one

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

I write this grieving over what now is. In over thirty years of ministry leadership, I’ve never seen Christ’s church more divided than this contentious year of 2020. Our culture already fights over so many things. It is expected that those without Christ would be that way. But the church is designed to be a place of joyous, worshipful unity! Oh how we need to be reminded that NOTHING in this world defines us. We are to be exclusively and beautifully ONE in Jesus. We are divided and disobedient when we let medical masks, health guidelines, racial injustices, political opinions, and outspoken social media commentary and preferences pull our attention and worship away from Jesus! C’mon Christians! We are called to be much better than this! And I include myself in that plea.

Look at the unity in these three verses that should always be a part of who we are all the time: 1) One Spirit of God indwelling us. 2) One body of Christ, the church. 3) One hope of an abundant and eternal life. 4) One Lord — our Savior Jesus Christ. 5) One faith — the gospel and sound doctrine. 6) One baptism that unites use in Christ as His Church. 7) One God — the Father of us all.

Oh that we would center our actions and our conversations around Christian unity like this again and repent of our sinful, selfish, ugly divisions! Oh Jesus, hold this prayer in my heart and give me grace to love Your Church like You do!

five sparrows

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Luke 12:6-7

God loves people. And the person telling us this truth in this passage is Jesus Himself, God in the flesh, Who would give His life on the cross to show the immeasurable love of God for people. Humans put a price on virtually everything. But the price that God paid to save us is the ultimate cost. We need not fear. Jesus has proven His love for us!

What God treasures at the cost of the life of His Son, we should not trifle with. This is one reason why human actions that devalue life such as murder, abortion, racial hatred, genocide, and war are all evil. When we set our estimation of the value of all people everywhere from God’s perspective, all human life is precious, to be recognized as bought with the blood of Jesus!

Even the most corrupt sinner has been loved by Jesus. He died and rose for all humanity. No life is worthless in the eyes of our Savior, and should not be in ours either. We should treasure that truth!

when God shows up

So I arose and went out into the valley, and behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, like the glory that I had seen by the Chebar canal, and I fell on my face.

Ezekiel 3:23

There is a weird bit of Christian slang that I sometimes hear friends toss around to describe moments of transcendence: “God showed up”. Usually they are describing some experience of becoming aware of God’s working... a meaningful worship service, a helpful spiritual insight, or perhaps the conversion of someone they know. 

I get the slang because I have used it myself a time or two. But if we read the Old Testament prophets, we might be a lot less casual about tossing the phrase around! For Ezekiel, when God showed up, His glory was manifested visibly. The prophet fell on his face in reverent fear! It was kind of a scary sort of wonderful! Encountering God should lead to a demotion of our personal sense of importance and an exaltation of the Lord through our sincere, humble, and thoughtful worship.

prayer for wisdom and insight

Get wisdom; get insight;

do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;

love her, and she will guard you.

Proverbs 4:5-6

O wise God,

I need Your wisdom and Your insight to direct all of my thinking, my attitudes, and my actions today. I am a sinner, grateful, Jesus, that You are my Savior. Yet I am too easily tempted to turn away from Your words and make ruinous choices. I am too easily distracted by false wisdom and alluring patterns of thinking that come from my flesh and this world. Help me to not turn from Your Word!

I need wisdom now for the day that is before me. Give wisdom to discern what Your Word is saying so that I may share Your truth with others. You can make changes in me and in them as Your Spirit works in us through Your Word. I need insight. Please show me where my own heart is astray as I talk with others today. And if You could help direct me through spiritual insight to understand both my heart and theirs, our words together will come to honor You and can have lasting, eternal impact.

Lord, give me wisdom. Lord, give me insight. I will not forget that You alone provide these.

Amen

refuge, rock, and savior

Be to me a rock of refuge,

to which I may continually come;

you have given the command to save me,

for you are my rock and my fortress.

Psalm 71:3

Every person relies on some source of strength, some inner fortitude, some place of solace. You either work it up internally or focus on something or someone externally. David makes it clear in this psalm that God was his source, refuge, and strength-giver. He put himself into God’s care. He sought God as his secure rock and found God’s saving mercy and grace.

God is my rock. He is my higher ground of perspective over all that is around me. God provides the solid ground on which I can stand.

God is my fortress. In Jesus I find my security, my safety, my protection from the storms of life and the onslaught of evil in this world. I am secure.

God is my Savior. God gave the command to save me, and Jesus then willingly gave Himself out of love for all sinners and in obedience to the Father’s will. I am safe by faith in Him!

Chemosh and Molech

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

1 Kings 11:7-8

Solomon’s devotion to God alone was quickly lost when his passion for a sexually polygamous lifestyle overtook his heart. He literally loved THOUSANDS of women. He kept these wives and concubines in a royal harem, and since many of these women were also gentiles who were “given” to him in political treaty, he sought to keep them happy.

He built pagan temples to their false gods and allowed the worship practices of these idols to proliferate in his own household. Chemosh and Molech were particularly loathesome and evil false gods, both of which required human child sacrifice in rites of worship. Solomon’s lust took him way off track. And the gross nature of his idolatry brought God’s discipline. The kingdom never survived this.

The path to any idolatry starts with the heart. That is why I must let scripture examine my wants and motives. The heart and the things I want can easily lead me away from worshiping God.

walls

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility...

Ephesians 2:14

Christians must not be divided when Jesus is our peace. But when Christians fight, fuss, and display divisiveness to those who look to us to see what reconciliation should be, it is solely because they have let something or someone other than Jesus define and lead them. Jesus changes hearts, breaks down barriers, and unifies groups of people. Nothing else can do this reconciling work that Jesus does!

Jesus first did this by erasing the barrier of Jewish law that was destroying the early Christian movement. The Jews did not need to keep the law to be saved by Jesus. The Gentiles did not need to do so either. The temple veil was torn from top to bottom to forever demonstrate that the Lamb of God is Who takes away the sin of the world. And the original “dividing wall” was broken down in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

False saviors do occasionally show up in the church. I am witnessing this now. Politics is an ugly one, causing division in the church when it should not. Cultural issues are another divider. They have combined horribly in 2020 to disaster in the testimony of the church. Why is it that for hundreds of years in America, Sunday morning is the most segregated time? Could it be that we are content in our sinful divisions, unwilling to believe that Jesus has the power to unite all believers of every race and background? “They prefer their own culture” is what all sides think. And the dividing wall of preference is built up when Jesus wants to tear it down so that we all clearly see just Him!

Oh how the church of every culture needs to draw close to the Savior Who has brought both Jew and Gentile together in ONE body! Oh how I need to guard my heart against comfortability with this unbiblical division.