What IS our first responsibility as Christians? Abide in the Word.

Every person who has a true relationship with Christ bears the responsibility to rightly divide the Word. "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15). This is an individual responsibility that I fear many of us are failing to live. This is not one of those things that God will do for us no matter what. In order for us to get inside the Word, and for the Word to get inside of us, we are required to show up.

So what exactly does it entail?

For starters, it means daily, extensive reading of the Word, ideally first thing in the morning, and ideally from both Old and New Testaments. It means going to God in prayer in order to connect our reading with prayer: before, during, after. Ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our hearts to His truth, to the preciousness of it, to the practical application for our lives. We should aim to make it a daily practice to ask for the wisdom to understand every facet of what we are reading. 

It means actively remaining conscious of the presence of God throughout the day. We are the temple. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is present with us ALL DAY. He is there when we are posting on social media. He is there for our dinner-making. He is with us in our childcare. Work. Our mindless interactions.

As we learn from studying Proverbs, the Word does not change, but the context of our application of it to our lives varies wildly, even from one moment to the next. This is not a textbook to memorize, but the Living Word of God. Context matters. If you are not attuned to His presence and voice, you will misapply scripture, which can be damaging to your faith and to your witness to unbelievers. 

*This is VERY SERIOUS.* 

The only way to let the Word work in us practically is to meditate on what we read. We must chew on it all day, whenever we get the opportunity. This is how the Holy Spirit uses the Word to speak to us. As Jesus said He would, He brings Jesus' words to our minds. "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." (John 14:26)

We need to be paying attention, straining our hearts, eyes, and ears for the Spirit's small voice. There have been many messages that I would have missed if I hadn't been actively praying NOT to miss them, in concert with other prayer requests for the day.

They come in surprising packages, often in things seemingly unrelated to the question, concern, or passage you ask Him about. He may send a confirmation in another form, or two, if He really wants to make sure we get the point. Sometimes He will wake us up at 3 in the morning. He likes to be the only One talking. He wants our full attention. 

But if we are not abiding in the Word (John 15) as instructed, we are not going to hear much from God. He is relational, and He wants to increase our wisdom, to quicken our lives with His. There is no greater feeling than realizing God is conversing with us.

It is a humbling realization, because with it comes the thought that we do not deserve this attention. We don't. Christ in us, however, does. It is here where sanctification begins in earnest. Here is where He starts to make us like Him.

Attending church once a week is not going to cut it. Fellowship with our fellow believers, the sermon, worship, the offering, communion: these are all additional ways the Lord speaks and blesses His people. Additional. The first thing, the most important, is the Word.

We may still be confused and upset by things we encounter in daily life, social media, news, etc, but if we are abiding in the Word daily, we have put our armor on and kept the channel free of static. We have only to submit these concerns to God and wait for Him to give us clarity. He most certainly will, because it is His will that we His people be thoughtful, wise, shrewd, and innocent in our dealings with the world and with each other. Prayers for wisdom are GUARANTEED to be answered in the affirmative: 

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." (James 1:5)

WISDOM WILL BE GIVEN TO US. PERIOD. That is one of the prayers we can take to the BANK. That is one we need to be praying DAILY. Hourly. To pray without ceasing, as many have noted, is not forgoing everything else while we pray, but including prayer, including our God, in everything we do. 

Want to know another one? "Father, glorify Your name!" (John 12:28). He will ALWAYS do that. Make this one of your regular prayers, and you will be pleasantly surprised - awestruck even - by the way He answers this prayer in your life.

These things take time. We live our lives out on Earth's timeline, not God's: "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." (2 Peter 3:8). Sanctification is mostly slow work, and that's on purpose. But we have to show up. We have to WANT to be with Him.

Sometimes that is only possible by praying for the desire to want to be with Him. It's disgraceful but true. And He is gracious, and grants that request when we're serious.

All of this to say: the Church is sick. We've allowed the world to sap us of our strength in Christ.

The Body of Christ is sick because local churches are sick because individual Christians are sick. We're anemic from starving ourselves of the Word in favor of literally anything else. The only cure is individual and corporate repentance and an immediate, robust diet of the Bread of Life and Living Water.

