Exchanged for Full Value

In Steven Spielberg’s film, Schindler’s List, at the end of the movie Oskar Schindler is leaving behind the forced-labor camp and all of the Jewish laborers that he helped save from the gas chambers and furnaces of Auschwitz.  The Jewish laborers give Schindler a simple expression of their gratitude.  At that moment, Oskar Schindler realizes an awful truth.  He realizes he could have done more to save more people.

Oskar Schindler recognizes what he did to save those standing before him, but he also agonizes that he did not do more to save more Jewish lives.  While he lived in luxury, innocent people suffered horrific deaths.  All the money squandered on himself could have bought more lives their freedom.  His fancy car in which he is about to leave was worth ten or twelve people.  His gold Nazi lapel pin was worth one or two.  Schindler cries, “I could have done more save more people!”

One of the most important aspects of Christ’s kingdom is the focus on redeeming humankind.  Everyone is redeemable.  God’s call to humanity to come and be a part of his great family and kingdom is why he sent Jesus.  Jesus came to call us to the heavenly Father.  Then he made a way for us through his death and resurrection.

No human being is worthless.  No human life is a castaway or a throwaway.  We are all valuable in God’s eyes.  No one is beyond God’s redeeming love.  As an old hymn so vividly paints it, “He makes the foulest clean.”  While all of us were still foul and far from God, he loved us and showed it by sending his son Jesus to pay the price to redeem us from sin, hell, and the devil.

While the cynics and nay-sayers of society cast about on life’s junk heap skeptically looking for something of redeeming value, God looks at humanity.  There he sees value.  There he sees hope.  There his love goes out and plucks us out of own our junk heap to redeem us for our full value as his creation, which he made in his own image.

Kelly's Slough, Grand Forks County, North Dakota, Fall 2006 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

Now those of us who are redeemed and returned to full value through Jesus Christ are given the task of spreading the message of God’s redeeming love.  We are commissioned with the task of searching the highways and byways of life.  There we will find humanity’s forgotten castaways.  Those who feel left alone and worthless can be restored to full worth and value through a loving relationship with the heavenly Father.

This is a mission infinitely more valuable than discarded bottles and aluminum cans.  We are given the task of seeing human lives restored to their original intent and beauty.  Investing in the lives of other people – women, men, and children – is where true meaning and value is found in life.

It would be a calamity to get to life’s end and realize all that we wasted on short-lived selfish pleasure.  Let us not get to the end of our days to only grieve that we could have done more.  What a tragedy to suddenly realize too late that “I could have done more to save more people!”

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

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Divine Rebellion

There are two powerful mental and spiritual weapons used to ensure the continued decay of our world and culture.  They are resignation and despair.  One teaches us to believe that it is no use attempting to change things the way they are, let alone hope for any change.  The other teaches us that the world is beyond hope and we will do good just to get ourselves out alive and unscathed.  These trap us into a world of hopeless worry and chilled inactivity.

Jesus introduced a different way to view the world.  It is a world that is under siege by evil spiritual forces and human wickedness.  It is a world which he invaded with his Kingdom to “undo the works of evil.”  When Jesus came to earth, he did not arrive to just check on conditions and then report back to heaven what he witnessed.  He came to change the human and world condition.  Everything about his life was a divine rebellion against the status quo.

The divine rebellion Jesus started was meant to bring everything on earth under the dominion of his Kingdom.  In fact, he promised not to come back “until the gospel of this Kingdom is preached to all the peoples of the earth.”  In other words, he fully expects his followers to continue this divine rebellion until every tribe, language, and people group has had an opportunity to join the rebellion.

While on earth, wherever Jesus went he proclaimed “freedom for the captives” and set people free from demonic oppression, sickness, and disease.  He rebelled against the wicked corruption of the religious leaders of the day.  The Son of Man refused to accept things as he saw them on earth.  His mission was to bring the Kingdom of God to earth to rescue it and redeem it from the stranglehold of its satanic ruler.  The all powerful weapon wielded against Satan’s rule was his death and resurrection.  He broke the back of Satan’s power in death.  He liberated death’s captives by his resurrection.  Through his complete submission to the Heavenly Father, he gained “all authority in heaven and on earth.”  One day, everyone and everything will declare that he is absolute Lord and God.

