The Dance – John 16:1-15

“It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment…. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:7-8, 13, CSB).

On the night before His death Jesus introduced His disciples to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew that He would no longer be physically present with His disciples and they would need His continuing presence and guidance in their lives.

To illustrate the ministry of the Holy Spirit, Max Lucado draws an analogy to a man who wanted to learn to dance. The man went to a bookstore to buy a book on dancing. He studied the book thoroughly and learned all the dance steps as the book had described.

Once he mastered all the dance steps the man invited his wife to watch him dance. He demonstrated all the movements and steps of the dance perfectly and then turned to his wife, expecting her to congratulate him on what a good dancer he was.

Instead of praising him on his perfect dancing, she instead told him he forgot the most important part of the dance. “Where’s the music?” she asked him.

Just like the dancing man, we Christians are sometimes prone to follow the instructions while ignoring the music. We master doctrine, memorize Bible verses, debate theology and then rigidly march out on the dance floor of life with no music in our hearts.

Dancing without music is not only unsatisfying, it’s without meaning. It’s the what and the how without the why and the wherefore!

It’s like a song with lyrics and no melody….

The same holds true for our Christian lives. Salvation without relationship is religion. It’s ritual. It’s purpose without passion.

The Holy Spirit is the music to the dance of our Christian lives! He’s the melody to the song of salvation.

The Holy Spirit provides passion to God’s purpose for our lives.

When Jesus first introduced His disciples to the Spirit Who would inhabit their lives after He left this earth, He revealed the personhood of the Holy Spirit: He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you” (John 14:17, CSB).

Of the three persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the one we seem to understand the least. We can personalize God as Father, Son as personal Savior, but we often mistakenly regard the Holy Spirit as a force and not a person.

But, the Holy Spirit is a person. He is the Spirit of Jesus (Philippians 1:19).

He is Jesus (God) abiding in us. He is Jesus walking and talking with us.

And, as such He’s our moral compass. He internally guides us and externally empowers us in how to live out God’s will in this world.

He confirms our salvation in Christ and affirms our hope for eternal life with God.

And, as an added benefit the Holy Spirit illuminates the words of the Bible to our hearts and minds making it more than a set of instructions for living the Christian life but rather a chronicle for having a personal relationship with God in Christ.

In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:13-14, CSB

Desperately Seeking Humans: Part 3, A Cosmic Love Affair – Revelation 21-22

desperatelyseekinghumans“I heard a loud voice from the throne say, ‘Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’” (Revelation 21:3-4, CEB).

Because God is love, He is seeking humans to receive His love. But, God’s love is eternal so His love affair with the human race is of cosmic proportions.

You see, God is preparing a place for Him to live together with us, forever!

While God dwells with us (in us) by His Spirit in this world, in the world to come this cosmic love affair will no longer be constrained by distance. God plans to dwell among us!

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Desperately Seeking Humans: Part 2, Real Reality – 1 John 5:6-12

desperatelyseekinghumans“And this is the testimony: God gave eternal life to us, and this life is in his Son. The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have God’s Son does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12, CEB).

God is love. But, love, God’s love, is incomplete and unfulfilled unless it’s received and reciprocated. So, God is desperately seeking humans to love Him back. To have fellowship with Him. To enter into a love-relationship with Him.

But, the reality of God’s love is not the reality we see. The reality we see says that life on Earth is all there is. The reality we see tells us that when we die we’re done.

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Desperately Seeking Humans: Part 1, Irresistible Love – 1 John 4

desperatelyseekinghumans“God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins… We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:9-10,19 CEB).

God’s absolute nature is love. So, God is love in action!

But, for love’s action to be complete, it requires not only the giving of it but also the receiving and returning of it.

If God just emanated love, He would merely be a spectator of His  creation, a cosmic stalker, of sorts, of the beings He created for love!

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God Is Good! All The Time? – Nahum 1:1-8

God-is-Good-All-the-Time“The Lord is good, a haven in a day of distress. He acknowledges those who take refuge in him. With a rushing flood, he will utterly destroy her place and pursue his enemies into darkness” (Nahum 1:7-8, CEB).

Nahum prophesied during a time when Judah was attempting to gain independence from its Assyrian overlords. His prophecy foretold the destruction of the Assyrian capital of Nineveh.

Nahum begins his prophecy on the downfall of Assyria by laying a theological framework describing the character of God. In verse 1 Nahum says God is jealous and vengeful, full of wrath, and rages against His enemies. He says that although God is great in power, God is calculating  and severe when administering justice: “Who can stand before his indignation? Who can confront the heat of his fury?” (vs 6).

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Savage Faith – Lessons from John 6

CrucifiedWithChrist“Jesus said to them, ‘I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Human One and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me lives because of me’” (John 6:53-57, CEB).

I’m not so certain that in these verses Jesus is just talking about taking communion. Certainly, communion celebrates the flesh and blood sacrifice of Jesus through the imagery of the bread and the wine. I suppose these verses might even be used to support the notion that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is somehow changed into the body and blood of Christ.

But I don’t think that’s at all what Jesus had in mind here.

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God’s End Game – Lessons from John 6

GodsEndGame“They asked, ‘What must we do in order to accomplish what God requires?’ Jesus replied, ‘This is what God requires, that you believe in him whom God sent'” (John 6:28-29, CEB).

Most Christians are trying to find and do God’s will in their lives. In fact, a lot of our personal prayer and Bible study efforts are focused on knowing and doing God’s will.

As we attempt to find and do God’s will, we have a tendency to gauge whether a thing is God’s will by our circumstances. If things are going our way and we’re successful, then we must be doing God’s will. But if we’re facing difficulties and things aren’t going as planned, then we must be missing God’s will.

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Amateur Theologians – John 9:25,30-33

blindbeggar“But I know this; I was blind, and now I can see!…He healed my eyes, and yet you don’t know where he comes from? We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but he is ready to hear those who worship him and do his will. Ever since the world began, no one has been able to open the eyes of someone born blind. If this man were not from God, he couldn’t have done it.” (John 9:25,30-33, NLT).

As Jesus and His disciples are walking along they came across a man who was blind from birth and was also a beggar.

The disciples asked Jesus to provide a theological explanation for the man’s unfortunate condition and circumstances: “Why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” (vs 2).

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When God’s Not Speaking – 1 Samuel 3

How-God-Speaks“And word from the Lord was rare in those days, visions were infrequent…Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord yet been revealed to him…Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle…What is the word that He spoke to you, Please do not hide it from me…And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, because the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (1 Samuel 3:1,7,11,17,21, NASB).

In ancient Israel the presence of absence of God’s prophetic voice was considered to be evidence of the presence or absence of God and the presence or absence of His favor.

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Embracing God’s Word – Ezekiel 3:10-11

embracingGod'sWord“Then Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says!’ Do this whether they listen to you or not.” (Ezekiel 3:10-11, NLT).

In this commissioning of Ezekiel for God’s service, there are two points that are relevant for disciples of Jesus.

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