One of the things that Marie and I enjoy is looking at cars and dreaming about what it would be like to tool down the motorway in a variety of luxury SUVs or sports models. Marie is captivated by the Porsche Cayenne, and fantasizes about the thrill of driving one. I particularly like BMW’s, and am intrigued by their motto: “The relentless pursuit of perfection.” The motto points to the elusive but conceivable goal of their company – to produce cars that touch perfection. What a wonder it would be to drive the ideal road machine, the perfect car! Now if there is a reality in the realm of automobiles that can be termed “perfection,” that means there is a standard, a norm that draws our thoughts and serves as a reference point for our dreams. That standard would be the objective reality against which every car would be measured.
You see, we tend to look at life this way. There is something inherent in us that longs for perfection, and we are exhilarated when our experience touches something that approaches it. When people or situations fall short of perfection, we are invariably disappointed even though we may have a cynical response that is resigned to accepting less than the ideal. The fascinating thing is that the teachings of Jesus in the Bible encourage this pursuit of perfection. As a matter of fact, Jesus indicates very clearly that perfection is there for us who will seek after it. He calls it “righteousness.”
The difficulty that we encounter when we think of perfection is that it makes us feel like we have to live up to something that is foreign to us. We think of ourselves as fundamentally flawed, and we have no hope that we could ever live up to a standard called “righteousness.” But God created us for glory, not for frustration. The human race was broken by sin, but Jesus made the way clear for everything that was in God’s heart to be restored to us. We long for perfection because it is our birthright, to be fully realized when we see Him face to face. But this perfection is not something merely to be attempted in an external, behavioral way. Our hearts were made to be captured by the perfection of Jesus, to fall in love with Him, and to be transformed in such a way that the actions of our lives would become like Him as well.
Essentially the term “righteousness” means to live in a way that is consistent with God’s perfect pattern for your life. This perfect pattern is the man Jesus. You were created to be like Him. To be righteous is to have our inner person – our hearts, our thoughts, our attitudes – aligned with the pattern of Jesus, with His thoughts and attitudes. From that internal alignment we can begin to live externally in line with the behavior of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Righteousness means to be in perfect alignment with how God sees all things to be in the reality of His life, and He promises that those who seek after it with intensity will be fully satisfied. This line of thought may cause one to ask “How do I discover what God thinks and how He sees all things?” The answer to that question is that in a spirit of worship and prayer we begin to search the Scriptures and study the person of Jesus who perfectly reveals God’s character.
The Bible is full of thoughts and actions that are attributed to righteousness, and to the lifestyle of righteous people. Consider for example this list of character traits that are attributed to righteousness in the Book of Proverbs:
• The Outlook on Life
o They are hopeful (Proverbs 10:24)
o They are concerned about the welfare of God’s creation (Proverbs 12:10)
o They understand justice (Proverbs 28:5)
• The Response to Life
o They are covered with blessings (Proverbs 10:6)
o They give thought to their ways (Proverbs 21:29)
o They persevere against evil (Proverbs 24:15-16)
• How the Righteous are seen by Others
o They are appreciated (Proverbs 13:15)
o Their conduct is upright (Proverbs 21:8)
o They do not desire the company of godless people (Proverbs 24:1-2)
o Others are glad when they triumph (Proverbs 28:12)
o They care for the poor (Proverbs 29:7)
o They detest the dishonest (Proverbs 29:27)
• The Quality of Life
o They stand firm (Proverbs 10:25)
o They are delivered by righteousness (Proverbs 11:6)
o No real harm befalls them (Proverbs 12:21)
o Their income results in treasure (Proverbs 15:6)
o They avoid evil (Proverbs 16:17)
o They are bold as lions (Proverbs 28:1)
o They will be safe (Proverbs 28:18)
• Short-term Results of Righteousness
o They walk securely (Proverbs 10:9)
o They are rewarded with prosperity (Proverbs 13:21)
• Long-term Results of Righteousness
o God protects them (Proverbs 10:29)
o They are never uprooted (Proverbs 10:30)
• Eternal Expectations
o They will earn a sure reward (Proverbs 11:18)
o They will attain life (Proverbs 11:19)
o Their life will end only in good (Proverbs 11:23)
o They will stand firm (Proverbs 12:7)
o They will have a refuge when they die (Proverbs 14:32)
• God’s Opinion of the Righteous
o He delights in their good (Proverbs 11:20)
o He will cause evil people to bow to them (Proverbs 14:19)
This is an amazing list of character traits and promises, isn’t it? Those who pursue righteousness with all their hearts will indeed be a powerful group of people! We would encourage you to meditate on these things, asking the Holy Spirit to help you understand what it means to live in righteousness in such a way that these statements become true of your life.
Gary Wiens
Monday, August 5, 2019
Saturday, July 27, 2019
How Meekness Is Formed In Us
The process of forming meekness in any of us usually involves a series of stages, with some of them almost inevitably traumatic. I have long been convinced that only God knows the true identity and destiny of any given individual. Only God (or those who speak with an understanding of His opinion) can communicate to a person with the necessary authority to establish them in settled truth concerning who they are. If it were our natural inclination to listen to Him and receive His opinions as real and true, the journey to meekness and power would be less troublesome.