When the church is again full of Biblically-literate, praying Christians in daily communion with Christ, things will start to change. The world will begin to see that we are, in fact, different. This is how salt gets salty again; this is how light shines.

To go back to an earlier point, Word reading should be much meatier than a light devotional. Here are a few easy ways to dig in: 

*Get a study Bible.
*Read multiple translations, particularly of verses or passages that puzzle you.
*Look up cross-references in whatever passage you are reading.
*Look up words in their original languages, then follow their usage through the Bible (use an interlinear dictionary, like Strong's). 

Don't forget to take context (passage context, historical context, etc.) into consideration when you're following the use of an individual word. 

*Read inclusively - that is, remember the simultaneous contexts: Historical context is important, especially in the Old Testament, but don't forget that the Bible from start to finish is about, points to, and glorifies Jesus. He is the central figure of all Scripture and history.
*Look up where the NT quotes OT. 

*If you're going to read the prophets, use a reliable commentary. Matthew Henry is well known for his exhaustive research and exposition. Alexander Maclaren is another incredible resource.
*Take notes. Underline and highlight your Bible. Write the cross-references you discover in the margins. This will begin to show you how interconnected the Bible is, which strengthens faith in the infallibility and divinity of the Author.

This is a serious business. This is what equips us for Jesus' mission, which He gave to all of us. This is our main priority in life, because apart from Jesus, apart from the Word, we can do nothing. (John 15:5)

Studylight is extraordinarily helpful as a one-stop Bible tool where you can do all the things I suggested. And it's free.

The Gospel Coalition has a fantastic podcast called Help Me Teach the Bible, which is a series of interviews. I think there is one for each book of the Bible. There is no better way to learn something than to learn how to teach it from other solid, vetted teachers. 

There are many, many tools available to help you read more deeply, but ultimately, we each have the Holy Spirit - our Guide, our Advocate, our Helper from Jesus, and He will give you all the insight you need, as you seek to become not only a "Christian" but an enraptured, serious pursuer of God's truth. He is delighted with earnest seekers of His wisdom, and He is a kind, witty, and devoted Teacher. It occurs to me that we are sometimes fuzzy on Who the Holy Spirit is in a personal sense, beyond His role in awakening us to, and sealing us in, Christ. Get to know Him: the only way to do that is to devour the Word. 

Satan's battle lines are well-armored, the ranks are full, and the generals are strategizing. Can you even find your weapons? Get yourself some bread and put on your armor. 

Get. Your. Word. On.

The responsibility of the universe is not on your shoulders, but on His

*First note: I am still learning. I'm praying that God will direct my thoughts and words and actions to address current needs according to the Gospel. This post is not intended to be a final exposition, but the continuation of a dialogue that began when God awakened me to the truth of Jesus Christ. So far it seems like I'm mostly talking to myself and to God, in an empty room, but who knows: maybe someone will stumble onto something here that will help them. I started this blog as a way for me to process publicly the changes that the Lord is enacting on my life and heart, in a way that I hope brings honor to Him and enables me to work out in action what He is working within me. I pray that as I learn and share, He will draw me and others closer to Him. My aim, when I post about events and situations that are not strictly concerning my own immediate daily life, is to apply the Bible roundly, inclusively, and in the spirit of the law - that is, what the whole Bible brings to bear on an issue, not one chosen verse. I will do my best to address context when I quote verses. Again, still learning.

(For an excellent, theologically rich exposition on the spirit vs the letter of the law, see http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/letter.html).

That said...

How do we process what we are seeing in the world today? Looking through the lens God has given us, which is His Word, we are getting a naked look at pure evil in full, chaotic effect: the true heart that lies within every human being (Jeremiah 17:9), unveiled. This is what we are (Romans 3:10-11). This pandemonium that has broken out, particularly in the US (which I say in light of the powderkeg of racial oppression, police injustice, and rampant destruction that has recently exploded)...this is a pointed expression of what God sees in us even when we are acting well-behaved and loving. All humanity's work trying to right the wrongs in this world, which are too many to mention all at once without giving way to despair, is as filthy rags in the sight of God (Isaiah 64:6), when this work is done outside of the Savior.

It seems to me that God has given this country over to its depravity SO THAT (my favorite Paul construction) we can see clearly WHO WE ARE underneath all our social constructions and posturing and fancy woke vocabulary.

