Social Media Musings Vol 6: Sabbaths, Psalms, and the Kingdom

4/4/18

I have this prayer that I pray each day when I read the Scriptures. I made it up a while back – it helps me to keep the right frame of mind because it is so easy to turn Scripture reading into an intellectual exercise, a goal to get to the end once more, something to achieve. I remember once, about 17 years ago probably, I was reading for hours a day before the babies woke up, and I used to just love it, it was still all so new. But the years go on and reading through became a way to get knowledge that I could wield like a sword. For a long time, God stopped me cold in my tracks and I just couldn’t read the word at all – I was doing violence to it in the way I was reading it – as something to be conquered.

4/5/18

Dad and the Sabbath.

It can be hard knowing how to respond to folks who object to commandment keeping (well, only a few commandments are objected to, if we are really honest), and sadly, most folks just get super defensive about those objections when it is unnecessary. I stumbled across a novel solution once during a visit from my wonderful Father in Law, who is in his 80’s – a lifelong faithful Christian man.

The fact that we keep the Sabbath really bothered him. Our Friday night Sabbath meal bothered him. It was different from what he was used to and he protested as we were beginning because it looked “Jewish” and these words popped out of my mouth before I even knew what I was saying (very gently and genuinely);

“Dad, is it a sin to observe the Sabbath?”

He thought about it and said no. I smiled and told him that we should all just enjoy it then. He was surprised when our prayers included Jesus (we changed from Yeshua to Jesus so he would understand who we were talking about, no need to be cryptic and no good fruit to be had by being so) and he recognized the taking of bread and wine from communion at his church.

Next morning, he had forgotten it was the Sabbath. He wanted to get some work done around our new (to us) house that did need some repairs. I swear that man will die on his feet, he is just part of that work until you die generation. You have to literally take him on a vacation to get him to put down his hammer. I love him dearly and respect him. He is a loving father, father-in-law, and grandfather. But he really wanted to work on the Sabbath and it was hard for him to remember that we don’t do that so, we drove him to Yellowstone, and we had a wonderful day there, not working – in a totally non- “in your face” manner. He kept the Sabbath, but in stealth mode. We need to know what battles are and are not winnable, and be clever as serpents yet gentle as doves.

People are where they are and I can tell you without a doubt that if God told Dad to keep more commandments, then he would die endeavoring to obey. Dad just needs to be reminded sometimes that keeping a few more commandments than he does isn’t sinning, nor is it standing in judgment of him. He needs to be reminded in a respectful way, and only when he asks about it. There is no grace in nagging one’s elders, or judging people who are keeping what they know as best they can. It is our commission to seek and save the lost, not to try and convert people who are already converted, because of differences in beliefs over a few commandments. Yes, they are important or I would not be keeping them, but people know what they know and understand what they understand and bullying them and/or getting defensive is not good fruit, nor will it produce good fruit! I have never seen anyone bully another person into a true understanding, but I have seen people manipulated into doing things that they later gave up and decided were worthless beause their eyes were not yet opened to it.

Things are a mess right now – we didn’t create the mess but we do live in the midst of it. Let’s clean up our corner of us and become excellent in our character before we seek to nitpick others – I can actually guarantee that good character puts an end to nitpicking pretty quick as the kindest and most godly people I know, the people who practice zeal in the correct way, those who image Yeshua/Jesus the most accurately – they just don’t do it.

It just takes a few quiet words in a non-sarcastic or defensive tone, “Am I sinning in keeping this commandment, in doing this thing?” Generally, people haven’t actually thought of it in those terms before. It takes the edge off. They need reassurance that we are still faithful to God and our beliefs are practically identical to theirs, and that we aren’t trying to earn God’s love. We don’t have to justify ourselves, and we don’t need to get defensive, we only need to point out that, in fact, the Law is not sin – just as Paul pointed out in Romans.

We also have to remember that there are many people out there surpassing us in commandments that we keep at a low or moderate level and they may well look at us and count us as transgressors for going light on a commandment that they pursue with much zeal. Much of this is about perspective, maturity, growth, and genuine awareness – and awareness comes from God. It’s a gift. Missionaries are aware of the commandments in a unique way, as are those who work on skid row – they have a measure of grace to understand and excel in commandments that, compared to them, I am practically breaking. Much grace is required to live among one another in humility.

