Greater Works than Jesus

I'm really excited because I've had this great breakthrough in understanding regarding a verse that has haunted me ever since I first read it, or rather since the first time I've heard it used to encourage me to believe that I'm supposed to be able to do "great things", usually in the context of the definition of "great things" being miracles of healing and the such.

The verse is John 14:12 "Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father."

Now it's been explained to me that when Jesus said "...because I am going to the Father," he is talking about going into the Holy of holies in the heavenlies to sprinkle his blood and atone for our sins and meet the requirements that would allow the Holy Spirit to come.  He talks for quite awhile after this about the Helper coming.  So I was thinking it was worth consideration why Jesus said we could do "greater" works because he goes to the Father.  Greater how?  We'll be able to feed 50,000 instead of 5,000?  Cause fisherman to haul in a few thousand fish in their nets instead of a few hundred?  He raised a dead man who'd been dead four days.  We'll raise one that has been dead for four years?  Hmmm.... I think this sounds ridiculous.

I think Jesus was severely limited while he was here because he could feed with bread but not feed spirits yet.  He could open blind eyes but not blind minds' eyes.  He could teach amazing parables, but the men who were with him for three years still didn't get it.  But then the Holy Spirit came, and the dead were spiritually raised and his apostles officially became fishers of men.  Are those not greater works?  I suppose they might not seem so when we are preoccupied with the comfort of our body and our belly.

The weight is off!  I've been feeling guilty for too long that I did not have mountains uprooting themselves and throwing themselves into the sea.  The greater works are the sinners coming to repentance!  The dead being raised on a daily basis!

Repentance and turning back to the Doctrine of the Fathers

The past several weeks have been interesting ones for me.  God has shed light through his word and through some fantastic teachers I've been reading that I have accepted many teachings into my life and put them into practice and promoted them to others without checking them against the word of God.

We live in a postmodern age.  I'm not going to go about defining postmodern because there are so many that can do that much better than I.  But what comes with our current postmodern culture is a discarding of standards, throwing off of traditions and your own personal reasoning is all you really filter anything through.  Now as a Christian, I have used the excuse many times that the Holy Spirit is present to keep me in check and to keep me from falling into error.

It's become out of fashion to have a collection of agreed-upon doctrine with which to educate our children.  We have this solar system of faith that includes a few central truths we agree must stand firm, but everything that orbits around it is fair game.  But the central truths are intrinsically tied to other "non-central" points of doctrine.  And there are words that need to be defined properly and understood properly for the "central truths" to result in saving faith.  Words like "sin", "repentance", "faith", "disciple".

We pretty much try to make sure members of the church understand the "Plan of Salvation" and gear everything towards that.  (Especially to our children, who are least likely to understand the definitions.  And our Sunday School teachers are not given an agreed-upon definition to relate to their students.)  We ignore teaching what the bible teaches about heaven, hell, our own hearts, whether we are wicked or good "at heart".  And when older members discuss such things, nothing is presented in a clear, authoritative way, but comes more in a form of panel discussion by everyone present and the person with the best debate skills wins the point for whatever they feel  is the correct view.  The early Christian fathers had words of the very harshest kind for stepping outside of sound doctrine and leading others to do so.

Every church seems to be trying to "keep up with the times" or stay "relevant", but is it possible that the truth as set forth in God's word really is sufficient for saving and redeeming our souls and helping us become godly?  Is it possible that the message actually hasn't changed for 2000 years?  And is it possible that if you set forth the message in a way that is consistent with sound doctrine that it wouldn't be new and innovative and would sell no books?  It is amazing how things can sound right, and feel right and not be right.  Our hearts are deceitful and capable of making lies sound like truth.  We've got to wake up to the fact that we're receiving too much without questioning, and when we do question, the only filter we put it through is our darkened understanding... or the consensus of those we have happened to surround ourselves with.

My thoughts really aren't properly gathered to enable me to share all of what God's been showing me as I read the works of those who have studied the works of those who have studied God's Word for years in its original language, and who have studied the teachings of the early church fathers and of the Reformation leaders.  But suffice it to say for now that if Martin Luther was alive today, 95 theses might not cover all of what he would feel the need to nail to the church door.

But one of the things I would like to personally confess to is that in the past, I have had a love for books on psychology.  Unfortunately, most of the "Fathers" of psychology are people like Freud, Jung and Rogers who not only reject God's word, but embraced occult practices.  Is it possible for any truth to come out of the minds that have become darkened from rejecting God?  And the main business of psychology is to deal with "darkened minds" and guilt, and changing human hearts.  Should Christians be going outside the church for that?  I know I have in the past and it's warped, among other things, my interpretation of the Word of God.  Here is a great web site, by the way, that have several books made available online covering the reasoning behind rejecting any marrying of psychology with Christianity: http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/

So that's all for now.  I'll be working my way through A New Systematic Theology by Robert Reymond and Augustine's City of God.  