However, for most of us the process of discovery is shot through with trouble. We have this inclination to try to make something of ourselves, to prove something to God and everyone else. We want to be great apart from relationship with Him, and the simple fact is that it does not work. The only way to lasting greatness is the way of Jesus, and sooner or later we must choose that way.
Someone might consider the options and decide that ruling their own life apart from God is still preferable to submitting to Him. A famous man once stated “I would rather rule in hell than serve in Heaven.” It is a stunning admission of the self-centered rebellion that characterizes the fallen human soul, but frankly that sentiment is not uncommon. The tragic deception is this: no one will be ruling in hell, not even Satan. The Biblical presentation is that hell is a lake of fire where there is nothing but eternal and excruciating torment for those who choose to go there. Make no mistake: Satan and all those who choose his way will be in a literal place of eternal torment by their own choice. There is no life and no authority apart from God, only agony.
So, as I said, sooner or later we must choose God’s way. Most of us choose it later rather than sooner. And because God is the patient Father that He is, He allows us the choices that invariably leave Him out, at least at the beginning. So we try to become “Somebody” and often find ourselves hating what we’ve become. Or we succeed for a time, and then cannot figure out why everything crashes down around us. Or perhaps we reach the pinnacle of the mountain we were trying to climb, only to find that satisfaction has eluded us, and we are no more fulfilled than we were at the beginning of the journey.
You see, we can never genuinely serve people until we come into agreement with God’s way of doing things. We must become convinced that God will honor and reward those who are meek, who use their strength to serve and bless rather than to control. Until we believe that the meek will inherit the earth, we will either strive to gain control of our world by the exertion of our own strength, or we will give up and decide that power and authority are beyond our reach.
God’s purpose in these issues of life is that the frustration of our attempts to fulfill our goals should bring us to the place of calling out to Him for help. He knows that we can never reach our power potential without His input, because having designed us and made us, He holds the secrets of our identity and destiny. But He will never impose that knowledge on us. His desire is that we choose Him and seek for Him as a child would seek after their father, or as a lover would seek after their Beloved.
Some people, in the foolishness and stupidity of their own pride, keep banging their heads against the wall of self-discovery, thinking that they can keep doing the same old routine and maybe this time there will be a different result. It’s really insanity in action! Those folks will never know who they are, where they came from, where they’re going, and the authority that is theirs for the asking. They are stuck in their foolishness, and as long as they persist in it nothing will change. Others give up in hopelessness, tired of striving but too disappointed to trust God anymore. They roll over and die inside, convinced that God is powerless, or worse – cruel and uncaring. They say this: “He will use me, but He won’t answer my prayers.”
Still others, however, whom the Scriptures call wise, learn to call upon the Lord in their times of distress. Consider this representative list of steps that characterize those that are coming to the place of meekness:
• Having seen that apart from God they do not have what it takes to attain the greatness for which they were made, they begin to acknowledge their poverty.
• Having faced the rebellion in their own hearts toward God and His Son Jesus, they begin to grieve and mourn over their own sin and the pain it has caused Him.
• They begin to pray, to ask God’s forgiveness for their self-centered rebellion.
• They begin to search the Bible for clues about their existence.
• They begin to hang out with people who are discovering that identity and destiny are rooted in what God says about you, and that apart from that reality there can be no fulfillment in life.
• They begin to spend large amounts of time just thinking about the person of Jesus, reading about His life in the Bible, and asking the Holy Spirit to help them become like Him.
• They learn to worship God and thank Him for the way He has led them to Himself, and for the blessings that He has in store for them as they follow His ways.
• They begin to serve one another as Jesus served the people around Him.
The wondrous thing is that as we give ourselves to activities like these, God begins to reveal the truth concerning who we are and what we are about. Our sense of destiny begins to emerge, along with the authority we need to come into our full inheritance of power, both here and in the coming age. This change happens super-naturally from God. Little by little, from one level of glory to the next, we begin to look and sound and act like Jesus. The more we become like Him – treating people like He did, serving instead of demanding to be served – the more we step into our own place of authority. The more we taste of this life, the more we hunger and thirst after it. Having become meek, we begin to inherit the earth.
However, for most of us the process of discovery is shot through with trouble. We have this inclination to try to make something of ourselves, to prove something to God and everyone else. We want to be great apart from relationship with Him, and the simple fact is that it does not work. The only way to lasting greatness is the way of Jesus, and sooner or later we must choose that way.
Someone might consider the options and decide that ruling their own life apart from God is still preferable to submitting to Him. A famous man once stated “I would rather rule in hell than serve in Heaven.” It is a stunning admission of the self-centered rebellion that characterizes the fallen human soul, but frankly that sentiment is not uncommon. The tragic deception is this: no one will be ruling in hell, not even Satan. The Biblical presentation is that hell is a lake of fire where there is nothing but eternal and excruciating torment for those who choose to go there. Make no mistake: Satan and all those who choose his way will be in a literal place of eternal torment by their own choice. There is no life and no authority apart from God, only agony.
