The Image of Grace

I can't take credit for any of the ideas in this post. This clarification of the Word came to me through Chuck Missler's teachings; these teachings that maybe I'd like to forget, but can't. And that's a good thing.

Why is it that nobody recognized Jesus after he rose from the dead? (John 20:11-16, Luke 24:13-35)

There is a beautiful, terrible verse in the Bible that really helps answer this question. Isaiah 50:6 says, "I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting."

Another verse in Isaiah 52:14 reads, "Just as there were many who were appalled at him - his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness-"

So, our Lord Jesus was beaten so badly that his body did not even appear human. Let's take a minute to draw that picture in our minds.

Crowds surrounded and mocked him. He was silent. He allowed it. And while they mocked him they ripped out his beard. They didn't pluck it out one hair at a time. No. Imagine them grabbing his beard and ripping it off into their hands, his flesh ripping off in chunks along with it. Imagine his bloody, bare muscle showing through and the pain of them spitting into those wounds and the continued beatings he suffered on top of those wounds until that thin layer of muscle just under his beard began to show hints of bone.

He was their king, and imagine how he looked. It’s no wonder they mocked him.

Do we mock him today?

Every single one of us deserves the treatment, pain, and humiliation Jesus suffered on our behalf. WE deserve to die. Because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). And so when we live in sin either flamboyantly or in secret, we mock what Jesus has done for us. Every sin is another blow, and they belong to us.

Hebrews 10:26 reads, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”

What do we need to confess?

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

This image of Christ that I have tried to create for you is much different than the one I used to envision. The many beautiful paintings of Christ hanging on a cross are not realistic. He was “marred beyond human likeness-” for YOU.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

The Inconvenience of Family

It starts the day they are born. You've been up all night and that new little one already demands to be fed. You didn't even get a solid hour's sleep in first. But you get up. And you do it. Because you love that little girl. She is part of your family.

It continues on through their entire lives, that inconvenience: Getting up way earlier than you'd prefer so that they can make it to their school on time. Sitting in pickup lines in an old, hot car that doesn't have a/c, stopping for the third time to go to the bathroom on a, generally, one-hour drive home. Children are inconvenient.

But we don't know we're inconvenient when we are children. We are happy. We live our lives, and we're excited to be doing the fun things during our days that our family members consider inconvenient.

And then we grow up, and we begin to be inconvenienced by our other adult family members ourselves. How many newlyweds have driven hours and hours on their precious time off work to make those obligatory visits to family at the holidays? How many couples have dreaded the drive, but did it anyway because despite the hassle, they love their family and genuinely want to see them even if it means going out of their ways and sacrificing their time off work to do it?

I am so glad that I was raised by parents who did not view their children as inconveniences. My mom and dad went out of their way to spend time with us. I cannot count the hundreds of hours my dad spent with me coaching me in basketball, power-lifting, and discus. And still today, I can't count the hours of drive-time my mother has made back and forth between her house and mine. Sometimes she comes because I want to redecorate my house, and it's just more fun with your mother. Sometimes she comes so that we can go snoop around pretty churches in the area. And sometimes she comes because I'm making fajitas, and, apparently, my fajitas are worth that 2 1/2 hour round-trip drive.

And I am grateful that with my four little ones ages four and under, that that fine woman is still not inconvenienced by a one of them. Thank you, Mommy, for teaching my children some of the things that I would rather not be "inconvenienced by" doing myself. Like letting them paint rocks (what a useless thing... but it brings them SO much joy... and so it's really not useless at all.) And for teaching them to mop, and taking them to bounces houses and allowing them to hold terrible, nasty, horrible snakes. (None of them would have been allowed to do that without YOU!) Thank you for the picnics, and the creek, millions of stories, and trips to the zoo, magic house, cave, and chickens. The sacrifice of your time does not go unnoticed by me or my children.

How sad we have become when the only people worth being inconvenienced for become the people we work for who are giving us a paycheck. People who would replace us tomorrow if we were in a car crash and couldn't return. In my opinion, family are the only people worth being routinely inconvenienced for. Because they are the only family we will ever have. They are not replaceable.
And they do matter. They matter when they are hours old, and they matter when they are struggling to breathe their last breaths on this earth.