There IS good news. Jesus has already paid for this evil and madness, which is so deserving of judgment, with His life. He stepped in front of God's pure and holy justice-filled anger and absorbed it all. In the death of Christ, the sinless, perfect, most loving Person ever to walk the Earth, who was and is God Himself, who has always deserved only the highest praise and glory and worship, but who instead took on Himself the torment of being made sin, suffering, and dying for it...in this was all the justice needed in the world. He paid for every crime - white collar, blue collar, murder, racism, theft, pride, greed, defilement - as if it were His own. And that includes everything that has happened in the past few days.

Even those who have committed horrifying acts of violence and injustice and have helped keep ablaze the hatreds of oppression are invited to take shelter in His saving grace - they need only repent and trust in Christ alone to cover the blackness of their sins. And the charges against them are dropped. Same goes for anyone who has only thought murderous thoughts against someone on 'the other side' - which, as anyone who has heard Jesus speak on this, is the same as committing the murder. (Matt. 5:21-22). THE SAME! Really, that ought to stop us in our tracks way more than it does.

Only those who die unrepentant, rejecting Christ's sacrifice, will pay again for these crimes and bear the full brunt of God's wrath. NEEDLESSLY.

Where then does that leave us? We watch in horror as the world grows visibly darker and more violent, long-hidden or ignored evils are boldly and nakedly enacted, flaunting justice, and we long to do something useful, affect change somehow. But of ourselves, we are powerless. We feel that powerlessness much more often than we (humans) admit to it, in public, let alone to ourselves as we lie awake at night. For the darkness of man is not only outside of us, but inside, and will the dark fight the dark successfully? If two shadows face off in a place with no light, what is to distinguish the one from the other?

And the darkness within us is compounded and spurred into ever greater evils by the great deceiver, the father of lies, Satan himself, who rejoices to see not only thousands upon thousands of Christless humans pour over the abyss, but to see Christians hampered and mired into ineffectiveness as we try to use his own weapons against him, tricked out of using the supernatural armor and sword that our precious Captain has fitted us with.

The world looks on these weapons and scoffs. The truth is that they are far more powerful against evil and darkness than any social justice activities, if those activities lack their holy influence.

So what then? Are we to rant and rage and argue and march and get into fights?

As I ponder the real possibility that I could have missed a message somewhere in the Bible, I think on the Jewish expectation that the Messiah would appear as a great military leader, a social justice warrior who would sweep the oppressing Roman forces out of Judea and set up a Kingdom where they could worship God unhindered. I think of their crushing disappointment when Jesus resisted this course of action. That disappointment turned into rage, goaded into a mob who cried out for His blood, by none other than their religious leaders, who of all things chose to couple with the Roman oppressors to rid themselves of Jesus and His countercultural, upsetting teachings.

Thankfully, profoundly, mysteriously, and tellingly, the shedding of His own blood is precisely what Jesus arrived on the scene to do.

Make no mistake: He IS the great conqueror they were looking for, and He will rid the world of all oppression and usher in the Kingdom of God. But because He is a God of mercy as well as a God of justice, He paid for sin first, making a way for us to be reconciled to God. Otherwise, none of us would be allowed to enter. It would be a Kingdom without anyone living in it who wasn't God. And He wants us there:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:20-26)

We are still in the world, but we are not of it. We have been given a mission by the One who bought us with His blood. We need to remember it. It is a mission with a single point, but with broad parameters.

The mission is: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15) 
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) 

The parameters are: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 27:37-40).

How do we love our neighbors, who sometimes look very much like our enemies, and include the oppressed and the oppressor, the peaceful protester, the rioter and the looter, the politician and the police officer, the anti-vaxxer and the neoliberal?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:43-47)

How are we to do this? On our own power and drive and will? What does the Lord say?

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)

The world will do all it can to distract us from the fact that our only ability and strength lies in our union with the Savior, a gift from Him and thus nothing we can boast of. Stay close to Him by reading His words and speaking to Him in prayer. Be honest. You want to rant and rage and protest? Do it to Him - He will listen, and He will search your heart, and He will tell you how to be and act and speak.

