feel hopeless.  My life feels more apt to be put down than to continue.  I can't seem to find an area that isn't troubled, and because of that it seems too overwhelming.  Too heavy.  I'm about to be crushed under the weight of everything I can't do, need, or want but don't have.  There is nothing of me to live on and therefore death feels imminent.-

I am counted among those going down to the Pit. 

-it looks and feels as if I walk a downward spiral.  This pit gets deeper, darker, and lonelier.-

I am like a man without strength, 

abandoned among the dead. 

-I can hardly get up to even walk my dog or go to the gym, which usually makes me feel great.  I usually love to work out, but now I just sit or lie down like a zombie.  I am unwilling to move much because I am unable to find moving worth the effort.  I have no energy, no vitality, no joy.-

I am like the slain lying in the grave, 

whom You no longer remember, 

and who are cut off from Your care. 

-the worst part about all of this is that I feel unloved and uncared for.  I am physically drained from the things I usually feel: joy, confidence, courage, love, peace, and awe.  I mean physically because my body aches and nothing is done for it which in turn means no care is given me, and so I am lying like a lost wounded person in the middle of a brushfire, in pain but without any notice.  God, I know sees me, and the pain is doubled when I know You see me yet nothing is being done to help me.  You leave me here, wounded and burning, as if You forgot who I am.  That's the worst part.  To feel like You don't love me, even though I know You do, it feels so much as if You stopped.-

You have put me in the lowest part 

of the Pit, 

in the darkest places, in the depths. 

-You put me here.  You know me and You don't forget anything, so You put me here in the brushfire where I'm wounded for a long time without care or help.  I sank with my abused heart into the grimy mud, without shelter when it rained or a blanket when it was freezing, and my sores were open.  My body and mind hated me, and none was where I was, in the darkness.  No one saw my wounds and tended to them, and I refused to move even if I could to find help because I was more angry that You put me here.  You did this.  If You let me suffer then no one would be able to help me.  It is Your hand that pressed me down and would not let me get up.-

Your wrath weighs heavily on me; 

You have overwhelmed me with all Your waves. Selah 

-You had every right to be angry with me.  I was angry with me.  I knew You should be angry with me, yet I wanted grace instead of this.  I wanted mercy instead of pain.  I wanted You to pour Your unconditional love that makes me filled with hope and joy rather than to be placed in darkness.  Wave after wave weakened my resolve, and I lay there underneath Your anger which made me angry too.  How could You do this?  Why would You do this when You know me so well, how wicked I am and needy and weak.  I could not stand and I depended on You to make me walk, but You left me on the ground in my condition.  Without the feeling of Your love I feel Your wrath.  And it weighs heavy on my soul so that I cannot move.-

You have distanced my friends from me; You have made me repulsive to them. 

-I can't seek community or solace from my friends because You won't let me.  I'm only the mean selfish person without Your love, and since I cannot feel loved I emanate my own wickedness towards others, and they don't want to be around me.  I don't want to be around me.-

I am shut in and cannot go out. 

-I cannot escape.  You have me here, and there is no way out.  No scripture, no exercise, no prayer, no blogging, no fellowship will pull me from this place, because You have shut me in.-

My eyes are worn out from crying. 

Lord, I cry out to You all day long; 

I spread out my hands to You. 

-I spread my hands out but in a weak manner.  I go to You in my heart and speak to You from my thoughts, but I am unanswered.  So I sit open handed in a way that easily puts me to sleep.  There is hardly any intention left.  Just a motion.  I'm barely even here.-

Do You work wonders for the dead? 

Do departed spirits rise up to praise You? 

Selah 

-I'm like a ghost.  I'm vapor, and I am fading away.  What happens from here?  Do things happen here in this place?  Clearly You put me here, so perhaps being wounded and then dead might have a purpose.-

Will Your faithful love be declared in the grave, 

Your faithfulness in Abaddon? 

Will Your wonders be known in the darkness 

or Your righteousness in the land of oblivion? 

-how does it work here?  In oblivion.  If my mind and my body are dead and there is no light of life left in me, what part of You is to be experienced?  Will I still find Your love, Your faithfulness, Your wonders, Your righteousness here?  How could I know these things if I cannot see or articulate them.  How does that even work?  I can't.  Without a mind or a body to grasp You, I cannot have Your presence with me the way I want.  So what then.  I am just deadness in the land of the forgotten.-

But I call to You for help, Lord; 

in the morning my prayer meets You. 