4/7/18

How the Sabbath and the Psalms Reveal Us

I am about 2/3 of the way through NT Wright’s The Case for the Psalms and it is a different kind of book for him. It is an apologetic for the use of the Psalms in everyday worship and for the past 12 days, I have taken his challenge and I have to say, it has been wonderful. I have experienced greater intimacy in prayer afterward, and they challenge my character in a way that simply reading them on my way through the Bible, or studying them from a context perspective, just doesn’t accomplish.

On the Sabbath, I read only praise Psalms, so I start out with Psalm 92, which was specifically sung by the Levites in the Temple every Sabbath day, and then I also focus on the “back of the book” Psalms – all the ones near Psalm 150. Sabbath is the one day that I try not to present my personal petitions to God, unless there is an emergency – and that’s just a personal decision on my part, not something I am forcing or endorsing. I will pray for the persecuted church, and for others, but I leave my own needs out of it. Sabbath is about Him and about His Kingdom. Which reminds me of something that Richard J Foster, a Quaker theologian and expert on prayer and discipline, said:

“In his ‘Rule’ Saint Benedict insisted on regularity in prayer because he didn’t want his followers to forget who was in charge. It is an occupational hazard of devout people to confuse their work with God’s work. How easy it is to replace, “this work is really significant” with “I am really significant.” With a profound understanding of this, Benedict would call for prayer at regular intervals throughout the day – right in the middle of apparently urgent and important work. We, too, will find that a commitment to regular prayer will defeat self-importance and the wiles of the devil.” – Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J Foster p. 72-3

Sabbath is also like this, purging us of our self-importance and the devil’s ways, but only if we resist and refuge to do our own works. Our works are so deceptive, they seem so righteous. Railing and gossiping about, and mocking at sinners publicly! Really? That’s boorish enough on normal days, really just preaching to a self-righteous and critical choir who have forgotten God’s mercy, but when we are to be resting and worshiping? Inexcusable. Lovingly reach for them during the week, but don’t tackle the Kingdom as you would a 9 to 5 secular job in advertising, Hollywood, or the legal profession. Good rule of thumb – if you are treating people like Hollywood treats the people they disagree with – you are not doing Kingdom work, you are simply white-washing the world’s methods by applying them to a different subject matter – a subject matter that should never even touch the world’s methods.

Seeking out the Kingdom way is counter-intuitive and never seems right to our flesh, which is combative by nature. Our flesh wants to win, on its own terms, without any sort of radical inner character change towards being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle and self-controlled. I have been at this for so many years now and still, my first desire is often to fight for the Kingdom by kindling a flame on the Sabbath day. Those of us who don’t commit the obvious sins on the outside are often still the greatest sinners on the inside – and the inside sins are those which turn us into murderers at some point – and always in the Name of God, right? We find ourselves persecuting Him during those very times we feel the most assured that we are fighting for Him – because our hearts are still desperately deceitful and wicked. But as Yeshua/Jesus told Pontius Pilate, “My Kingdom is not from this world.” Make no mistake, His Kingdom is for this world, just not of it. It cannot be seized violently as can the kingdoms of men, it has to be infiltrated by replacing evil with goodness, cruelty with kindness, hatred with love, factions and dissensions with brotherly unity, self with selflessness. The list goes on.

The Sabbath should be our training ground, it should be the day that our inability to be those good things should appear at their most glaring. It is a day when we should surrender ourselves to God so that we will do better – not next Sabbath, but all next week. We cannot suddenly have good fruit on the Sabbath if it was bad all week – Sabbath is just a tool for revealing who we really are – if we can stand to be peaceful, loving, and patient with others all day, or if it makes out skin crawl. It is a day to carefully consider all our own works and to rededicate ourselves to finding out what is God’s work in God’s way, and what poor substitutes we have been peddling in His name.

Shabbat Shalom.

4/10/18

I had something stunning happen.

About two weeks ago, I prayed something that it had never occurred to me to pray before. I asked God to show me if there was anything about me that was pleasing to Him. I spend a lot of time in prayer, fasting, study, and meditation on my actions focused on becoming more conformed to His image, which, by necessity, can be a negative focus on self. Not morbidly negative, but I believe in evaluating my behavior, thoughts, and feelings as honestly as possible.

