Table Talk

 

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name) said to him, “Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?”  Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say.  My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.  Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me.  John 14: 22 – 24a

Some of Jesus’ words confused the disciples.  It was not that His words weren’t plain enough to understand.  After all, how complicated is if you love me you will do what I have commanded you?  When I was a young boy my father asked me to dig a hole.  If I respected his wishes I would have dug the whole hole, not just the five or six shovels-full he found when he got back.  As a juvenile I didn’t misunderstand the words; I misjudged my actions against the weight of respect.  It wasn’t my father’s fault; I didn’t do what he asked, and demonstrated my lack of love by my disobedience.  I just chose playing basketball with my friends over loving (obeying) my Dad.  (We did talk when he got back, though!).

Judas was trying to wrap his mind around why the Messiah wasn’t going to give a full-disclosure of his arrival as Lord to the world at large.  The disciples were a little dense at this point, failing to see that the announcement was Jesus’ love.  Now, don’t sit there shaking your head in agreement about those poor dense disciples; none of us would have fared better. 

Jesus’ whole point to Judas was that there was to be no fanfare response like some great military conqueror might receive.  This was going to be a groundswell movement within people’s hearts from day-one!  It was a kingdom that started on the inside, and worked its way outward to all the actions love demands and produces.  If you believe because you love, you will behave because love acts consistently with what it loves.  Belief produces behavior.  Love produces loving!

The larger lesson here, from this table talk, is that the Gospel is announced to the entire world by God’s church, but it is received one heart at a time.  And that was God’s intention with it; it’s personal between God and those who love God.  Note that Judas asked why it wasn’t an open declaration to the world at large.  Jesus’ reply was about individual response; when the heart came to love the Chief Lover of human souls, the Lover would respond by moving-in…creating a home of God and individuals.  Love would be requited, not simply as an earthly king might rule subjects, even in a benevolent manner.  Rather, this Kingdom was going to begin within, stay within, and inspire the outward behavior of a whole lot of spritual fruit, that which Apostle Paul would later list for us:

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against these things!  Galatians 5:22-23

So the takeaway is that God is rarely interested in the pageantry, our ceremonies of praise and adoration, not nearly as much as the processional in the heart that moves from believing to behaving.  God is looking for the hearts to build Him a home that is constructed with loving response towards that which God loves.  It’s an inside-job that has outward consequences.  Much later, after years of reflection, Apostle John got this concept and wrote it down for us to understand:

We love each other because he loved us first.  If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?   1 John 4: 19 - 20

That’s what Jesus told the disciples that day, talking around the table, and that’s what He’s looking for in those who drag themselves to church out of habit, or those who just try to obey the ten commandments out of fear of going to hell for being bad.  He’s simply looking for a little heart love that will result in opening a person’s “heart-door” for Him to move in with all his love-baggage. 

What a change for those who respond.

For You Today

When life gets a little tedious, boring, or frightful, it’s time to check the storage room of your heart.  Is there love for God there…or has something else evicted the One who once lived there?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

Seeing God

Monday, September 1, 2014

God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.  Matthew 5:8 (NLT)

Many years before Jesus preached His famous Sermon on the Mount, Moses had led the children of Israel to the foot of the mountain of God.  They waited while Moses hiked up that hill to receive the law of God (the Ten Commandments). 

All alone, Moses communed with God; but he couldn't see God!  He plead; Let me see you, God.  But the Lord said, No; no human can look upon the face of God and live.  You couldn't take it, Moses.  But stand over there in the cleft of that rock; I'll pass by while you cover your eyes.  When I've passed you'll catch a glimpse of my glory.

What Moses wanted we all want; we express it differently.  We say we want to know the secrets of life or we want to know our destiny.  Scientists work to uncover the mystery of our beginnings.  It all comes down to the inner desire of human beings to see God; we want to know our Creator.  We want to know what He is like; we want to know what makes us part of Him. 

There is something inside all of us that needs assurance that all is well between the God who made us, and our own souls.  Man has always sought this, and nothing but a genuine encounter with God will satisfy this need.  That’s why Moses went to the burning bush.  This is why the account of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration endures to this day.  The praise of man, perfect health and wealth, or any power in the universe will not take the place of really knowing God.

Many hundreds of years after Moses, Jesus and His disciples gathered on the mountain.  He pointed the way to this encounter with God. 

BUT!  

There was something offered that day for which nobody bargained; when Jesus said, see God, His word meant much more than just a casual sighting.  Jesus said, optomai, which means to gaze, wide-eyed, intensely, comprehending.  Jesus told the disciples on that mountain that they would see and understand and become friends with God. 

Our Lord promised seeing God this way and He revealed the way.  He said seeing, or knowing God follows cleansing of the heart.  In Greek “heart” is kardia; in Latin cor, meaning center.   Jesus taught that a totally cleansed center of a person's being was the way to an encounter with God.

J.B. Phillips translates this beatitude:  Happy are the utterly sincere, for they will see God.  The Greeks used this word to describe wine that had been filtered to remove impurities; unadulterated. 

Have you ever felt that clean?  

The apostle John was at the Mount of Transfiguration that day.  Later, after the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus – after decades of reflection and walking with Christ in success and failure, weakness and strength, John wrote down the key to it all when it comes to seeing God. 

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.  1 John 1:9 (NLT)

This isn’t just how to feel clean; this is what makes you every bit clean before God.  To open your life to God, open your “heart” and all that you are at the center of everything that makes you who you are, is to make the life of God open to your heart.  And that’s what your heart has been longing-for. 

For You, Today…

Have you seen God lately?

That mountain isn’t far away.  In fact it’s anywhere you are, when, in your heart you take up the kneeling position towards God. 

His cleansing isn’t far away, or at the end of some great quest; it is as near as your heart and lips.

The next step isn’t a step at all…just kneel before Him; offer Him your heart. 

Give Him you!