God our Tender Loving Father

The following are portions taken from George MacDonald in the book "Discovering the Character of God":

"Our Lord was, is, and ever shall be divinely childlike. Childhood belongs to the divine nature...In our unbelief we are careful over the divine dignity, of which he is too grand to think. Better pleasing to God is the audacity of Job, who rushing into God's presence and flinging the door of his presence-chamber to the wall like a troubled - or it may be even angry, yet faithful - child, cries out to him whose perfect Fatherhood Job is in the process of learning.

"The devotion of God to his creatures is perfect. He does not think about himself but about them...

"In this is God like the child: that he is simply and altogether our friend, our father - our more than friend, father, and mother - our infinite love-perfect God. Grand and strong beyond all that human imagination can conceive of poet-thinking and kingly action, he is delicate beyond all that a human tenderness can conceive of husband or wife, homey beyond all that human heart can conceive of father or mother...

"Therefore, with angels and archangels, with the spirits of the just made perfect, with the little children of the kingdom, yea, with the Lord himself, and for all them that do not yet know him, we praise and magnify and laud his name in itself, saying Our Father..."

JESUS...before Christianity

In line with the theme of "simply Jesus" that we're on, I want to quote from Albert Nolan's book, Jesus Before Christianity, in which he attempts to look at Jesus before the Christian system and religion "enshrined (him) in doctrine, dogma, and ritual." Though I may not go along with everything the author says, it is a fascinating book and well worth reading if you want to continue to grow in understanding Jesus as a real man who lived in a particular culture and time and why He was so controversial and offensive to the religious and political systems of His day (and still is today): http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Before-Christianity-Albert-Nolan/dp/1570754047#reader_157075404

In his chapter entitled, "The Man Who Emerges", Nolan says: "When one allows Jesus to speak for himself and when one tries to understand him without any preconceived ideas and within the context of his own times, what begins to emerge is a man of extraordinary independence, immense courage and unparalleled authenticity - a man whose insight defies explanation. To deprive this man of his humanity is to deprive him of his greatness...

"All the men of religion, even John the Baptist, were scandalized by the way he mixed socially with sinners, by the way he seemed to enjoy their company, by his permissiveness with regard to the laws, by his apparent disregard for the seriousness of sin, and by his free and easy way of treating God. He soon acquired what we would call a bad reputation (Matt. 11:16-19). In terms of group solidarity his friendship with sinners would classify him as a sinner (Matt. 11:19; Jn. 9:24). In an age when friendliness toward any woman outside of one's family could mean only one thing, his friendship with women and especially with prostitutes would have ruined whatever reputation he still had (Lk. 7:39; Jn. 4:27).  Jesus did nothing and compromised on nothing for the sake of even a modicum of prestige in the eyes of others. He did not seek anyone's approval, not even the approval of 'the greatest man born of woman.'"

The more I look at Jesus through different lenses and see what kind of man He must have been as He walked among and related to sinful humans, the more I wonder if I would have approved of Him if I had lived in the same town...

Becoming Christ-centered

As we prepare to go through NT Wright's book, Simply Jesus, I will share some quotes that highlight our need as His people to become increasingly Jesus-centered in all aspects of life. Below are two quotes related to this:

Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet in the Introduction to their book, Jesus Manifesto:
“The body of Christ is at a crossroads right now. The two common alternatives are to move either to the left or the right. It’s our observation, however, that we are living in a unique time, when people are frozen as they look in either of those directions. When they look to the left, they decide that they cannot venture there. When they look to the right, they feel the same. Whether they realize it or not, people are looking for a fresh alternative—a third way. The crossroads today, we believe, is one of moving forward or backward. What we will present in this book, therefore, is razor-sharp, cut-glass clarity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Alpha and the Omega. We will show that He is that third way—and the only way—that we can forge a secure path into the future. If the church does not reorient and become Christological at its core, any steps taken will be backwards...”

