so...I'm working on a book of sorts and wanted it centralized so friends and family can read it. here.
Foxes Have Holes
A Prelude of Sorts
I have a confession.
I need to be filled with the spirit of Jesus Christ every single day. I’m not talking about religious ceremonies, communion and scriptural dissertations. I’m not talking about physical baptism or somehow coming into a church worship service with the perfect blend of contemporary music and hymns. Where the preacher has just the right balance of the right things to say to the young and old and where he gets us out in time to go and eat lunch.
I was walking through Barnes and Noble the other day and stumbled upon the Christian section of the book store. The things that I saw were completely shocking and appalling. I found book after book with titles reading, “Jesus, I love Your church, but it’s Your people I can’t stand” and, “Jesus, How can I love you when the Church does this and that?” And I got sick. I am under the impression from scripture that Christ’s vision for the church wasn’t anything like this.
The man in question, Jesus Christ, who is He? Why was He born and what does His death have to do with my life anyway? These are questions that I think a lot of “Christians” need to revisit, because there is an overwhelming pandemic of people who want to belong to a religion or a movement and somehow never connect with the character of their leader, their creator, the lover of their souls.
I want this to serve as a wake up call.
This is in no way intended to implicate the church of being wrong or doing wrong. There are far too many people doing that already. Sure, we’re a movement that is often times misunderstood and underestimated, but we’ve never been intended to be stepped upon. The problem with a lot of the accusations made toward the church is that they are founded on singular, negative personal experience. Sure, the church has a lot of misgivings and faults, but who doesn’t?
The problem is all in expectation. The character of Christ was so perfect, so multi faceted, that when a normal person attempts to achieve it, they will always fall short. This always leads to confusion and frustration because once again, we’re not perfect, our creator is.
We’re not divine, our creator is.
We’re not excellent, we’re just trying.
We’re forgiven.
We’re pushed forward to be burned at the stake in culture because we can never adequately display the characteristics of our creator.
Don’t take this as an opportunity to put this book down, though. Just because we’re inadequate doesn’t mean we can quit. Just because we’re riddled with imperfections doesn’t mean our light won’t shine. I know a lot of people inside of the church who have become disillusioned with the church.
A man I heard speak at a conference in Phoenix, Arizona spoke of the dilemma of criticizing the church. He talked about people inside of the church that gossip and slander the church for inaction and for the division that it’s caused. The issues are as wide as they are long. The problems are worth mentioning but not in the context of complaining. It’s time that we stop gossiping about the church and start turning the things we notice into the things that we change. He talked about an idea, a solution to the problem. He talked about a vision that God had placed on his heart. Jesus spoke to him and said,
“How would you like if someone slandered your wife?”
It’s that severe. People have problem after problem because we’re failing to capture Christ’s heart in a large way in modern Christian culture. People are finding disappointment. This is because my pastor, as Godly as he may be, is not God. My deacons are not Jesus and His disciples and they will not always make the decision that helps me to breathe easy. Imagine a generation of disciples that don’t care how they breathe. They don’t care if it’s easy or hard, they just want Jesus.
That’s our responsibility.
That’s our call of duty.
The beauty of the situation and predicament that we’re in is that Christ has promised us the same anointing that fell upon Him. The same power. The same grace. A common frustration among Christians who have been set on fire is the problem of showing sincerity. How do we show people that we are slaying our shortcomings daily? How do we show that our pride and stubbornness is being broken down within us every day? When people look at us in frustration because we aren’t mirroring Christ and his power, how do we show them that we are His reflection?
I think Jesus has a lot more to teach us than just the red letters in a Bible. It’s the way he acted and reacted. It’s the way he touched people and the things He did. This isn’t about a psychological disorder that the greatest human ever had; this is a case study on how to become a reflection of perfection.
This is a look into characteristics of the creator of the universe bound into a feeble and breakable body. He was bound into creation that He made so that He could teach us to follow His character. This is not to say that we are all off base, it’s to say that wherever you are; whether you’re a seasoned pro or new to the game, you can be better.
Chapter 1
In order to start, one must always start.
