For all the Shamen (revisited)
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For All the Shamen
As much as we wish it were,
this brief human life
is not about cultivating personal power:
as if we hold in the hand of our mind
the jaw of a jaguar bone;
or chanting an ice-wind song
with a blood-stained walrus tusk;
or trusting the runes of toner ink
scribbled in our investment book ;
or that sort of theologian, who loves to feel
his doctrine ever tightening
like a braided hanging rope;
or the preacher who loves to gloat
over the growing numbers in “his” church—
—All these powers draw the same low awe
from the masses, the simpler ones, scrabbling
desperately around for something, someone
to worship, somewhere to bow down.
As promised, that path leads straight down
dark stairs into the Hell of Self, fast away
from the fragrant meadows of merciful
Christlike Love.
These fleeting days are given us
like a handful of flowers, a fragile breath
for finding depths of sacrificial love
in our own hearts: for all the hurting
needy ones—they keep holding up a broken mirror
to us, like a wounded river, always flowing
before our face.
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“Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire
which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat,
I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in;
naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison
and you did not visit Me—
—-Truly, I say to you, to the extent that you did not
do it to the least one of these, you did not do it
to Me. These will go away into eternal punishment,
but the righteous will go into eternal Life”. Jesus, Matthew 25
–Quilla
October 2.13. . . . .Let perfect Love have His ways with you….
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“Let every creature have your love. Love, with its sweet fruits of meekness, patience, and humility, is all that we can wish for ourselves, and for our fellow-creatures. For this is to live in God, united to Him, both for time and eternity.
To desire to communicate only good to every creature, in the degree we can, and it is capable of receiving from us, is a divine temper, for thus God stands unchangeably disposed towards the whole creation.”
–William Law (1686-1761)
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth”
–1 John 3: 18
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July 10.13
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Your Choice…
The unwelcome fires burning in you
are secretly fed, with fuel
—your old dry broken sticks of thought,
innermost imaginings, cravings crackle
into words, actions
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Your highest, holy will decides:
choose not to feed the fuel of thorns,
the raging fires die down.
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So also, with the Godly fires:
feed them your favorite bouquets of dried flowers,
cherished folded letters, lost prayers,
forgotten words of praise, toss them all—
they burn warm colors of mercy flames,
the strong forgiving light of Love.
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–Quilla
The Transforming Power of Agape Love
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Talk for Sunday, 3.4.12 at Blue Ridge Vineyard Church, Asheville NC
“The Transforming Power of Christ’s Agape love/Enemies of Agape”
Prayer: Invite the Person of the Holy Spirit: His wind to blow the truth; His fire to burn our religious chaff. Scriptures: John 1: 1-5; Romans 12: 1-2, et al.
First, I want you to know I appreciate the opportunity and the responsibility to speak with you this morning. I am trusting the Holy Spirit to speak to each one of us with this. I have written these things down, which the Spirit has given to me. Although my heart is full of this message, I don’t have it memorized, so with your patience, I will be consulting my notes.
Pastor Tom often makes the following rather radical statement “the Church in America needs a new face!” Let me ask you: how many of you agree with that? I suppose that one of the reasons that many of us attend this particular fellowship is because we’ve seen enough ‘church as usual’, and want to be part of something more. Much more. That something more is ‘Love in Action’, which is, of course, our church motto, our mission statement. And that love is not mere human love, or good works, or the religious ‘love’ of duty or tradition, or ‘love’ driven by performance, for the sake of appearance. No. The Love in Action we are after is Agape love, the powerful and genuine, love of the living God that you and I receive by faith, and give away to those around us, without judgment, and without a hook. “For in Christ Jesus, the only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love.” —Galations 5:6.
I think what Pastor Tom is referring to is that the American church, across all denominations, has maintained a fairly aloof, separatist and self-righteous posture, with regard to the hurting world around us. We have been self contained, ‘satisfied’ with our own religiosity and churchiness, but extending little love to those who need it most. This posture is most unlike the character and heart of our LORD Jesus.
This morning I’d like us to take a closer look at what it means for the church ‘to have a new face’. What does that ‘new face’ look like? That face, of course, which we want to reflect to the world is the face of our Lord Jesus. As we just read in the scripture, the face of Christ is a face of ‘Life, and that Life is the Light of men’. And the darkness has not overcome that Light! Hopefully, in looking at that beautiful face, we’ll also get a better idea of what the face of Christ does NOT reflect.
