All In For Jesus

 

 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44 – 46).

 

I have been blessed to know musicians over the years, I don’t mean people who can play instruments, I mean people who play and often write music as their way of life. Musicians live in music and music lives in musicians. I have a neighbor friend, Mike, who is a musician. Mike had a career in the Postal Service, from which he retired; but he has never retired from being a musician – that is impossible; Mike’s soul is in music and music is in his soul.

 

When Mike and I talk, music is usually a part of the conversation, music can drive the conversation. Mike will talk to me about the composition of lyrics and music, he’ll talk to me about the creative process, he’ll share about what he is working on in his home studio. I am not a musician, but since I have loved music all my life, I love not only listening to Mike and asking questions, but I can usually understand what he is talking about because of my love for music; and also because there is much similarity between music and storytelling, good preaching and teaching, and thoughtful writing. When I am with musicians, I expect them to talk music, that is just who they are…they can’t help themselves.

 

I had a dear friend who was an artist and a photographer. When we rode motorcycles together he always brought his camera, he was always watching the light and looking for a photo opportunity. He rode in front of me and I rode a safe distance behind him, especially on country roads. I did this because I never knew when he would abruptly stop, grab his camera, and start taking photographs. Light was everything and light on an object or landscape didn’t wait for anyone, it changed by the moment and time was of the essence. If he saw a “shot” he needed to take it right then, not 30 seconds from then.

 

He rode in front so that I wouldn’t crash into him. He also rode in front so that I wouldn’t keep tooling down the road, leaving him behind, not knowing that he had pulled over to take pictures. When I rode with my friend I knew what to expect, I knew not to be in a hurry, I knew to pay attention to him, I knew we’d likely pull over a few times. I knew this because my friend was an artist and photographer, this is who he was. There are those who take photos for a hobby, then there are those who are artists and photographers.

 

There are different ways to view the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great value, both are like diamonds with facets, the light is refracted and they may catch our eyes differently. Sometimes we can be so concerned about not reading something the “wrong way” that we never read it any way, we never enter into it and allow it to enter into us.

 

Let’s learn to ask ourselves, “What are the possibilities here? How is the light catching me? What am I seeing in this moment?”

 

Can we see Jesus giving Himself for the field, for the world (Matthew 13:38)? Can we see Jesus giving Himself completely for His Bride, the pearl of great price? Can you see Jesus giving Himself for you, can you see yourself as His treasure?

 

Can we also see our own lives and our response to Jesus? Note that in both stories the people sell all that they have to obtain the treasure. Whether we see Jesus or ourselves in these stories, the core of them both is the selling of all to obtain the treasure; the core story is an overriding passion and commitment to obtain the treasure at the cost of everything else.

 

Jesus gave His all for us, and we are called to give our all for Him and for others. Unreserved surrender to Jesus, unreserved commitment to Him, is our calling, our purpose, our destiny.

 

It is not a matter of Jesus being a part of our life, it is a matter of Jesus being our life. If a musician’s life is music, how much more ought our life to be Jesus?

 

“He who eats My flesh, and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in Him” (John 6:56).

 

Consider that Jesus says, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

 

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

 

Can we find anywhere where Jesus says, “Ease into discipleship. Take your time and test the waters, carefully wade out into the depths of commitment to me.”?

 

When the man found the treasure hidden in the field he sold all he had to purchase the field. When the other man found the pearl of inestimable value he sold all that he had…and he did it right then…and bought the pearl!

 

Suppose after the purchase of the pearl his friends saw him and asked, “Where is your house? Where are all the nice things you had? Where is your ornate chariot? Where are your fine wall hangings? Where are your works of gold and silver and precious stones? Where is your stable of racehorses? Aren’t you dining with us tonight in your favorite five-star restaurant? Where is your wealth, where is your treasure? You had so much, where did it all go? Where are all the many pearls you used to have?”

 

The Scripture says, “He went and sold all that he had.”

 

Let us be honest, are we not like the disciples crying, “Why this waste?” (Matthew 26:6 – 13). What is the sense of taking everything we have and everything we are and pouring it out on Jesus? Is it not a waste? Does it not make better sense to give Jesus a little, as much as circumstances warrant, and keep the rest for ourselves (of course we tell ourselves that we are “stewards”)? After all, we can give Him everything in eternity, can we not?

 

Is not single-hearted devotion to Jesus Christ a bit unreasonable? What would people think?