4/11/18

John 14:12 “Amen, amen I tell you, he who puts his trust in Me, the works that I do he will do; and greater than these he will do, because I am going to the Father.”

What could be greater than raising the dead, walking on the water, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, curing lepers?

The one thing that Yeshua/Jesus never did, the most important of His works – taking the Gospel to the nations. We look upon it as nothing, because it doesn’t look like we have been given super special secret powers, but given the choice between raising the dead and curing the sick, and bringing the power of God’s resurrection and New Creation into people’s lives… wow. The first is undeniably more impressive by the standards of the world and I imagine more profitable financially – but we aren’t supposed to look at the world’s standards.

4/12/18

Sometimes the most profitable thing we can do spiritually is to break free, even in a small way, from someone who is controlling. I can track some of my greatest times of growth to right after the setting of boundaries, taking responsibility for my own life and learning to just say no to people.

Controlling people are generally unaware that they actually are controlling. They do what they do for reasons that seem good and beneficial, but they have a tendency to project their needs and desires onto everyone around them. They don’t see themselves as pushy, or critical, or demanding, or as bullies – they generally think of themselves as helpful and sometimes even protective. Truth is that controlling people are generally fearful and not in control of their own lives – but here’s the deal, “control” over our own lives is an illusion. No one can guarantee that a tractor-trailer truck isn’t going to come smashing in through their front door any moment. No one can safeguard against cancer striking a loved one. We cannot prevent drunk drivers from crashing into us, or identity thieves from stealing everything we have. We can’t avoid frivolous lawsuits. We cannot prevent our reputations from being destroyed through gossip. We cannot guarantee that our kids will grow up to be good people and not monsters.

4/13/18

One thing I love about the Psalms is how they just eradicate self-righteousness.

So often I hear people bragging about their blessings as though they are rewards and not gifts. But the Psalms readily admit that the wicked are sometimes rich, have a house full of kids, and die in their sleep in their old age, after a healthy life. The Psalmists always question why, as do we all, yet presents no illusionary world where the good always receive good and the wicked receive only evil. In a world like that – there would be no need of endurance and faith.

4/14/18

How do we seek His Kingdom on the Sabbath? We refrain not only from work, but our works, our fears, our agendas, and from any compromise with the ways of the world in how we go about Kingdom business. If our behavior on this day is bullying, manipulative, borne more of fear and a need to control than love, full of name-calling and presumptuous judgment against people who do things differently (for reasons we cannot be entirely sure of, despite our desire to assume the worst), then we might as well go and work a 12 hour shift because it would be a better witness than being online indulging in the works of the flesh with all of our anger, dissensions, factions, envy, jealousy, and strife.

4/17/18

So many Psalms telling us to be silent before wicked people – probably because it is the last thing on earth we want to do, right?

But think about it – people who are cruel don’t play fair. They make rules for conversation and interactions (both in person and behind the back) that people with good fruit (or who are struggling for good fruit) just can’t live by without compromising the witness of our King. Like spiders, they create intricate traps that can hardly be avoided, or even anticipated.

in the end, it is always the same when conversing with such people – you end up waist deep in the mud he or she drew you into, or you just refused to engage in the first place.

I remember a dream almost 2 1/2 years ago where I was pre-emptively warned of such a trap, and I was shown the mud. It was on a farm so it wasn’t all just mud! I couldn’t set one foot on the place without being ankle deep. I was flat out told to keep away – there would be no victory for me if I set foot there.

It was (and has been) an excruciating situation and journey. I have had to trust God with my reputation – which is easier said than done. So easy on the outside to say, “What do you care what people think of you?” But even Yeshua/Jesus asked, “Who do people say I am?” The Psalms are positively drenched in lamentations about ruined reputations and those who trample a man’s honor without a second thought. We live in an era where not only are people angry, not only has their love grown cold, but social media has provided quite the voracious audience for their rantings and underhanded attacks.

And yet, in those lamentations over damaged honor, the theme always returns to, “I will trust God, who will make all things right.” When people slander another person (especially a brother or sister) wrongly, the slander does land squarely on God, and we have to remember that, so that we don’t do it in return. Depending on the person involved, God may have to handle most of or the entire situation – because there are those within the Body who attack without conscience or remorse, and listeners who love to live vicariously through their cruelty while pretending to be above it all. The only thing we can generally do is to try and manipulate them into feeling bad about it – which is a fool’s errand.