-Still, I have a mind enough to know I still need You.  Despite the lack of goodness and joy, I taste depravity more.  My hunger becomes specific.  My eyes stop searching, and they close.  My body stops moving, and I am with only one single desire.  I search for You.  I ask for Your help.  I keep going to You.-

Lord, why do You reject me? 

Why do You hide Your face from me? 

-It is a terrible thing to be without You.  Yet, You have placed me in oblivion to Your felt presence.  I don't understand why it had to be this way.  I know You make me more hungry and more thirsty for Your living waters in these moments, but I also feel mistreated by You.  I feel abused in my heart, and abandoned.-

From my youth, I have been afflicted 

and near death. I suffer Your horrors; 

I am desperate. 

-For a long time I have felt myself to always be so needy because of the way my life has been from birth.  I always needed help, I always needed to be protected, cared for, corrected, and shown the better way.  I always got it wrong, or messed things up, and I suffered for it.  You knew all along that I would do those things, and the more I saw Your truth about the matters the more I suffered my inadequacy.  Your ways horrified my lifestyle and my inclinations.  I became desperately limbless and in utter need of You for every single minute thing.-

Your wrath sweeps over me; 

Your terrors destroy me. 

-All of Your corrections pounded me like fine dust.  Those heavy blows crushed me into powder.  My limbs were all broken and bruised so that I could not do anything.  If I wanted to do something or accomplish something I was terrified by Your standards.  I couldn't make up my mind because either direction I was wrong.-

They surround me like water all day long; they close in on me from every side. 

-You hemmed me in my wounded mess.  You saw my heart lay bare and the floods of my tears would not stop overwhelming me.  I could cry and that was all I could do.  All I could do was cry and cry and cry and then drink water to cry more.  Crying was all I could do.  I cried and You kept me there.-

You have distanced loved one and neighbor from me; darkness is my only friend.”

-Despite all the joys I've had from loving others and being loved by them, there were more nights where I was alone.  Darkness was my only friend.  Yet, it did not feel like one.  I hated it.  But I could not escape it.  And in that sense it was my only companion.  Darkness kept me company and would not leave me.  Darkness stayed with me and You allowed it to stay with me too.  I was always at Your will's command.  

My prayer was for You to tie me to the alter and remove what was death in me, but I never expected that it would be like this. 

-Psalms 88:1-18

“Teach us to number our days carefully 

so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.”

Psalms 90:12

“Jesus replied, “This is the work of God — that you believe in the One He has sent.””

John 6:29

I have very little to say now, because all of what I wrote was what was in my heart.  I drained each thought like a cup poured and emptied of its contents.  I pray to be filled anew with wisdom and belief.  

Jmegrey

Compassion for men (as opposed to women)

(This does not apply to my high school male students whom I love most unconditionally to my knowledge.)

I have very little compassion for men.

I have very little motivation to understand them.

I'm quick to judge them or think less of them. 

I want to have more compassion for them because they are equally as precious and valued to God as the broken hearted women I connect with.

They are truthfully equal in value to my value.  

I want to be motivated by love to understand and reach out to them as God's hands and heart.

“Jesus, however, would not entrust Himself to them, since He knew them all and because He did not need anyone to testify about man; for He Himself knew what was in man.”

John 2:24-25

Lord, you know what lies in the heart of man.  You know both the brokenness as well as the wickedness.  You know that we should not and need not entrust ourselves to man.  Help me not to feel like I am entrusting myself to any man just by association.  Help me to know the division of entrusting myself to You while associating with man.  Help me to have compassion for man the way You have compassion for man.  

You know the heart of every man, and that's no excuse to withhold compassion for them.  So help me to grasp this action of entrusting myself wholly to You while being a vessel of compassion for others. 

Many trusted in Your name when they saw Your miracles but You did not entrust Yourself to them, because you knew the heart of men.  You always kept your trust in God.

What does it mean to entrust?

To charge or invest or commit with a trust or responsibility.  To hand over.  

I wonder if my distaste and/or apathy to show compassion for men flows from a fear of handing over something to them of which they most certainly cannot be trusted with.  They might mishandle or abuse it.  What is "it"? 

My feelings? 

My self? 

My value?

My time?

My worth?

My productivity?

My beauty?

Your goodness?  