So, as I said, sooner or later we must choose God’s way. Most of us choose it later rather than sooner. And because God is the patient Father that He is, He allows us the choices that invariably leave Him out, at least at the beginning. So we try to become “Somebody” and often find ourselves hating what we’ve become. Or we succeed for a time, and then cannot figure out why everything crashes down around us. Or perhaps we reach the pinnacle of the mountain we were trying to climb, only to find that satisfaction has eluded us, and we are no more fulfilled than we were at the beginning of the journey.
You see, we can never genuinely serve people until we come into agreement with God’s way of doing things. We must become convinced that God will honor and reward those who are meek, who use their strength to serve and bless rather than to control. Until we believe that the meek will inherit the earth, we will either strive to gain control of our world by the exertion of our own strength, or we will give up and decide that power and authority are beyond our reach.
God’s purpose in these issues of life is that the frustration of our attempts to fulfill our goals should bring us to the place of calling out to Him for help. He knows that we can never reach our power potential without His input, because having designed us and made us, He holds the secrets of our identity and destiny. But He will never impose that knowledge on us. His desire is that we choose Him and seek for Him as a child would seek after their father, or as a lover would seek after their Beloved.
Some people, in the foolishness and stupidity of their own pride, keep banging their heads against the wall of self-discovery, thinking that they can keep doing the same old routine and maybe this time there will be a different result. It’s really insanity in action! Those folks will never know who they are, where they came from, where they’re going, and the authority that is theirs for the asking. They are stuck in their foolishness, and as long as they persist in it nothing will change. Others give up in hopelessness, tired of striving but too disappointed to trust God anymore. They roll over and die inside, convinced that God is powerless, or worse – cruel and uncaring. They say this: “He will use me, but He won’t answer my prayers.”
Still others, however, whom the Scriptures call wise, learn to call upon the Lord in their times of distress. Consider this representative list of steps that characterize those that are coming to the place of meekness:
• Having seen that apart from God they do not have what it takes to attain the greatness for which they were made, they begin to acknowledge their poverty.
• Having faced the rebellion in their own hearts toward God and His Son Jesus, they begin to grieve and mourn over their own sin and the pain it has caused Him.
• They begin to pray, to ask God’s forgiveness for their self-centered rebellion.
• They begin to search the Bible for clues about their existence.
• They begin to hang out with people who are discovering that identity and destiny are rooted in what God says about you, and that apart from that reality there can be no fulfillment in life.
• They begin to spend large amounts of time just thinking about the person of Jesus, reading about His life in the Bible, and asking the Holy Spirit to help them become like Him.
• They learn to worship God and thank Him for the way He has led them to Himself, and for the blessings that He has in store for them as they follow His ways.
• They begin to serve one another as Jesus served the people around Him.
The wondrous thing is that as we give ourselves to activities like these, God begins to reveal the truth concerning who we are and what we are about. Our sense of destiny begins to emerge, along with the authority we need to come into our full inheritance of power, both here and in the coming age. This change happens super-naturally from God. Little by little, from one level of glory to the next, we begin to look and sound and act like Jesus. The more we become like Him – treating people like He did, serving instead of demanding to be served – the more we step into our own place of authority. The more we taste of this life, the more we hunger and thirst after it. Having become meek, we begin to inherit the earth.
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Powerful People Are Meek
How does the idea of meekness fit in your mind with reaching your power potential? For most of us, the word “meekness” conjures up an image that would seem on the other end of the spectrum from the idea of power. So what do we do with the fact that Jesus puts the term “meekness” in the same breath with inheriting the earth!? Surely there are interesting and exciting things for us to discover as we look into this Beatitude.
The twelve men who were the closest followers of Jesus were in for a real shock as they came into the room that had been prepared for them to eat the Passover meal. They had become convinced (with the probable exception of Judas) that Jesus was indeed who He claimed to be – the Son of God in the flesh, the Messiah who would one day receive the authority written about through all the Hebrew Scriptures, and promised to Him by His Father.
As Jesus had done so consistently through His life, He was once again about to demonstrate His authority in a most unusual way. When the disciples entered what has been called “the Upper Room,” they were met at the door by one dressed in the garments of a servant, who began to wash their feet. It was a common courtesy in that day to have one of the servants wash the feet of guests. Though it was a gracious gesture on the host’s part that brought refreshment to the weary and communicated value to those on the receiving end, it was nevertheless a most menial task for the servant to whom it was assigned.