And now, I must go... and be inconvenienced by that one-hour round trip to pick up my son from school.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

With every new little baby that comes along in our family it seems like someone in our family makes that final journey of their lives and passes on to make room for the newest coming life. This newest one of ours was made space in this world by two loved ones: Grandpa Ed and Little Lucy.

Lucy was a loyal little dog to one person, and one person only... and even then, her loyalty could be questioned during key times of the year, like when there was a turkey baking in the oven. But even though she preferred only one, she was loved by all.

I remember her when she was a little puppy, dragging around a pink and white rope as long as her or a stuffed animal that was nearly as big as her own little body. She was a happy dog, a spoiled dog. And she certainly was a fat little dog.

One of her favorite games for quite a while was squeezing her little body lickity-split under this pale green footstool we had in my parents' home for a while. Like a cat, you never knew when Lucy would ferociously pop out to get you, and then high-tail it back under that footstool. She was still bald on her chest more than a decade after she had stopped playing that game from all the hair she yanked off her chest during her fun.

But Little Lucy got old and decrepit like so many of the good men, women, and animals in our world. It was and is inevitable. Why, when God cursed man, did the animals have to endure the curse as well? What did the animals do to deserve the aging, pain, and ultimate death that belonged to man?

Matthew 10:29-31 says,

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." 

Lucy did not fall to the ground outside our Father's care. When she was seizing for hours and did not even know that her mom was there with her crying, mourning for the little creature whom she could not help, our God was there keeping her comfort. She was not alone. And how much more comfort can the great Comforter himself offer than we can?

And when God looked down and saw her little body so frail and unable to see or hear or even walk, he had mercy and said, "Let's go home." And she left the pain and death and decay of this world and was reunited with her old, loved friends who had passed long before her. She is not in pain anymore. She awaits a reuniting with all the ones she loved who are still left on this earth, but she is happy, and she is finally able to rest.

Romans 8:18-21

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."

And so I say farewell to our Little Lucy. Perhaps her diamond collar has turned into her diamond crown: her reward for all the nights she stood guard and kept my mother company. How many diamonds must she have earned for that? Loyal, Little Lucy in the sky with diamonds.

 

I Want Some Credit

This year I have been working on obtaining my bronze medallion from Koinonia Institute (KI). In a few more weeks, I hope to have completed this first phase. To date, it is a medal that I will be most proud of having earned.

The next step in this learning adventure will be to earn my silver and finally gold medallions. These medallions can take years to earn.

To earn a bronze, one simply has to listen to approximately 36 hours of instruction, pass quizzes and tests, and also complete written assignments. This has not been very hard, and it has been fun to be learning in a school-like setting again.

However, to earn a silver medallion, one must complete over 250 hours of instruction, pass quizzes and tests, complete written assignments, and give oral presentations. One must also earn 10,000 “K-credits.”

The gold medallion requires many more hours of instruction, tests, papers, presentations, and an accumulation of at least 30,000 K-credits.

K-credits. I felt frustrated when I learned that I could not earn ANY K-credits just for completing regular course work. So how could I earn them?

There are many ways to earn K-credits, but best way it seems for me to earn them is to serve locally. For people who teach Bible school or lead home Bible studies, work in soup kitchens, assist in service projects, go on mission trips… they can count their service hours to earn K-credits. You get approximately 10 K-credits for every hour spent in unpaid service to the Lord. To earn a silver medallion on this route, one is required approximately 1,000 hours of service. That averages to more than 2.5 hours of service a DAY for one solid year. And I don’t care who you are, you're probably not that holy.

I think this method of earning K-credits is fantastic. It goes along with KI’s desire that other people should never need to ask if we are a Christians. If people have to ask, then we are doing something wrong. Our loyalties should be evident by the way we live, and we should be active servants in our communities.

At my current rate of service I don’t know if I could even earn my silver medallion in 5 years, and this was sad to me. Of course, now I am motivated to find ways that I can serve in my community so that I can earn myself some K-credits!