Until then, he has left the work of this divine rebellion against the status quo to his followers.  We continue his work of undoing the works of evil and setting spiritual captives free through his authority and the power of his Spirit at work in us.  We bring people into the Kingdom of God by baptizing them into this new world order and allegiance to its King.  We teach them the Way and how to observe what Jesus taught.  Then, we train them to join this divine rebellion and to not accept resignation or despair.

Most of the world’s philosophies would get us to accept things “as they are.” They push their followers toward quiet acceptance of the status quo.  Stoics claim that any unwillingness to accept the existing world is useless and vain.  They would get us to believe that “the way things are” is an expression of God’s will.  So, trying to change the world or pray that God would make changes is bad.  Buddhists tell us that the way to true spiritual enlightenment is to embrace the way things are in the world.  Even secularists hold a view that sees an inevitability to life and the world as it is.  It is better, they teach us, to accept life the way it is and deal with the reality of it than to attempt to hope for change; especially change through any spiritual means or belief in a god.

However, Jesus taught and modeled a different way.  Probably the most significant for his followers is prayer.  Whenever believers pray, it is by its nature a rebellion against the status quo – the state of the world as it is.  In particularly, petitionary prayer expresses a faith in God’s willingness and ability to bring change to our world.  David Wells, in an article in Christianity Today (Vol. 17, No. 6), states,

“It is the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal what is completely abnormal.  It is the rejection of every agenda, every scheme, every opinion that clashes with the norms that God originally established.  Our petitionary prayers are an expression of the unbridgeable chasm that separates Good from Evil, a declaration that Evil is not a variation on Good but its very opposite.”

Jesus told his followers that “At all times we should pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1).  So, if we succumb to resignation or despair, we surrender a biblical view of God that says God is present and has the ultimate authority and power to change things.  In essence, we say that it is useless to pray as Jesus taught us, “your kingdom come, your will be done.”  Why even exert ourselves to pray if God is not present nor able to change the status quo?  Thus, we end up striking a truce with all that is wrong in the world instead of being angry enough to call upon God and his justice, mercy, grace, and redeeming love.

When we pray, we are openly declaring that God and this world are at cross-purposes.  To not pray is to act as though they are not.  Unfortunately, most of us have gotten too used to talking about the world’s problems than praying about them.  It is easier for me to point my finger and shake my head at the world’s wickedness and evil than to engage it in petitionary or intercessory prayer.  I allow the resignation of “the way things are” and the growing despair over what appears to be hopeless situations to rob me of my most potent and powerful influence in the worlds as it is:  Prayer.

When I pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done,” it is more than a blanket prayer to cover all situations.  It is specifically asking the Lord of lords and King of kings to bring his authority and dominion to bear in a particular circumstance in my life or my world.  When I pray, “on earth as it is in heaven,” I am asking for that same supreme and absolute authority and dominion that God Almighty has in heaven to be displayed in a particular place and time here on earth.  It is to cry out as the psalmist did, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!”

Rose in Full Bloom, Bush House Gardens, Summer 2009 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

Jesus’ life was filled with prayer.  He refused to live in the world or do the Father’s business on any other terms than the Father’s.  If he, the Son of God, required so much time in prayer to discern, discover, and disclose the will and mission of God in his life every day, how much more is required of us who follow him?  Or, do we think we are more capable than he?  Of course not.  More likely, like his disciples in a storm tossed boat in the middle of a dark night, we have surrendered to resignation and despair.  However, Jesus’ life and discipline in prayer was a divine rebellion against the world in its perverse and fallen abnormality.

If you are like me, the objection to this is on a very practical level, “But I have prayed and nothing seems to change!”  This is perhaps why “prayer” and “do not give up” or “persistence” is always coupled in the Bible.  Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow before an unjust judge.  He was determined not to hear her case.  However, because of her persistence, she won her day in court and received the justice due her.