Oh, one more thing!  I have totally been enjoying a podcast called "Pirate Christian Radio".  It's free on ITunes.  Check it out!!!

Depression is a Choice

The title of today's post is also a title of a really good book I'm reading.  The woman who wrote it is a psychologist (went to school to be one when she was about my age).  But she actually spends most of the book explaining how weak the foundation is for the modern approach to mental health and the general practices of most in her profession, as well as the psychiatric profession. 

I had checked this book out of the library along with several others as I simply pulled some in a relatively random manner from the shelves because I had decided it was time to do something.  I was sensing some of the emotional roller coaster that had me just about worn out was really not all about my circumstances.  There was something going on that I should be able to get control of instead of waiting on someone to come and save me.

Don't get me wrong.  I believe there is definitely a time to wait on the Lord and he makes sure that we are completely frustrated in our efforts to "better our life" so we don't become strong in the flesh and spiritually weak.  However... there are the pits we keep jumping into all on our own, and I was sensing that I was finding myself in the same pit over and over again in my life and it was time to figure out a way around the pit.  Yes, I've read Beth Moore's book Get out of That Pit.  And maybe some of this was covered, and maybe I wasn't ready to hear it.

I'm only halfway through the book, but that's enough to make a big difference.  Though she may or may not be a Christian (she quotes the Bible and theologians, but also philosophers and Eastern Mystics... who have been known to say some very wise things themselves, so I have just rolled with it so far) she says what many in the Church, that I've heard, are not courageous enough to say.  And this is it:  Depression is a choice.  It is a choice to allow our emotions to carry us away into a pit of despair and hopelessness.  We have control over what we decide to think about and the part of the mind from which depression springs is a separate part of the mind that is able to be analytical or creative, so if we do something as simple as count to 100 or sing a nursery rhyme, the thoughts that carry us away into an emotional frenzy, of either depression or of a manic nature, cannot remain.

The idea is to realize that we don't have to be depressed.  That depression will pass on its own if we don't give so much attention to it.  Though our body chemistry does change in response to these feelings that follow wrong thoughts, the chemistry is not the cause and can be changed by choosing better thoughts. 

The most cool thing she has expressed in her book is that Psychologists are severely missing the boat if they talk about fighting depression without bringing up ideas like Courage and Social Responsibility and Moral Authority.  In short, we have a responsibility to the people around us to maintain a  cheerful heart.  I have decided to take this approach in our family, by the way.  I have decided that I have a responsibility to provide for my children a cheerful mother.  The Lord knows that I know very well the effect depressed parents can have on their children.  They really aren't there, no matter how much they try to fake it, and the children know it.

And it works the other way too.  I am teaching my children that they have a responsibility to cheerful.  I'm not saying they're not allowed to be sad, but I have a few, one in particular, that really loves a good pity party.  When you ask her why she's sad and you show her how that reason does not hold up, she shifts quickly to find something else she should be upset about.  The truth is, she wants pity.  She's addicted to it.  (I can't imagine where she would pick up such a thing! :) )  So if she gets in that mode, I don't cater to it and tell her that she can go to her room if she wants to sulk and can join us when she's cheerful.  But most of the time it doesn't go that far.  Usually, I can distract her as she's starting to break down in tears but throwing some  math fact problems at her (she's 8) and it's amazing how quickly she snaps out of her downward spiral.  I do the same with the older children, but with times table facts.  The simply snap out of what is essentially temporary insanity and I can usually move them quite past the moment and they forget to be upset.

It works for me too.  There are certain subjects that are poison for my mind to dwell on.  I have had some things happen in my life that I only have to think about for a few minutes and easily end up in tears.  But what good does that do?  No good whatsoever.  No one is helped by it.  I'm starting to realize home schooling has saved me from a complete breakdown because I've been too busy to do much thinking at all.  Some people would call this denial.  But I've decided to not feel guilty for being happier than I "ought" to be.  I can't change my past.  I can learn from it and live the "right now".  And I've taken to singing the most simple praise songs and decided not to feel guilty if I'm not "worshiping" while I sing them.  Those songs make it impossible to keep a depressing thought from existing in my mind and maintain a cheerful heart for which my family is grateful. 

