Bold Proclamation

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

Ephesians 6: 16-19

As Paul is closing this great letter to the churches that he has poured so much of himself into, he asks them to be praying for him in a very specific way. Paul wants to be bold in the manner with which he proclaims that great eternal mystery that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. At first glance, it does not seem as if Paul is asking for much, for he has been a very bold person for a great many years now. In fact, one might say that the Paul that we see and know from the bible was always bold. Even before Christ forced Himself into the trajectory of his life, no one would have mistaken the young man Paul for a shy and retiring personality. Yet, now, at this final juncture of his life, Paul wants to be held up by others before the Lord as he desires to be bold one last time. 

He seeks out boldness, not comfort or even salvation from his seemingly certain date with an executioner. Paul wants to live out his days by proclaiming life-saving and eternity-giving truths to anyone that he comes into contact with. He desires to do this even with the probability that his actions will hasten his own demise. These are not foolish or rash actions on the Apostle’s part; rather, he knows that speaking out regarding the only true path to salvation is exactly what God has called him to do. Additionally, it is why he has been placed where he is and with the people with whom he is in contact. All of Paul’s day to day life is the result of God’s plan and is an outworking of the Lord’s will. As Paul looks back over the years of his life and considers the places he has been, the people he has engaged with, and the adventures that he has known, I have no doubt that he can see God working in each twist and turn of the journey. Now he wants to finish it all with the words of the gospel of Christ upon his lips and the realization that he was bold to his last breath as his final earthly thought.

Paul was truly unique. God crafted him with a specific intent in mind, and the Lord used him to fulfill those purposes. Each of us is also specifically created by the Lord with intentional purpose and with a plan in place for the ways that we will serve Christ with our lives. Regardless of where we are in our journey through life, whether just starting out or rounding that final turn, Paul’s request for boldness in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ is fitting and appropriate for each of us. None of us will have Paul’s skill, Spirit directed inspiration, and capability to write out explanations of the gospel for the world to read and consider. A few will be gifted with the ability to preach and to speak of these truths before groups and crowds, and all of us are called into lives of service to Christ and within His kingdom. Each of us can be bold in the way that we conduct our days. That is, we can love without reservation, seek justice for all, care about the needs of those that are powerless, and provide the comfort of grace and hope when life has overwhelmed people. We are to live righteously when our culture implores us to do otherwise, and we can bring the glory of the face of Christ into the dark corners of our world so that eternity touches the wounds of the day with its healing balm of grace, love, and mercy. In short, we can enter into the fulfillment of Paul’s final request and live out the gospel of Christ as our bold proclamation of its wonderous and mysterious truth.  

 

Approval

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Galatians 1: 10 

Who you seek to please sets a tone and a course for what you do and for where you go. As life plays out we all will serve many masters in multiple ways. It is a simple truth about the way that most of us are wired, but we are people who are motivated, in part, by the feedback that we get from others in our lives, and we will modify the way that we decide to act based upon the audience for those acts. We also bring our own pre set values and anticipation of outcome into the relationships in which we engage.   

If the people that we look to for our primary sense of understanding, acceptance, and confirmation are basing their concepts of what is good, proper, and loving upon purely human values and understanding, then the direct feedback that we receive will be oriented toward the self-centered and self-pleasing perspective of the earth-bound mind. This is a perspective that tends to operate from a position of power and of strength. There is even an arrogance in this point of view that doesn’t usually understand the essential value that God has crafted into every person on earth. 

However, when we look to God as the One who tells us about our value, worth, and worthiness, the essential orientation of our lives is changed. Christ focuses His love on us in a manner that serves our needs and that directs us toward serving others, and He guides us toward elevating our thinking from that earthy perspective to one that sees the heavenly. By serving Christ, we seek to do as He does; thus, we are directed to look outside of ourselves toward meeting the needs of others; then an amazing thing happens, for in Christ we start to understand more fully the true value that God sees in us. In seeking to please God, we serve people. In serving people, we, in turn, are also greatly blessed by those same people.

 

What Matters?

Since all these things (the heavens and heavenly bodies) are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought we to be in lives of holiness and godliness!

2 Peter 3: 11

 

Most people spend a very great amount of time and energy on building up our world. This is not a bad thing to do. In fact, there is much about this effort that is both commendable and in conformity with God’s stated desire and will for us. Yet, there does come a time when we need to realize that everything that we do for the sake of this world and to improve its environment is headed for final destruction. In other words, we are a bit like the proverbial doctor who has spared no cost in working to save a patient who simply dies of old age at about the same time as the cure is effective. It is all a noble yet futile effort. Again, caring about and for creation is not futile and following God’s will in this matter is true obedience to our Lord; yet, in the end, Christ will return, and all that has been infected and corrupted by sin will be wiped away and then made new.

 

So, it seems to me that the point of our care for this world is about something other than the dirt, trees, and waterways of our planet, and the purpose behind these efforts needs to be aligned with a heart and a desire that is focused on something other than clean air, clear water, and the preservation of species. The very nature and character of God is reflected in the minute details of His creative handiwork. Although some will disagree with me on this, I state uncatagorically that God, Himself, made all of this world and every one of the other ones that proliferate across the heavens. He not only made them, the Lord fashioned them down to the smallest of details in and upon them, and He did all of this in order to set the context and the place for His engagement and relationship with the highest form of His workmanship in the form of people. I do not pretend to understand the whys of it all, and I certainly do not comprehend God’s methodology; however, I do accept that all that surrounds me is important to my Lord and that He desires that I view it in this same manner.