In the New Testament, the starting place begins with starting places. The book of Matthew begins with the genealogy of the man that it will come to chronicle. Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph (but only sort of) who was the son of Jacob who was the son of whoever and so and so, so many years back.
I skip the first 18 verses of Matthew a lot. It’s not that the details are unimportant but only because really, whose interested in Boaz and Jeconiah except a scholar or two? Lord knows I’m not a scholar.
But He also knows what I can learn and will learn with an open heart.
I was reading through the Matthew the other day and God stopped me as I began to read in the second chapter. He told me to go back and read. I had an argument with God that specifically mentioned to Him why I don’t read that chapter and how I’m not going to be a scholar or philosopher. God aptly said, “Just read.” So I just read.
Sometimes illumination takes a few times through. So I just read again. What I found was groundbreaking.
There was a man who was born into Kingship. At the ripe age of twelve He inherited the throne. The things that his father had torn down for the Lord, He re-erected. He built altars to Gods that detracted from the name of the one true and living God. He got wrapped up in astrology and the practices of sorcery. He sacrificed one of his sons in an act of sorcery into a furnace. To make matters worse, he defiled the temple of the Lord with idols of other Gods. It was said that he was possibly one of the worst Kings to ever touch Judah.
There was a woman who grew up in an ungodly culture. She built a brothel in which she could sell her body to people. For all of history, even though she did great things for the people of Israel as they came to Jericho, she will be known as a prostitute.
These two people, Manasseh and Rahab, are mentioned in Christ’s genealogy. A prostitute and an idolater are the direct means for which we find salvation. Before Christ even set foot on the earth, his message of redemption and salvation appeared through his lineage. This message speaks so heavily to my heart. Christ wants us to know that regardless of adverse situations and our past that His plan for redemption is much stronger.
God’s plan all along was to allow for the adversity of Christ’s relatives to speak a message of redemption. Do I really think in my naivety that God couldn’t line up a perfect line of people to accept the genes that were to pass down to Jesus? Do I really think that God would have it any other way than for His ultimate sacrifice of love and redemption to be born out of some of the ultimate sinners in the Bible? The parallels of Christ’s purpose and mission and His lineage are beautiful. God managed to line up the most incredible people from the Bible, but also the most treacherous. To think that the man after God’s own heart and the man who rebuilt the temple of God in glory and then the worst king to ever grace Judah would all be in the lineage of the Christ is a beautiful and indicative thought. It indicates God’s true willingness to accept our shortcomings and faults. It also indicated God’s mandate of restoration in out hearts. How like God to use such adverse situations to save the world through extension.
It’s something that Christ constantly taught on. All of a sudden there was a gospel being preached that wasn’t so much concerned with the past but with an act of repentance. It was gospel that refused to see the worst or bad or even the neutral in somebody. It was a gospel of redemption and restoration. It was in the blue print since the fall of Adam.
I’m thankful that Christ didn’t descend from a bunch of perfect and pious people. I’m glad that the lineage of Christ involved people who understood how to hurt and how to screw up. It seems like the people who screw up the most understand grace the most.
I have a friend who has endured a lot of physical and emotional abuses. She only recently came to a place of wholeness in her life, but those things still have a tendency to flair up and frustrate her from time to time. There are many times when people go to her and give her a hug or a pat on the back and she cringes. It’s because although she understands the grace of God, so much hurt has happened to her. She understands grace. She hands grace to people everyday who don’t understand her hurt. They don’t mean to make her uncomfortable and she realizes that. It is people like her that I think Christ understands more than anyone. It is people like her that I think Christ is interested in restoring.
My pastor continually talks about God’s restoration and how God is in the business of restoration.
My pastor is great friends with a man of God who has had a few downfalls in his public ministry. Accounting and sex scandals, you know, the same story that we’ve heard over and over again about ministers in the limelight. This man lost everything.
Everything.
He ended up having to give up his church and ministry and he even lost the wife that he loved more than anything. This man was broken and at his lowest of lows. My pastor reached out to him and gave him a safe haven from scandal. One night, my pastor saw this man come in to one of his church meetings. He saw him move to the back row of a 1500 seat auditorium and almost hide from the pressure of people seeing him and hurting him again. My pastor pulled him up from the back of the church and what did the congregation do?
