Tri Lakes Family Blog

I recently heard of a woman who confronted her former church leader about things that had gone on under his leadership, in order to give him an opportunity to repent.  I wondered what would happen if I were to try something like that I thought, “I’d like to ask that woman what her success rate was with that!”  Almost immediately I realized; success is doing what God tells you to do.  The outcome is His business.  If God tells you to tell someone something and you do it, you have succeeded whether or not the person you spoke to takes it to heart.  How often do we measure our success by whether the other person responded to us in a positive way?  I had to think of Jeremiah, and other prophets who warned the Israelite nation over and over.  Many of them were rejected and despised and even killed.  But that doesn’t mean they didn’t succeed.  They did what they were asked to do.  Jesus was despised and rejected, but in the moment the world thought He lost, He actually succeeded!

So my Momentum Group has been reading through the Gospel of Mark recently and tonight we got on the topic of sin.  We got there because of this encounter Jesus had. (I am posting this in the Message translation)

One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: “Which is most important of all the commandments?”Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”The religion scholar said, “A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!”When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”After that, no one else dared ask a question.

One member of our group asked “What is sin, how would you define sin?” and we came up with ‘missing the mark’.  However in the course of the discussion the original question poser said he had heard author and theologian J.C. Wenger say that sin is a failure to properly love God and others.

If you think about it, sin isn’t what you hit when you miss the mark.  It isn’t adultery, or gossip, or lying, or whatever else you classify as a sin.  It is the act of missing love.  When you lie, you’re not loving someone enough to tell them the truth. When you steal you’re not loving someone enough to respect their property. And the list goes on.

We came to the conclusion that it’s not just a failure to properly love God and others, but it’s also a failure to properly love ourselves.  IF you go back to this, these are the commandments that Jesus said are the most important.  Loving God, loving others the way we love ourselves.

It really opens you up to a new paradigm.  Often we look at sin as boundaries we should never cross. We shouldn’t do this thing, we shouldn’t sleep around, we shouldn’t get drunk, we shouldn’t even do the things that may lead to sin. It shows that we have been focusing on the wrong things.  We’re focusing on the boundaries, not the directions.  Imagine you’re on the Golden Gate Bridge. Would you feel safe driving across it if there were no railings?  Probably not  But why? Were you planning on using the railings, bumping into them perhaps?  Truth is, if you were driving across the bridge you’d be more focused on the road ahead then on the railings beside you.  Sin is the same way.  We should be focused on the act of Loving, not on trying to not miss the mark.

It also really changes the way we look at other people’s sin.  How often in the church do we condemn others actions, denouncing them as unholy, and consider ourselves righteous in the process?  All too frequently.  By the Love standard, this is sin.  We think we are holy because we’re not lying, or cheating, or drinking, or fornicating, or *gasp* homosexualizing, but really we’re committing the worst sin of all. We’re not Loving, and therefore, not as holy as we think we are.

It brings a whole new perspective to the story of the rich young ruler.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

This young man had kept all the boundaries intact.  But that didn’t equal love.  He couldn’t love others as much as he loved himself, therefore his wealth was way too important to give away.  We always translate this story to talk about money, but I think a discussion of sin and love is visible here.  You can keep the law and miss the point.  It’s like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 (the harsh part before you get to the stuff always read at weddings) “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.” As my good friend Tom reminded me the other day “Love is the temple, Love the higher law ” (Courtesy of Bono and the guys in U2).

This last weekend I’ve had a lot of love failures.  It was good to be reminded that what I’m to be about is not a series of rules and laws, but to choose love, in everything, even the way I relate to myself, to my friends, and to the people at my work that I would like to pound.

So today.  Choose love.  Let that be your mark.

Someone recently asked me three questions. 

1. What/who is the opposite of God?
2. What is the opposite of light?
3. What is the opposite of goodness?

I suspected there was something behind the questions, but my firsthand answer to the first question was Satan.  The second one was darkness.  And the third, evil.

My answers were all wrong.  My friend informed me that that is what the devil would like me to believe.  It took me back a bit, but then I had to agree with him. 

1. God has no opposite.  The devil is not the opposite of God.  He is the opposite of Gabriel or Michael.  He is nothing more than an evil angel. 
2.  If darkness were the opposite of light, it could enter into light.  But it can’t.  Whenever light comes it overpowers darkness.
3.  Evil does not have the power that goodness has.  Goodness overcomes evil, according to Scripture.

The first one is especially powerful to me.  God can’t be compared, or equaled to anyone, even in opposites.  There is no evil strong enough to compare to His goodness.  Isn’t that great?

Two weeks ago on Sunday morning Bekki shared some inspiration before communion.  I was so blessed with the example she used of the prophet Elijah when he was running from Queen Jezebel who wanted to kill him.  When Elijah was sleeping under a tree, an angel touched him and told him to get up and eat or the journey ahead would be too great for him.  The comparison of taking Jesus into us so that the journey ahead is not too great for us touched me deeply.  I was leaving the next day to spend time with my family in Colorado, and at times the thought of going seemed overwhelming.  As I took communion that morning I was very aware of receiving the life of Jesus into myself in preparation for my journey.  When we marched around our personal Jericho’s following the service I had several things in mind.  One of them was this trip, and the fear I still struggled with about being with my family and what they would think about me or speak to me, and also the familiar pull of what I grew up with.