But what about the “credit” I will be earning with God?

What about all of the years, and days, and hours that I have wasted up until now when I was not motivated to be about the work of my Lord? What kind of credit do I get for that?

If I were called to Heaven today, would I hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant?” I am ashamed to answer that question.

And so this desire in me to earn some K-credits so that I can eventually earn my silver and gold medallions is shaming, humbling, but also encouraging. I am motivated to do better. I want to serve when no one is watching. I want to serve because the Lord sees those things that are done in secret, both good and bad and HE rewards the good.

And hey, if I can document my time and earn myself some K-credits along the way, I’m just fine with that. Because someday, I want to have that bronze, silver, and gold hanging on my wall: tokens of the race I’m in. They will be my small victories on this way of choosing God over self.

Have You Ever Just Known?

A funny thing happened this morning... well, yesterday morning with how late it is now. I was in the middle of chatting back and forth with my sister when I started to get this overwhelming feeling that Josh and I might be getting ready to move.

I asked Josh to call when he could, and when he was able, he had barely gotten out his hello before I asked him what the chances were that we were going to be moving to this certain un-named place.

And I quote: "Actually, I just got a job offer there."

What!?

Oh, how I think it's funny how (and why) God works. Why give me a feeling that our family is about to be uprooted at basically the same moment Josh receives a job offer to the very location I'm expecting? It had not even been in any of our conversations any days or weeks prior.

Well, I don't know. Mainly I just wrote this post so that I would have a memory of this funny thing happening.

But let me leave you with something Biblical and uplifting anyway- here is my latest memory verse, I just love it:

"Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed."

1 Corinthians 15:51-52

No matter where we're at in this world, when the Lord calls us home, we will have no other desire than to answer that call and finally meet him up there in the sky. It will be soon, friends. So let him see us busy about his Father's work.

Feed Fat Frankie

Frankie

I’ve made fun of my mom’s poor, ugly, fat wiener dog for years, but I’ve decided I don’t get to make fun of him anymore for being fat. And maybe while I’m at it, I should make my dogs a little fatter too.

 As I was listening to my Bible the other day I heard how this idea of making our dogs fat with people food is actually Biblical. Jesus is our model, right?

I love the story in Matthew 15, and it’s also a painful one to read: Jesus is walking along when this Canaanite woman comes up to him and begs him to heal her demon-possessed daughter. Jesus ignores her until finally his disciples beg him to send her away. Instead of sending her away, Jesus tells her that he was sent to help the people of Israel (not her). He tells her that it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs (like her). She pleads with Jesus one more time, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.”

She’s right. And Jesus healed her daughter because of this faith.

It’s humbling to realize and remember that I am a dog. Jesus was not sent to this earth for me. I was last in line to receive a crumb from the master’s table.

And how sad for the children of Israel. They were offered a feast from the Lord prepared especially for them. But they rejected this Bread of Life. They broke Jesus’ heart by refusing his gift of salvation.

And so what was left over because of the children’s rejection? More than a crumb. A whole feast has been left over and is available to the dogs: you and me.

It’s not fair, and it’s not deserved: this gift of salvation that was never meant for me. The people of Israel are still the Lord’s first love, and he longs to gather them together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but they are not willing (Matthew 23:37).

“Did they stumble and fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles…” (Romans 9:11)

So we are offered the gift of salvation because it was rejected by the Israelites. Here is a warning, lest we become too arrogant about our position with the Lord:

“…do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, 'Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.' Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.” (Romans 11:18-20)

Before the Israelites rejected Jesus, Jesus was only willing to give the Gentiles a crumb. But now we are offered the same feast that the Israelites were meant to have.

So in trying to be like Jesus, do we offer our little fat wiener dogs our feasts or our crumbs? Which act displays the most love? Well, I guess to be like Christ we need to feed our children first and only leave the crumbs for our pets… but if one of those little one, two, or three year olds of mine refuse to eat that jambalaya I slaved over, it’s going straight to the dogs!