Constellations

The Bible is quite a big book. I've spent a lot of time studying it, but the funny thing about it is that there's always more to learn. It's almost like there's actually too much in there for our brains to actually keep hold of at once! This is really one of the amazing things about being a follower of Jesus, but I think that it can also lead to a problem that too many Christians fall into: compartmentalization. We study or hear a teaching about one specific topic or verse, and we can remember and hold onto that one for awhile. The next week, we get some other individual answer and we hold onto that. The week after that, a different one, and so on. Now, this seems like it would work out, the constant accumulation and stacking of knowledge in theory giving us an ever larger database of wisdom to consult as we face the issues of our lives.

Unfortunately, what I'm finding to be true for my life is that my capacity for successfully remembering and retaining the lessons I learn this way is much smaller than I would hope for. If I had to make a highly scientific and educated guess, I would say that my capacity level is approximately 3. That is, I can keep track of about three life lessons at a time. More than that, and some of them start getting pushed back into the dark recesses of my brain. This is not to say that they are forgotten, just that they're not at the forefront, not at the top of my mind bursting to be lived out.

Here's the thing, though: the problem I mentioned earlier is not a problem with me and my limited capacity. God knows I'm frail and he hasn't called me to more than he's given (or giving) me grace to do. The problem is with this weird system that we accidentally fall into as Christians where we compartmentalize our life lessons and try to apply them separately (and, all too often, one at a time). We study the Bible this way too, focusing on one verse or concept at the expense of the rest. It's kind of like going outside in Cleveland at night. We live our lives in such a polluted space with so many other things filling our vision that we can only see one or two stars at a time. They seem disconnected, individual points of light lost in swirling darkness.

Can you see where I'm headed with this analogy? The individual stars certainly aren't bad things. But, God has much more for us than just a couple stars here and there. He wants to give us the whole heaven, really. And he wants our lives to be more than just fragments and splintered efforts at holding onto a few lessons we've learned. Psalm 86:11 has to be our constant prayer: "Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name."

A united heart. Not some collection of insights, feelings, lessons, and whatever else we accumulate along the way, but one integrated whole, moving in one direction, only toward God.

God wants to give us this wholeness. I think that's why he made his book the way he did. 66 different books, one purpose. It's really incredible how the Bible is an integrated whole given its construction, but it is, and the more I read it, the more God connects the dots of the individual stars into the overarching master plan. I'm not claiming to see the whole sky or anything, mind you, but every now and then I think I at least see some constellations. So, from time to time I might use this space to diagram some of them and play some "connect the scriptures." In that spirit, here's what I would have to call the big dipper:

God has told us what we need to do to live an integrated life, to have a united heart. Remember how I was saying that we live with so much going on that we can only focus on one or two things at a time? Turns out I didn't come up with that idea, Jesus did. He told Martha in Luke 10:41-42, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed." Funny, she was just like us. She was so worried about doing the right things for Jesus and getting her house in order that she totally missed the point. What was the one thing that was needed? What Mary was doing, sitting at Jesus' feet.

So, Biblical transitive property: A) Martha was a normal person like us. B) For her, God said only one thing was needed. Therefore C) For us also, only one thing is needed. We MUST sit at Jesus' feet. That's it. (By the way, some people might object to this by saying that nothing will ever get done if we all live this way. That, however, is ridiculous because if we spend all our time that close to God, when he moves we'll have to move as well. If he's doing something we'll have to do it too, just in order to stay close. And Jesus definitely didn't spend all his time sitting around. He also liked healing the sick, throwing tables, making the wise look foolish and hanging out with little kids, to name just a few. I think the real issue people have with living at his feet is that they don't really like the things he wants us to do.)

Parenthetical tangents aside then, all we need to do is sit at Jesus' feet. This is what Jude was talking about when he said to "Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life" (verse 21). It sounds so simple: keep yourselves in God's love. Live there. Soak in it. You don't have to earn it; it's a given, so just accept it. So why in the wonderful world of Disney do we have so much trouble doing this?

Short answer: because we have orphan hearts (see the previous entry for more on that). Two problems go into this. First, we all mess up sometimes (ok, a lot of times) and do things that aren't really worthy of love. Second, we all have been in situations where people in authority over us responded to our mistakes with anger and wrath instead of (or more stickily, mixed with) loving discipline. The end result that keeps us away from God is fear. Somehere inside we seem to be afraid that God is just gearing up to zap us for the wrong that we have so obviously committed. But, God is perfect by definition, so his love for us is perfect, and "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment" (1 John 4:18). The key word here is "because." It means that perfect love has to get rid of fear, because of fear's connection with punishment. By implication, there is no punishment in love.

To summarize, if we rest in God's love, we have no need of fear because there is no possibility of punishment. I know that this is dicey ground to walk, so hear me out. The important thing is the difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment is associated with the anger and wrath we have all felt from those above us that leaves us wounded. The truth is, though, that once we accept Jesus' sacrifice for us and his love, God has no more wrath for us, ever. The entire punishment for all our sins, past, present and future, has already been borne by Jesus on the cross. "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). There is no leftover punishment that God reserves to pound us with as we mess up, since it is already used up.

Do sins still have negative consequences? Of course, but they do NOT change God's heart towards us in any way. He allows us to experience the troubles related to our mistakes "because the Lord disciplines those he loves" (Proverbs 3:12). He loves us enough to help us stop doing the things that are hurting us. This is love, not wrath; discipline, not punishment. Discipline is not punitive; it makes us disciples. See the linguistic connection? So, God uses our mistakes to draw us closer, not to push us away. We're the ones that push away from him because we think we aren't worthy of his unaccountable love.

But we are. Not through our own goodness or effort though, so don't get the wrong idea. The coolest thing of all is that, similarly to how Christ bore our sins and the punishment connected with them, he also has become "The LORD our righteousness" (Jeremiah 33:16). This was what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3:9 when he said that his one desire was to "be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

Righteousness comes only from God. But, if we believe, he gives us credit for Jesus' righteousness, so we don't have to feel unworthy. That lets us, like Paul, be "found in him." Sounds an awful lot like sitting at his feet, no? I think that connects the last dot of this particular constellation. That's how we live with a united heart. The Bible is amazing.

So, now you know why it was so long between my updates. This entry has been stirring in me for quite awhile, and I just didn't feel like writing anything else in between. I plan to update a bit more frequently in the future, but I wanted to get this one out, because really everything else I say should be taken in light of this quest for a united heart and life. It's the redefinition I was talking about before. Just one thing to hold onto, and it's so simple. Whatever my situation, I will sit at Jesus' feet.






P.S. The whole time I was writing this, the other tab of my browser was on http://www.blueletterbible.org/ which is probably the best website on the internet. Yeah, you heard me, the whole internet. Any possible way you could really want to study or search the Bible is on there. Check it out! Oh, and on a slightly relevant note to that, all the Bible quotations in this post (and actually in this blog as a whole) are from the NIV unless I say otherwise because that's what I'm most familiar with and it's easily accessible. The only one in this post that isn't is Psalm 86:11 which is NKJV, which I used because occasionally the NIV doesn't accurately convey the force or meaning or just coolness that a scripture should have, and this verse is a prime example of that. If you compare them on Blue letter, you'll see why. OK, that's really the end now. Until next time...