Abiding and Obedience

Recently I have been having another battle with things religious. It seems as though about every six or seven weeks I am bombarded by the challenge of religion. These are the voices, real or perceived which say or scream, God must be accessed this way and only this way. I want to be clear I am not talking about the role of Christ in coming to God. The Bible, not religion is the clarifying agent when it comes to Christ. Jesus Christ is the only way for us to have access to God. They ways in which we interact with Jesus, now there is a place of great variety. Yet, religion tells us that we must pray this way, we must say this or that. Religion says we must worship this way or that way in this place or that place. Religion is getting between God and humanity.

There are all the religious cliches available to us. Religion is about what we do and Jesus is about what God has done. Still I spent too much of my time trying to do this thing called religion. It is time to simplify. It is time to remember the essence of what a journey with God looks like, not the specific mile markers, or landmarks. On the most basic level our journey with God is being in constant connection with God, and doing what we are being lead to do. For those who need religions words, abiding and obedience.

Religion is the enemy of abiding and obedience. living a life full of abiding and obedience is hard, and religion says we can make it easier, just do these few rituals, and say these words and you are good to go. The process of the journey with God is quite simple to articulate, in practice it is difficult to do because it represents a massive shift in our focus and time. Religion is very difficult to articulate, but easy to practice, hence its draw.

Blatant sin is not the most dangerous thing in our walk with God. Though we must deal forthrightly with sin, it is not the thing which holds the most destructive power. That position is held by our quest for the easy and quick fix. That we would only want God as long as it is convenient and easy. The end result is we often settle for less than the full and abundant life God desires for us. Many have said it in many forms, the greatest fear is not that we will lose our faith, it is that we will settle of a mediocre form of it.

What are you settling for?

Late Summer Cleaning?

Reading the account of King Josiah is a refreshing change of pace from many of the Old Testament kings. Josiah does some house cleaning. Others had done some tiddying up of the house of Israel but Josiah saw the job through. There was a complete destruction of idols and places of worship of false gods.

It made me wonder what false gods run rampant among the people of God today. I am pretty sure we do not have people worshiping Baal, or Molech. We have given our gods different names, yet they have the same power to draw us away from the One True God. Perhaps you are worshiping at the alter of tradition, or maybe comfort, possibly yours is consumerism, another common one is individualism.

What would it look like if the people of God returned to God? What would it look like if Josiah returned and cleansed the land? The biggest challenge to Christ in our world is not Islam or any other religion. The biggest challenge to Christ in our world is not an ideology. The biggest challenge to Christ is not certain lifestyles. No, the biggest challenge to Christ in our world, is the same as it always has been, we worship the wrong thing. I, we fail to maintain God as the center and source of our lives.

Let's get the brooms out. Put on those funky yellow gloves. Get the disinfectant off the shelf, and clean up our relationship with God. Remember there are some things that will simply need to be thrown away. Those idols in our lives cannot be simply managed, they must go.

You Can Never Go Faster Than The One Leading You

Have you ever noticed that God works on a different pace and timetable than you and I. For me this is highlighted when I think God is not doing what I thing God should be doing, and I decide to act as I see fit. This kind of action puts me in the company of many Biblical characters, King Saul had this problem, the disciples often had this problem. In John 6 there are two verses which might be missed, and depending on the translation might catch it differently, which speak to this. "That evening his disciples went down to the shore to wait for him. But as darkness fell and Jesus still hadn't come back, they got in the boat and headed out across the lake toward Capernaum." John 6:16-17

Jesus was their leader. Jesus had just provided food for 5000 men plus their families. Jesus was high in the hills resting and recharging. The crowds were gone and the disciples were left waiting by the lake for Jesus. We are not told why, but the disciples decide they cannot wait any longer for Jesus, so they get into the boat without their leader. The result, they face a storm.

Jesus then comes to them walking on water. In Johns Gospel there is not invitation of walking on water, the result of Jesus arrival is they immediately reach their destination. It is amazing what happens when you let the one who leads you lead. I am called by God to be the leader of this Congregation in Cortland, but I can only lead as fast as the one who is leading me. I cannot get into the boat and start out. Well I can but the results could be troublesome.

Once again I am faced with the simple and difficult reality that Christ, not Aaron, is the head of the church. I cannot expect things to move faster than Christ would dictate. Simply my role is to follow Christ as I invite others to join me in the journey.

Do You Know God?

Chapter 5 of John's Gospel begins with the healing of the man next to the pool. From this healing account we get the phrase, do you want to be made well. However, that exchange is not my focus. The focus this morning is on the resulting conversation with the religious leaders. Essentially Jesus points out the fact that the religious people were missing the whole point. They were caught up in the actions of human beings, instead of remembering the origin of those actions and of humanity.

