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December 2005
Joy to the World? What Joy?
From a historical context, there was little to be joyful about. The Jews were still under the oppressive domain of the Romans. The Jerusalem temple which for centuries had occupied the passions and captured the imagination of the Jewish nation had long lost its magical attraction. Is it possible that in such a context of oppression God’s promise to send a ruler who will “Shepherd my people Israel”(Matt 2:6), would be fulfilled? Could such a context characterized by demoralization and emasculation of Jewish national pride be one for “Joy to the World?” Joy to the Jew was related to the total national and religious life and at this point in history they were both in shambles.
On Christmas morning, way out in the little city of Bethlehem was a cold, shivering mom without a place to lay her newly born Son and a father overtaken by events without warning. They had everything well planned and organized until Mary was discovered pregnant before they could be married. Joseph wanted to quietly get out of the plan but then there came the visit from an angel telling them they had to put up with it. Now as a young couple, they were under the condemning eye of moral and cultural purists. Worse still, it meant that Joseph would have to register and pay taxes for three people and not just for Himself and for Mary. It was an immense inconvenience. He was under political, social, financial and parental pressure, to say the least. How could this have been an occasion for joy?
Out in the cold winter’s night were some poor shepherds watching over their sheep. They were the lowliest of the lowly, illiterate, and possessing no persuasive acumen. Indeed, they anticipated no surprises and had little cause for celebration or rejoicing. Yet to these poor shepherds the angelic host was sent to proclaim the stunning news, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come!” This was unexpected pressure. “Joy! What joy?”
I recently heard a sermon by Dr. Joel Johnson, Pastor of Westwood Community Church titled When bad things happen, so does Joy! Perhaps you ask, isn’t joy supposed to be the product of good things happening to good people? Isn’t it supposed to be the reward or product of perfect circumstances? Can it arise out of or in spite of imperfect circumstances?
Indeed, that is what Christmas is all about. It is about getting joy when things are going bad. Jesus came because we were drowning in the mire of sin. There was bad news everywhere. There was social oppression, political exploitation, religious stagnation, and individual depravity everywhere you turned. Consequently, humanity needed help outside of themselves but from someone like themselves. That person had to be none other than Jesus Christ Himself.
In our world today, we are surrounded by bad news. Turn on the TV News bulletins and all you will hear are bad news. Just in 2005 we have experienced some of the worst disasters ever known in recorded human history ranging from tsunamis, earthquakes, and Hurricanes, to name but a few, plus unknown individual struggles and pain. Our collective consciousness is assaulted left, right, and center. We need a break. Perhaps even at this Christmas season you are going through a tough time of sickness, or missing someone close to you who passed away and now you won’t have Christmas with them anymore. Just a couple days ago I was remembering my sister who went to be with the Lord two years ago and realizing that I won’t have another Christmas with her until we meet at the Lord’s table in heaven. Maybe you desperately need good news. I am here to encourage you and share with you that your time has come to GET JOY!
How do you get joy? By drawing closer to the person of Jesus Christ. HE IS the JOY of the world. He is your JOY. Circumstances don’t have to be right before you can get joy. You get joy in spite of the circumstances because the Lord is your Joy. You see, joy is not happiness even though we can be happy as a result of joy. It is entirely possible to be happy without being joyful but it will be short-lived. Happiness is dependent on happenings. Things that happen around us change all the time. Some are good and others are bad. Thus if you simply want happiness, you will be disappointed because it will be short lived, dissipating every time something unpleasant happens to us.
Joy on the other hand comes from the Lord. His Joy is our strength, and, He rejoices over us with singing. In both the Old Testament and in the New, joy is consistently the mark both individually of the believer and corporately of the church. It is a quality, not simply an emotion, grounded upon God Himself and indeed derived from Him. According to the Gospel of John, it is Jesus Christ Himself who communicates this joy (John 15:11; 16:24). It comes about as the result of a deep fellowship between the church or believer and Jesus Christ himself (16:22).
Paradoxically, Christian joy may be the outcome of suffering and even sorrow for Christ’s sake (Col. 1:24; 2 Cor. 6:10; 1 Peter 4:13; Heb. 10:34; etc.) Our happiness lies in the sacrifice of our own honor, advantage and comfort for the sake of Christ and of others. Since it is produced by the Lord and not by ourselves, joy is in fact , a gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and is therefore something dynamic and not static. Moreover, it derives from love- God’s and ours. Love takes no account of sacrifice. It is simply blessed to love and it can do no otherwise but sacrifice and actual loving is its nature and its life. Every believer is thus called upon to share in the Joy of Christ by a daily walk with him and a daily practice of rejoicing in the knowledge of Him and His Salvation (1 Thes. 5:16; Phil 3:1; 4:4; 1 Pet.1:8).