So let’s zoom in a bit, and look at some of the specifics of AGAPE LOVE—which is the heart of God toward us! Some of us, perhaps many of us already know what that Greek word means: the unconditional love of God for us. But I submit to you that not one of us, nor all of us put together, knows the depths of that love, the perfect love of God. The good news is that we can GROW in our knowledge and experience of the transforming power of Agape love. Perhaps the primary way we grow in our faith is by reading and meditating on the Word of God. (I suspect that his may well be the greatest need in the Body of Christ today, to give more time to fellowshiping with the Father in his holy Word, waiting on His voice to speak to us. This alone would change the face that each and all of us reflect to the world).
The Spirit tells us in the twelfth chapter of Romans not to let the world shape us into its image, but rather to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. That is the chief purpose of Scripture, to encourage our hearts, and to transform and renew our minds. I suspect that is why we neglect the Word—intuitively, we know that it will change our minds, destroy our idols, and expose our rank selfishness.
Please turn with me to the the 3rd chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and let’s read a portion of his prayer for those believers. I’ll be reading from vs. 14 through 21. Friends, THAT is the face of Christ—the love we are to know, and believe in, and give away freely to those around us. NOT judgment, strong moral opinions, hypocrisy, hatefulness, criticisms, fault-finding, an aloof exclusivity, and name-calling. Perhaps like me you are both angered and ashamed, when you see and hear some of the things done in the name of Christ in our nation. Tragically, the gospel of our LORD is often reduced to a small political message, a highly selective moral agenda of rights and wrongs. As if our hope and our deliverance depended on political parties, or the princes of men. God clearly tells us NOT to place our hope or our trust there, for they will fail us. And how they do fail us, again and again. In contrast, We serve a mighty KING, the risen Christ, the Redeemer, Savior of the World, our risen LORD, the Redeemer of mankind! He gave His life, that through Him, ALL might have Life!
As we pursue the heart of God, and grow in our knowledge and experience of His love, He reveals some pretty amazing things to us. The life-changing declarations I am about to read to you may be hard for some of us to believe. Indeed, I doubt if there is one among us who has grasped the full significance of these declarations. You might call these statements 100% PURE AGAPE. These come from a counseling ministry Diana and I were involved with a few years ago, where we were given this book, The Search for Significance by Robert McGee. It is one of the 3 most helpful books I have ever read. I’ve condensed portions of that wonderful book, which I’ll be reading to you. But before I read each faith statement, which clearly expresses God’s heart toward you, I am going to read a counterpart of that truth, which is the combined voice of the three-headed enemy of our souls—the world system, our own fallen flesh, and the devil :
1. Satan’s lie: Your worth is determined by your Performance, PLUS what others think and say about you. Our world lives and breathes this lie. Our flesh listens, and believes it to be true—-BUT to the exclusion of the true gospel of Christ.
God’s truth: Your true worth is determined by what God says about you in his Word. This is foundational to everything else. We either believe God, or we don’t.
2. Satan’s Lie: Those who fail, are unworthy of love, and deserve to be criticized, blamed and judged. You don’t think like I do, vote like I do, look like I do, therefore I can’t love you, you can’t be my friend. And as for your mistakes—I can not and will not forgive you for your mistakes and failures.
God’s Truth: You are deeply loved by God, just as you are, not as you should be. “In this is Love, NOT that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sin.” & “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”.
3. Satan’s Lie: I must meet certain standards before I can feel good about myself. (and of course if this is my belief about myself, it will reflect how I feel about you. I will not and indeed can not give you a love and mercy I myself have not believed and received.) I suspect that this very lie is the source of a lot of the ugliness often projected to the world by the church. Judgment, hypocrisy and unforgiveness are the natural fruit of those who do not know, understand or receive the love and mercy of God.
God’s Truth: I am completely forgiven, fully pleasing, even beautiful to my LORD.
”God made Him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” 2 Cor. 5:21. We decide, and live in this, or, we choose not to.
4. Satan’s Lie: I must attain certain standards of goodness and holiness, BEFORE God can accept me. There is still so much sin in my life, God couldn’t possibly love me as much as…. Maybe, when I get control of this or that sin, then God will accept me more…
God’s truth: I am totally accepted by God, I am His son or daughter, by faith.
“And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. Col. 1: 21-22.
5. Satan’s Lie: Life is what it is. I am what I am. I’ve tried, and I can’t change. I’m hopeless. I’m stuck here. This is my lot. And besides, this is the way my family has always been. Besides, no one really cares, anyway. It’s every man for himself, when you get down to it. Everyone’s on his own. A leopard can’t change his spots, and neither can a man.