Your beauty?

Your truth?

You? 

Holy Spirit show me Your truth in the matter before me...

Very simple.  You have compassion on who you have compassion, and it has nothing to do with a risk of someone or something being untrustworthy.  All of you is entrusted to Me. 

-my prayer to God about loving men, because it's so much easier for me to have compassion and love for women based on our ability to connect better, yet I find that love shall not be divided for those in Christ.  

"...there is no male and female, 

for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

-Galatians 3:28 

Amen.

This is going to take some work and a lot of mistakes but I'm ready and willing.  And when I am not I pray God ties me to the alter for a change of heart. 

Jmegreys 

On rewards and gifts

"The gifts of God: 

vitality, love, forgiveness, courage against evil, joy at our depths, and everything else 

that flows from the terrible work 

of Christ may be found 

only in the company of God. 

And we keep company with God 

only by adopting God’s purposes for us and following through on them even when it is difficult or initially painful to do so."

-Plantinga ("A Breviary of Sin")

The pain is worth the reward!  

Are the rewards the gifts?  Love, vitality, forgiveness, courage, joy, and just in case you preferred some other better good thing he throws in everything else from Jesus.  

Yes.  The reward is EVERYTHING.  

The reward is life the way God created it to be before sin came in and disordered His order of things.  The reward is to flourish and live, but also to live well.  To experience the highest and unending levels of love, deeper and deeper.  To experience courage over the most frightening threats, and to win.  

The reward is life.  This life and the one in eternity.  The way in which we have this gift now will look and feel a little different than the way we will have it in heaven because there will be no sin to fight against, but overall the difficulty is not in the reward being "too hard" to have, but it is in thinking too little of the reward that is easily yours in this life.  We focus so much on the pleasures of sin, and that's all we see.  But we need to focus on the pleasures of life (love, vitality, joy, courage, everything!) in order to more clearly see, by comparison, how larger the pleasures of sin are.  We struggle with sin because we turn our eyes from seeing the rewards we have in Christ.  We would rather refuse to see how good life is in Christ, in order to try and content ourselves with the many desires we have for the world.  

Yes, the world is appealing.  Beauty, riches, achievements, and the adoring and admiring eyes of the people around us.  We want their approval, but more than that we want their praise.  We want their awe and fascination.  We want to sit on the throne of glory and be God. 

That is ultimately sin: Attempts to dethrone God.  

Satan fell because he thought he could do it, and now he spends the rest of eternity infiltrating and poisoning the minds of thinking human creatures that they can too.  

No one would admit to saying they think they can dethrone God, but what we say and what we do expose us as satan's pawns in creation where good vs. evil is about God being God versus everyone else attempting to dethrone Him.  This war is futile, we can all see that when we look at the big picture.  But why are so many of us still on the losing side?  Why are saying we worship God in one setting, and then when we crawl into our hiding places we begin making plans to dethrone Him as if He couldn't see us in the dark.  We judge others inwardly and secretly put ourselves above them in value and "rightness", we condemn ourselves as being no good or "not enough", we envy people we see on Instagram with their perfect jobs and cute lifestyles, we get jealous of our friends who have what we want, we gossip about people with other people, and we lust as if nobody knows it, not even our own conscience.   We think being in the dark is justified ignorance while our thoughts and bodies subtly scheme and act against God's authority, against His words, against His decree, against His plans, we think He will not see us in the dark.  

"even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." 

-Ps. 139:12 

Yet as His saints, His redeemed sons and daughters we are not yet out of sin's realm.  So we are stewards managing what the King gives us, and sometimes the King gives us an order or a task that seems impossible or not right.  He might give us an order to love those in hiding, to give our lives to them provisionally or emotionally.  He might ask us to become like them for a while in order to gently lead them out.  His plans always lead to more of those in hiding being brought into the winning side.  

Yet, as redeemed people we might wonder "but what about me?"  Because we forget in that small moment of being given a task that the job is the reward.  The job is not our sacrifice.  But many of us want to think so.....why?  Perhaps we think that the sacrifice will be equivalent to the reward?  So if the sacrifice is great then the reward will be great too!  It makes sense to us, until we consider the implications of a failed task.  If we fail we take that as a loss of our reward.  So the pressure to do our task and do it well rises.  If you're like me, you don't particularly enjoy doing things under pressure.  If we don't enjoy doing what we do for God, we lose the very joy He has rewarded us with by grace of going to Him and making His plans our plans, which of course CANNOT FAIL.  In other words, we find that we come back to where we were when we said one thing, yet in secrecy did another.  We think we can botch up God's plans.  We dethrone God in this self-righteous way.  