As we are in the midst of this Christmas season, GET JOY by having an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. The Joy we are talking about is none other than the Joy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the reason for the season and the only source from which you may derive both Joy and true happiness. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
June 2005
How to Breakthrough with Intensity in Prayer:
In the New Testament prayer is often represented as incense. To pray is to offer sacrifice to God. As we know however, incense can neither smell nor ascend without fire. Likewise, prayer cannot unless it arises from spiritual warmth and fervency. The apostle James assures us that the effective fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much (James 5:16-18). Thus, prayer must be both effective and fervent to avail much. Prayer without fervency is not prayer; it is speaking, not praying. Lifeless prayer is no more prayer than a picture of a man is man. Mere lip prayers are lost prayers.
Without boasting, I have been blessed in my life to see many answers to prayer. As a matter of fact I would never have been able to do any of the stuff I do in ministry or be where I am without knowing and understanding God intimately through prayer. As a young boy of seven I watched my parents pray to Jesus Christ again and again and saw those prayers answered. By the time I was eight, I developed unction for the same and when the answers tarried, I tarried still until they came about. This lifestyle has formed the bedrock of my relationship with Christ and the execution of ministry ever since. During these times of prayer I see Jesus clearly and hear his voice distinctly. I know one thing: intense prayer is always assured of divine response. To the contrary, cold, lifeless prayers are like birds without wings. They cannot fly!
I am not advocating for mere emotional expression though most of the times prayer is emotional. Nor am I advocating for lengthy prayers though prayer may often be long. No, Jesus already warned us against formulas and programs of prayer, peddling techniques of getting what one wants from God. Don’t fall for such nonsense. God hates strange fire. We must never try to work up an emotion of intensity. The most important measure of prayer is not its length but its depth; not its beautiful words but rather the faith expressed through intensity. Billy Graham beautifully put it this week when he jokingly shared with an audience before the New York Crusade that he prays all the time and his most favorite prayer is “God help me!” Sometimes prayer is as short as that. After all this is our Father we are dealing with and He knows better than we know what we need.
It is a law of prayer that those who seek with all their heart find. God tells us through the prophet Jeremiah “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). And Scripture reports concerning Jesus life “In the days of His flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of his godly fear” (Hebrews 5:17). Intensity is a law of prayer and wrestling prayer prevails. The fervent, effectual prayer of the righteous is great force.
This intensity must however originate with revelation from God’s Word inspired by the Spirit of God. We must be filled by the Holy Spirit to pray with intensity. For “We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). If the Spirit groans in intercession do not be afraid of the agony of prayer. There are blessings of the Kingdom of God that are only given through the violence of the vehement soul.
If you have been praying to God in anticipation of certain answers to prayer and don’t seem to find a break-through, ask yourself these important questions: “Is there a sinful hindrance in my life that hinders my answer?” Sin will prevent you from receiving your answer to prayer (Isaiah 59:1-2). Repent and open your heart up to God’s cleansing power. Secondly ask yourself, “Have I really understood God’s Will in the matter?” God will not give you what will harm you. You may be foolish to ask for a snake instead of fish, but because He is your Father, he knows you need fish and that is what He wants to give you. Thirdly ask yourself; “Is my faith what it should be?” Maybe you need to ask like the man who came to Jesus and said “I believe, Lord help my unbelief!” Finally ask yourself, “Is there some step of obedience I can take that will speed the answer?” It is the effectual fervent prayer of a RIGTEOUS (right living) person that avails much!
May 2005
Noverim Te, Noverim Me! A Contemplation of a Heart Besieged by Holy Fire
The revolutionary reality of the Christian experience is that we are not self-made Christians, whose vigor and determination of pursuit earn us the reward of spiritual experience. To the contrary, the God of the universe, who has shown the magnificence of His power through the splendid outworking in creation, searches for us in spite our insignificance. Our hearts’ response to his searching is what opens the floodgates to His abundant blessing. Yet, we would feign to hide from Him because of inordinate attachments. But where can we? He has mined us to the depth of our being, and His knowledge besieges us all around! Like the Psalmist says: “If I take the wings of the morning (Northwest Airlines?), and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You” (Psalms 139:7-12). This paradoxical reality of God’s pursuit of us is current and on-going and our desire for him pales in comparison.