What He directs you to do may look very different from what He is directing someone else to do. You have a unique relationship with Him, and He has a unique job for you to do. You can't find His will for your life by doing what everyone else is doing. He will show you ways to be that run counter to your own instincts and desires, but if you listen to Him, He will guide you and train you to be salt and light in this insane, evil world.

Make no mistake: what He directs you to do will NOT contradict the Bible. You may make excuses for yourself, but that will only harm yourself and others, both now and in eternity. If you are honestly seeking His will for your life, He will give you something to do and say, and it will only benefit those around you, even if they don't see it that way. It will more likely include costly, personal sacrifice, because He asks us to follow Him, and His example ends on a cross. Yes, we will be resurrected also following His example, but insofar as our ability to work for our neighbors here on Earth, we have until death.

If you heed this, you will be misunderstood, mocked and reviled. So was Christ. You will be slandered, maybe as a bigot, or maybe an out-of-touch simpleton. You will lose friends and gain a bad reputation. Worse than this may happen to you.

To that, Jesus says, "Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” (John 15:20). 
"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:10-12)

To the world, your life will appear to be a shame and a waste. They will not see the wrongs righted and blessings poured out that He will work through your prayers, through your forbearance, through your meekness, through your steadfast faith and clinging to the truth. Maybe you won't see, either. But our Lord does.

It is easy to get worn down and mixed up. There is so much information, so many things going wrong, and more than any other time, we have access to all of it. Amazingly, it was not always possible to know about every calamity that happens everywhere in the world minutes after it happens. If you attempt to right every wrong, or even to address every wrong, as though its righting depends upon you acknowledging its existence and its wrongness, you will have taken your eyes away from the face of our Savior, and therefore sapped of all the power you have in Him.

Charles Spurgeon, who was born in 1834, warned against us thinking too much of ourselves and our abilities:

"Many servants of God are made to feel their weakness in another way: by an oppressive sense of responsibility...I hope you will always feel your responsibility before God; but do not carry the feeling too far. We may feel our responsibility so deeply that we may become unable to sustain it; it may cripple our joy, and make slaves of us. Do not take an exaggerated view of what the Lord expects of you. He will not blame you for not doing that which is beyond your mental power or physical strength. You are required to be faithful, but you are not bound to be successful. You are to teach, but you cannot compel people to learn. You are to make things plain, but you cannot give carnal men an understanding of spiritual things. We are not the Father, nor the Savior, nor the Comforter of the Church. We cannot take the responsibility of the universe upon our shoulders. While vexing ourselves with fancied obligations, we may overlook our real burdens."

It's good to be angry about injustice, which means there is a lot to be angry about. But we're told to be angry without letting that anger cause us to sin. The same armor and weapons God gave us are also there to teach us how to do that. The Holy Spirit will convict anyone who earnestly seeks God's will. There is a reason that the Body of Christ is made up of many people; we aren't all called to the same ministries; there are so many things that need to be addressed in this world. We can't be everything to everyone all at once...even if the world insists that we must. The only way to know where we are supposed to plug in is to stay close to the Lord. 

Don't despair. You will see justice done, and you will have played a role in it, if you hold onto Him. Abide in His Word, and the Holy Spirit will work to make you like Him, and He will "equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 13:21). 

Time to lament

In December, as a new Christian, God was still speaking with me in very obvious ways, I gather, because He wanted me not to miss His messages. We were on our first in-country vacation as a family, and all three of us had colds. We were cranky and restless, and I was having a hard time getting alone for prayer and Bible study. I don't remember what I was reading at the time, but I remember we were on an endless family walk with the toddler trying to find the way onto the beach in Hoi An, when I suddenly had a flood of thoughts.

Something from my pleading and reading coalesced. As I realized that, as the Lord's people, we have been specifically called to mourn. We live in a world devastated by sin, where the majority of humans do not know God and never will, until it is too late.

At the time, I was thinking only of my own responsibilities, my own calling, but now I see that we are not called to walk alone. This is for the Body of Christ.

Here are some of my notes from that revelatory day in December:

One of God's mourners. I think that is part of what He is calling me to be, to do. One of His earliest manifestations to me, in me, was weeping. It's something I do often and eagerly, sometimes without knowing why. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Calls to me. Weeping with God with the Man of sorrows, for His grief towards the oppressed and lost.  This feels like a calling. Getting closer. What does this look like practically?