Rather...

God works in each person's life to hand us love, courage, joy, while simultaneously using our rewards to also save the lost.  It's all connected.  His plan is perfect.  His perfect and good will.  We work willingly through the toil because God occupies our hearts with joy. 

“Here is what I have seen to be good: it is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward. God has also given riches and wealth to every man, and He has allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward, and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.”

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

The labor is the reward, not the sacrifice!

We stumble friends.  We all fail in the tasks in one sense, because we expect the outcome to be according to our self wishes.  But remember God can't fail, so in our failures the only failure is our expectation of the outcome....our god of self has failed.  But the true God never fails. 

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

-John 16:23 

Jmegrey 

Take today in good cheer.  Your labor is your reward.  Your joy hinges on the toil.  So take heart, you are on the winning side! 

You lead, I'll follow.

The truth of God's control and power over every minute, object, person, and element, reminded me that not only is God in control of having His way but that He controls the wills of our hearts to do what we do each day.  Where we work, what we eat, who we meet, what we say, what we hear, what we do, how long we work out, how long we take a nap, when we move houses, when we get fired or quit our jobs, when we go to another school, when we quit school, how we dream, and whether it will rain or be sunny.  He is engaging in each activity with intentional power to reveal himself as God in every way. 

Free will is the freedom of our will.  What is more free than to be bound by the law and power of God?  What is more free than to have no choice but God's choice?  Is freedom the ability to choose God's way or is it the ability to be chosen by God for His word to be fulfilled?

Freedom of the will sounds more like the ability to be chosen not the ability to choose.  If I had the ability to choose my destiny I would be screwed by now.  But no, our free will is a gift of God, just like our food, our families, and the hairs on our head.  I feel more empowered to believe that this gift, called free will, is no more special than all of God's other gifts that reside beneath the gift of His Son Jesus Christ. 

In other words, your destiny or productivity in life does not depend on your free will to choose, but upon the sovereign will of God in whom you rest securely.  Being enamored by every one of His gifts along with the freedom of being chosen to do and will what God controls.  I praise God that He uses me for such high purposes as His desires!  

I partake of the desires of God, and this is not something any created being could will himself to enter into.  No, this was a bestowed gift upon me, to freely will What His heart wills! 

So, whether I am criticized or praised by other people it has no effect upon the will of God.  If I am flustered by these appraisals or criticisms it is because I begin to look away from God as the source and to my own works or words as being the cause for these responses.  But the cause is always the highest source from which all actions follow.  I am not the cause of any action, whether that is my or others' sin or good works.  I am the recipient of God's redeeming love, and I walk in fear of Him alone.  

This might sound to some to mean that I take liberty in my sin, but it goes further than that.  While I do take Liberty in my sin, I take joy in the grace that liberates me from sin all the more.  This grace is not one that leaves room for sin to abound, but that snuffs it out by turning the desire for it toward a desire for God from whom flowed this amazing Grace.  God is the cause of this grace that had worked itself apart from the sin that God allowed to happen so that I would taste and see His love for me.

So what am I saying? Haha

I'm thinking that whether I'm rich or poor, physically in pain or healthy, joyful or sorrowful, whatever condition I'm in I will look to the source of these circumstances or feelings and ask my Father "will you show me what You're doing?"  But if I get no reply or nothing that eases my expectation, I will remember this "free will" of mine.  That I am freely chosen to walk into the heart of the Almighty God and be doing what He wills though I myself may not know the entirely of His ways.  

I can only watch from this place of security and rest that whether I do this or that, my life is a living testimony to others that, when they look at me, they cannot help but be in awe of the beauty of God.  

If I'm poor I know God can make even the wealthiest person turn from his or her ways to God.  If I'm rich God can use my stewardship of money to show the poor His love. Or if I'm middle class, God can use my "free will" to reveal himself to people of any status, because it matters not what I have but who has me. 

God is sovereign in that he has me in Is hands.  He sets my feet where they are to go.  He does not let me wander from His will.  He secures my paths.  He leads me by still waters.  He feeds me. He clothes me.  He fills my heart with every good emotion.  He keeps me occupied with joy even in toiling.  He gifts me with the "freedom of my will" to do His will. 