The startling thing about this encounter was that it was Jesus who had clothed Himself in the servant’s garb, and who proceeded to minister to them in that most basic way. The first teaching He gave them that evening wasn’t with eloquent words or profound thought; rather, it was a demonstration of tender love that showed them the power and authority of true leadership. Their comfort zones were shaken and the hidden motives of their hearts exposed as Jesus began His task. You see, there had been a long-standing dispute among the disciples about which of them was the greatest, and which of them would get the privilege of being close to Jesus in the fullness of His coming Kingdom. None of them would have given the least thought to taking the role of foot-washer, and the idea of Jesus doing that task was simply incomprehensible. But there He was, and the shallow pettiness of their argument was being laid bare before them without a word being spoken.
The thing that captures me about this story, recorded for us in the 13th chapter of John’s Gospel, is the utterly unexpected foundation of Jesus’ act of servanthood that is given to us in verses two through five:
And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
Try to get your mind around what we are being told in these few words. Jesus is already aware that one of His closest friends is going to sell Him out to the Jewish officials for the sake of personal gain. He is aware that every one of these men is going to abandon Him within just a few hours, as He is taken to His trial and crucifixion. Each of them, in their own way, is going to deny their love for Jesus and leave Him to die alone and abandoned.
But Jesus had a resource that enabled Him, the greatest and most powerful human being who ever lived, to take the low place of serving those who wanted to be great because He had created them to be great. Here’s how He did it: first, the text says that Jesus knew that “the Father had given all things into His hands.” Because of His intimacy with His Father, Jesus understood that by God’s own promise He had authority over everything, both in that moment and in the coming age of God’s Kingdom that will be established on the earth. Further, we’re told that Jesus knew “that He had come from God, and that He was going to God.” In other words, His sense of identity and His sense of destiny were fully established in His heart and mind. He knew who He was, He knew where He was going, and He knew His place of power. Therefore, He chose to exercise that power in the loving activity of serving His friends, even to the ultimate service of giving His life for their redemption. He would pour His own life out for them in anticipation of the day to come when His power and authority would be established in fact before all people.
It is this posture of serving others from a place of strength that the Bible calls “meekness.” The term literally means “gentleness,” but not in the way most of us think about being gentle. At best we think of meekness and gentleness as a quality of temperament that has more to with one’s natural personality than something that has been developed in one’s character over time. But frankly, we perceive meekness and gentleness to be associated more with weakness than with strength. We envision meekness in a person who is trying to make the best out of a hopeless situation, exercised by one who has no power options and is trying to get along by being nice.
The meekness that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 5:5 and models in John 13:1-5 is not primarily about being nice. It is a character quality that chooses humility because humility is God’s way. Meekness causes someone to do the right thing because it is right, but with a gentle style rooted in true strength. It is strength under discipline, a gentleness built upon the solid foundation of understanding one’s revealed identity and destiny rooted in the sovereign love of God. Meekness is not a trait that many are born with, but rather one that is developed through years of forming and shaping by the Spirit of God. It is not an optional character trait, but one that is essential in coming to possess true power, for Jesus promised that the earth itself will be given as an inheritance to the meek ones.
What we must come to understand in our journey to reach our power potential is that Jesus’ value system is really the way things are going to be established at the end of the day. All other strategies for power will fail, and only His methods will be found to be true. Therefore, to pursue power with wisdom and the certainty of attaining it is to pursue it in the way Jesus promises to give it. Power will be given as an inheritance to those who embrace His character and His methods, and that includes the character trait of meekness.
The twelve men who were the closest followers of Jesus were in for a real shock as they came into the room that had been prepared for them to eat the Passover meal. They had become convinced (with the probable exception of Judas) that Jesus was indeed who He claimed to be – the Son of God in the flesh, the Messiah who would one day receive the authority written about through all the Hebrew Scriptures, and promised to Him by His Father.
As Jesus had done so consistently through His life, He was once again about to demonstrate His authority in a most unusual way. When the disciples entered what has been called “the Upper Room,” they were met at the door by one dressed in the garments of a servant, who began to wash their feet. It was a common courtesy in that day to have one of the servants wash the feet of guests. Though it was a gracious gesture on the host’s part that brought refreshment to the weary and communicated value to those on the receiving end, it was nevertheless a most menial task for the servant to whom it was assigned.
The startling thing about this encounter was that it was Jesus who had clothed Himself in the servant’s garb, and who proceeded to minister to them in that most basic way. The first teaching He gave them that evening wasn’t with eloquent words or profound thought; rather, it was a demonstration of tender love that showed them the power and authority of true leadership. Their comfort zones were shaken and the hidden motives of their hearts exposed as Jesus began His task. You see, there had been a long-standing dispute among the disciples about which of them was the greatest, and which of them would get the privilege of being close to Jesus in the fullness of His coming Kingdom. None of them would have given the least thought to taking the role of foot-washer, and the idea of Jesus doing that task was simply incomprehensible. But there He was, and the shallow pettiness of their argument was being laid bare before them without a word being spoken.
The thing that captures me about this story, recorded for us in the 13th chapter of John’s Gospel, is the utterly unexpected foundation of Jesus’ act of servanthood that is given to us in verses two through five:
And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
Try to get your mind around what we are being told in these few words. Jesus is already aware that one of His closest friends is going to sell Him out to the Jewish officials for the sake of personal gain. He is aware that every one of these men is going to abandon Him within just a few hours, as He is taken to His trial and crucifixion. Each of them, in their own way, is going to deny their love for Jesus and leave Him to die alone and abandoned.