 

Are we “all in” for Jesus as Jesus was “all in” for us?

 

One of my fondest memories is of our visits to the saints in Warrenton VA many years ago. The songs sung were accompanied by the flutter of angels’ wings and, it seems to me, heavenly voices. This particular song has remained with me over the years, and I think I’ll close with it:

 

 

YOU FILL UP MY SPIRIT

(to the tune of John Denver’s Annie’s Song)

 

You fill up my spirit

As I stand here inside You

And call on Your name,

You come and You love me,

You’re my joy

and my sorrow,

I sit in Your presence

And love you again.

 

My Jesus, I love You.

I will always be with You.

Let me cry in Your presence,

Let me die in Your arms.

It’s all my desire

To give my life to You.

You fill up my spirit,

I’m Yours evermore.

 

(This can also be sung in the plural – we/us).

Two Healings, Two Responses (4)

 

 

I want to touch on a similarity between Jesus healing the blind man in John Chapter 9 and His raising Lazarus from the dead in John Chapter 11.

 

“His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him’” (John 9:2 – 3).

 

“The sisters sent word to Him, saying, ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.’ But when Jesus heard this, He said, ‘This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it’” (John 11:3 – 4).

 

Jesus points us to the glory of God as the purpose for the condition of the blind man and the condition of Lazarus. Now for sure, we might ask whether it was necessary for the blind man to have been born blind and to have lived into adulthood in that condition. We might ask whether it was necessary for Martha and Mary to go through the anxiety of Lazarus’s sickness and the sorrow and grief of his death. We could ask what Lazarus thought and felt about the whole experience.

 

It might be easy for some of us to say, “Such questions are not appropriate, if Jesus said it was necessary then that is the end of the matter.” Others might say, “Why? Why was it necessary for the man to be born blind and for Lazarus to die? Were there no alternatives? What other possibilities were there?”

 

Perhaps we can look to the difference between Zacharias and Mary for wisdom. When Zacharias hears Gabriel’s incredible message he responds in unbelief, “How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is an old woman” (Luke 1:18).

 

However, when Mary hears Gabriel’s even more incredible message she responds in awesome wonder and belief, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34)

 

“Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

 

Perhaps there is also an element of the father crying to Jesus, “I do believe, help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).

 

When we shut our questions down, our perplexities, we deny our humanity and our dependance on Jesus; we are not robots, we have feelings, we have questioning thoughts. It is worse when we try to shut others down, denying them the opportunity to express their struggles, their questions, their search for wisdom and understanding.

 

On the other hand, playing God, critiquing God’s will and actions and words, engaging in endless “what if” speculation, takes the focus off Jesus and places it on us as the arbiters of life.

 

Can we trust Jesus or not? Do we trust Him?

 

Perhaps with the father seeking deliverance for his son we can learn to cry, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!”

 

We can say, “Lord, I don’t understand all of this. I don’t understand the whys and hows and all the other questions. But I believe You, help me to believe You more and more and to trust You.”

 

My sense is that faith and belief in the presence of questions and doubt is more precious than a faith which denies the reality of doubt and questions. Let us not pretend; while I imagine that God can work through our pretensions, I sense that He would rather work through our honesty.

 

I have had friends who have lived and died through much suffering and limitations. I would have been a fool to have said, “This is why this is happening to you. This is why you were born with this disease. This is why this incurable illness has happened to you in the prime of life.”

 

For sure I saw the glory of God in these friends, for certain they have affected my life in Christ and increased my confidence in Jesus and my vision of eternity; but I simply cannot speculate on why such terrible disease and illness entered their lives, either as children or adults. I must trust Jesus Christ, I must trust His Nature, His Character, I must trust our Good Shepherd.

 

Let us recall that, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister Mary and Lazarus” (John 11:5).

 

Jesus loves me, He loves you, He loves us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:29).

 

Our message can always be, “Jesus loves you and wants to be with you through what you are experiencing. He loves you with every beat of His heart. He wants you to see Him in new ways, ways you never imagined. He wants you to feel His arms holding you close.” We can always have confidence in this Message, for we can always have confidence in Jesus and His love.

 

This can be our invitation for those who have yet to meet Jesus to meet Him and belong to Him. It can also be our affirmation of God’s love to those who have already come to know Him. We can always trust Jesus…always.

 

Now for a bit of homework if you please. Between John chapters 9 and 11 is naturally Chapter 10. How might Chapter 10 relate to chapters 9 and 11?

