Category: Heaven

Upsetting the World

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After being imprisoned in Philippi for sharing the Good News of Jesus, Paul and Silas proceeded to Thessalonica and were accused of something most peculiar. A mob gathered to come against Paul and Silas and said of them, “These men who have upset the world have come here also” (Acts 17:6, NASB).

What a wonderful accusation! The apostles were guilty of upsetting the world. Oh, that we would be known for the same, as this world certainly needs shaken. The world system is inside-out and headed in the wrong direction. It is on a fleeting, selfish, and deceptive course toward destruction. We need men and women who will follow God in swimming upstream, against the flow of sin and confusion.

Ads of all kinds attempt to convince people that more things and expensive things are necessary to be respectable. This notion flows from the false assumption that the respect or envy of other people won through materialistic efforts holds the potential to bring real joy. The glitz of fancier modes of entertainment pushes people to believe contentment is found when we have more time and ability to laugh mindlessly and to avoid reality as we deny the core questions of the heart. Recently, a television commercial portrayed a grown woman as amazingly excited to discover seven people were searching for her online. Does it really change our lives to know a handful of other mortals is looking for us? Can self-centered living bring peace?

When Jesus saves people, He turns them inside-out; He makes them new (II Corinthians 5:17). On this earth, Jesus begins to prepare His people for the new world He is someday making. Jesus begins to shape individuals who are no longer content to waste hours, days, and years accumulating things that distract us from the pursuit of God. Jesus molds men and women who radically race toward what is broken in order to bring healing. Jesus transforms people into those who embrace the greatest paradox – that in giving our lives away to God, we gain everything (John 12:25).

As a Christian, I ought to feel the friction of my travels in a direction opposite the flow of the current, unrighteous world system. When I undergo new birth in Jesus, every fiber of my being ought now to sense that sin is to be battled vehemently.

Our Jesus is coming back to make a home of righteousness (II Peter 3:13). In other words, He will invade again the space-time continuum to make a world that is as it ought to be. Obviously, right now this world is far from being as it ought to be. The earth is broken (as seen in natural disasters and the second law of thermodynamics), bodies are broken (by disease, disability, and aging), relationships are broken (by selfishness, impatience, and unrealistic expectations), and hearts are broken (in ways innumerable). But, the Maker of the universe will miraculously remake the universe. Only the God who made everything from nothing can make wholeness out of brokenness. The fixing of this world will come by no human endeavor. It will take the invasion into history of our God . . . and He will do it!

Meanwhile, Jesus remakes people one at a time as He redeems us from sin. And then He calls us to “upset the world” – to live radically different from this vanishing, sinful flow. Jesus has the power to overcome brokenness in your life. Sin pulls us away from wholeness in our hearts. Sin also set into motion the tendency toward disorder and disintegration we see in the natural world; scientists refer to this deterioration as the second law of thermodynamics. When we shake a puzzle box and then drop the pieces to the floor from a few feet above, the pieces land randomly – scattered all about. The more we shake the box and the higher from which we drop the pieces, the more randomness and separation we observe.

Picture your heart as those puzzle pieces. Left to sinfulness without Jesus, our hearts – our lives – fall shattered, making no sense. However, if Jesus shakes your heart, the unexpected happens – the pieces fall out and are fully connected! He overcomes the natural, and forms the whole picture, causing things to make sense! He fixes us – against every plan of the enemy and every apparent triumph of wrong.

We need to reflect our Savior in shaking the world in which we live. We need to pursue the wholeness Jesus intends. We need to go against the flow.

Upset your world with a heart of service instead of a heart of power, private integrity in place of facade, kindness in the midst of attack, value of prayer and Bible study above entertainment, truth-telling though it cost much, giving of resources in the midst of selfishness, gentleness though surrounded by harshness, forgiveness when revenge is easier, sacrifice of time for those in need, and love of God above love of all else.

May Christians be accused as Paul and Silas were – of upsetting this world.

What If Every End Were a Beginning?

