BibleScribbler

Coffee, a Bible, and a Napkin to Scribble On

Jesus Making Passage for Us to Love God

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In Jesus, God glorifies Himself. It is a strange thought that the supreme glory of God lies in the incarnation and the cross. There is no glory like that of being loved. Had God remained aloof and majestic, serene and unmoved, untouched by any sorrow and unhurt by any pain, men and women might have feared Him and they might have admired Him; but they would never have loved Him. The law of sacrifice is not only a law of earth; it is a law of heaven and earth. It is in the incarnation and the cross that God’s supreme glory is revealed.

– William Barclay, Commentary on John 13:31-32

Lazarus of No Rank: Loved by Jesus

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John 11.3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”

Something has to be said about Lazarus being loved by Jesus, a friend of Jesus, and NOT one of the disciples. Considering that the 12 are mentioned in several places and arguing about who would be the greatest and who would get to sit next to Jesus, here is a guy that is close to Jesus, but isn’t literally following Him and isn’t one of the 12.

I remember a guy asking me one time if I wanted to be one of the 12 or one of the 5000 that followed Jesus around. Now that I look back on the context of that, I see there was some pride in there. It was Jesus that called the 12 to be a part of the 12, but to Jesus, the rest weren’t second class. Those were the 12 for one reason, and the rest were the rest for different reasons.

Here is Lazarus, loved friend of Jesus, who lives with his sisters in Bethany and doesn’t travel around to Gallilee etc. I think that says something to the pride of boasting “I’ll follow Jesus anywhere.” because Lazarus was friends with Jesus just where he was.

Let us put off the boasting of who we follow or who saved us. Let us boast only in God. When a boy pees in his pants at school, he doesn’t boast in what a good mom he picked when she brings him a clean pair. Neither should we boast in what a great God we picked when we were saved, but rejoice in Him that loves us, regardless of our rank or position in His kingdom.

Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller

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I just finished Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller, and it is very very good. I think it messed me up more than ever though concerning Jesus and grace!

Here is the premise: In the so-called ‘parable of the prodigal son’ Jesus actually tells the story of two lost sons. One is lost because of his distance from the father in wanting to live for himself and do whatever he wants, the other is lost because he does everything the father has ever asked and now thinks the father owes him for his obedience, so he was really only always serving himself.
It challenged me to think about why I do what I do? What are my motives for loving Jesus more than life? It’s all because of Him, baby!

The bad news is that I’m wrecked for the sake of grace now more than ever. Good quote from that book, “Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people, in that it sedates and makes them powerless. If religion is an opiate, Christianity should be the smelling salts, calling people to wake up!”

I love it. it was a good quick read, and I recommend it...

From Field Goals to Neighbors

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“Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath?”
(John 7:22-23 NIV)

I was just thinking about this and how God cared so much more about people being in a relationship with Him and having faith in Him than doing all of this stuff just right. To the Pharisees, all of life hinged on making sure you did every single thing just right and if someone did something wrong, finding out who did it and what exactly they did wrong.

God does not want us to be monitors and recorders of who wrongs us either. The Pharisees had a complicated flow-chart life of answering every moral question they could have. On what day should we circumcise a boy? What if that day is a sabbath? What if that day is a feast day? They could just click through the flowchart and think they knew what God wanted. Fast-forward that a couple thousand years, and they forget who that flowchart came from, and who it points to.

Saturday, my next door neighbor had a fire in his kitchen. Joe (my neighbor) severely burned his hands and had to be taken to Louisville for a few days to save his fingers. He is still there. He called me and asked me to take care of his dog and house and bring his stuff to the hospital, namely his laptop so he could skype his wife in Taiwan. On my way home I thought about Joe, and I thought about calling a guy at church that helped us move down here and get into living in the inner city.

At that moment I realized that for the past few years, maybe even a decade, I have viewed everyone I’ve worked with or been neighbors with as someone to be targeted, served, witnessed to, and converted. I haven’t been very open about that, but it has come out some as I talk about them, or think about them, or pray for them. That was my whole life with every person I came in contact with in Asia, and my whole point of moving to where I’ve moved.

But as I was driving home, I was praying for Joe’s fingers, and he just became Joe. He is a computer guy by trade, and if he lost his fingers it would be a big big big deal. I didn’t care about finding a way to witness to him or wonder if I should have slipped a bible into his computer bag or prayed by his bedside or something, I just cared about him being healed.

I feel like in my flowchart lifestyle, I’ve disconnected myself some from people God loves, and just gone off of a self-created mandate to do christian things for people. I think God is starting to free me from my christianese and showing me how to just follow Jesus. He’s working into me a real love for my co-workers and neighbors that doesn’t keep track of a law and how they are breaking it, but instead is beginning to sincerely love them and care about them as normal people and not field goals. I can only imagine how much more the life of Jesus will shine out to real people instead of goals, but I’m not going to concern myself with that, else I just go right back where I was. I’ll focus on Jesus, and His glorious ways, and love my neighbors at the same time.

Love without Labels

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Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers(Heb 13:1-2 NIV)

This passage says continue the philadelphia, but don’t neglect the philoxenia.

Philadelphia is the love of the brothers, those from the same family.

Philoxenia is the love of the strangers, those that are outsiders.

I think it’s interesting that the NIV and the KJV both leave out a big section of the original greek here that says basically:

‘love strangers and outsiders, unless they take away your jobs, disgust you, or don‚Äôt fit in with your way of life.’

You know why the NIV and KJV leave that out? It’s a conspiracy. Because it’s not in there. We are to love our enemies and strangers just like they are family.

I remember one time I had a friend that had to travel by land across several former Soviet countries to get his Visa renewed. His wife and daughter lived in the country we were in, and he had to go across about 12 countries to go to his native land and renew his visa.

Upon leaving country #1 (I’ll say the first country) he was detained for no apparent reason and spent about 24 hours in a shack on the border. He had no food, and he wondered what was going to happen to him. The next day, when they realized he could pay them no bribe, they sent him onward. We didn’t hear from him for days and days and we wondered what ever happened to him.

Then one day I went to the market, and went around the corner, and there he was! Do you know what joy I had in seeing him?! I was OVER joyed. I gave him a big hug and even though neither of us shared a common language he motioned and talked and said he had just gotten back the day before.

I had brotherly love for him. I feared for his life and for his wife and daughter in this strange land. I told my wife, later, what if whenever we saw someone, we greeted them like we greeted Sly today? For one, people would probably think we were pretty weird.

But then, what if we greeted all visitors, even STRANGErs, with a joyful reception?

Love your brothers, but don’t neglect loving the strange.