God is not an unjust judge.  In fact, Jesus’ comparison is to point out how much better God is than a corrupt and unjust earthly judge.  The main truths, however, do not concern the character of the judge but of the widow.  First, she refused to accept her unjust situation.  In her world during the time of Jesus, her unjust and unresolved situation would have been the status quo for widows who do not have an elder male to plead their case.  Jesus is making the point that his followers, also, should not accept or resign themselves to evil and wickedness in this world.  The other example we find in the character of the widow is that, despite her discouragements and setbacks, she refused to resign or despair.  She persisted in her cause; so should we.

The problem does not necessarily lie in our practice of prayer.  We are persistent.  Most of us would get an “A” on our heavenly report card for persistence and effort.  Where we are most challenged is in our understanding the nature of prayer.  Too often, we consider it a “Get Out of Jail Free” card in the great “Cosmos Monopoly” game.  Instead, prayer is my service and my part in the Kingdom of God’s warfare against the devil and his works upon the earth.

Prayer goes way beyond my private concerns, though it includes them, to include Kingdom wide concerns around the whole world.  It is more than just a religious experience or spiritual discipline then.  It is to stand in the courtroom of the world and plead “the case” against what is wrong and for what is right.  It is about my participation in the divine rebellion against the status quo until “all things are placed under his feet.”

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

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Charismatic Indulgences

I am enjoying facilitating a class at our church on the Protestant Reformation.  I love to read and study history; especially church history.  The characters, issues, and drama make for some very interesting reading under the craft of a good historical scholar and writer.  Admittedly, under a good scholar but bad writer, it can also be absolute drudgery!  However, there a plenty of great historical story tellers that make history come alive to those interested.

One of the aspects of studying history that always amazes me is how much we do not learn from it.  As much as I would like to believe that humankind is on an ever evolving incline of knowledge and understanding, a study of history shatters that delusion.  Knowledge and technology have not made us any better.  I like to repeat a quote I heard years ago which asserts that “to suggest humanity is better off because of technology is to suggest that a cannibal is better off with a knife and fork.”  Instead of progressive improvement, we seem to be in a constant cycle of enlightened discovery and abject stupidity.  Nevertheless, this is what makes studying human behavior and history fascinating and entertaining at the same time.

For instance, one of the abuses of the church the reformers wanted to purify from the Church was the abuse of indulgences.  Some Reformers did not want to do away with the practice of indulgences all together, but just correct their abuses.  Others, such a John Wycliffe and Martin Luther, could find no biblical warrant for their practice and wanted the practices of indulgences done away with completely.  The reformation tradition follows Wycliffe, Luther, and others in their assertion that any church tradition and practice must be established solely upon biblical evidence.  This assertion is one of the main reasons why Protestant churches emphasize Scripture – translation, study, and knowledge – above all else.

The practice of indulgences was long practiced in the Catholic Church.  It is still practiced today.  It is closely tied to the Catholic theology of Purgatory.  This is another doctrine that Protestants and Reformers rejected because of lack of Scriptural evidence.  A broad explanation of indulgences proposes that the good works of Christ and the saints have been deposited in heaven for all Christians in the treasury of merit.  These merits may be applied to the sins of Christians at the approval of the pope and applied to individuals by archbishops, bishops, and priests.  The application of these merits enables one to avoid paying further for their sins in purgatory.  Extreme abuses preceding and following Martin Luther’s time allowed these indulgences to be bought with money.  Thus, sin became a really money maker for the church.

Aside from the biblical and theological problems that indulgences and purgatory pose for biblical Christians, the Protestant Reformation recaptured the New Testament doctrine of God’s grace displayed and applied through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son.  Martin Luther, studying Romans and Galatians, came to the conviction that God’s grace cannot be purchased or earned.  It can only be received as a free gift.  Both the temporal and eternal forgiveness and salvation human longed for and needed was only available through faith in what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross and in the resurrection.