But Jesus had a resource that enabled Him, the greatest and most powerful human being who ever lived, to take the low place of serving those who wanted to be great because He had created them to be great. Here’s how He did it: first, the text says that Jesus knew that “the Father had given all things into His hands.” Because of His intimacy with His Father, Jesus understood that by God’s own promise He had authority over everything, both in that moment and in the coming age of God’s Kingdom that will be established on the earth. Further, we’re told that Jesus knew “that He had come from God, and that He was going to God.” In other words, His sense of identity and His sense of destiny were fully established in His heart and mind. He knew who He was, He knew where He was going, and He knew His place of power. Therefore, He chose to exercise that power in the loving activity of serving His friends, even to the ultimate service of giving His life for their redemption. He would pour His own life out for them in anticipation of the day to come when His power and authority would be established in fact before all people.
It is this posture of serving others from a place of strength that the Bible calls “meekness.” The term literally means “gentleness,” but not in the way most of us think about being gentle. At best we think of meekness and gentleness as a quality of temperament that has more to with one’s natural personality than something that has been developed in one’s character over time. But frankly, we perceive meekness and gentleness to be associated more with weakness than with strength. We envision meekness in a person who is trying to make the best out of a hopeless situation, exercised by one who has no power options and is trying to get along by being nice.
The meekness that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 5:5 and models in John 13:1-5 is not primarily about being nice. It is a character quality that chooses humility because humility is God’s way. Meekness causes someone to do the right thing because it is right, but with a gentle style rooted in true strength. It is strength under discipline, a gentleness built upon the solid foundation of understanding one’s revealed identity and destiny rooted in the sovereign love of God. Meekness is not a trait that many are born with, but rather one that is developed through years of forming and shaping by the Spirit of God. It is not an optional character trait, but one that is essential in coming to possess true power, for Jesus promised that the earth itself will be given as an inheritance to the meek ones.
What we must come to understand in our journey to reach our power potential is that Jesus’ value system is really the way things are going to be established at the end of the day. All other strategies for power will fail, and only His methods will be found to be true. Therefore, to pursue power with wisdom and the certainty of attaining it is to pursue it in the way Jesus promises to give it. Power will be given as an inheritance to those who embrace His character and His methods, and that includes the character trait of meekness.
Gary Wiens
Friday, July 5, 2019
Mourning in the Experience of Jesus
Mourning in the Experience of Jesus
It is in the person of Jesus that the fullness of this prophetic picture comes into focus. Several times in the Old Testament God speaks of His desire to have a man who would join with His heart, feeling God’s pain, and standing with Him in the ministry of intercessory prayer. If He could find such a man to share in His agony, He would relent from His judgments and release mercy instead.
Therefore, when the man Jesus – perfect in obedience, intimate in relationship with God – presented Himself to the Father as the ultimate intercessor, God poured out the fullness of wrath upon His own Son and the fullness of mercy upon all who would respond to His love.
It is a profound thing to consider that God desires to have human partners who will join Him in the expression of His emotions, whether positive or negative. We can scarcely imagine a God with such emotion, let alone one who desires to share that emotion with human beings. But if we can begin to see that this is where Jesus stood, and that God’s desire is to have the same kind of relationship with us, we can begin to be open to the touch of the Holy Spirit that communicates His emotions to us.
This is precisely what was in Jesus’ mind when He asked His three best friends – Peter, James, and John – to accompany Him to Gethsemane on the night of His trial and crucifixion. Jesus was headed to the dark night of desolation and sacrifice. The experience, borne entirely in His body as a human being, was going to be desperately difficult and painful. The sufferings of Jesus would involve mourning at the deepest level as He bore the sin of humanity. Here’s the amazing reality: Jesus was looking for friends with whom He could share this mournful experience, whose partnership with Him in this dark night would strengthen Him and enable them to have courage as well.
This dimension of mourning is called “blessed” by Jesus. Those who will come into identification with His sorrows are those who will receive the most profound recompense – being comforted and rewarded by God Himself. The promise of comfort to Jesus is articulated in Isaiah 53, where the prophet declares the blessing that will come to God’s suffering servant:
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 53:10-12, NKJV)
The mourning of Jesus was precisely a fulfillment of this passage. In His humanity, Jesus presented Himself to the Father as one who would willingly share the agony of God’s heart, as well as bear the punishment due to the human race for their sin. Jesus said in effect “Father, You sought for a man to stand in the gap with you. Here I am! I will join with You, I will obey You in this, that Your heart might be comforted and satisfied.”
Isaiah’s prophetic promise over the life of Jesus is that when His soul is made an offering for sin, the pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand, and He shall be satisfied with the labor of His soul. In other words, He will be comforted by receiving the full reward of His suffering. That reward is nothing less than human beings fully redeemed from sin who are made able to live in a relationship of intimacy and shared authority with Him forever.