It is with great joy that I can tell you of God’s faithfulness to me!  I traveled to CO with my sister Ruth, who drove here from PA to take the Amtrak with me.  It took time for us to reconnect and really be relaxed, but God gave us opportunity for good sister time, talking, enjoying scenery, playing games, laughing over silly things, sharing personal struggles and joys.  It was healing and redemptive for both of us.  In CO I stayed a lot of the time at my sister Naomi’s home.  I was blessed by how peaceful their home was and how easy they made it to spend time there.  Seeing the mountains up close from their living room windows was an added treat!  And the children…it is so fun to be an aunt!  With 13 nieces and nephews out there I had lots of opportunity for fun with little ones.  One evening when our family was together at Charles’s (my oldest brother), Charles announced that after the meal we would have a time of singing and testimonies.  What a grand opportunity to do what God had put on my heart to do for my dad.  Pop has had Parkinson’s disease for a couple years now, and even with treatment, shows definite signs of slowing down/aging, along with continual shaking of his hands.  I thought, what could God do for Pop if his family all come together to pray for his healing?  So I talked to Charles about it, and he told me he had thought of it also.  So that evening our family had a prayer time.  I have no memory of ever having such an open vulnerable time with each other and God as we did that night.  I believe that Jericho is coming down in my family.  Confessions, repentance, honesty, drawing near to God… these are all happening.  The religious spirit doesn’t have as strong a hold as it once did, and I trust that it will continue to lose hold as we continue to trust in Jesus.

I’ve been thinking about boiling/heat, and freezing/cold. These are opposites in a lot of ways. Heat will turn liquids to steam while cold will turn liquids to solids. Boiling causes churning and movement while freezing takes away all ability to move. But boiling and freezing share a common task: to hold in check or kill impurities.

In between boiling point and freezing point there is a lot of room for bacteria to grow and thrive. Egg salad left out on your kitchen counter for several days will be room temperature. There’s nothing wrong with room temperature for human beings, but for egg salad it is disastrous.

God says He wants us to be hot or cold. If we linger in the lukewarm stage we open ourselves up to hoards of germs and bacteria. We become toxic to those around us just like that egg salad is after sitting out of the refrigerator for three days.

In decision-making we can get stuck in this lukewarm stage. If we put off making a decision at all because we don’t want to commit, or if fear keeps us from taking steps and making changes our hearts really want to make, we open ourselves up to “room temperature” in our souls. The bacteria of lethargy sets in. We lose our vision and our incentive. We end up confused and frustrated. We lose our freshness, and we no longer give life.

God’s preference is quite obviously that we be hot. But there seems to be something particularly disgusting to Him about it when we are lukewarm. He says that if we stay in that state He will spew us out of His mouth. He would actually rather that we be cold, with our backs turned against Him, than for us to be continually trying to live in two kingdoms at once and never really making a decision.

I want to allow the Holy Spirit’s fire to bring me to and keep me at the boiling point, where impurities are killed and the steam of His life continually rises from my heart.

One of the deepest needs in life is to know that you matter. To know that you have value. To know that you are worth something to someone. There is a place inside that was created to be filled with that.

When you do not know that you matter, then you spend your life desperately trying to find or create it. You would almost sell your soul for the opportunity to be able to feel that you matter.

You try to create it. In one way or another, you try to create fantasy world where you can always make people value you the way you long for them to. Where you can always be someone who is valued and who matters.

You try to create it and then control it in those you live around, by trying to gain their favor and approval, even when it means denying who you were really meant to be or doing things you do not want to do in hopes that they will approve of you. You hope that if you are who they want you to be, then you will be able to keep your worth with them. You are afraid not to, for fear that you will not matter to them anymore.

You build false kingdoms in which you matter to false lovers. You take on false responsibilities in order for someone to need you so that you will matter. You sell yourself in order to matter. You give away the real for the fantasy in order to feel that you matter. And then when the bubble bursts, and you perceive that none of that was real, you give yourself over to more addictions to try to muffle the terrible pain inside.

You don’t know how to know that you really matter. You don’t even know if you do.  And still the hole is inside.  You go on doing things you hate doing because there is an inner compelling force that drives you, above everything else, to want to matter. To have value.

Because you do have value. You were made to matter. You were made to live in that embrace. You were created to pursue that compelling force that drives you to the place where you really really matter.

But because you felt the wounds and received the lies where there should have been value and affirmation, you do not recognize that true place.  Your heart does not know how to connect with the one true Person who made you to matter. You do not understand that there already is a place where you matter. You do not know how to find or live from that place.

And yet, all the while, that place inside was created to be filled with that very thing. That place inside  was created to receive and be filled with the value that was designed especially for you by the Creator Himself. There is a place inside that can never be satisfied until it has entered into that embrace of value from the One who created the compelling need in the first place for the specific purpose of being filled by His value and embrace.

I’ve been on this journey, and the further I go, the further I see how much I am still on the journey. The further Father God brings me into His heart, the more my deepest place of origin cries out to Him to know His value for me, to be able to receive His love for me to the fullest. The further I go, the more I learn both how much He values me, and how much more I am still longing to know that value from Him. The further He takes me, the more I learn to love Him, because when you really experience that place of love and value in His heart, your heart learns to love back.