Day 11 of Lent {...tell me about your sweet family...}
I am one who deeply sees and values other families. I consider each family unique and precious. I often tell them (just by way of example):
You Smiths are amazing. You are unique expression of Christ in the earth. There is not another family in all of history like you, and there never will be. The way you guys care for each other is impressive. You love well.”
You will always find me respecting the beautiful thing that is your family. I will not seek to have a title or a place in your life that rightfully belongs to someone else. For example - I won’t secretly wish you’d call me your mom. You can love me like a mama, you can think as highly of me as you want to (and I sure hope you do!) and I may love you like a son or a daughter….but I know that you have one mama. No matter how flawed she was, is, or will be, there’s only one of her in all of time and eternity!
As leaders, rather than coveting the title of “being your spiritual dad or mom”, The Preacher and I would far rather equip you to love your own parents well. We’d far rather help you see how vitally connected honor and blessing are.
I have to tell you, under any kind of normal circumstances, unless your mother (or your dad or your sister or brother…I am just using mother as our person for the sake of this blog post)…
…unless she was a drug addict or horribly neglected you, or abandoned the family, it is possible in the Gospel for you to find ways to honor your her. It is possible to recover that relationship, see a measure of healing in it, and your life will be so much richer for it!
SHEILA ATCHLEY DESIGNS
I’m saying these things as someone who is a spiritual mother to quite a few. I get flowers and cards for Mother’s Day from children I did not physically give birth to. I get multiple texts on Mother’s Day, and I screen shot and treasure them all. But I never once tried to position myself in that way.
As you might already know, there’s a theological basis for all of this:
“Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.”
Every family has its own history that no other family has ever had, or ever will have. Every family configuration is like a fingerprint - no one can repeat it. Others can try to imitate my family (or yours), but how lame would that be, really? Even the four walls of every physical home is (or should be) like a snowflake, with no two alike. In all of time and eternity, there is no other family like yours, and that’s why God commanded a lamb for each and every household - not a lamb for a tribe, or a lamb for the nation, or a lamb for a village, or a lamb per street.
The “once for all time” sacrifice of Jesus also somehow becomes the unique sacrifice for every family’s story.
Wherever your family is broken, know that Christ can put it back together. Know that I’m with you in the waiting. And He will do His healing work with a tender respect for who you are together, where you have been, and where you are heading.
Any leader or church or group of people, even any extended family (such as an in-law) who seeks to even slightly diminish your own sense of your family, or who seeks to be a replacement for your family or for certain members of your family is, by definition, a controlling, cultish person - or as a group, they are a cult. If the person is an extended family member, put up a strong, clear boundary that says that your own family of origin will be loved and respected. If it is another person or couple or a church or a group of people, immediately place some healthy distance between you and them, or between you and that person, quickly.
Because there is a Lamb that was slain for your household! Jesus loves kindreds. Families are His jam.
Go love on yours!
Day 9 of Lent {...what is "rest"...}
When I say the word “rest”, what comes up in your mind? If you are like most people, some kind of change of circumstances is involved. If you are anything like The Preacher and I, you might think of taking a drive (like we did yesterday), or going to the movies, or at the very least lighting a candle and turning on some soft music.
I often think of a bath in my big bathtub - jets on full blast.
But what about the rest of God? What about spiritual rest? What is the rest spoken of in Hebrews:
REST:
For whoever enters God’s rest also rests from her own work, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest…
True spiritual rest is never about changing your circumstances. It is about changing your perspective. The rest of God is about a deep understanding of the New Covenant. The deeper the understanding, the deeper the rest.
This is why it is urgently vital that you place yourself in front of the anointed, passionate-but-scholarly, simple preaching of the Finished Work of Christ.
You will never find comfort and joy with typical churchified religion. You won’t find the exhale your soul needs so badly in the old “letter of the law”. There is a “new and full-of-life way”.
The “Letter of the Law” can be defined as any system of doctrine in which God responds after we initiate with our good behavior. See, Jesus was the plan of God from before the foundation of the world. Therefore, everything we read in the old covenant must be re-interpreted in the light of what Jesus came to do, what Jesus in fact accomplished when He simply said, “It is finished.”
He fulfilled all the wisdom Scriptures in all seven Wisdom Books of the Bible. While there is much we can glean from them that will make our lives easier (or harder!), Jesus was both the power and wisdom of God. He was wisdom personified, and in terms of your position in Christ, all the wisdom of Jesus is imputed to you as a gift.
Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets. All the prophetic passages, minor prophets and major prophets, all their warning and their promises came to pass in the one man, Jesus.
Jesus fulfilled every command of God. His obedience is credited to your account, too.
Jesus fulfilled the law of love. He alone completely loved God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. He alone flawlessly loved us as He loved Himself (God). His love, all the love of Corinthians 13, is poured out upon us, lavished on our lives, and (ultimately) credited to our account.
What in the actual world, right?!?! It is too good to be true! Let me tell you, if you doubt that, you are already in trouble, because nothing short of the full obedience of Jesus, in every area, is going to cut it.
God does not have favorites, He is no respecter of persons - He simply has a personality that responds to faith…
FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST.
Not faith in faith, not faith in my ability to please Him apart from Christ.
When my unshakeable faith in what Jesus did leads me to make sacrifices or take risks or serve through love or worship extravagantly, the Living God is deeply moved. He has a personality that is partial to faith. It “pleases Him”.
In fact, without that faith in what Jesus accomplished - plus nothing - I can’t please Him at all.
Jesus paid it all, past present and future. And by His wounds you are healed. You really can stake everything on that. Eventually, when your soul is soaked and besotted with the extravagant love of God, you will find yourself behaving as the beloved.
Rest comes not from new landscapes, but from new eyes - the eyes that see and perceive new covenant truth.
You won’t get there sitting under preaching that mixes the two covenants. I would say, “Have fun with that…” but the problem is, you won’t have fun at all. You will live in an endless cycle of religion: brief periods of reprieve, leading to some sort of bad behavior, leading to doubt leading to forced better behavior leading to more moments of reprieve leading to some sort of bad behavior, leading to more doubt leading to more forced better behavior, leading to…
And all the while, many (if not most) spiritual leaders will happily help preach and keep you in that cycle - because they are in it. They will make it “hurt so good”. Their preaching will bullet point, 7-step, and give you feel-good lists to aspire to, dumbing down the law into something you think you just might be able to (almost) keep, if you continue going to their church and being fed by the soul-food they prepare. Their books will outline what your relationships, work life, sex life, creative life, what your food, your leisure time, finances, emotional health, and what your physical health should be and in fact “could be”, if you could but follow their directives.
No, really. You’ll feel better if you just ______________________ .
Ain’t no rest for the weary in religion.