What Does This Mean For Us?
When you and I begin to understand this, we will see that God invites us into an experience of mourning with Him. It will have these two dimensions to it: the awareness of our own brokenness and need for healing, and the awareness of God’s heart that is in anguish for the broken of the earth. As we draw closer to Him in prayer, desiring deeper intimacy with Him as our Father and with His Son as our Bridegroom, God will touch us with this essential dimension of His will for us. We will be invited to mourn over our own condition, and to experience His emotions over the condition of His people. As we give ourselves to mourning, we can be sure that the reward of real comfort will be ours.
It is in the person of Jesus that the fullness of this prophetic picture comes into focus. Several times in the Old Testament God speaks of His desire to have a man who would join with His heart, feeling God’s pain, and standing with Him in the ministry of intercessory prayer. If He could find such a man to share in His agony, He would relent from His judgments and release mercy instead.
Therefore, when the man Jesus – perfect in obedience, intimate in relationship with God – presented Himself to the Father as the ultimate intercessor, God poured out the fullness of wrath upon His own Son and the fullness of mercy upon all who would respond to His love.
It is a profound thing to consider that God desires to have human partners who will join Him in the expression of His emotions, whether positive or negative. We can scarcely imagine a God with such emotion, let alone one who desires to share that emotion with human beings. But if we can begin to see that this is where Jesus stood, and that God’s desire is to have the same kind of relationship with us, we can begin to be open to the touch of the Holy Spirit that communicates His emotions to us.
This is precisely what was in Jesus’ mind when He asked His three best friends – Peter, James, and John – to accompany Him to Gethsemane on the night of His trial and crucifixion. Jesus was headed to the dark night of desolation and sacrifice. The experience, borne entirely in His body as a human being, was going to be desperately difficult and painful. The sufferings of Jesus would involve mourning at the deepest level as He bore the sin of humanity. Here’s the amazing reality: Jesus was looking for friends with whom He could share this mournful experience, whose partnership with Him in this dark night would strengthen Him and enable them to have courage as well.
This dimension of mourning is called “blessed” by Jesus. Those who will come into identification with His sorrows are those who will receive the most profound recompense – being comforted and rewarded by God Himself. The promise of comfort to Jesus is articulated in Isaiah 53, where the prophet declares the blessing that will come to God’s suffering servant:
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 53:10-12, NKJV)
The mourning of Jesus was precisely a fulfillment of this passage. In His humanity, Jesus presented Himself to the Father as one who would willingly share the agony of God’s heart, as well as bear the punishment due to the human race for their sin. Jesus said in effect “Father, You sought for a man to stand in the gap with you. Here I am! I will join with You, I will obey You in this, that Your heart might be comforted and satisfied.”
Isaiah’s prophetic promise over the life of Jesus is that when His soul is made an offering for sin, the pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand, and He shall be satisfied with the labor of His soul. In other words, He will be comforted by receiving the full reward of His suffering. That reward is nothing less than human beings fully redeemed from sin who are made able to live in a relationship of intimacy and shared authority with Him forever.
What Does This Mean For Us?
When you and I begin to understand this, we will see that God invites us into an experience of mourning with Him. It will have these two dimensions to it: the awareness of our own brokenness and need for healing, and the awareness of God’s heart that is in anguish for the broken of the earth. As we draw closer to Him in prayer, desiring deeper intimacy with Him as our Father and with His Son as our Bridegroom, God will touch us with this essential dimension of His will for us. We will be invited to mourn over our own condition, and to experience His emotions over the condition of His people. As we give ourselves to mourning, we can be sure that the reward of real comfort will be ours.
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Barriers To True Mourning That Prevent True Comfort
One of the great problems with our fallen human nature, however, is that we will do almost anything to avoid facing the reality of our situation so that we can mourn over it and move forward. In our contemporary culture we have grown to hate the thought of taking any kind of responsibility for the circumstances of our lives. We have cultivated a culture of blame-shifting, and would rather find fault with something outside ourselves than to reckon ourselves responsible. We would rather blame the food industry for filling their products with fat and chemicals than face the fact that we are gluttons, unwilling to discipline our appetites. As this is being written in the fall of 2005, the courts have just ruled that people who are obese can no longer bring lawsuits against fast-food restaurants! We would rather blame the government for taking prayer out of schools than acknowledge the fact that we are prayerless people. We want to put an interpretive “spin” on our situations so that we appear in the best possible light. Therefore we construct elaborate and devious schemes so that someone else – anyone else – will be forced to take the blame for our condition instead of us.