I for one saw myself as being “In Passionate Pursuit of God”, as “aflame for Jesus,” and as “abandoning all for the embrace of Christ.” Really? The more close He comes toward me, the more clearly I see my non-yielded self. The nearer He draws the more I see my own duplicity, self-interest, and self-righteousness. His immanence ushers in sancta simplicitas (holy simplicity), the opposite to the duplicity that is caused by a heart like mine, one that is sundered by inordinate attachments to a multiplicity of finite things.
What a prideful, pitiful, and despicable little creature that I am, lacking any attraction in and of itself! At my best, I am unworthy of the death of the Son of God! Else why do I sulk at the stripping or non attainment of all that is earthy? Why do I fail to grasp the secret to the sense of dignity and respect in His sight and dash for worldly extravagancies? Do I feign to labor with power? Do I feign to possess patience? Do I feign to love Him unconditionally? Then I am of all people exposed! For I possess none of the above! Else I would wait for His answers to prayer without anger. I would sit instead and wait with patience while keeping my mouth from transgressing before Him. I would moreover make progress from a superficial to a substantive apprehension of God by plummeting into the ever-increasing profundity of the cloud of unknowing. No, I wouldn’t seek applause or comfort from humanity if my love for Him were for His own sake! I would also rid myself of the delusion that activity, accomplishments, size, and hubbub endear us to God and confirm his blessing. Instead I would rest in Him, possess Him as my true rest and cease wanting and longing. I would view the world and all of life from a divine rather than a human perspective. I would have my final integration point and source of meaning beamed upward and not downward; heavenly and not earthly; the Creator and not the cosmos!
Yet the Son of Man will not abandon His pursuit of me regardless of my weaknesses! His love is so great, transforming my inner man to conform to imago dei (God's image). His mercy and grace are immeasurable, calming my guilty self. The encounter with the Christ of glory in the wilderness of life is my hope restoring reality. Like Augustine I cry, “Noverim te, noverim me (May I know you, may I know me)!” Oh what a splendid encounter this is! Like Sarah’s maid, suddenly the dry place has become an oasis of fresh waters! Like Moses, the wilderness of Horeb has become the habitation of the Omnipotent and Omnipresent One, glittering with the Beauty of all beauties. I gaze at the bush and wonder why it is not consumed. Drawn by its magnificent attraction, I go near and behold I hear the voice of the Awesome One. I cry, “I pray You show me Your glory!” Like Jacob I lie down, exhausted and afraid, wondering whence my help shall come from only to behold the ladder full of the mighty angels ascending and descending from heaven. Like Ignatius, “I smell the infinite fragrance, and taste the infinite sweetness of the divinity.” How splendid to discover that God was all along here in pursuit of me, yet I knew it not! “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Like Blaise Pascal on his night of Fire I cry, “Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace…O righteous Father, the World has not known You, but I have known You, Joy, Joy, Joy!” Oh, that fire of love! What an encounter that it is, marked by holy desire!
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. At God’s majestic countenance I gaze in silence and quiet rest. May His Name forever evoke dear and holy emotion from my heart!
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April 2005
Dying God’s Way
Recent weeks have been dominated by event after another that have highlighted our frailty as humankind. Whether it is a 16 year-old going on rampage in his school and shooting 10 people to death himself included right here in Minnesota, or the nationally and internationally controversial Terry Schaivo case, or the passing on of Pope John Paul II as he lay under the global eye of the camera, we have all been confronted by the sense of our own weakness and mortality, legacy in life, and the great existential and urgent ethical and moral questions that beg for answers. As C.S. Lewis optimistically put it in his Screw Tape Letters, in times of tribulation, war, or pestilence, we may see thousands turning to Christ while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will have their attention diverted from themselves to values and causes which they believe to be higher than the self. That during such times, one of Satan’s weapons, contended worldliness, is rendered useless. In our case we have been left asking questions: is it right to pull a feeding tube from a so called “brain dead” person like Terry Schaivo or is it violence against the weak? If it is the later, is violence against others or even oneself as a written will justifiable under any circumstances?
My goal in this article is not to provide answers to these ethical and moral questions, but rather to converse about another kind of death which it is highly commendable that we bring ourselves to, and after which we necessarily must alter how we live. It is the kind that Paul talks about in Galatians 2:19-21. Permit me to simply comment however, that it seems obvious from Scripture and especially the example that Jesus gives us at the crucifixion scene that God alone may take an individual’s physical life and it is never the prerogative of another human being or the self. Jesus Christ did not allow human-aided death such as the soldiers had wanted to inflict by breaking the legs of the crucified (John 19:31-33). It is also significant that at the hour of death, Jesus expressed his thirst and therefore desire for a drink, and that even the cruel arm of the Roman empire, contrary to both our judicial system and individual depravities, was descent enough to respond with a humane gesture by extending a sponge socked in sour wine to his lips (John 19:28). In Christ’s violent death, all violence was subdued as Christ declared his last pre-resurrection words, “It is finished!”