 

Yet, in so viewing creation, I am to maintain a balance and a set of priorities that holds God’s greatest desires as foremost to me. As much as the Lord is pleased by the care that we give to our physical world, He is even more delighted when we reach out to care for other people who dwell upon this earth. God does want us to protect our environment; yet, His intent in imploring us to do this is that there would be safe and sustainable places for humanity to dwell and so that people who do not know Him would see a tangible demonstration of Christ’s love for them in the sacrificial efforts of His followers. God calls upon His people to be holy and godly. We are to walk through our days as women and men who are neither afraid nor are we concerned about what it means to be viewed as different by our co-inhabitants of this world. We become god-like as our thoughts and actions reflect a form of care that will give our all for the sake of other people and that does surrender everything that we hold as dear or precious to serve Christ and to enter into living out His will. Thus, we care for creation with hearts and minds fixed upon the fact that the only thing that actually matters to God in the end of days is the souls of His beloved people.

 

Shout It Out!

Shout for joy in the LORD, O you righteous!

Praise befits the upright.

Psalm 33: 1

 

There is a lot of shouting going on these days, and very little of it is spoken in praise of God. In fact, when God is evoked, it is often in some form of negative manner in which either His wrath or His irrelevance is the subject of the ideas put forth. Make no mistake about it, I believe that words are powerful tools; they are the wrenches and rulers, the drivers and the mallets that fill my writer’s war chest. Words lift up and at other times they scrape the soil from under the feet. There is power in them. People are moved to take certain actions by the careful application of language. Mothers console with expressions of love and comfort, and the Father counsels us with His powerful words of truth and righteousness. The volume and the emphasis that we put behind the delivery of our language add the element of emotion and serve to personalize the lexical statements that we utter.

 

So, when it comes to making a sincerely loud noise in our world with our words, it seems to me that the ones that should come out first and with the greatest clarity are the ones that sing forth God’s nature, character, and engagement with our lives. In my experience, the Lord is the source of true joy in my days, strength for the journey, and peace in the course of its progress. God brings forth life where nothing more than a dry expanse of wasteland existed before His presence. Through Christ we are redeemed from a life of servitude to the oppressive forces of this world and to their false promises of safety and security, and in Christ we can live in the valid security of our souls and the safety for our hearts that comes only by and through His loving grace and mercy.

 

This does not mean that I think that followers of Christ should not be speaking out in favor of justice, peacemaking, and the extension of grace and mercy to people in our world, for I hold that doing these things is a God-mandated aspect of living as citizens of His kingdom come on earth. What I am saying is that the nature and the tone of our expressions should reflect the character and the person of our Lord. In Christ, all that we do and everything that we say is directly connected to Him, and all that we set forth in our days needs to be sourced from that relationship. If it is true for me and for you that Christ is the source of the joy in our lives, then everything that we place before the eyes of our world can be prefaced and framed in the context of that joy and related to its source. Thus, each statement that we make can be an expression of the Gospel of Christ and so a message of hope that can cut through the noise of this troubled world.

 

 

 

In All, Thanksgiving

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.

2 Timothy 1: 3

 

There is something beautifully simple present here in Paul’s words that I think often gets lost in the fog and the haze of daily life. This is an attitude of thankfulness. The Apostle seems to be holding out his thanksgiving as a very broad idea and a remarkably open one too. Now Paul was not dwelling in comfort or safety when he set out these ideas. He was a prisoner in Rome in the brutally oppressive times when Nero was the Emperor. Paul was certainly going to die in the near future, and he was fully aware of this fact. He was separated from his dear friends and traveling companions, and his valuable work of sharing the Gospel of Christ throughout the gentile world had come to a halt. From a natural and a human perspective these were hard times.

 

Yet, Paul sees the good in it all, for he sees Christ in his days. This is not some mystical vision or self-deluded refusal to face into reality. Rather, Paul seems to have a vision of the greater reality of life in this world as a follower of the Lord of Creation. Rather than viewing his situation and circumstances as desperate or hopeless, he comprehends the opportunities to serve Christ that are there before him. Instead of focusing on how hard his days are or upon the grim prospects for his life’s future, Paul is reflecting upon the many ways that people have entered into his days and given special care and consideration to him. All of this brings him to a place where his spirit is lifted and his mind seems to be clear as he expresses praise and thanksgiving to God and for all that has been granted to him in this life.

 

It seems that thanksgiving is something that has become a part of the rhythm of Paul’s days. So, by looking at his example, I am challenged to follow his lead in this matter. When life is viewed from the perspective of Christ’s engagement with me and with His loving sacrifice as the filter for everything, all that takes place in my days and to me can be cause for thanksgiving and praise to God. From the breath that I breathe in and expel from my lungs to the purpose that my existence enjoys, all of my life and everything that influences its course is a gift from God. Even sickness, pain, loss, grief, disappointment and failure serve to guide my steps along a path that belongs to Christ. As I hold the image of my Lord before my heart in an on-going prayer of devotion, He speaks to me a truth that is deeply embedded in the foundations of Creation and that truth is the basis for hope eternal and the reason for expressing thankfulness in and to all.