Oh, I have so much more on this subject. But I'm going to let that be it for now.

A very short post

I have come to the realization that all the things that I thought were causing my unhappiness have actually been the means by which God has revealed my unhappiness.  It might be more accurate to say, what has been taken away were the things I was using to cover up an unhappy heart, to distract it.  Must go think about this for awhile.

Church: Instant Circle of Friends for the Socially Inept?

I've been doing some thinking lately about how American Christians "do" church and how it's different from the way it all started 2000 years ago.  There are some that would say that the problem is that we have the overhead of the building or pay for pastor's salaries when Christ is supposed to be the head, etc., etc.  Now this may be so in some ways.  There's a function in one of my husband's desktop publishing programs (I think one of the music ones) that has a "snap to" function that can be turned on so that where ever you place a note, it "snaps to" the closest valid position for a note.  There's a similar function in windows when arranging your desktop.  You can push things around and have the setting on that causes the icons to "snap to" a nice,  neat little spot on the page that makes all your icons line up in neat little rows.  (Though according to my husband, you should have your desktop cleaned up to the point where you don't have enough on the desktop to actually make rows!)

The people of God are the same way really.  God intervenes to get them out of the pattern of the world, and it isn't long before we've "snapped to" the pattern of the world.  One of the biggest patterns of the world that the church has taken on in America is the tendency to pander to the wealthy, the successful, the popular... those who really have it together.  I'm not going to go into the details of how it's done differently, but the evidence is there.  It seems that the church is attracting the respectable more than not and I'm pretty sure those that fill the pews may look a lot like the religious establishment of Jesus' day.  I'm not questioning the faith of anyone in particular or saying that you can't have money and have faith in Jesus.  But Jesus did say it was incredibly difficult.  If it's such a rare and difficult thing to get a rich man into heaven (and yes, most who read this are "rich" or you wouldn't be sitting there on a personal computer in your own home) then why do so many fill the pews in America.  Jesus couldn't give away his message for free when he was on this earth.  Is it the very same message that is actually producing bestseller books and millionaire preachers?

So it comes down to what I've been convicted of personally regarding this.   I grew up attending a Lutheran Congregation (not Missouri Synod, but the very Midwestern conservative LCA.) in Dallas Texas, therefore gained few friends through church that I saw at school during the week.  There was a total of one person my age that attended, and she went to a different school in the district.  So then I came to U.T.  Some people I met in my dorm brought me to a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting.  I thought I had entered heaven.  Not because I had entered the presence of God, but because 2/3 of the  members were also members of Sororities and Fraternities on campus.  I was NOT popular in high school.  I now thank the Lord I wasn't.  But back then (or maybe still?), I was still hungry to be noticed by the beautiful people, and here was a room FULL of them and they were all being nice to me.

Now these may have been genuine Christians who really did have the love of Christ for me, but overall--let's admit it-- they had to be nice.  Everyone knows that you're not allowed to prefer the rich over the poor in church.  So even if we don't want to, we'll be nice to those we don't like, and we'll be especially nice to those we feel really uncomfortable around.  But we'll usually only let them so close.

Does anyone watch the show Community?  Jack Black guest stars as a member of their Spanish class who was so beneath notice that no one knew he'd been in their class all this time.  He plops himself into the middle of their study group and starts acting like a member of their "crowd".  No one wants to be the one to admit that they want to kick this guy out.  They don't want to be the mean one.  But ultimately, he gets dragged out kicking and screaming.  But it could have gone another way.  They could have let him stay, out of fear of being the bad guy, and never really let him in either.

I think there's a lot of that in the church now.  The "rejects" of this world come to the Church because it promises something different, and seems to deliver at first.  But they still end up on the margins of an organization that is supposed to favor the poor, the despised the down and out.  But isn't it partly the fault of those coming in for acceptance too?  If we are really following Jesus (and not those people we long to be accepted by) shouldn't we be searching for someone more needy than ourselves to reach out to?  James reprimanded those he wrote to in the New Testament for (this is a paraphrase) "seeking the favor of the very ones who treat you so badly".  I have been guilty of that for years, to be honest.  But these people weren't "dragging me into court", so my error wasn't quite as obvious.  But they were keeping me at arm's length.  They have been for years, but I've been in denial.  The test is, if I stop making effort, will the relationship's still continue?  If I don't show up, will anyone call?  Or will they be relieved.  I know this sounds pathetic, but it's been my reality.  I'm not having a pity part (at all).  I'm just stating facts.