I am in the heart of my Father. 

I might forget this one day, but Thank God He does not forget it! Haha.

To know this is less than to have this.  I will always have this, even if I may not always know it at the conscious part of my thinking.  So even in that, it's so awesome.  

You lead, I'll follow...even when I don't know it!  Haha.  Awesome.  

Kept by the boundaries of the Father's will,

Jmegrey 

Subject or slave?

Every person is a subject of God, but not everyone is a slave.

What is a slave? How does a slave think, perceive, and act?

“I am the Lord’s slave,” said Mary. “May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.”

Luke 1:38

Slaves let things happen TO THEM.

“Now, Master, You can dismiss Your slave in peace, as You promised.”

Luke 2:29

Slaves are dismissed, and have promises given to them by their masters.  

“Those slaves the master will find alert when he comes will be blessed. I assure you: He will get ready, have them recline at the table, then come and serve them.”

Luke 12:37

Alert slaves are blessed slaves.

Slaves are summoned by God to do or think or act according to whatever God summons them to do.  In other words, slaves are personally called by God with a personal message to be carried out (not just randomly doing things):

“He called 10 of his slaves, gave them 10 minas, and told them, ‘Engage in business until I come back.’”

Luke 19:13

Slaves hear an order.

By contrast what does it mean to be a subject?

How might subjects think, perceive and act?

““But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We don’t want this man to rule over us! ’ “At his return, having received the authority to be king, he summoned those slaves he had given the money to, so he could find out how much they had made in business.”

Luke 19:14-15

In other words, subjects do a lot of talking at the Master, but slaves actually talk with their Master.  

Subjects are easily offended.

They might think, "why did You do this to me?!"  "How come I got the short end of the stick!?"  "WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME DO something I don't want to do?!"

"And anyone who is not offended because of Me is blessed.”

Luke 7:23

Subjects tend to do, do, do, but forget about the justness and love for God for having giving much more than we could ever do, do, do!

““But woe to you Pharisees! You give a tenth of mint, rue, and every kind of herb, and you bypass justice and love for God. These things you should have done without neglecting the others.”

Luke 11:42

They're greedy, or they easily fall into greed because they place their value in things they can earn:

“He then told them, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.””

Luke 12:15

Subjects do a great deal of preparing which might look great until God points out that all their preparing is for their own comfort and peace of mind rather than preparing to make God more glorious in the eyes of others:

““But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared — whose will they be? ’ “That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.””

Luke 12:20-21

Subjects strive and get anxious for everything BUT the kingdom of God:

“Don’t keep striving for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don’t be anxious. For the Gentile world eagerly seeks all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. 

“But seek His kingdom, and these things will be provided for you.”

Luke 12:29-31

---

Fellow slaves,  Jesus is our Master. 

“A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

Luke 6:40

Do you have a reputation where people meet you and feel like they are in the presence of Jesus?  

How does the teacher train us to be obedient to God as He was?

“For I too am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under my command. I say to this one, ‘Go! ’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come! ’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this! ’ and he does it.” 

Jesus heard this and was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following Him, He said, “I tell you, I have not found so great a faith even in Israel! ””

Luke 7:8-9

So then where do we begin to go from mere subjects to slaves?

Know there is a purpose for which you were created by God and chosen:

“But He said to them, “I must proclaim the good news about the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because I was sent for this purpose.””

Luke 4:43 

And then ask God to show you how or what you can begin to think, perceive or do to be transformed into your created purpose:

“During those days He went out to the mountain to pray and spent all night in prayer to God. When daylight came, He summoned His disciples, and He chose 12 of them — He also named them apostles:”

Luke 6:12-13

So then, basically, everyone is a subject, but not everyone is a slave. 

How can we know that we are slaves as well as subjects?  

I find that taking a mental knee before God in prayer, asking that His will be done is the first practice I can do to bring my willfulness and self under submission to His authority.  Recognizing that I have a will, with wants and desires, and then seeking to bring those to God in honesty and in humility so that God would correct me as my master.  

A slave is someone that belongs to God, is promised things by God, is chosen, is summoned, is named, is sent, is blessed, known by God, and is like God.  

A subject is an individual among other individuals who are still subject to God. 

Which one most resonates with you? 

Jmegrey