As much as the Protestant Church would like to think that it is free from the influence of such doctrine and practice, one needs only to watch or listen to the selling of God’s grace in today’s Christian marketplace.  While salvation may not be up for sale, the grace of God to work miracles, provide, give guidance, and heal surely is in today’s popular Christianity.  It can be purchased by sending in an offering or purchasing a book or other materials.  At such a low, low price, God’s grace for healing and wealth will be released.

The Protestant Church has its own forms of relics too.  By purchasing prayer cloths, anointing oils, Christian jewelry, and other such items, and extra measure of God’s grace will flow in blessings to the believer.  All types of shamanistic items are sold to the unwary in hopes that the favor of God can be purchases instead of appropriated through simple faith.  It seems, in coming so far in history, we have not gotten very far.

The same grace that is made available through faith in Christ’s work that brings salvation is also available for all the other blessings of the Kingdom.  Why do we think they be can bought or sold?  They are given freely by grace.  They are “charismata” – grace-gifts given to us out of the love of the heavenly Father and his son, Jesus.  They are made available to everyone.  There is no need for a mediator – priest or televangelist.  We are asked, individually and communally, to come in faith believing “that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.”

Pink Rose in Bloom, Bush House Gardens, Salem, Oregon, 2009 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

The Charismatic and Pentecostal stream of Protestantism is particularly caught in this trap of heresy and unorthodox practice.  Perhaps what is needed is a new reformation or a new “protest” that rebukes those responsible for such abuses.  Not only do they mislead the faithful.  They are profiting just like their Catholic forefathers upon the misery and sinful conditions of people who are needy and vulnerable.  Instead of selling them “a bill of goods” that will not profit their followers, they should be pointing them to the grace that is in Christ Jesus for every blessing.

Unfortunately, the same problem that caused the faithful 5oo years ago to fall into this trap and error is still prevalent today.  It is a lack of knowledge of the Word of God and its basic doctrines.  Unlike 500 years ago, however, the Bible is available to us in our own language.  We can read it and study it for ourselves.  We have learned teachers and preachers who are proclaiming the truths of the Scriptures.  What seems to be lacking is an attentive audience.

This sort of reminds me of the church Jesus chided when he revealed himself and his plans to the apostle John.  It seems that even though we live in an age where we can see, we are still blind (Revelation 3:17).  We live in a country that is rich with the teachings of God and access to biblical truth, and yet we are so poor.  It appears that Western Christianity is clothed with beautiful religious garb, but we are really naked.  Perhaps we do not know how wretched we really are if so many of the faithful in our Protestant, Bible-believing churches can fall into such error.

A start for all of us might be to study our history.  We need to rediscover what was lost and then found in the Reformation.  Some of the Reformers and Protestants paid for the discovery and practice of these truths with the ultimate price.  Perhaps then we would appreciate more fully today where we are in human history and the opportunities we have around us by way of Bible teaching and tools.  Most importantly, hopefully, we would refuse to fall back into the errors from which the Church in large measure was rescued.  Like Martin Luther, maybe we need to take a hammer and nail and post them in a prominent place so we will not soon forget.

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

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When Nothing Goes Right

Have you ever experienced a period of time where nothing goes right for you?  We all probably have at some point, or will.  I seem to have had a rash of bad circumstances lately.  Some of them are life altering.

My car breaks down and it is not a minor fix.  Then my computer crashes and it is not a minor fix either.  It takes a couple of overhauls to finally get my computer running right.

My car?  Let’s not talk about that.  One of my friends at church joking with me told me that he and his buddies knew what to get me to help me out.  A mountain bike and a note pad!  We both laughed.  We also both know that his day will come when nothing goes right for him too.

Health problems.  Relationship problems at home or work.  Child raising problems.  Broken cars and broken computers.  Did I mention an appliance to fix or repair?

At times like these one would like to limit trouble and hassles to one-a-day.  Unfortunately they usually come to us in bunches.  Sometimes BIG bunches.