They didn’t boo or hiss or jeer at him or even look down on him.
They saw a broken man in need of restoration. They clapped harder than they ever have. They prayed for him. Through God, this congregation, led by an amazing man of God was able to begin a restorative work in his life.
Years later, God has restored him and given him all over the desires of his heart.
God wants nothing but restoration for His people who have fallen, but it’s sometimes the “godly” who stand in the way. I’m not sure that this is the righteous attitude that Christ has called us to, but I do believe that God is capable of restoring from that attitude just the same.
Christ was born into the fringe of society, through His lineage and even the manner that He was born. I think that’s why it’s so easy for Christ to reach out to the people on the fringes of society. It makes so much sense that God would then call us to the same place.
~<>~
It’s interesting to look into the eyes of creation and realize that in the beginning God created into the extravagant. What I mean by this is that if you remember the creation account (the first few chapters of Genesis in case you didn’t pay attention in Sunday school), everything was massive and huge and beautiful. God spoke to the darkness and created light. He spoke to the water and created earth. He spoke to the land and made animals and to the water and made sea creatures. He spoke and there it was. The earth was created as a very beautiful and very magnificent place. This earth has amazing characteristics.
Did you know that if you go to Quito, Ecuador, which is right on the Equator, you can live in a 70 degree paradise year round? What’s more, if you drain a tub of water on the Equator, there is no spin going in to the drain.
None.
If you move it 20 feet north of the Equator the water will begin to rotate clockwise as it drains. If you move it 20 feet south of the Equator it will drain counter clockwise. To think that people argue about God creating the earth? Looking at something so intricate, is there any doubt?
It’s the same kind of thing as a salmon returning to the exact place that it was conceived to spawn. Turtles die on the same beach that they were born. It’s incredible! No two human fingerprints are the exact same. If you figure 10 fingerprints per person and no two of those are the same, then you take a group of billions of people and figure that not even one person has a duplicate fingerprint in ten fingers; there are literally billions upon billions of fingerprints that don’t even begin to appear minutely the same.
Intricacy is a trademark of God’s creativity.
Intimacy is a trademark of God’s creativity.
Elements of showmanship and the spectacular take stage when this God of the universe creates.
And He didn’t even lift a finger.
God whispered and created. He thought and then opened His mouth and then there the earth, the sun, the sky was. Then, His crowning masterpiece. God didn’t speak His masterpiece into creation. He spoke to Himself and said it was time to create man in His own image. He was prepared to get His hands dirty. He was prepared to do whatever it took to create something that would fellowship with Him and walk with Him and enjoy His presence.
That would worship Him.
When I get emotional, it’s sometimes easy to talk to inanimate objects. To talk to a dog or cat like they can understand my rambling. My dog Sammy probably would know my deepest darkest secrets if he could talk or reason or understand. But, he’s a dog and was not created with that capacity. God understood this concept because He spoke and created a dog. He spoke and created cows and cats and giraffes. But they couldn’t speak to Him. They couldn’t walk and talk and reason, just like Sammy can’t understand me.
He desired someone to worship Him out of choice, not obligation. You have to understand a governing principle in the kingdom of God. Angels were created to simply worship. Animals were created for function, for food and for the enjoyment of man. Man was created to choose what he does. The sad thing is that sometimes the choices that man makes will take him down the road of function. These choices limit the connection to divine. They limit his connection to the creator. God created man because Angels had no choice to worship and animals had no choice but to abstain from worship. God desired fellowship. But He didn’t desire any fellowship; He desired to look at Himself. He desired to see glory coming to Him from something that looked like Him and was created to be Him. He created man in His own image.
The importance of that statement is mind blowing.
I am created in the image of God.
You are created in the image of God.