God’s truth: I am absolutely complete in the love of Christ Jesus. “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, He is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Cor. 5: 17. I choose: either to walk in newness of Life, or not.
Let me ask you, How many of you have seen the movie The Help? (Illustration of the black nanny raising the small white child, telling her every morning: “You is smart, you is kind, you is important!) It’s vitally important what we are told, what we choose to believe about ourselves. But this is about far more than self-esteem. It has to do with our very identity–who we really ARE! –who we are created to be! In his love, I am wise, I am kind, I am important!
Because of Christ’s redemption for you on the Cross, you are a new creation of infinite worth! As Pastor Tom often tells us: We become what we behold, what we choose to believe about ourselves. This is crucial, far more important than our behavior, our visible morality, is our identity. –What we truly believe about ourselves, about others, about the nature of God. “The righteous shall live by faith”. What I believe about myself, that is who I am.
More than anything, I want you to get this:
“When your life reflects your true identity in Christ, that reflection is dynamically unique. There has never been another person like you in the entire history of mankind, nor will there ever be! God has made you an original, one of a kind, very special person. God’s word also tells us that He has a very specific plan for you, a beautiful destiny unfolding in His love for you in Christ Jesus.” –from The Search for Significance.
So what is our response to this? Our part is to acknowledge and confess false beliefs, doubts, fears, rebellion and disobedience to God. Literally place these things at His feet, on His altar. Give to God your shadows—all that ugly stuff in your life, past and present, that you don’t want anyone to know about, and give it to God. And ask God to replace the lies, with His truth about you.
(‘Left foot, right foot’ illustration:)
One of the most concise and potent teachings Jesus ever gave can be found in Mark 1: 15. “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe the gospel”. These few words describe a healthy walk with the Lord Jesus: Repent, and believe.” In this present age of grace, the church has often gotten that out of balance. We don’t often hear much about Repentance. Perhaps because repentance got so overemphasized in earlier times, that perhaps we’ve swung too far in the other direction, so that nowdays we don’t emphasize the importance of confessing our sins (“Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” –James 5:16).
Confession of sin is not just for Catholics. It’s not something we do on schedule, in a special service, three or four times a year. Repentance is the healthy, daily cleansing of our hearts, minds and souls, not unlike the way we regularly wash our physical bodies. According to God, our spiritual bodies are far more important.
So I encourage you, step into the shadows, the dark side of your life, your brokenness and failures, be open and honest with God. This is the ‘left foot’. ‘God show me my sin. Search me, and know my heart.. See if there be any harmful way within me’. ‘If we are faithful to confess our sin… Please read 1 John 1, verse 7-10.
And with the ‘right foot’, step into the Light of God’s love, mercy and forgiveness: . . . He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to forgive us from all unrighteousness.” etc.
If we only walk with our left foot (wallow in our sin, and remorse); OR, if we walk only in praise, halleluliahs, and faithful church attendance and Bible study (when in truth, God wants to speak intimately with us about a few matters) either way, we walk in a circle, and go nowhere. But the ‘left foot, right foot’ walk is a healthy walk that goes in a relatively straight line, as we follow scripture, that draws us closer to the LORD Jesus. Repent, and believe!
Three Trees/The Fountain
For Everyone
A giant oak stands in the meadow, glowing
low October light, throwing shadows
dark with long wisdom.
Many thousands of summer leaves
are burning quickly down to gold, to rust.
Soon every one of them will fade and blow.
Each year we hear their song we softly weep.
My daughter has called, we talk at length—
her struggles with friends, trying to find
the love she wants, she needs
to get and to give.
We were made for this.
Beneath the branches of the autumn oak,
below the bitter winds that come, and go,
under the frosted grass
down where the deep roots drink
the earth is warm, its water sweet.
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As it sets, the sun shines perfectly round
and gold. Pure light falls on a silhouette
grotesque: a strong and twisted tree:
bare knotted limbs have filled themselves
with angry snarling crows.
Each of us knows their bitter words, by heart.
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There also stands unseen
like a true promise—a Tree of Life:
never sheds its leaves, but sings
an emerald river song, an ancient fountain
flowing over tumbled silver stones.
The Tree’s fruit is perfect forgiving love.
We may eat freely of it, if we dare.
It is more real than anything
we have ever felt, or seen, or known.
We eat and swallow, our old self dies
and falls away, like autumn leaves.
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–Quilla
10.7.11
Ruach 333, by Quilla 