So I'm going to start rejoicing in the special favor I have in my Lord's eyes in my "low position" (see James, chapter 1) and start calling on some people that are actually glad to hear from me!

A Beautiful Key

Here is something beautiful I never saw in Romans before.  I've always been intrigued with this section early in Romans but never have seen before how it can be used to interpret later passages in Romans 7 and 8.

This is from Romans 4:

"[Abraham believed] God, who brings to life the dead, and calls those things that are not as though they were.  Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which is spoken, so shall they seed be. And being no weak in faith, he considered his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of sara's womb...and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able to perform"

The references to a dead womb (unable to receive life) and his own dead body (unable to offer anything good) brings to mind the references to our dead flesh that can do nothing but produce dead works.  And God is able to raise the dead and the promise is made later in this letter to the Romans that the "Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies".  I wait for this, but when I read 1 John and other places about what those signs of life are, well, I'm starting lately to see them, but had not before.  Why?  Didn't I only have to believe?  Why was I acting more like a disconnected branch, a sick tree bearing bad fruit?

Look at Abraham believed God, that real life would be given.  But the actual quickening of the dead happened years later.  Now Abraham did not know how it would happen or when.  And when life did not appear yet, it was not the fault of Abraham, that he was doing something wrong.  Though he did try to readjust the understanding of the promise at one point and thought that since he had not seen the fulfillment of the promise yet that maybe he misunderstood, that it wasn't as wonderful as he thought it was going to be and that he needed to adjust his approach.  And the thing is, Hagar conceived.  It seemed to work.  It wasn't until later that the fruit was manifested to be a work of the flesh.

The sad thing is, in today's microwave, instant society, Abraham probably wouldn't have given up after the Hagar debacle.  He would have assumed that his approach just needed to be adjusted and he would have tried one misguided attempt after another and Isaac never would have born!

But he hung on and believed God would perform as he promised, exactly as he promised.  His faith became so strong that he actually was willing to sacrifice Isaac, after all that waiting.  But God is the one who raises the dead, and it may not happen in my timing, but it will be as wonderful, if not more wonderful, than everything I thought it would be, that it should be, if we believe what is described in the Gospels and Paul's letters and especially in 1 John.  Beyond belief!  But I'm going to believe exactly that.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand places

Here are some quotes from one of my favorite authors from a book I'm reading by him right now, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.  The idea of the title is that of all the "games" that Man likes to participate in, the reality is, there is only one game going in God's eyes, the game of salvation, and Christ plays every position in a thousand ways.

Here are some quotes that most recently started my wheels turning:

"Salvation is God's work: Jesus saves.  In competence may be the essential qualification, lest we impatiently and presumptuously take over the business and start managing a vast and intricate economy that we have no way of comprehending.  To be sure, we get intimations; we are in touch with stories that reveal God's salvation work at certain moments in history to which we have access.  We know enough to get in on the life of salvation personally by repenting and believing and following Jesus, the architect and pioneer of salvation.  But when all is said and done, we don't know very much.  Most of what goes on in salvation is beyond us; we live a mystery.  We make our way through life in a "cloud of unknowing".  p. 152

"The Wonder at the Sea (the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites) is meant to be unederstood as miracle without qualification.  It was not even qualified by Israel's faith.  Brevard Childs makes the trenchant observation that 'Israel failed to believe right up to the moment of her deliverance.'  At the very outset we are meant to understand taht salvation is not limited by conditions, by impossibilities, by conventions.  The Wonder at the Sea establishes it as fundamental that salvation consists in what God does; it is not a human project.  We see and fear and believe (14:31) and that's it.  This is difficult to digest, for we grow up with and are surrounded with 'salvation projects' on all fronts (many of them in churches) that insist that what we do, how we get involved, is critical to their success.  When waws the last time that we heard one of our pastors or evangelists or politicians tell us, 'You have only to keep still'?  But that is what we are told here.  This is as indisputable and as clear as our story teller can make it: Our showcase salvation story anchors 'save' in the sheer, unqualified miracle of the Wonder at the Sea.  Only God did this and only God could do it.'  p.172

"[Resurrection] happens, we do not make it happen.  The more we get involved in what God is doing, the less we find ourselves running things; the more we participate in God's work s revealed in Jesus, the more is done to us and the more is done through us.  The more we practice resurrection the less we are on our own or by ourselves, for we find that this resurrection that is so intensely and relationally personal in Father, Son, and Spirit at the same time plunges us into relationships with brothers and sisters we never knew we had: we are in community whether we like it or not.  We do not choose to be in this community; by virtue of the resurrection of Jesus, this is the company we keep."  p.231