One of the issues Jesus addresses is the searching of the scriptures. Jesus reminds the religious leaders that they search the scriptures to find eternal life. But when the door to eternal life stands right in front of them they miss him. I wonder how many times Jesus has been right there in front of me and I have missed it? How many times have I chosen my own wisdom and understanding while ignoring the one who holds all the wisdom and understanding is right there? The religious people had a fairly terminal problem, they knew too much. They knew how to run their lives, they knew how to keep the law. They knew all the rules and regulations which draw you close to God. The tragedy is through all this they did not know God.

I am a huge advocate of education. I also think we should be always reading, hearing and learning all we can about God. This should never be at the expense of knowing God. The giver of live, Jesus, is right here with us, and that which we are searching for is found in him. When will I, we, the church stop leaning on our understanding and start running to Jesus?

Is Egypt Far Enough

Through the years of serving God through local churches there have not been many things that have been constant. One constant however is that no matter how much people claim a want for change, there is reluctance to do what it takes. Usually the reluctance shows up in the form of going back to what has been. In church parlance it would be said people want to go back to Egypt. Not to put too fine a point on it, people would rather go back to captivity, than to move forward into something new and unknown.

Why is it that when we want to go back we only go to Egypt? Why not go back further? Why not go back to Abram, not Abraham but Abram. They are the same many but at very different stages of their journey with God. Abram had a nice life for himself. He was married, had a household, cattle, sheep, goats the like. God called him to move to a place he had never been. God did not even show him where we was to go. Simply God said go and I will show you when you are there. When Abram said yes it set in to motion a history of events that lead to his being renamed Abraham, to Issac, to Jacob, to Egypt, to the Exodus, eventually to Jesus, and to you and I.

I am okay with going back, as long as we go back far enough. In the church today we talk about going back. Back to the days when the church was in its supposed glory. Rarely do people want to go back far enough. Let's not look to the 1940's and 50's, let's go back farther. How about the 1740's, or the 1540's. possibly the 540's or even the 40's. Back to a day when there was more concern for following the voice of God than preserving what has been and is known.

All together looking back is fine, but it is time for the people of God to stop living in the past. The time has come to move forward once again. Like the days of Abram, I believe God is calling men and women, individuals and churches to go into a new land. I cannot tell you the name of the land, I cannot pain you a picture of it, but when we get there God will let us know.

The Gap

Each morning as I read and pray I find great desire and passion for the life God is calling me to. Then something tragic happens, I close the book, I open my eyes and the rest of the day engages. As the day wares on I find myself living less out of that passion and desire and more toward getting by. As the day comes to a close I am left to lay in bed and ponder the fact that yet another day has passed and I have failed to live out the passion and desire which rests so deep in my soul.

As you might guess I have spent many hours, days, weeks and even months trying to figure out the gap between actions and desires. The struggle is intensified by the fact that I am filling my days with activities that have meaning and positive consequence. I could almost handle the dissonance if I were wasting the days away on the meaningless and trivial. I feel however the events of my day make a difference in the Kingdom of God and the lives of those who I interact with. Still there is something with in me that is propelling me to more. Not more items on the schedule, but to something more than what I am currently doing. Again the difficulty is what I am doing in not bad or unimportant.

So what is it that I feel a passion and desire to do? I am very hesitant to even write it for two reasons, first putting it in on this blog can bring about dangerous conviction. Second, the passion and desire feels arrogant, and in fact is arrogance if it is not God who is calling, urging and longing for me to take this direction. So here goes. I am passioned and have a desire to have a ministry of writing and speaking. I do some of this now but what I am talking about is a full-time ministry of writing books and articles and traveling around the globe speaking and teaching. Ultimately helping people travel on this journey of life in an ever-increasing connection with God.

I would appreciate your input on this. Please drop a comment here on the blog, or an e-mail to revabouwens@verizon.net

Misplaced Blame

I am always amazed at the ways I expect God to act. I have expectations of what God will provide for me, what God will do for me. The list is created and brought to God like a parent gives a child a list of chores to be done. Then when things do not happen as I have requested I assume it is God who has let me down. Phrases like, if God really loves me... or if God was real then why didn't he...
I often expect God to function at my beck and call, and when there is action different than I demanded I become a whining 3 year old.

What if the problem is not God at all? What if I am the problem? I realize that is a totally inappropriate question, as rarely is the problem my fault, but what if? Is it at all possible the problem is my relationship with God, not God's apparent indifference to my request?

I am not saying that if I had more faith God would do what I want. I am not saying that we all need to try harder. What am I saying? We all need to run to God. Repeatedly in the scriptures we find the writers reminding themselves and us that God does not what our human effort, or it is not through working harder in our human effort which draws us closer to God. Rather God longs to be in relationship with us. God longs to walk with us in the cool of the day. God longs to be known by us, not for what we can gain. Simply wanting to know us to be in relationship.

How do we accomplish this? The answer lies in the ways we build all relationships. Invested time, energy and effort. We must make it a priority. The challenge is found in the WIIFM. What's in It For Me? Most Americans run everything in their lives through this filter. What if life is not about what we gain, but what we give and to whom we give it to and through?