I Think I'll Go and Repent

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“Don't plan to repent at the 11th hour. You may die at 10:30”

I read that somewhere, and thought about it.  I do that a lot.  I would take some saying on a website, or on one of those changeable copy signs in front of churches, and try to line them up in the Trinity and Humanity of Christ.

So my first question was, How do you plan to repent?  Can you say, “I’m going to party now and repent later”?  Is repentance a future event you are aware of now?  Something you can put on layaway?  There is a saying, “Don’t put off to tomorrow what can [should] be done today.”  But does repentance fall into this category? 

It's true that it’s better to repent now than later, but is this something you can plan?

Peter cried out to the people on the day of Pentecost, after receiving the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, to “repent and be baptized”.

Here is the problem: 
In the process of "planning to repent", you will have to already be aware of your relationship to God and the realization of who and what you are right now in Christ.  Repentance is changing your mind about God when you come to the realization that God is there and has always been there for you.  It comes at the eye opening revelation of Jesus Christ.  That was when you realized the love God had for you all along.  That Jesus suffered and died for you, that he first became human after shedding his glory to take on humanity in and to himself.  That was when you realized that everything Jesus has done was done for humanity and of course, for you and you are included in his saving work of grace.  Repenting is changing your mind about God and accepting His truth and being and reality as something He shares with you.  

Right now.

The call for repentance can only be made and understood once the gospel of Jesus Christ is plainly shown and realized.  Once that light shows into the world, like clouds parting the way and revealing the soft glow of the sun, like in an epic movie where up to that point, no hope was in sight.  Then suddenly, hope, light, parting of the clouds and fog, clarity, and beauty, eyes opening, healing begins, and reality sets in, then behold all things are made new. That is when repentance cannot be helped, cannot be postponed, cannot be denied, must be acted upon! 

There is no time for planning, for debating, for future prospecting.  Jesus did all that for us and then some.  The only question now is, where is the water?  BE baptized INTO the reality of Who and What you are IN HIM NOW!  BE baptized for the Remission of your sins has been complete in Jesus!

Boyd

The Ultimate Sacrifice

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There is no doubt in any Christians mind that what Jesus did while on the cross was a pivotal point in history.  We stand in awe of our Creator God, who was willing to hang on a cross after a severe beating, until dead.  He even went so far as to forgive his tormentors and murders while they were still mocking him and spitting at him.

We call that the Ultimate Sacrifice. And we all benefited from that history changing sacrifice.

But was that The Ultimate Sacrifice?  It is written that he died once for our sins, so we can only assume that if there was another sacrifice, it wasn’t one of death.  It would have been one of a physical life.

John 1:1-10 tells us that Jesus was the Word that was with God from the beginning. Jesus was the God of the Old Testament that spoke to the prophets and spoke the universe and all that was in it, into existence.  When God spoke, it happened.

For Jesus to become human, he first had to come up with that idea, to think it through, and then be willing to strip him self of the glory he had from eternity, and become not only human, but a helpless child in a womb of a very young and inexperienced mother who was still a card carrying member of the broken human family.

Of course, the Holy Spirit, God, was with him the whole time. There was never a time Jesus was not in constant communion with the Father.  But to allow him self to be divested of all things God, that was a sacrifice for humanity of galactic and biblical proportions!  It was unheard of, never before attempted! Knowing he will die by the hands of humanity, he still allowed him self to be “down graded” to human, to a fetus, to be carried and born a child of a poor family.  From a being who owned it all, literally, to owning nothing.

So what does that mean to you and me?  Everything!  We praise God left and right for his sacrifice on the cross, and he should be praised!  But with Christmas coming up, I think there is a lot more to his first coming as God/Man than we first see.  It’s a sacrifice worth paying attention to!

If Jesus had not become fully man, we would never have a God that came down all the way, and he would not have died on the cross. So he had to become fully man, he had to die on the cross.  Death had already called his name the day we sinned. Actually, earlier than that if you read Revelation 13:8: “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (or cosmos).”  He decided to become flesh and die, so we can put on immortality and live.