Another way that we avoid true mourning is by keeping our grief at a superficial level, feeling sorry for ourselves in the face of troublesome circumstances rather than allowing the situation to expose our deeper issues. An example of this is seen in a Biblical story found in Genesis 19 that speaks to this avoidance tendency in a powerful way. A man name Lot was the nephew of Abraham, and had taken up residence in the wicked city of Sodom. Over time, God became fed up with the evil practices of the citizens there, and He determined to bring judgment to the city by raining down fire from heaven to destroy it. Three angels came to Lot to warn him of the impending disaster, and urge him to take his family and leave town immediately. They were specifically warned not to look back upon the destruction of the city lest they be caught themselves in that judgment. Lot’s wife ignored the advice, looked back as they were leaving, and was turned into a pillar of salt!
You might say that the reason she looked back was that she was mourning the loss of her home and friends, but the mourning called for in the Beatitudes requires a deeper process. Lot’s wife had a more basic issue. Deep in her heart this woman had a love for the ethos of the city, an attraction to the lusty lifestyle that surrounded her. She had allowed her heart to become attached to a situation that was totally compromised. Instead of truly mourning the duplicity in her own heart and rejoicing in the true comfort of God’s deliverance, she felt sorry for herself, and gave herself to yearning after the lost pleasures of Sodom. She thus received judgment instead of real comfort and freedom.
Another way that we avoid true mourning is by keeping our grief at a superficial level, feeling sorry for ourselves in the face of troublesome circumstances rather than allowing the situation to expose our deeper issues. An example of this is seen in a Biblical story found in Genesis 19 that speaks to this avoidance tendency in a powerful way. A man name Lot was the nephew of Abraham, and had taken up residence in the wicked city of Sodom. Over time, God became fed up with the evil practices of the citizens there, and He determined to bring judgment to the city by raining down fire from heaven to destroy it. Three angels came to Lot to warn him of the impending disaster, and urge him to take his family and leave town immediately. They were specifically warned not to look back upon the destruction of the city lest they be caught themselves in that judgment. Lot’s wife ignored the advice, looked back as they were leaving, and was turned into a pillar of salt!
You might say that the reason she looked back was that she was mourning the loss of her home and friends, but the mourning called for in the Beatitudes requires a deeper process. Lot’s wife had a more basic issue. Deep in her heart this woman had a love for the ethos of the city, an attraction to the lusty lifestyle that surrounded her. She had allowed her heart to become attached to a situation that was totally compromised. Instead of truly mourning the duplicity in her own heart and rejoicing in the true comfort of God’s deliverance, she felt sorry for herself, and gave herself to yearning after the lost pleasures of Sodom. She thus received judgment instead of real comfort and freedom.
What God desires is that when we are confronted with the reality of our own condition, we allow the Holy Spirit to impact our hearts with what our compromise costs us in our relationship with Jesus. To the degree that we see this and truly grieve over the cost of compromise, Jesus declares that we will be comforted by His presence as a result.
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Powerful People Are Those Who Mourn
Real mourning is a lost art in our medicated Western culture. Our extreme distaste for any experience of painful emotion drives us to all sorts of solutions trying to bring comfort to the situation in which real comfort stubbornly eludes you. We would rather do almost anything rather than endure a place of darkness. We drink alcohol, swallow pills, inject drugs, consume food, have affairs, spend money, leave town – anything to avoid an experience of real mourning. We desire comfort but seem unwilling to do the very thing that Jesus says is the root system of true comfort – experience deep mourning.
What is in view in this second Beatitude? The entry for “mourning” in Vincent’s Word Studies speaks of grieving that is too deep for concealment. To underscore this interpretation, the word for “mourning” in the New Testament is often used with the idea of weeping audibly. The implication is that something comes into focus, some issue or pain that is so dominating, so overwhelming that we can’t hide it any longer. All we can do in those times is mourn, crying out in agony over the situation in which we find ourselves.
Mourning Our Own Brokenness
This is especially necessary when the thing in focus is our own broken condition. When the reality of the effect of sin hits us in the face, the only right response is to face it fully, and allow its weight to have its maximum impact. The sinful condition of our lives involves the destructive things that have been done to us, as well as our destructive responses to those situations. Our sinfulness also directly involves owning our own damaging choices rooted in selfishness and rebellion against God and His ways. Real healing and restoration can only begin in my life is when I am willing to squarely face the responsibility that I have for my own situation – sinful responses to the acts of others, and the sinfulness that arises out of my own dark heart. I must allow the Holy Spirit to convict my heart of my own sin, feel the weight of it, and begin to mourn over the whole thing.
A powerful example of this mourning occurs in the New Testament example of Peter in the aftermath of his denial of Jesus during His trial and crucifixion. Luke’s gospel tells us that when Peter claimed for the third time that he did not know Jesus, a rooster crowed (just as Jesus had predicted) and Jesus’ eyes locked with Peter’s. He was immediately filled with agonizing conviction of his own failure, and his response was to mourn over his own sin. He went out and wept bitterly.
There is a point in our lives when we must come face to face with the fact that we have chosen again and again to follow our own agenda rather than the will of God. Peter denied relationship with Jesus because he was operating in fear and self-protection at the expense of his commitments to his Lord. When he realized what he had done, it grieved his spirit beyond measure, beyond his capacity to contain it. Each of us must come to that place as well. There must come a time when the reality of our failure and the gaze of Jesus are focused on us, when we feel the depth of our sin and can no longer excuse it or explain it away. At that point our only alternative is to mourn.