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What if we could find a way to ensure that every ending is really a beginning? What if we could promise that the phrase, “Something wonderful is right around the corner” is more than just a platitude? After all, is not one of the great dilemmas of humanity the “race against the clock”? Do we not dread the end of what is good even while we enjoy it?

Consider a mind-blowing statement from God: “In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death” (Proverbs 12:28, NASB). Right goes on forever; it simply cannot be stopped. When I follow the way of right, I will suffer no final blow of death. My peace cannot die if it is right – based squarely on Jesus’ victory; my dreams cannot die if they are right – pleasing to the God who designed me; my hope cannot die if it is right – planted on God’s strength, not mine; and my joy cannot die if it is right – based on my God unseen, not on fleeting circumstances. Astoundingly, not even my physical body will ever be overcome by death in any final sense if this body is walking the path of righteousness. My God promises death will be swallowed up in victory, and my body will go on in glory to experiences untold.

Even now, in the minute details of life, right goes on unstopped. Righteousness is the original plan of God; and though a fierce war rages against it, right has unmitigated victory. Our responsibility is to ensure we are walking rightly, holding God’s standard as our only benchmark – not the ideas of men.

Though a long-term plan be cut short, do not dismay if you are in the way of righteousness. For right is the continuum of God’s plan – the thread stringing this moment of apparent disappointment to the revelation of the good about to burst on the scene. Though it feels your spiritual investment produced no valuable returns, hang on. If not the passing of years, then Heaven itself will reveal the solidity of the investment. Nothing done on the path of righteousness shall ever be lost.

The power of this promise is stated beautifully in Isaiah 9:7 (NASB), “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace; on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.” When Jesus finally steps to the throne and God rules this universe unhindered by the devil He will have destroyed, His peace and government will increase eternally. Things will finally be as they ought to have been all along. With Satan and sin conquered, the peace will multiply boundlessly. Our enjoyment of God, His new creation, and His righteous rule will go on forever and ever. We shall love and explore always, with no hindrance of wrong.

My appeal to every reader is that you run into the arms of Him who shed His blood to make you new and right (I John 1:9 and I Corinthians 5:17). Put off no longer the endless promise of a right life, brought to us by the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Live for what never ends.

Waiting to Catch Up

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(A letter to the Apostle Paul, reflecting on Romans 8:22-25)

Thank you, Paul, for acknowledging that the best of us groan.

Ours is not a shallow whining or complaining; but a deep, aching sorrow for the brokenness we face.

You have gently reminded us that the entire earth cries out for redemption – to
be bought back – to be restored – to be held in the hands of Jesus once and for all.

I remember, Paul, when you said we are pressed but not crushed.

In this jar of clay I call my body lives God Almighty.

When that pressing of life seems to be too strong for the walls I have sought to build around me, may I remember that the burden will not break me; for who can crush the infinite?

It is impossible that the pressure be too great for Jesus.

You said, Paul, we would be perplexed but never in despair.

I am perplexed. I am confused by many things.

By unanswered prayers – the ones that seem so right.

By the aching hearts of children in their innocence neglected.

By the aching heart of adults in their willfulness alienated.

By injustice – seeing some have and some have not.

By loneliness never wished for, never intended.

By broken bodies.

Bay daily battles with disease.

By the last and greatest enemy of the living – death.

By all these things, my dear friend, Paul, I am perplexed.

But I am not in despair.

There is one thing of which I am sure . . . God makes sense of confusion.

Confusion is . . . seeing the Son of God lie in the feeding trough of animals.

Confusion is . . . seeing the Light of the universe being rejected by the darkness of men.

Confusion is . . . seeing the Lord of all creation crushed on a cross.

Confusion is . . . seeing a rock roll over the tomb of the Author of life.

Does God make sense of confusion?

Did the Son of God, Light of the universe, Lord of all, and Author of life stay in the trough, in the darkness, on the cross, or in the tomb?