Now why do I call it The Ultimate sacrifice?  It is true that he made that death sacrifice on the cross, but the ultimate one? Is death the ultimate one?  As a human being, we see death as permanent, so we think of it as an ultimate sacrifice (if we made that sacrifice).  Or in some cases, we call it a “permanent solution to a temporary problem” we have trouble facing.

What makes it ultimate to God? After all, death was not permanent, but a beginning to eternal life!  Resurrection was just a few days away!  He was to become immortal again; back to his old glory he had once before! Then what was so “ultimate” and for that matter, “sacrifice” about that?

And what is so ultimate about his becoming humanity?  Because, though he died, he did live again, with more glory, but when he became human…

Pay attention now….

Read this carefully…

Ready??...

HE NEVER STOPPED BEING HUMAN!

That’s right!!  Though he was resurrected back to glory, he was still human even after he was raised again!

WHAT?

Remember, he told the disciples and specifically to Thomas in Luke 24:39 “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

The Message bible says it this way:  “Don't be upset, and don't let all these doubting questions take over. Look at my hands; look at my feet—it's really me. Touch me. Look me over from head to toe. A ghost doesn't have muscle and bone like this." As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet.”


Muscle and bone? Flesh? Jesus, with what we would consider as "corruptible" flesh? Apparently so. Jesus' flesh is, of course, incorruptible, and we will share in that incorruptibly of Jesus at his coming!

So we have the good news that Jesus is still human, still flesh, yet he is still fully God.  God has always been with us the whole time!  (Emanuel, God with us)  Look at the humanity around you. Do you now see a different humanity? You should.  Jesus became human for our sake, made that Ultimate Sacrifice, making a permanent solution to an eternal problem.  He brought humanity; flesh, to sit at the right hand of the Father.  And the Father is sitting right next to Humanity in Jesus’ humanity!

Wow!

When the Father looks at Jesus (His son in whom he is well pleased) he sees humanity. And when he sees humanity, he sees Jesus!

Now what do you see in the manger?  Jesus? God? Humanity? Yes, all three.

Now that does not mean we are God of course, but what a wonderful position humanity has been put in to!  The moment Jesus became human; all of humanity had a physical connection to God, the Creator of the universe! In fact, all of creation now has a connection!

So believe that. Take seriously the part in your connection to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for Jesus has overcome the world! The whole world! When Jesus as man did not sin, Man (in Jesus) did not sin!  Though we (man) do sin, Jesus became that Man for us, in our stead, to be a sinless being.  That is why God does not hold sin against man, because Man (The Second Adam; Jesus) did not sin for God to hold it against him! 2 Cor. 5:19 “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them.”  Notice, reconciling was to the world, not to just certain men.

Because of The Ultimate Sacrifice, all I can say now is:

“Merry Christmas to all of humanity, and to all of humanity, good night”

The Universal Witch Hunt

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I do want ask about this "Universal Witch hunt" thats been going on. I have been accused of Universalism as if it is the worse thing since the discovery of witches in Salem!  It's as if we are saying that Jesus came to save humanity is a bad thing!

Maybe what we need to ask is "What is Universalism" in mans eyes and what is it in God's eyes?"  As  long as we are looking at Universalism as the broken religion of mans making, then NO, we are NOT Universalists. But if we look at it in God's eyes, then what is so evil about it that it rates a witch hunt mentality?

Here are the extremes. The hunters believe that everyone is going to hell because God is angry and if you don't repent of your drinking, then you are going to burn in hell for all eternity (and the extra alcohol helps)! Now think about that a minute.  For all eternity?  Suffering for millions and billions of years for a physical problem you have trouble over coming? Because someone didn't give you the gospel of a loving God?  We ask, "Why does God let little Johnny die, yet we send little Johnny to eternal damnation if he didn't know about Christ! We say that our prison system is unjust punishment, torture is illegal, slavery is illegal, yet have no problem of a loving Father sending a drunk to eternal damnation of extreme torture and suffering.  Now that just does not make sense.