While discoursing on the God kind of death, Paul emphatically states, “I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
Taken in its rightful context, Paul is talking about his dispute with Peter and the Judaizing movement that threatened to hijack the Good News of Salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ in order to substitute it by a message of works through obedience to the law. Yet he equally highlights the necessity of the law to this necessary death. He died through the law to the law. In other words, the law enumerated for him the areas where he had offended the law and prescribed the necessary payment.
As human beings, we are guilty in a lot of ways. Our conscience, societal expectations and moral codes of conduct and our own individual ethical and moral aspirations drive us to the brink of despair each day as we are caught offending. Failure stares us in the face each day and is cause for depression, sickness, broken relationships or self-killing regiments as we try to self-improve. Is it any wonder that pop psychology, whether that of Dr. Phil, Oprah Winfrey, or even the many preachers that have changed the Word of God from being the Power of God unto Salvation and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness into a psychology manual to which we may go to find answers on how to deal with chronic depression or how to grow rich quickly are so popular (have you ever heard or read a pop psychology sermon based on 2 Kings 19 which tries to tell you that Elijah was depressed and that the remedy for depression is to sleep and eat rather than that he was in earnest before God as he headed to the Mountain of God like Moses before him to fast and pray in confronting Israel’s Spiritual darkness)? All these systems subscribe to the law and they are indicators of our chronic societal and individual maladies.
Paul subsequently gives us the remedy to his own confrontation with the law - that is that he died to the law and lived to God. The law can be cruel and the only remedy is to die to it in aspiration and embrace of a higher goal, which is to live to God. God is the object of the only kind of death that is meaningful. To die God’s way is to die to the law including all its prescriptions whether of pop psychology or self-improvement. We die to the law by coming to the Cross of Jesus Christ, which was turned from being a symbol of cruelty and terror into a symbol of love and divine embrace. As someone has well put it, from then on we lead an exchanged life. It is no longer “I” who live, but “Christ” lives in me. We quit from living a life of works of the law, to living a life by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. Paul’s assertion that “I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me,” manifestly describes a deliverance from inward as well as from outward sin. This kind of dying is dying God’s way. In our socio-cultural environment, it does also take the responsibility for meaningfulness or usefulness away from our hands into God’s hands. It certainly takes the responsibility of our usefulness from the hands of any other human being, whether a neurosurgeon or close kin such as Michael Schaivo, Terry’s husband, into God’s hands.
Paul’s life of dying to the law that he might live to God stands as a monumental legacy and example for all who seek meaning and true fulfillment in life. It took dying to live and it still does. But it is not just any kind of dying, it is dying to the evil nature and the body of sin in order to live to God by embracing all that is holy and just and good through Jesus Christ. John Wesley put it accurately when he stated that both these, Christ liveth in me, and I live not, are inseparably connected. Moreover, our death to the sins of the world and the filth of the flesh renders us victorious over physical death. Thus, followers of Jesus Christ are never afraid of physical death. That is why we highly price physical living. It is C.S. Lewis who in the same passage quoted above, writing during WW II, tells us that when humanity knows Christ, they go to war, for example, knowing that they might be killed and to which they go prepared. For to live is Christ and to die is to be present with Christ forever. Our confidence and consolation is anchored in the
March 2005
The Certainty of God's Promise Amidst Confounding Moments
I have lately been reminiscing upon some of the defining moments of Jesus pre-resurrection life and ministry. Three of them come to mind right away. The first is His time in the wilderness. This was the moment of personal temptation. The Son of God was led into the wilderness by the Spirit, so scripture states, being forty days tempted by the devil.
The second is His time in the garden of Gethsemane. Here, there was no obvious devil tempting him. Instead, it was a moment of personal agony and emotional distress in anticipation of the Cross which he had set out to passionately embrace. Jesus in Matthew 26:38-42 reveals to us his sorrow in the garden..."My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." In this sorrowful posture we see him fall on his face and make a repetitious prayer. Luke in his account informs us that Jesus broke sweat and that “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."
The third one is His time on the cross. Here, the Son of God undertakes the final embrace in fulfillment of God's promise of salvation to humanity. That necessary process without which there could have been no resurrection and therefore no Christian hope.