 

We’ll look at this in the next reflection in this series, the Lord willing.

Two Healings, Two Responses (3)

 

 

Continuing our comparison between the healings of John 5 and John 9:

 

In John 9, when Jesus and His disciples see the man born blind, the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?”

 

Jesus replies, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him."

 

In John 5, when Jesus finds the man whom He had healed, He says to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

 

I point out that the subject of sin is raised in both narratives, not to attempt to answer the questions that can be raised in both instances, but because we are comparing the two men, the two healings of Jesus. The Scriptures were not written to satisfy our curiosity; they were written to reveal Jesus Christ. One of my favorite quotes from Fenelon is along the line of, “I know many people who are perfect…in speculation.”

 

For sure questions can lead us to Jesus, they can cause us to seek, to ask, to knock; and when Jesus is the object of our search and desire that is one thing, however, when our questions do not have Jesus as their object and center of gravity then we often engage in “foolish questions and ignorant speculations” which “produce quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23).

 

Furthermore, there are many things deep in the counsels of our Father beyond our understanding; it is not necessary that we know everything, it is necessary that we know Jesus and live in intimate relationship with Him.

 

Regarding John 9 and the man born blind, one thing we can be assured of, absolutely assured of, is that Jesus always desires to reveal Himself to us, He always desires to display the works of God in us. After all, God so loves us that He gave His only begotten Son for us – of course He wants to reveal Himself to us and draw us ever-closer to Himself.

 

I often tell folks who in are difficult situations, “I don’t pretend to know why this is happening, why you are going through this, but I do know this, our dear Lord Jesus wants to reveal Himself to you through this and draw you closer to Him.”

 

I believe this with all of my soul, with all that I am. I believe it because this is the character and Nature of Jesus Christ. There is deep and widespread suffering in this world, few of us escape it, it has many forms, some easily seen, some we never know about. Jesus walks with us through suffering, He carries us, He invites us to share His sufferings, He invites us to bless others through our sufferings – there are many dimensions to suffering and comfort and our transformation into His image.

 

And so we learn to look for Jesus in life’s pain and suffering, we look for how Jesus is coming to us and those around us, we seek to see the works of God within suffering, tribulation, uncertainty, within our struggles. O dear friends, this life will soon be over and the reality of eternity will be upon us and we will be within it. Each one of us will have a “last day”, each one of us will have a coming of the Lord, each one of us will leave this temporal life and move (actually we’ll “be moved”) into a life glorious beyond measure. Are we preparing for this? Are we allowing Christ to prepare us? Can we smell it? Taste it? Sense it? Touch it? See it, in some measure?

 

Let us always look for Jesus to reveal Himself.

 

Then we have what Jesus said to the man in Chapter 5, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

 

This may remind us of what Jesus says to the woman of John 8:11, “Go and sin no more.” I point this similarity out without further comment.

 

Regarding the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years in Chapter 5, physical incapacity does not mean that our capacity for sin is lessened (Matthew 5:21 – 30; 12:33 – 37; 15:10 – 20). We do not know how the man lived prior to his prolonged illness, nor do we know how he lived during his illness; we do know that Jesus warned him to stop sinning so that “nothing worse happens to you.”

 

It appears that this man did not take Jesus’ counsel to heart, for unless he was completely naïve, he must have known the result of telling the religious leaders that it was Jesus who healed him on the Sabbath. The man of John 9 aligned himself with Jesus, the man of John 5 gave his allegiance to those who sought to destroy Jesus.

 

Later in John Chapter 5 Jesus asks, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” This is the way of the religious world as much as it is the way of the world. It is often the way of those “searching Scriptures (John 5:39). Thankfully, we also have Bereans in our midst (Acts 17:11)!

 

Have I ever betrayed Jesus to the world or to the Pharisees? Have I received the blessings of Jesus, only to align myself with systems bent on His destruction? When others have asked me the equivalent of, “Why are you carrying your pallet on the Sabbath?” have I blamed Jesus and betrayed Him, rather than, like the man of John Chapter 9, steadfastly testified of Him and worshipped Him, have I been willing to be “put out” (9:34)? (See also Hebrews 13:13).

 

There is no peer pressure quite like religious peer pressure.

 

I will keep my answers to myself, for they are not pretty answers; my answers shock me, they shame me, they make me tremble.

 

What about you?