Yet here we are saying that God is much more loving and forgiving than that, and we are being condemned to hell for it?

Universalism? What is it really?  If you are talking about a broken religion that is using (and abusing) the name Universalism without understanding, then no, we are not.  But if we see Universalism for the Truth about who and what we are in Christ, then yes, we are universalists, in God's definition, not mans'.

So lets set aside the witch hunt a moment and lets see what we are really all about.

Boyd

Do You Want Overcooked Broccoli or Ice Cream?

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Or: You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd.

This is a good analogy for me since I am an Ice Cream Junkie! (Now you know where I got that round thingy my belt is holding in)

Imagine, you are with your friends and out on the town, having a great time. Then your friends decided to stop at the local ice cream shop to have some ice cream.  Wonderful! Everyone agreed and went in, including you.

But then you started to worry about your health, your diet (or other weird things like that), so you decided to order Steamed Broccoli.  Sounds silly? Of course it does!

But isn’t that what we try to do in God’s Kingdom?

Humanity is in an ice cream shop eating over cooked broccoli! (It’s over cooked because Ice Cream shops are really not in the broccoli business)  Now if that don’t sound silly, I don’t know what is! (But then again, Ben and Jerry has been known to come up with broccoli ice cream, but that is another story)

Let’s get with the Kingdom program!  Jesus has you in His Shop and you are trying to order from a vegan menu!  It’s like crying out "Steeeeer-rike!" at a foot ball game, or playing punk rock at a ballroom dance, or as the old Roger Miller song goes, “You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd”.

But you can try.
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Round and Round We Go

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One of the things we need to question in our evangelical quest to “save as many souls as possible before all hell breaks loose" is, who, how and why.

But I keep going back to what Jesus Christ said about himself and the Father.  “That is why I said that people can’t come to me unless the Father gives them to me.”  John 6:65.

Well, that’s fine and dandy, except, what if the Father never calls this person?  What do we do then?  I suppose we tell them “Tough luck kid, I guess you’re going to be punished in hell for the next zillion years even though you didn’t have a chance to begin with!”

That doesn’t seem to be fair, especially from a loving God and for such a short, miserable life this person had. And how would we ever know if God is calling them later or not?  Should we give up? Try to save them ourselves?  Wait on the Lord as some would say? (Waiting is not a bad idea by the way)

But we are still in panic mode trying our best and hope to God all these otherwise nice people don’t go to hell.

What work we do! What love for these people we must have!  What commitment, zeal…and full of ourselves!  What a waste of time! And God seems to be doing absolutely nothing unless we act!

Seems foolish to me, considering how weak and broken I am.  So I am reminded of the foolishness of God which is still far wiser than mans wisdom. 1Cor. 1:25  Maybe we are missing something here.

Because yet another verse, which seems to contradict the first one, says, “No one can come unto the Father except through [Jesus]”.  John 14:6

Stop the car! Pull over! Let’s pull this map out and read it again!  First, we can’t go to Jesus unless the Father draws us to him, and we cannot go to the Father except through Jesus, whom we cannot go to unless the Father, (which we cannot access without Jesus) draws us to Jesus!! What gives?

If the only way we can access the Father is through Jesus and the only way we can access Jesus is from the Father invitation, then we can only assume we are already in contact with both, Father and Son!  How?  By the Holy Spirit that was sent by the Father through the Son!!  NOW we see the connection!   Because the Holy Spirit was sent to earth (and by default, to humanity) by Jesus, we are complete in Jesus if you understand that the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity as God, (Emanuel; God with us).  This was done already a long time ago!  There is nothing we can do!  If we try to save people thinking they have no access, then we are bypassing what Jesus AND the Father AND the Holy Spirit has done already!  We were not told that we can come to Jesus through evangelism, though by evangelism, we come into the knowledge of our existence in Christ.

Either we are already in Jesus because of what they did, or there is absolutely no hope for humanity: saints and sinners!