What is in view in this second Beatitude? The entry for “mourning” in Vincent’s Word Studies speaks of grieving that is too deep for concealment. To underscore this interpretation, the word for “mourning” in the New Testament is often used with the idea of weeping audibly. The implication is that something comes into focus, some issue or pain that is so dominating, so overwhelming that we can’t hide it any longer. All we can do in those times is mourn, crying out in agony over the situation in which we find ourselves.
Mourning Our Own Brokenness
This is especially necessary when the thing in focus is our own broken condition. When the reality of the effect of sin hits us in the face, the only right response is to face it fully, and allow its weight to have its maximum impact. The sinful condition of our lives involves the destructive things that have been done to us, as well as our destructive responses to those situations. Our sinfulness also directly involves owning our own damaging choices rooted in selfishness and rebellion against God and His ways. Real healing and restoration can only begin in my life is when I am willing to squarely face the responsibility that I have for my own situation – sinful responses to the acts of others, and the sinfulness that arises out of my own dark heart. I must allow the Holy Spirit to convict my heart of my own sin, feel the weight of it, and begin to mourn over the whole thing.
A powerful example of this mourning occurs in the New Testament example of Peter in the aftermath of his denial of Jesus during His trial and crucifixion. Luke’s gospel tells us that when Peter claimed for the third time that he did not know Jesus, a rooster crowed (just as Jesus had predicted) and Jesus’ eyes locked with Peter’s. He was immediately filled with agonizing conviction of his own failure, and his response was to mourn over his own sin. He went out and wept bitterly.
There is a point in our lives when we must come face to face with the fact that we have chosen again and again to follow our own agenda rather than the will of God. Peter denied relationship with Jesus because he was operating in fear and self-protection at the expense of his commitments to his Lord. When he realized what he had done, it grieved his spirit beyond measure, beyond his capacity to contain it. Each of us must come to that place as well. There must come a time when the reality of our failure and the gaze of Jesus are focused on us, when we feel the depth of our sin and can no longer excuse it or explain it away. At that point our only alternative is to mourn.
Next time: Barriers to Authentic Mourning
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
The Reward of Poverty of Spirit
The promise that Jesus makes to those who will come before the Father in poverty of spirit is fairly astonishing. He says “the Kingdom of Heaven will be yours.” In other words, those who embrace these character qualities will become participants in the life God intended for them here on earth now, and in the fullness of the Kingdom of God in the age to come. This is the life Jesus lived, a life fully established in a relationship of intimate friendship with God. It’s a life filled with His attitudes and expressed in His character. It’s a life characterized by the power and authority that Jesus had.
Let me share a story that illustrates the point. I have a friend who is a businessman in Madison, Wisconsin. Dave owns and operates two fitness centers in that city, and has been enormously successful over the past couple of decades. The key is that he began to cultivate with God a relationship of intimate submission and therefore intimate authority years ago before the business became what it is now.
Dave was a fledgling businessman in his middle twenties when the opportunity came to purchase the fitness center that became the Princeton Club. He put together an investment group, raised the necessary capital (somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million), and felt as though the Lord was going to bless this venture. On the morning that the deal was set to close escrow, the Holy Spirit spoke to Dave in the quietness of his heart and asked him to lay the deal down, to not do it.
Dave was devastated. He knew it was the voice of the Lord, yet he had business partners to think of, and his own reputation as a credible businessman was on the line. He could have pressed past these very subjective feelings in his heart, and rationalized the purchase of the club. He had the backing of reputable partners, and the confidence of the men from whom he was buying the business. However, deep in his heart, Dave realized that to move forward with the purchase would be to trust his own judgment and value his own reputation more than the voice of God. He would move out of the place of intimacy and confidence in the Lord’s leading. He would save face in the short term, but lose that wonderful sense of partnership with God in his business ventures.
Dave went to the closing that day, and shut the deal down. It was painful and humiliating, and he bore the price of that decision over the next couple of years. No one really understood why he had done what he did, and as you can imagine, his mind was bombarded with thoughts of being ridiculous and hyper-spiritual.
A couple of years later, however, the Lord vindicated Dave’s willingness to live as one who is poor in spirit, who knows how much they need God. The men from whom Dave was going to buy the center called and asked to see him. When he walked into their offices, they declared their inability to find a suitable buyer, and their unwillingness to have anyone but him own the club. They then proceeded to give the fitness center to Dave – property, membership, machinery – everything! In one moment God vindicated the trust of His friend Dave, and since that time has given favor to Dave in the marketplace of Madison. In 2004 he opened the second center, a $15 million structure that is a wonder to behold. Within a year of opening, the membership at the clubs doubled, and a strong profit margin was realized.
When God’s people dare to live a life of total dependence upon Him, the reward they get is God Himself, and the full authority of His Kingdom. It’s worth the risk!
Gary Wiens
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