No! God took the confusion, balled it up in His hands, breathed mercy upon it, and threw it back to us as droplets of hope.

And wherever the droplets of hope find a home, God comes to live.

Does God make sense of confusion?

Will unanswered prayers be left misunderstood?

Will aching hearts always writhe in pain?

Will lonely people never share laughter?

Will broken bodies never be fixed?

Will death always be the final pain we face?

No. No. No. A thousand times over . . . no.

Paul, you said we groan. You said we cry inside waiting for redemption.

As sure as the sun rises, that day will come.

As your friend, Peter, said, this is our “living hope.”

Dipped inside my spirit is a droplet of hope from God’s own hand.

This hope tells me it will all make sense someday.

This hope tells me we will be reunited in the end.

This hope tells me that as Jesus really came out of the tomb, we really will, too.

This old, broken body so ready to sin will one day fly heavenward.

I groan now. That is the reality of a broken person and a broken world.

But I will not groan forever.

God has redeemed my spirit, Paul. My emotions and my body are just waiting to catch up.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” – Romans 8:22-25 (NIV)

Quite the Opposite of a Cop-Out

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I believe the first rule of genuine Christian leadership is a precept some may label a cop-out. God does not classify it this way; God describes this principle as truth. Here is the rule: Your reward is secure with God and will not be fully realized this side of eternity. Corollary to the rule: You will at times feel exhausted and discouraged, but these are only feelings; the truth remains unassailable.

Isaiah 49:4 proclaims, “But I said, ‘I have toiled in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely the justice due to Me is with the LORD, and My reward with My God.’” Interestingly, the prophet Isaiah has done here something for which he is known well. He is speaking generally to the people of his time, but He is also speaking specifically of the Messiah. As it is true of Jesus, so it is true of His servants. We grow weary from all the fury Hell can bring and we grow disheartened from all the loneliness of leadership and its unique responsibility. And yet again, as it is with Jesus, so it is with us. The Father promises to do right in the end. The sovereign Lord is working His plan, and He will bring the reward swiftly and surely.

Do you ever have days where the phrases “toiled in vain” and “spent My strength for nothing” seem all too familiar? If we are only focusing on what we can see with our eyeballs right now, we will no doubt feel empty at times. However, if we focus on a reward currently invisible but nonetheless tangible, we will grasp the sense of the phrase, “surely the justice due to Me is with the Lord, and My reward with My God.”

I am not sure why it is that at times even Christians give into the perception of “pie in the sky stuff” when it comes to belief in a reward in another world. I think part of the reason is a culture foolishly enamored with a definition of success realized by numbers, profit, and popularity. Standing in stark contrast to the belief of many, a reason that God says He is not ashamed of us is that we “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). Imagine – God is proud of us for desiring the reality of Heaven! This verse does not proclaim God’s pride in us for what we achieve or desire here and now, but He is proud when we desire our heavenly home and all its reward and glory.

Though all human accolade be withheld, we shall yet stand before God and be delighted by the faces of those who have been greatly or even remotely affected by our service to Jesus Christ. They heard one word we spoke, they watched one godly reaction of ours, they felt our Savior’s love through our hug, they observed a life of passion for eternal things, they benefitted from our offering to the work of God, they heard of Jesus from the friend of a friend of a friend of someone with whom we shared the gospel, or they lived out their life in close proximity to ours as we served the living God.

Though we be misunderstood, unappreciated, maligned, forgotten, or persecuted; our reward is with our God. Peter says of that inheritance, “[it is] reserved in heaven for you” (I Peter 1:4). No small matter is it that the reward is also imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away.

Discouragement cannot tarnish our reward, economic downturn cannot diminish our reward, human evil cannot debase our reward, and time cannot corrode our reward.

No human may ever fully understand what we have done, are doing, or will do. But, God knows. Our labor for Him is not in vain.

Do you want to be a leader? First and foremost, know where your reward is. The chances of survival in leadership are nil if you are counting on anything other than the living God for your strength and satisfaction.