A way to stay humble, a way into God's heart, to effective prayer. https://thedisciplemaker.org/weeping-with-god/

"Call for the wailing women to come; send for thost skillful of them. Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears and water streams from our eyelids…

Now you women hear the word of the Lord; open your ears to the words of His mouth...teach one another a lament. death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses; it has removed the children from the streets and the young men from the public squares." (Jeremiah 9:17-21)

This strange, tension-filled paradox: the One who causes me to weep, the One I weep with, is my source of Joy.

I didn't know in December what was about to settle over the globe in just a month. All I knew is that a heaviness settled over me, and I wept. It was such an unusual grief. At the time it seemed to be connected to nothing. I was happier than I'd ever been, since meeting Jesus in September. But the grief was real. It was then He began teaching me something about holy emotion, about redeemed emotions. My relationship to my emotions has never been healthy. It was a necessary lesson. At the time I felt absurd.

But as with so many of His lessons, He taught it months before the reason would become clear. When I remembered in March, I thought that He had merely been foreshadowing the toll the virus would take. I had forgotten the lesson again, actually, until yesterday. But as I sat, shaking my head over the horrors unfolding in the US, the virus that many seem to have forgotten and is still killing indiscriminately, aided by discrimination, the pain and rage and exhaustion of our black citizens, the escalation of mindless hate and violence, of rioting and destruction, of the murderous abuse of authority, surging all over the country, injustice piled on injustice, with my heart pounding at my own inability and at the wretched iniquity, I remembered.

I read something the other day about the need for the Body of Christ to remember how to lament, to plead on behalf of God's people, those who know Him already and all those yet to be awakened to Jesus' truth. To remember the penitent, intercessory prayers of Moses, of David, of Ezra and Nehemiah, of Jeremiah, of Paul. Yes. This is the call of God for us today, for this is no passing phase. We have entered a season of violence and death that I do not think will stop escalating, nor will it end, until the Lord returns.

Humanity was built to search for justice, but there is no true justice to be found outside of the Lord. And unfortunately, on Earth, we are subject to time, and our needs and desires don't usually mesh with His timing. He is in control, and He will enact justice, because He created it. He promised: "Vengeance is Mine," He said.

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19). “Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; For the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.’” (Deuteronomy 32:35).

No, we are not to take justice into our own hands. The Lord has not placed that burden on our shoulders, and that should cause us to heave a sigh of relief. How can we sin-corrupted creatures even begin to think that we can enact justice? Pride causes us to think we can, and the world insists that we must. The world will be enraged if we resist the temptation, but we must listen to His voice and no one else's. God will move on our behalf when we humble ourselves before Him, broken-hearted and contrite, in full awareness of our complete inability to do anything good.

For those of us crying out, “How then can I help, here and now, while I wait for You to act, Lord?” there is a glorious answer.

He always intended to include us in His justice. He didn't have to; He wanted to. There is a special joy He has reserved for those who bend to His will, do things His way. We will have the pleasure of watching Him resolve all things in perfect justice, and have the added glory of having played a role in it. Watching your team win the championship is fun; playing in the championship *game on the winning team is exhilarating. The Lord intends this exhilaration for us.

The tools He gave us are not defiance and revolt, but prayer and lament. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Weep with those who weep.

We have very little influence on the planet as individuals. But there is one very powerful thing we all have in our arsenals - we who know Him. We have access to the One Who answers prayer - to the One Who is the Answer to all prayers.

Break our hearts again, Lord, as You did when You awakened us to Your truth. Show us how to mourn, how to lament, how to exhort and comfort the oppressed with the only comfort that will satisfy: Yours. Humble us with the knowledge of our complete inability without You; drive us to plead for Your justice. How long, Lord, will You hide Your face?

You are the Giver, but more importantly, You are the Gift. When we ask in Your name, You are what we receive. You are the Answerer of prayer and the Answer, the Deliverer, and the One we are delivered from, for, and to.

Give us the humility and strength we need to be the broken-hearted followers of the Prince of Peace.

*A poor analogy, because this world is no game, but a deadly battle with stakes that are nothing less than the eternal futures of every human on the planet.