Simple Intention

The simple intention wills one thing, releasing the results of its labor completely to God, resting in him as each moment passes. It understands that there is no "perfect" and "permissable" will, for that is to say that God wills everything but only one of those things is "perfect". The simple intention understands that all of God's will is perfect, but that it has a choice to seek it or not. The simple intention knows that God may will several things all at the same time, all of them different but equal in perfection. This has no impact on divine sovereignty; it does not make us the arbiters of our own destinies as though we were our own gods. It is in fact the sovereignty of God that makes the choice possible at all. Our freedom is itself a proclamation of sovereignty. A simple intention holds itself open to hear the voice of God from many avenues, not just the inner voice. God speaks clearly through the most obvious means first, which usually consists of scripture, the church, our friends and our families. The Christian who fears missing the voice of God because it's too quiet to hear has missed something important: it is God's will for you to hear his voice. It is not intentionally hidden or unclear.

When we speak of the things God causes, permits or allows, we often employ the word "providence". Providence is a philosophical word. It is an abstraction. God is not abstract; he is our Father who loves us. His will is always an expression of his love. Our simple intention is an expression of obedience born of experience and trust. This is what St. Paul means when he says that God works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes. We can trust that God's will can be perfect for everyone while remaining perfect for each of us.

Don't Pollute the Headwaters...

I've had a few questions on something I said during the message yesterday. I understand where the question is coming from, but I think it misunderstands a thing or two that I couldn't explain fully yesterday in the interest of brevity. Let me try to add some detail here.

First, a summary of what I said: if we get love wrong by attempting to "balance" God's ultimate revelation in Christ with other supposed revelations, divine characteristics or things that seem to compete with it (wrath, judgment and so on), then the gospel will become an evaluative tool, a framework for critical evaluation, a line of demarcation, a moral code or a list of “do’s” and “don’ts”. The gospel will become a line separating the “ins” from the “outs”. The glorious gift will become an impossible standard for self-evaluation, a sadistic means by which we assess whether we’re doing it right or doing it wrong, and we’ll judge everyone else by the same criteria. I said that, as you Pastor, if that's what you're getting out of your bible, then I'm taking your bible away from you because you're missing the point of it, and actually doing more harm than good.

The point of confusion was, since I'd also used passages FROM THE BIBLE in support of my assertion that Jesus is the face of God, the place where all the fullness of deity dwells, the divine Word of God and the revelation that supercedes all previous revelations, how would the person who's missing the point know to think anything differently? It's a good point. I caught myself in a rhetorical catch-22. So, for the sake of clarity, I'd never actually demand that you turn in your bible. What I'm saying is, you might be missing the point of it. Here's why:

Consider the Nile River. Though we usually think about it as an Egyptian body of water, it actually winds its way through nine countries, covering about 4,200 miles from its headwaters at Lake Victoria. The Nile has been one of the centers of civilization since the dawn of recorded history, the life-source of literally billions and billions of people and animals over the last 16,000 years or so. Now, let's say you take a billion tons of arsenic and dump it into Lake Victoria. It stands to reason that absolutely everything downriver, all the way to the Nile Delta in the Mediterranean Sea will probably die. In other words, if you poison the headwaters, everything else is screwed up.

I'm not saying that God is a fluffy marshmallow of love, who cares nothing for us except that we be "happy", whatever that means. I'm not saying that God's reaction to anything and everything we do is approval and joyous acceptance. That would not be love in any meaningful sense of the word; it would be the opposite, actually: apathy. God cannot be said to "love" us while caring nothing for our character or well-being. Conversely we cannot claim to love him while at the same time taking not the slightest notice of anything he says. Please...let's not get stuck on extremes here.

What I am saying is that we musn't follow rules and think that it's the same as loving God. It absolutely isn't. One can follow every single rule in the bible and never actually know or love God for a second (Matthew 25). On the other hand, we musn't engage in a lebertarian free-for-all while calling it "freedom" either. They are not the same thing at all. Don't unecessarily polarize the issue. Don't make it about "heaven" or "hell". Make it about God and what he has actually done in the finished work of the cross. When divinity wants to solve the issue of rebellion it looks like love. When God, who could do anything any way he wanted, wants to address the problem of sin it looks like forgiveness. When there is an infinit price to pay, our God, who has all the resources available in the universe, pays it on our behalf.

What overcomes a multitude of sins? LOVE. (1 Peter 4:8).

What casts out fear of judgment? PERFECT LOVE (1 John 4:18).

Why do have a hope that will never disappoint? Because God has poured LOVE into our hearts (Romans 5:5).

What does it mean to be "prefect" as God is perfect? LOVING COMPREHENSIVELY like he does (Matthew 5:43-48).

What triumphs over judgment? MERCY (James 2:13).

What are we to be rooted and established in? LOVE (Ephesians 3:17b).

What did God do when we were his enemies? He LOVED us in Christ (Romans 5:8).

How do we know that we've passed from life to death? We LOVE one another (1 John 4:14).

Why would God suffer for us? Because he LOVES everything he's created (John 3:16).

What is the ONE ingredient that makes spiritual gifts worth anything? LOVE (1 Corinthians 13).

What is Jesus commandment to us, equated with loving God? LOVING ONE ANOTHER (John 15:17, Matthew 22:37-39).

Love is the headwater from which flows everything else. Wrath, judgment, mercy and justice are all rivers fed by love. We pollute the headwater of love by trying to "balance" it with those other things (as though those things were anything other than expressions of love). Mercy without love becomes and arrogant and condescending "reaching down" instead of "reaching out". Justice is self-serving sectarianism without love. Wrath and judgment divorced from love are evil in the extreme. Trying to follow God without being rooted and established in love, which is the revelation of Christ in our hearts, is an exercise of empty rule-keeping and cruel, critical evaluation of self and others. It's as far removed from the point of the gospel as could possibly be.

I'll retract part of what I said yesterday. Don't put your bibles down...yet. Think about what you're doing with them though. Don't for a moment think that the enemy can't get at you from the pages of your bible. If when you read your bible you come away feeling like you're doing everything wrong, STOP. You don't have the LOVE part right yet. You don't understand yet the way God loves you, that everything he has done, is doing now and will do is motivated by love that can never stop while God remains God. Reconciliation, repentance, regeneration and restoration are all the result of drowning yourself in the headwaters of LOVE.

My job as your Pastor may be to hold your head under the water a little longer.

Contract vs. Covenant

God never works in contracts with us. He always works by covenant. Contracts are kept by continual evaluation and re-evaluation of the terms. We're always scrutinizing ourselves, others and even God to make sure everyone is living up to their end of the deal. If they're not, then we have to either tweak the contract or even tear it up and walk away because it's no good anymore if you're not getting what you want out of it. There is no love in a contract, though there might be some friendly formality that approximates it. There is only living up to the agreed terms.

Though there are stipulations in a covenant, they are not there to be lived up to; they are there to establish a relationship of love in a way that would not normally occur otherwise. No one scrutinizes the stipulations of the covenant to see if everybody is doing his/her part. The stipulations are supposed to be written on our hearts, not on paper. No one is faithful to a spouse because we're being obedient to the vow we made on our wedding day; we're faithful because we love our spouses. No one posts a list of the vows we made on our wedding day so we can check them off to see if we're doing all the right things or if our spouse is keeping them all. They point is that they be kept instinctively in love, not by obligation.

In the same way God is faithful because he loves us. Our faithfulness to God is supposed to be the same, not born out of obligation or worse yet, out of fear. This is not a contract. This is a love covenant written on warm, pliable flesh with our God who is determined to love us no matter what it costs him.

Tear up the contract and accept the covenant.