As we look in to the Bible to find out about the image of God, there are not a whole lot of instances where He makes Himself seen. There’s an account in Exodus where Moses asks for God to reveal Himself to Moses and He does. The situation is so dire; however, that God knows if He shows Himself to Moses, he would die from God’s glory. To think that one glimpse of the one true living God would cause Moses to stop breathing. So God allows Moses to see His back while He passes by. He shields him with His hand and removes it as He passes so that Moses can get a glimpse.
It says that when Moses came off of the mountain after meeting with God, that people had to shield their eyes because the glory was so strong.
The power was so strong.
The presence of the Lord lingered on him.
And we look into that glory every time we glance in the mirror. To think that a prostitute who is dirty and deprived is a glimpse at the presence of God. The glory of God is present everywhere. It’s in creation and it’s in your face and mine. His image was passed on when He created man. It was imprinted on our innermost being.
It’s what makes us marvel at the beauty of a waterfall or a sunset. It’s what makes us feel wonder when we walked into a candy shop as a child. It’s the glory of God and He wants us to revel in it and then offer it back to Him. A living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord.
So, God showed His strength in creation throughout the years, throughout the centuries. He began to pour out His love and mercy in powerful ways. The absolute crowning of all of this was when He took what was already intricate and amazing and powerful and He added to it.
It’s been said by a very wise man that there’s nothing new under the sun.
It’s the mark of a true artist to take what’s been made and turn it into something better. Art isn’t static. It isn’t solid. It isn’t something that has bounds. Art is living. It’s breathing and it has something to teach. It teaches to recreate, to reinvent. It calls out for people to attain understanding and for them to create new art.
Art asks for people to create something new under the sun. Art calls for people to breathe and flex and become powerful through its influence. To build upon the foundation that’s already been laid.
So God created. He answered His own call to create, and not through physical recreation but emotional and spiritual. He created something that has yet to be surpassed. He created something perfect because He can only create perfect. That’s why you are wonderful and beautiful. Because God creates the perfect.
He set the stage for redemption. He set the stage for salvation. The beauty of how the stage was set is that it wasn’t with silver or gold. He didn’t reach out and create man. He didn’t tell the sun to form. He delivered His own son. He skipped years in the evolutionary chain and made the perfect man. And He did it in the most humble setting possible. He set the stage with poverty, not prosperity.
I can imagine that people in those days were used to God’s creative nature. You have to understand, if you were raised in that time, you knew the Bible. You studied it’s every word in school. There’s a great chance that you would have the first 5 books memorized. The Jewish culture knew the creation account like the back of their hands. They saw His deliverance for Moses, for Joshua. They knew it.
This was the part where God needed to get their attention.
I have a friend who recently did an amazing teaching for 4 or so weeks in Sunday school about the faces around the manger. This teaching was exceptional because she taught us about things that people don’t generally realize about the birth of Christ. She went through Zachariah and his muteness. She went through Mary and her song. And honestly what kind of manger teaching would it be without a week of talking about Jesus? So we talked about Jesus.
It’s interesting to think about things in the view of a greeting card. Really! Next time you’re in Wal-Mart or Hallmark pick up a card and look at the pictures. The cards typify a perfect life that not even the Cleavers had. Christmas cards are the best because they show the animals all smiling at the manger. Mary, who had just given birth is clean and pristine and often looks a ripe age of 30 or 40. The manger is typically in a little shack in the middle of a field and everything looks perfect in Jesus land. The baby Christ isn’t bloody or crying or small. This is clearly the one year anniversary picture of the birth and they all went back to visit.
Upon deeper inspection of the subject we have to realize that none of the events happened anything like that. I mean, I’m positive it was in a manger and the characters were the same, but beyond that we need to reexamine a lot of our notions.
We could start by examining the conditions for Mary and Joseph being where they were.
I can imagine that in Bethlehem it was pretty hectic time. Because of the census, every man and his family were required to go back to the father’s home town. The city was more than likely overflowing with people. The thing is that the Bible never specifically tells what was happening in the town of Bethlehem at the time. The only line that we get is…
“There was no room for them in the inn.”
I like to imagine how stories happened. I like to give depth to the characters. I like to realize what the living conditions and customs were. Bethlehem in the scriptures is characterized generally in two ways. We find Bethlehem (Ephrata) as a place of sorrow and we see it as a place of jubilation. In Genesis it is mentioned that Bethlehem is the place that Abraham buried his beloved wife, Rachel. This is the context that it’s important to see Bethlehem in.