These three are indeed reminiscent of our own lives and experiences as followers of Jesus Christ. First we are born and assigned a purpose by God in life. We must discover and pursue that purpose from God himself and must wrestle with the evil one who otherwise seeks to divert our lives to fleeting things. We cannot lead lives of eternal purpose nor fully fulfill the meaning thereof without the critical moments and times alone with God. Like Jesus, we must be filled by and led of the Spirit of God to be tutored of the Lord in the wilderness. We must be brought face to face with our ugly passions and be empowered by God through His word to lead lives of triumph. After we have succeeded, we must then abide in Christ and remain aware that our battle is not over yet. Rather, we must continue to wrestle against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places.
Then as we continue our walk with God, there will come moments of strange twists and deep personal agony. The times when although we are in the garden of God - the place of frequent retreat and communion with God, we undergo pain and suffering, we experience sickness; we lose a loved one; undergo times waiting for an answer we wish could come a lot sooner. During such times, we desire so earnestly that someone would understand us. Like Jesus in Gethsemane, our prayer seems repetitious as we come before God with the same supplications time and again but instead are met by apparent silence. This can also be a time of deep misunderstanding from trusted ones, a time when those who are closest to us cannot identify with what we are going through and we are left to bare the pain alone. It is also representative of that middle stage between promise and fulfillment...what we may call process...when we are experiencing the press from all sides and must sweat blood.
Thirdly, there is the cross. This speaks of the paradoxical moments. The cross for one speaks of death but yet in its shadow it heralds the fulfillment of the promise of the resurrection that ends all death. Is it not true that God's most precious gifts are often wrapped in a clock of death? Is it not true that we must first die to ourselves if we must reign with Christ the Son of God? Is it not true that for a Christian to reign is to serve others and that to be something we must totally be nothing and count only our worth in Him? How else shall we handle the blessing that God brings to us? How else can we be prevented from engaging in the idolatry of the self and of the material world in which we live?
At different times in our lives we will go through these three stages that may be considered dark moments. But we must not forget God's commitment to his side of the bargain. We must not forget Jesus' word in Matthew 28:20 "And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Isn't it trustworthy that Christ who understood the pain of desertion and had to cry out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" will keep His word to us?
My younger brother Victor, a fiery evangelist and worship leader in Kenya wrote me recently to remind me most vehemently regarding God's character and therefore His commitment regarding His promise, words that reminded me of another great saint of the past century, A.W Tozer. I think it is fitting to share parts of this letter with you. He wrote:
“I know one thing about God; He means what He says. He never mocks men with barren words and empty sounds. Why should He deceive His creatures, and ask from them a barren confidence? The Lord may go beyond His word in giving more than it might be thought to mean, but He can never fall short of it. He never falls below the largest rendering which expectation can give to the promise. Faith never yet outstripped the bounty of the Lord. Let us even now rejoice in it as being the reality of that for which we are hoping. Yea! The promises exceed all measurement and exhibit the fullness and the all-sufficiency of God. Like God Himself-they fill all things and are unbounded in their range.
You can never extract the whole of the marrow from God’s promise. It is longer than life, broader than sin, deeper than the grave, and higher than the clouds. Even ‘Great’ seems so little a word to describe such a miracle! Oh how I love daring believers who hang on in the night until the dawn of their rejoicing because each Word of God is registered by unerring judgment and ratified by eternal truth.
Has God said it? Then let's rest assured that heaven and earth will pass away, but not His Word. The laws of nature may be suspended; fire may cease to burn, and water to drown, for this would involve no unfaithfulness in God; but for His Word to fail it would involve a dishonoring variableness in the character and nature of the Godhead, and this can never be. Let us set to our seal that God is true, and never suffer a suspicion of His veracity to cross our minds. With the rule of God’s promise, no other law supposed or real can ever come into conflict. God’s provision can never be bounded by our capacity just like the volume of the river cannot be computed by the dryness of the desert through which it flows. Our weakness cannot defeat God’s promises nor can our strength fulfill the promise. He that spoke the word will Himself make it good. What God is to one who trusts Him, He will be to all such according to their circumstances and necessities."
I pray that you are encouraged as you go through your own defining moments to remember that the God of the promise is also your God and that his reputation is sure. Polycarp the 2nd century Bishop of Smyrna affirmed this regarding Christ in the time of his severest trial. When the Proconsul urged him and said, “Swear, and I will release thee; curse the Christ." Polycarp said, "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and he hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me? If thou dost vainly imagine that I would swear by the genius of Caesar, as thou sayest, pretending not to know what I am, hear plainly that I am a Christian."
This is the kind of courage with which we are called to face our dark nights of the soul. The courage that affirms confidence in God and supplicates, "Not my will but yours be done!"
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Shine in the World Int'l Ministries (SWIM)
1130 Grove Circle
Victoria, MN 55386, USA
Tel: 612-220-7999
Fax: 952-224-7301
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