Now what is the evangelist to do? Or have we misunderstood what we are to do?  We think we are called to save souls.  Well, to a certain limit, yes, but for what, and for whom?  It isn’t a matter of saving people from, but for.  Isn’t our main priority to announce the Good News of God’s Kingdom which, if I’m not too far mistaken, Jesus is King of right now?  If Jesus is the King of a Kingdom, then we can only assume there are subjects (citizens) of that Kingdom. And Jesus’ Kingdom includes all of humanity. So the real question is, what are we “saving” them, or better yet, leading to them understanding, for? 

All we are called to do is to announce the Good News of this Kingdom and teaching all nations (peoples, who are already a part of this Kingdom) to observe and learn their role in this Kingdom! And to help people see who Jesus is, who they are in Jesus, and to help them receive (not get) the understanding (via Holy Spirit) and accept the “already done” into their daily lives.

Either we are going round and round trying to save people (just in case Jesus missed a few), or God has already resolved this circular puzzle.

May this circle be unbroken.

“Lord, please open our eyes to your Kingdom already at hand”

I am afraid of what others might think!

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I heard that many times in life, and have found myself using it as well. That has stopped many people from enjoying life, moving forward and taking risks. Including me.

But what does this mean when we look at it in the reality of who and what we are in Christ?

I will go over each word individually, but also as part of the whole. For every word spoken in this sentence, adds more problems exponentially.

I: "I" is a big word.  It is all about Me.  Me, myself and I.  MeMeMeeee! The first thing we do is start off with “me” when we should be starting off with the Triune God.  So we say “I” instead of saying “Our Father”.

I am:  Like Adam, we begin to replace God, the Great I AM, with our own version of “I am”.  (Gen. 3:10) We have ideas of what we are outside of who and what we are in Christ. If we start with the true “I AM”, the Trinity, then we would not be so focused on this broken "I am".

Afraid:  Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). So right off the bat, we are not using the fruit of the Holy Spirit: Love.  The very first words of Adam to God after he took of that forbidden fruit were, “I was [am] afraid”.   Fear sums up all of the troubles and sins of humanity.  And the first victim of that fear was God.  Adam and Eve found a new fear and hid themselves from God.   But Jesus Christ removed that fear.  So why are we still hiding from God and from each other?  We still hold on to that fear because we are still seeing ourselves as “I am” rather than seeing God.

Of What:  Yes, of what?  What are you afraid of?  An unknown?  “I am afraid of what” is a good question.  We too often don’t even know what we are afraid of, so we lash out against God and everything and everyone else. 

Others:  That committee of others.  Whoever they are. Like the “what”, we don’t even know "who".  We have yet to meet them.  So we just call them “others”.  What is so detrimental about this is that the “others” might be your family, friends and neighbors!  Why are we afraid of them?  What have they done to deserve such a critical view of them?  It shows how critical and accusing we have become.  Again, like Adam who blamed God and Eve for his fears and troubles.

Might: Not will, just “might”. We are not even sure that they will think or not think. We just stop our lives in mid stroke just based on a “might”, a "maybe", a “not sure but just in case”.  There is no reality to this fear except our own.

Think:  Not do, just "think". Now when did the thought of others actually hurt you?  The only way the thoughts of others can hurt you is when they act or speak out those thoughts.  But we have not gotten that far yet. We are still just on “think”.  Maybe they did think these things (whatever it is that we think they thunk), and IF they did, they may have changed their thoughts immediately and started thinking right (called repentance). Or maybe their thoughts were very good towards you (Like God’s thoughts towards Adam and Eve were good), but we are afraid of them anyway, even though they may not have thought them at all.

Put them all together and you are revealing a whole mess of broken theology at work in your lives!

When you really think about it (speaking of which), you will find that our fears are based on selfishness and believing that others are taking their valuable time and concern and negatively placing it towards you and that what they think are actually evil thoughts!   In reality, they are actually our evil thoughts towards them!  How dare we to stop living based on our misconceptions of our family, friends and neighbors. And who said they were thinking about you anyway you selfish “i am”?  They have their own concerns!