When Joseph and Mary returned to Bethlehem for the census, there was no place to stay. It’s believed by many scholars that the inn that is spoken of is directly speaking of the spare room conjoined to Joseph’s family’s house. They had no room even at home.
It was full before they could think about staying there, which must have been a frustrating experience on its own, and there was absolutely no way they would have considered traveling back to Nazareth because of Mary’s health. The only choice was to make due with what was in front of them. It was a choice that was synonymous with the Ephrata nature of the city, not so much the beautiful and wonderful Bethlehem that we think of commonly.
It’s believed that the stable that Mary and Joseph found wasn’t even a structure created by man; rather it was adapted from a cave. This cave had a manger, or a food trough and probably animals all over the place. It’s important to realize that Christ was born into such a humble environment.
The power of our working God is that He created the world as something that was extravagant. When He sent His son, He sent Him into humble. He sent Jesus into filth and poverty and frustration. He sent His son into the heart of need. Jesus went from need into ministering to need.
To backtrack a moment, God is worthy of praise and glory and honor. He’s worthy to be exalted and lifted up solely on His character. If He never did another thing for you, He would be worthy of your worship because of who He is and what He’s done already. Before Christ was conceived and before Christ died to forgive us God was worthy of our praise. When God created us, He created us to worship Him. Not because we want to. But because He’s worthy. We were created for this.
He created the savior of the world to sit on the throne of glory and to be worshiped by us. But He sent Him into humble roots to show us how to live. The tragedy behind all of this?
In our lives, it’s easier to keep Christ in the manger than to lift Him into His glory that He was created to receive and that we were created to give.
We switch purposes.
We become selfish.
It might even be inadvertent but we could give so much more.
Unfortunately, it’s not until we tap into the truth behind this situation that we realize that life is so much more worth living. Jesus sat on his throne of donkey food in order to show the place that His servants should sit, so that He could be glorified among people. I think Paul put it something like this, “I rejoice in suffering, because when I suffer, Christ is lifted up.”
~<>~
I love how in a lot of stories in the New Testament, there are very similar words. Jesus was the king of providing mystery and astonishment. Countless times throughout the scripture we see Jesus offering words like, “Go and don’t tell anyone what has happened.” These words are keys into His character. Why wouldn’t He want anyone to know? Was Jesus shirking His responsibility? Why shouldn’t people know that I’ve been healed?
Jesus was looking for people to look inward. I think Jesus, in moments like these, wanted people to realize the change that happened inside of them. The words are so important because as the changes were happening inside and out of them, He was saying, “Wait! Before you tell anyone about this healing I want you to realize the full change in your heart. I want for you to look deeper because this could change other people if you have the foundation.”
In sticking with this chapter’s theme, there’s a story about Jesus as child and it’s quite obvious that he learned from an early age how to be frustrating and mysterious. The story ends with…
“But they did not understand what He was saying to them.”
The whole story speaks of Jesus’ complete ability, even as a pint sized powerhouse, to confound and amaze. It says in Luke that when Jesus was 12 it came time for the Passover feast in Jerusalem. Joseph and Mary were said to have gone to Jerusalem yearly for the Passover feast, because of Jewish tradition, although it wasn’t comfortable financially or even physically because of traveling distance.
The details of the feast aren’t what I want to focus on. The important thing comes towards the end of the short story. As Jesus’ family finishes their responsibilities at the feast, they begin to journey back home. Scripture says that as Jesus’ family went to leave, they inadvertently left without Jesus. A small child left in a massive city, literally days walking distance away from home.
It was a full day walk before they even realized that Jesus was missing.
Then it took them three days to find Him.
You read the scripture and think, man what were they thinking?
As my brother and I were growing up, my mom would continually talk about how we were on loan from God. She would talk about the stewardship of children. She would talk about how we are gifts and that God can take us back whenever He wants. My mind flashes to my mom’s talks and teachings on this and I think, “Mary and Joseph weren’t very good stewards.”