N.T. Wright in Simply Jesus:
"...worshipping the God we see at work in Jesus is the most politically charged act we can ever perform. Christian worship declares that Jesus is Lord and that therefore, by strong implication, nobody else is...It commits the worshipper to allegiance, to following Jesus, to being shaped and directed by him. Worshipping the God we see in Jesus orients our whole being, our imagination, our will, our hopes, and our fears away from the world where Mars, Mammon, and Aphrodite (violence, money, and sex) make absolute demands and punish anyone who resists. It orients us instead to a world in which love is stronger than death, the poor are promised the kingdom, and chastity (whether married or single) reflects the holiness and faithfulness of God himself. Acclaiming Jesus as Lord plants a flag that supersedes the flags of the nations..."

Next book: "Simply Jesus" by N.T. Wright

The next book I'd like to go through is N.T. Wright's book, Simply Jesus, A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did,  and Why He Matters.       

You can find more about it at the amazon.com site: http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Jesus-Vision-What-Matters/dp/0062084399#reader_0062084399 

N.T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and one of the world's leading and respected Bible scholars. He is now serving as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. I have read enough of his material to have great respect for him as a true man of God and follower of Jesus. While he is obviously a solid believer and follower of Jesus, he isn't locked into some of the theological boxes that we American evangelicals have tended to get stuck in. I appreciate getting the perspective of brothers and sisters from other parts of the world.

In light of the book that we covered recently, I believe this would be a good book to go through because of its sharp and intense focus on the person of Jesus, which is what Chrstian Smith contends so strongly for in The Bible Made Impossible.

I plan to start this in May.

The remaining weeks before then, I'll continue to share quotes from God's people and perhaps some of my own thoughts.

Learning from Jesus - part 2

Last week I suggested that learning from Jesus is the way towards life-giving knowledge. Learning at His feet, eating from His hand (so to speak), strengthens His life in me rather than my natural life which operates independently of Him.

Jesus teaches us how to learn in these familiar words in Matthew 11:25-30: "At that time Jesus declared, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.'"

(Notice that His words of verses 28-30 are set in the context of child likeness and dependence. Jesus says that knowledge and understanding of His kingdom ways is revealed to the childlike and is hidden from the "wise and understanding." One of the outstanding characteristics of a child is  that they are teachable, and being teachable implies attentiveness and trust in the one they are hearing without over-analyzing. This learning that Jesus invites us to experience from Him implies more than a gaining of information since anyone can collect information; lowliness in learning changes a person for the good.)

In this context of child likeness, Jesus extends the invitation: "Come to Me..." This is an invitation to drop everything to be attentive and trusting, to be with Him without distractions and without pretense, just Him and me alone. I believe this is what the saints of God throughout history have meant when saying to God, "Here am I..." This may sound easy to do in theory but it requires the help of the Spirit to do in actuality. The many distractions and our self- consciousness are hindrances to a childlike approach to Jesus.This initial coming to Jesus may be the most difficult part of learning from Him. 

However, having approached Him with my full attention, He invites me to bend down to get under the same yoke that He is under, which I believe is the yoke of obedience to the Father. As fallen creatures, this runs contrary to the independence that we are born with and which is the air we breathe in our fallen world. Because of this, we fear obedience to God as something heavy and burdensome to us.

But Jesus says that if we will come to Him just as we are (no pretenses nor excuses) and listen to what He has to tell us with an attitude of obedience (doing that which I believe He is saying to me as best I can), we will learn from Him, and our learning will be fruitful and edifying rather than self-inflating...AND we will make the happy discover that being in the same yoke with Him and bearing the same burden with Him is very restful to our turbulent soul.

In summary, this is a daily walk and it takes ongoing practice for it to become a habit of living. The more we practice approaching Jesus with full attention and sincerity ("come to Me"), and humbly listen with an attitude of lowliness and intention to obey ("take My yoke upon you"), I believe our learning will be without stress and will bear fruit for His honor and for the maturing of His people.