Who knows?  The "Others" may want to support you in your mission in life! And if they don't, that is their life, not yours.

“I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” John 10:10 Yes, Jesus said “might” (KVJ), but not because Jesus is holding back, but because we still allow our selfish, paranoid fears to hold us back from the reality of who and what Jesus is and our wonderful relationship we have with God.  We can now live back in His garden, living off of the Tree of Life, who is Jesus.

“I am afraid of what others might think” is so wrong on so many levels!

If Jesus thought like that, he never would have walked on water, or healed on the Sabbath, or picked grain on the Sabbath! He is the real "I AM" and I AM is not afraid of what others might think!

I will admit that some people do have broken relationships with someone thinking negatively towards them, but chances are, they are thinking negatively towards a lot more than just you and the life you are living in Christ. It is them, not you.


Boyd

The Exact Same Thing, But Different

Did you know that the word “Motel” was invented by a sign painter?  The sign board was not big enough for the typical “Motor Hotel” and still be read by motorists going by at 60mph. So he combined the two words into one and it became Motel.  That’s a challenge sign painters like myself face all the time.  We don’t need the whole menu, just the name and something simple to draw in the customers.  There is a saying, “Why use a $20 word when a $2 word will do?”

In the northeast part of the US, there are large communities of Amish, and their “cousins”, Mennonites.

In our area, Mennonites are the prominent group. They are not as strict as the Amish (they drive cars), but still, very religious.  They will not stray far from the King James Version (KJV), though they might enjoy the New King James.

There is this one Mennonite who puts out a sign in his front yard with a scripture or thought from scripture.  It is not one of those ugly signs some well meaning Christians scrawl on walls with a bad paint brush. 
This is done professionally, on a nice 12”x18” sign board (a professional guess), both sides, easily readable from the road.  As a professional sign painter, I’m impressed.  I’m also impressed with his consistency, every two months, a new saying or verse. Always up to date, always clean. Very Mennonite of him.

And also very typical “Christian Speak”.

Sayings like “Repent and be converted” or something like that.

What do they mean? How are the people driving by being affected?  Who gets the message?  And do they understand the Language of The Church?  Our “Inspeak”?

The most recent hot bible on the market that is gaining popularity, to the point where Bible Gateway (website) even has a copy of it, is The Message. To King James Version enthusiasts, The Message Bible is blasphemous.  But to modern young people, it’s a life line, an opportunity, a relief, a book they can finally understand.

I’ll admit, I am not a big fan of it myself, and probably because to me, it over simplified it or feel some usages are over done (I like the New International Version or The Living Bible). I may read a simple 8 word line in the KJV or NIV, and read a whole “blog” in that same verse in The Message. Without citing samples, I’ll just say, I’m not comfortable with it. That does not mean it is incorrect, but if I were to talk to a KJV enthusiast, I would probably not use it.

However, do we over use some Christian language when we talk to people, either verbally, on blogs like this or on a road side sign?  Are we getting the message across where they can understand it? What does “Repent” mean and “be converted” mean?  To engineers, mechanics and sign artists, conversion is part of their language. How would I convert from US standard to Metric? If I can’t find my half inch wrench, I’ll use a 12mm instead. But I learned that by experience and necessity. I get put off watching science shows that insist that we understand their language and units of measurement.  Maybe I’m lazy, but when they say its twenty five kilometers, I have no idea how far that is.  So I have to miss half the show figuring it out, or just ignore that comment and assume it’s a long way.  That is conversion. But is that what God is talking about? Is it “the exact same thing, but different”?

What about repent?  That’s a nice archaic word to mean turn around or change your direction or mind (in a simplistic way).

How about if we just say:
 

“We need to change the way we think about God and our relationship with him, and as a result, be changed into a whole new person”

That would help a lot more than just “repent and be converted”. And that is basically what it means.  Unfortunately, it’s also too wordy for a 12”x18” sign to be read by people driving by at 60mph.

Maybe we Christians are the ones who need to repent and convert our language.