I know it is hard, guys, but stay out of the mud. Stay clean. It wasn’t so long ago that I had someone approach me privately who had believed years worth of lies about me – they came to me apologizing because those years of watching me had proven the charges to be without merit. God does take care of us, but we make that job nigh impossible if we are covered in mud that we willingly descended into. It may not seem like much to have one apology when hundreds, thousands, ten thousands or millions believe the lies – but from the standpoint of the Kingdom, waiting for vindication means that God has less of a mess to clean up.

We have to trust God, and His plans for His Kingdom, more than we love our immediate reputation. Sometimes we have to go through a season of humbling and allow Him to kill our flesh, at the same time that He is preparing a fellow servant for severe discipline. Sometimes, like the Amorites, a person’s iniquity is not complete enough for them to be dealt with. I know how far I had to fall before I was willing to utterly bend the knee and accept the Lordship of God in my life – and that hasn’t been just a one-time thing.

Some brothers and sisters are in such an ugly place that they really have to sink into deep trespasses against their fellow servants before they can be broken and used by God. Sometimes they have what looks like a lot of fruit, but it will never ripen, or if it does, it will be the wrong sort of fruit. That is God’s domain because only He can see the truth of it.

Our job is to be in constant prayer so that we will know when to be silent, and when it serves to Kingdom (and not just our pride) to speak out in our own defense.

4/18/18

Crucifying our Reputation and Grievances

God has really been teaching me deep things about His Kingdom at night and I am so ashamed of how we behave towards one another – grieved at how much damage it does to the Kingdom and the witness of our King. Not only in what we say and think about one another based on this or that doctrine or whatever, but also how mindlessly we retaliate when wronged (or when we feel wronged), only thinking about ourselves and not about what effect it will have on the Kingdom. And everything that adversely affects the Kingdom has a cost in real people’s lives.

What is my life, or my reputation, compared to furthering the Kingdom? Why do any of us feel like we must have justice NOW, or God has failed us? We were told to expect persecution, even (and sometimes especially) from brothers and sisters in the faith. We were warned – it was part of the price tag of our redemption, but we want easy lives PLUS we expect to inherit the world to come, as though there is no more evil in the world, either out there or at work in our own flesh and the flesh of everyone around us.

We are not seeking first the Kingdom if we are more concerned about our immediate comfort than we are about how our actions will impact His Kingdom. His Kingdom is our salvation, but now that we have it, are we unconcerned with those who don’t? Everything we do either grows the Kingdom or caused stumbling blocks. Growing the Kingdom costs us, a lot. But that’s the greater works we were called to do – not raising the dead and working miracles, but becoming what NT Wright calls “Passover people” – people who live and breathe in order to prosper and champion God’s works in the world. We are called to the radical works that defy evil through love and good fruit, not to the worldly works that are simply dressed up with the Bible but use the same tactics as the devil. We cannot bite, devour, and destroy one another and claim it is done in the Name of God and in the service of His Kingdom. As Paul told the Corinthians, isn’t it better to be defrauded by a brother than to bring the shame of it before the entire world? Social media has made every little battle the business of the whole world, to our shame. To God’s shame.

When two believers go at it publicly, it is a shame to the Kingdom. When one believer attacks another, it is a shame to the Kingdom – but the one attacked has a choice to make. Does that person trust God to deal with His own wayward servant or do they retaliate and cause a larger scene? Tell me, if it was your children in the grocery store, which would you choose? Your response would be to tell them to stop, that you would deal with it, and then later, as and when appropriate based on ages, and maturity and such, you would. You wouldn’t let it slide, but parenting is complex. Just try being God…we owe it to Him to wait upon Him and not make our grievances public except in extreme cases, and only then with prayerful caution, in fear and trembling and not as a knee-jerk reaction.

People have been asking me about the books I have been reading lately, and these two have been impacting my prayer life immeasurably, both by Richard J Foster, a Quaker theologian:

Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home

Celebration of Discipline.

Both books contained a lot of what I have always done naturally, but there were some methods of prayer that I was unfamiliar with that are reaping big rewards.