The most striking feature about this whole story is that when the irresponsible parents (I kid, completely), Jesus chastises them in their hearts motive. It’s done out of love and respect for His parents authority, but He is by no means afraid to lay down the law.
“Didn’t you know that I’d be about my Father’s business?”
Score one for Jesus.
I can see His parents all frantic in the desert, looking through the caravans of people and their belongings for their lost son, all frantic and unbelieving that they could be such irresponsible stewards. They’re full from feasting and exhausted from the spiritual time that was the Passover feast. They check with Uncle Jimmy who is always playing ball with Jesus. They’re angry and frustrated, number one at themselves and number two at the child who is incapable of staying put and paying attention. So they get a bright idea to go back to Jerusalem and look for Him there, because they’re not doing any good there. Where do they find Him?
The temple.
Teaching.
A twelve year old is found teaching the scholars. I can just see Mary kissing Jesus on the forehead and loving Him and the continual, “I can’t believe I found you, you had me worried sick…” etc… And Jesus looks at His parents in astonishment and says the words that haunt me…
“Didn’t you know that I’d be about my Father’s business?”
See, I have a theory. My theory has to do with Mary and Joseph’s motives. I don’t believe that for one second that it was their motive to press Jesus down and to keep Him from spiritual things. I think their thought was, “We’re all tired, let’s get home and feed Jesus. Let’s get him a bath and then tuck him into bed with his favorite bedtime story and get him some rest.” Those are all great things! I’m sure that they had plans for the next few days, but God had something better.
And God has something better. I’m finding that in my own life as I go about my own activities and lifestyle that God is starting to whisper to me about things. He wants to illuminate some sort of deep seated truth about my motives and love and thoughts. Here’s what I’m talking about.
I had the privilege recently to be a counselor at two back to back youth camps. This was on the tail of an incredible, but incredibly taxing mission’s trip. Needless to say by the end of the experience I was wrecked and exhausted. God gave me specific vision for the team in which He wanted to speak clearly to them, “You may be weary, but I’ll give rest if you pour yourself out.” It’s always through strenuous that God refills. It was in my exhaustion that God poured out His energy.
Through the second camp I met a young man who had been breaking. His girlfriend had gotten pregnant a year earlier and given birth to a child. This baby girl became his personal responsibility. As I asked to pray with him the only thing he could think of for prayer was specifically for his daughter. He was so broken.
As the days went on I was able to talk to him about his pain and the sorrow inside of him. I can stand before you and say that honestly unless I had been broken and exhausted, that I wouldn’t have seen the same characteristics. It was that although I could have prayed and touched him in my own strength, which would have been ok, God allowed me to put myself aside and tap into the better, which is Christ.
“Didn’t you know I’d be about my Father’s business?”
God doesn’t have a problem with me eating a full and healthy meal. I know for a fact that God created food as sustenance. He wants to nourish our physical being as much as our spiritual. So we can safely say that food is a good thing. Sometimes God is calling for something better though, and that’s giving the food up so that His spirit can be lifted up through our weakness. Is eating bad? No. Is fasting better? If God tells you to.
It’s not bad that I enjoy watching movies and enjoying music. God has given us the arts to take a hold of and enjoy. If my roommate who is breaking apart and hurting because of his home situation is neglected because of my incessant need to watch movies and enjoy music though, I’m neglecting something so important. Are movies and music intrinsically bad? No. Is spending time with my hurting friend or family better? Yes.
If our hearts aren’t screaming out to people, something needs to be changed. If I’m not speaking to people through the way I live and drawing them to a Jesus that is real, something is completely and radically wrong.
Jesus is calling out for the people of God to understand that this is no longer a massive sin issue, but a call to abandon good for better. It’s not a call of condemnation, but of redemption. It’s a call to leave bad, mediocre and even the really good to pursue His ultimate will. Instead of chasing good motives for sharing provisions, it’s about lifting my brother’s burdens and dying to flesh. It’s a call to be able to say to our neighbors and brothers, “Above all, didn’t you know I’d be about my Father’s business?”
