Ekklesia’s Voice

“Father, I will go to the northern plains and set your people free,” the prince repeated day after day. The plan set, months passed as Prince Reynaldo waited for his father’s command that the time had been fulfilled. As he waited, he dreamed of the people deceived and trapped by Pecado, and each day his love for the maiden grew. His love grew so great that he knew his heart would soon break for her. He would give up all to have her at his side.

The day of departure arrived, met with both cheers and tears.  Reynaldo set aside his robes and crown, his glory and majesty, and donned the simple clothes of a peasant farmer. He kissed his father’s cheek and both men cried.  Every servant in the palace bowed in silent honor of their goodly prince. He left the bright lights of his father’s city for the darkness of the outer realm of the northern plains.

Reynaldo returned to the small Gathering Place he’d visited months before. This time, however, he was welcomed joyfully and with fanfare in their midst. When the meeting started, the young woman Prince Reynaldo had fallen in love with stood and began singing. Ekklesia’s voice was strong like the wind and sweet like honey. She reminded Reynaldo of the royal choirs back in his father’s house. He listened and watched the woman’s every expression, peering deeply into her soul. Her true-heart and joy made him cry. The Prince raised his voice with the congregation in praise of the Great God of their Fathers. 

The singing ended and the new parish priest took to the pulpit. Father Ricardo opened the ancient Book of the Fathers and began speaking of the Redeemer of the people. “My friends,” he said, “you don’t need to go searching for the saviour, begging him, or working to impress him. He is near you. Our redeemer has loved us with an everlasting love. But you are so blind that you wouldn’t recognize him if he were sitting among us tonight. Our spiritual blindness requires that he come to us for we neither seek him nor reach out to him.” Pointing to the back of the room, where Reynaldo sat, the priest continued, “In fact, the son of the king, Prince de la Cruz is in our midst right now to set us free if we will accept him.”

* PART 2 of 5 *

The Prince

Prince Reynaldo de la Cruz listened to the reports of life outside the kingdom. The news filled his heart with great sorrow.  The northern plains had been under the reign of King de la Cruz until the people rebelled against the good King’s rule. They were certain they knew better how to live.  King de la Cruz graciously allowed them to go their own way, but ordained that one day they would return to his reign.

Since then, the northern plains had fallen under the rule of an angry tyrant named Pecado, whose only goal was to steal, kill, and destroy. Pecado enslaved the people while promising freedom to live as they chose. He deceived the young men with drugs so they believed they were becoming wise, but instead had become fools.  He bound the villagers in relationships that mocked the God of their fathers. Sickness filled their ranks and death was their common destiny.  The land fell barren and poverty marched through the doors of every home.  Pecado ruled with cruelty, yet the people lived unaware of all these things, convinced their lives were the way of all men. 

One afternoon the prince discreetly packed a horse and made his way to the northern plains.  He entered the small Gathering Place in the center of the village and made his way to the back row unnoticed by the small group. He looked no different than the farmers already assembled. The prince sat down, bowed his head, but carefully watched the villagers around him. Some sat, some stood, most whispered, all were aware of the excessive late Spring heat.

One of the whisperers, a tall man, walked to the front of the room. He spoke slowly and deliberately, uncertain of his words. “Welcome tonight as we consider the times in which we live.” He paused briefly as a maiden hurriedly crossed the room behind him. The prince was immediately taken by the young woman’s beauty, shifting ever so slightly in his seat to keep a better view of her.

The man at the front continued, raising his head and hands into the air. “When, O when?” he whispered and shook his head. The prince remained at the back of the room, the gatherers totally ignorant of his presence.

He left the small Gathering that evening with a plan fully set in his mind. “I will return to claim the young maiden as my princess and wife. She shall be free.”  

* PART 1 of 5 *

First

If Christ is not first with you, Christ is nothing to you.

C. H. Spurgeon

A Scary Bible Verse

Reblogged from Travels from Ur:

Train a child in the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

Why is this verse scary? It suggests that the influence that parents have on their children has long lasting consequences. If we train them in ambition and covetousness from an early age they will, in all likelihood, learn that lesson well.

Read more… 249 more words

Any Winged Horses Out There?

Any Winged Horses Out There?

The note in A Year with C.S. Lewis for May 11 indicates that Lewis met J.R.R. Tolkien this day in 1926. It’s apropos then to reflect on a selection from Mere Christianity about the Christ’s salvific work to make us new creatures, not simply nicer people.

As is widely known, Tolkien helped Lewis find his faith in Jesus almost six years after their first introduction, on a sleepless night of heightened conversation with their mutual friend, Hugo Dyson. After that night, Lewis wrote, “Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened…” (Read more about that night)

The excerpt from Mere Christianity isn’t easy. Lewis echos Paul, with words about Jesus making us a new creation. Why? Wouldn’t it be simpler, especially since humanity is already fashioned in God’s image, to make us better, nicer, friendlier folk… and be done with it? We have to refer back to Paul’s statement about a new creation in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” In that same chapter, Paul says that we groan and long for something more than this life, and that longing is only filled by Jesus. This idea is woven throughout Paul’s letters and is supported by an often noted verse from Romans: “For all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory” (3:23).

Lewis is stating this same truth. The trap is within us, and the way out is not by accessorizing with faith in Jesus to “better ourselves” (thus producing nicer, more pleasant people), but by abandoning ourselves altogether and running headlong into the person of Jesus and his transforming work.