When this happens, do you ask, “Why?” I do!  I want to fix it and stop it or get out of the pain as soon as possible.  I want an explanation for why this is happening to me.  I want to find the “cause” that brought the “effect” of all these bad things.  Is it just bad luck?  Bad karma?  Is God mad at me?  Is it just life and life sucks?

The optimist tells me that for every dark cloud there is a rainbow on the other side.  Or, when life hand me lemons that I am supposed to make lemonade.  Wonderful.  But I do not find too much comfort in that sentiment in the midst of my pain and frustration.  On the other hand, the pessimist tells me that life sucks and then we die.  Great.  Will someone put me out of my misery, please!?  Neither philosophical approach to life adequately answers the question “why?” in the midst of suffering.

Unfortunately, there are no simple answers to that simple question.  Sometimes it’s just life.  Life can be harsh.  We live in a world taken over by sin and wickedness.  Both good and bad happen to people all the time whether they themselves are good or bad.  So, it is not a reflection upon me.  It is a reflection upon the environment I live in.  People I don’t know, circumstances I can’t foresee or control can change my life forever.

At other times, I have to honestly look myself in the mirror and say, “It’s your own fault.”  Whether lack of experience, lack of wisdom, lack of knowledge, or just plain stupidity, I sometimes cause my own greatest pain.  I will freely admit it.  There are times when I am my own worst enemy.  However, I can learn from these experiences and go on while I reap the consequences of my own actions.

Or, you may have “Job’s Comforters” to help you dig yourself a hole of guilt and shame.  You’ve sinned and so God is judging you.  That’s why all these bad things are happening to you.  God is mad at you for your imperfections.

You ever hear that?  I’ve heard it.  Sometimes from my closest friends.  Then they stay away from me as if I had the plague and “God’s judgment” was contagious.

I see many people today loaded down with shame and guilt.  Our society seems to thrive on it.  Some people’s relationship with God is based upon a constant sense of shame and guilt.  They are never good enough.  God is always waiting to strike them with lightning if they don’t get it right.

This is a very faulty view of God, yet one that is so predominant in our world.  Thus, we are forced to paganistically try to appease the wrath of God.  Every bad thing that occurs in our life then just reinforces to us that we have not got it right yet.  And so we toil under the weight of shame, guilt, and condemnation trying to make “it” right with God.

Yes, sometimes we do suffer the consequences of our own sinful actions.  But that is not God hammering us.  It is reaping what we sowed.  Just like the laws of physics, there are laws of the human spirit, laws of human relationships, and laws of behavior.  We all violate them at our own risk.  And it doesn’t matter whether you know about the law or not.  It’s just the way life works.  Either you know and understand them, or life will be very difficult.

White Rose, Bush House Gardens, Salem, Oregon, 2009 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

Many of our insurance policies make allowance for “An Act of God.”  When bad thing fall upon you, are you apt to look to heaven and ask, “What did I do to deserve that?”  You’re in company.  Most people do.  However, when things do not go right in life, it is not always “An Act of God.”  The Bible tells us a different story about God’s actions toward us, even in our rebellious and sinful state.

The Good News that is in Christ Jesus is that He did not come to condemn the world, but to save the world.  The world is already under judgment and condemned.  He didn’t come to add to it.  He came to remove people out from underneath the guilt, shame, and condemnation.

In other words, God is on your side.  He wants to free you and me from the prison of shame and guilt.  He wants to remove the sense of condemnation that comes every time something bad happens in your life.  He wants to raise you above such circumstances with the assurance of his presence and power that will help you get through and overcome such demoralizing events.  They no long have to have power over you.  They no longer have to shape your life, how you feel about yourself or how you see God – even when it is your own doing.  Like a loving parent, he does not cast you out of his household.  Instead, he comes with reassurance to say, “Come here.  Let’s get you cleaned up so you can keep going.”

So, when trouble strikes, it is not God “out to get you.”  In our own doing, or just because we live in an imperfect world, things happen to us.  When they do happen, even at our own doing, we no longer need to look for guilt and shame from God but for help and power to overcome.  After all, he’s on our side now.

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2010)

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