The picture that Lewis provides of a winged horse is a good one. We are being fashioned into creatures who want for different bread and wine – the body and blood of Jesus. And, as we are shaped into such a people, the “things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace,” as the 1922 British hymn reads. But this path is not easy. We can’t hide under a bushel or sneak into Nicodemus-like darkness as it’s happening. Instead, as Noah encountered when God told him to build a gargantuan boat in the middle of dry land, we must trust in him to complete the work he began in us as he prepares for the coming day, new creations in a new heaven and earth.

Taken from: http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/2013/05/any-winged-horses-out-there.html

A Rock

Augustus Toplady is a name unfamiliar to most Christians.

Topland was an English pastor who lived from 1740 to 1778.  According to tradition, in the year of the American Revolutionary War, 1776, Toplady was in a field as a freak storm appeared in the English countryside. Too far from the nearby village, he quickly assessed the area for shelter.  In the near distance he spied a large rock and thought that if he could reach the rock and crouch next to it, he’d find some degree of protection from the wind, rain, and thunderbolts.

When Toplady reached the great rock, he found that it had been split in two with a giant crack.  The crack was large enough for him to crawl into, and there found a strong and perfect shelter from the storm.  Hiding in the midst of the rock, he pondered the judgment of God upon mankind.  He also thought of the Bible description of Jesus as the rock of salvation to all those who believe.  Jesus, broken by God upon the Cross, is a strong and perfect shelter from God’s just wrath.

Finding a scrap of paper at his feet, he began writing the words for which he is remembered today:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.                                             Let the water and the blood, from Thy wounded side which flowed,                      Be of sin the double cure, save from wrath and make me pure.

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill Thy law’s demands;                                 Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow,                                   All for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling;                                  Naked, come to Thee for dress, helpless, look to Thee for grace;                        Foul, I to the fountain fly, wash me, Saviour, or I die!

While I draw this fleeting breath, when my eyes shall close in death,               When I rise to worlds unknown, and behold Thee on Thy throne,                     Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.

An Offense

There will always be people in your life ready and willing to criticize you.  They will misunderstand your actions and misrepresent your motives.  They will  undercut and malign you to either bring you down to their level or to make themselves look better.  They will misconstrue your words.  Their own hearts are so burdened with sin that all they can see or hear or think about you is what they know of their own hearts.

Many times you don’t owe anyone an explanation for what you do or why you do it.  You don’t need to defend your thoughts or apologize for your feelings to an Inquisition of men.  This is especially true in the area of obedience to God.

A few days ago I was having lunch with a friend and we were talking on this very subject.  A mutual friend had been verbally attacked for a personal choice he made that affected no one negatively but himself: he gave money to a missionary.

After lunch on this typical Oregon spring day, it was cloudy, cold, and a light wind blew.  As my friend and I stepped out of the restaurant, I took off my shirt.  We walked to our cars in front of other people, me without a shirt.  I said to my friend, “Who cares what they think? I don’t owe any of them a reason.”

Sometimes we are more worried about offending people than we are of offending God.  It shouldn’t be so.

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell  (Matthew 10:28).

He Knows

Wittingly or not, Leah was part of her father’s devious scheme against Jacob. One morning she’s the ugly older sister, the next she wakes up in bed next to Jacob as his wife.  We don’t know how Leah felt about this arrangement, but Jacob didn’t like it.  He’d worked 7 years to earn the right to marry the younger sister Rachel whom he loved, and set off immediately for another 7 years of labor to win Rachel’s hand (Genesis 29).

When the Lord saw that Leah was hated …     God wasn’t immune to Leah’s pain.  He saw it in the way Jacob treated her.  He heard it in her lonely tears each night.  And God responded.  … God opened her womb (Genesis 29:31).

My friend, in the same way, Jesus, this High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings we do (Hebrews 4:15).  He knows your pain and struggles, sees your needs and hears your cries, and He will answer.

Family Photo

What would you think if I suggested all families be alike?  One very handsome, hardworking, and intelligent father.  A mother who cooks, cleans, sews, and is full of compassion and love.  The family must be strong, robust, two children, each three years apart in age, healthy and well-behaved.  Each family must also have plenty of money, live in a big house with a white picket fence, and have a well-trained dog named Spot.  Perfect family.

Yet no two families are alike … and that’s NORMAL.  Some families have young children, others are composed of elderly folk.  I know a family with 13 children, I know another family with no children.  Years ago I knew a couple in their nineties who lived in a 4 bedroom house; I have a widowed neighbor with 5 children, all six of them live in a 2 bedroom 1 bath house.  As a youngster, I lived with a single parent; yet my mother grew up in a 2-parent family.

Too often we assume that every church must be the same as another church.  But just as every family has its own traditions, its own habits, and its own look, so it is with every church.  Could there be a church of just elderly people?  Of course!  Could there be a church that is multi-ethnic?  Sure!  Could there be a church that sings traditional hymns!  Certainly.  Do churches change over time?  Do you change over time?  Absolutely!

In the same way that every body is different, and every family is different, so every church is different.  Each with it’s own identity, calling, and purpose.  Instead of trying to co-opt the identity or ministry of so-and-such church across town or the nation, we should prayerfully seek to know God’s plan for our own congregation, set ourselves to be faithful to God and His Word, and then devote ourselves to being true to His individual design.  A relevant church is the one faithful to God’s purpose and Word.

The body is not one member but many …. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually (First Corinthians 1:14, 27).

Being Rich

Some rich people are poor,                                                                                and some poor people have great wealth!                                          (Proverbs 13:7, TLB)