Signature of the Divine

What with graduation, finishing my bachelors degrees, and then moving; I have not been able to blog for several months, but at long last here it is my latest post.

I have always enjoyed the story of Creation and the more I learn, the greater the story becomes for me. During my baccalaureate career I had to take a biology class with a professor who quickly became my friend, Dr. Spaun. He has a passion for teaching that is hard to find in many classes. The more we talked about the wonders of the human body and how well it is designed, the more the story of Creation comes alive for me; especially when we compare creation to re-creation. In II Corinthians 5:17, it says that if any man is in Christ he is a new creature, or some translations say a new creation. What a wonderful verse—one that many times is used for evangelism and used to explain that we can be free from, not only the debt of sin, but also the bondage of it. To really understand the depth of this verse and what it means we have to go back to the beginning and get a good understanding of where man’s place in Creation was.

In Genesis, the first couple chapters, we have outlined for us in Hebrew prose the creation of the world. There is so much here that I could spend days talking about all of the different aspects of Creation, but I want to focus on the words used to describe the creation process. There are three words in the Hebrew Language that are used in Genesis chapters one and two. Transliterated (which simply means phonetically changing the Hebrew words into English) these words are bara, asa and yatsar. Bara is the word that gives us the concept of ex nihilio, which is a Latin term meaning to create something from nothing. For example, in the beginning God created (bara) the heavens and the earth. To further explain the concept many scholars believe that when it says God created (bara) the heavens and the earth, He only really created mass, and the rest of the Creation story is Him, our Heavenly Father, refining the mass He created (bara) in verse one. This makes sense when you read the rest of the passage.

The second word asa can be used interchangeably with bara, but in the first two chapters of Genesis it is used to show further refinement of what was created (bara) out of nothing (ex nihilio). So, when Moses writes that the Lord God separated the light from the darkness, the heavens from the earth, and the land from the sea, He is refining (asa) what He had already created (bara) ex nihilio. Now, while the concept has been there, the actual word asa is not used until Genesis 1:25, where Moses writes, “And God made (asa) the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds.” When we see this word we see at least two things: first, that God spent more time in making (asa) the animals then He did the plants or any part of creation up to this point. He spoke light into existence and made (asa) the animals after their own kind. Here is where it starts to get good in my opinion. When it comes to man, God said “let us make (asa) man in our image” (Gen 1:26), and in verse 27, “God created (bara) man in His own image, in the image of God He created (bara) him; male and female He created them.” Moses uses both words bara and asa to explain the making of man, this becomes even more significant in chapter two.

The story of Creation is so significant that it is repeated. The first chapter gives us a detailed overview of all of Creation. The second chapter gives us an overview of Creation with the focus on the pinnacle of God’s Creation: Man. In the same way that a master artist works more diligently and more carefully on what he wants to be his masterpiece—what he wants to be remembered for more than anything else he has painted, or sculpted, or drawn—God wanted man to be His signature piece, His masterpiece. We know this from several things: God gave man dominion over everything that He had created; God created man last as the crowning achievement, His signature if you will. Lastly, God created man in His image, as well as breathed the breath of life into man; these are two things that He only did with man. We start to see this fully in Genesis 2:7: “Then the Lord God formed (yatsar) man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” There are two words here that hold significance for us. The first one is formed (yatsar), which is the third word in the passage used for creation. Yatsar is significant because, just like in chapter one, bara and asa are used to describe the creation of man; yatsar is only used in the creation narrative when referring to man’s creation. Yatsar has the understanding of creation of a work of art in the same way that a master potter takes great patience, skill and time to make a beautiful vase; the word being used to describe the creation of man would have given the Israelites the understanding that God, Who could have spoken mankind into existence in an instant, Who who could have just thought us into time and space without a second glance or thought, took time. The Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, of mass and everything composed of it; Who set in place the planets, solar system, and universe in all its glory simply with a couple of words; took time. He took time to form man from the dust of the ground in much the same way a master sculptor would sculpt a statue out of clay. He took the time to form Adam’s hands and feet, eyes and ears, each part of the human body and its functions working in unison in a biological symphony that makes the works of the greatest human composers look as simple as a nursery rhyme. Think for a second and meditate on what that means; ruminate on just how fearfully, and wonderfully made we are, and remember that we are fallen. We live after the curse of sin. Adam was created perfect without the flaw or marring of the sin curse. Take time to think about it, because our Heavenly Father took time when He made us.

There is more here than I could dare go into, in a blog post, of just how well we are made, so just one last point before we move on. We were made with eternity in mind. We—not just our bodies because they don’t last forever anymore because of the sin curse, but who we really are—our spirit was designed to last forever. This may bring to mind the question of why: why would God make us to last for eternity and not do the same for all of Creation. Because all of Creation was made for us to have an environment in which we could be with our Father. Our Heavenly Father deeply desires a relationship with us. This is seen dramatically in the story of Creation but it is seen even more dramatically in our re-creation. Let’s move on to the New Testament.

In the first chapter of John it says, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (ESV)” Think about that for a minute: the “Word” in this passage is Christ. John in his gospel is introducing the Christ as the creative action in the beginning of everything. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. John puts Christ as present and active in Creation with God and equal to God. So we have God the Father speaking Creation into existence through Christ. My point is this: Christ was the creative force in our coming to be along with all of existence. John continues in verse three, “All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” So nothing was created (bara), nothing was made (asa), and nothing was formed (yatsar) without being made by Jesus Christ Pre-incarnate. This becomes even more significant when we start looking at the original language in this passage.

In John 1:1 it says, “in the beginning was the Word and the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” In Greek “Word” is Logos. Logos essentially is, in this context, the reasoned and spoken Word of God. So when it says that Christ is the Word, it means that Christ is all of the reason and wisdom of God as well as the spoken force behind the creative act of God, and is summed up in the person of Christ. That means that God, in the person of Christ, made everything from the chaos that is inferred in Genesis 1:2, “2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (ESV) God spoke mass into existence, but that mass had no shape or meaning, no purpose and so God through Christ gave it meaning and purpose and then created us in Adam and Eve and commanded us to preserve that purpose and meaning; but they fell and all of us with them. So Christ came to earth later to recreate that purpose and meaning and recreated the stewards to maintain that purpose and meaning in the training of the disciples initially and eventually of the church. Essentially this is what Christ was telling His disciples when He told them in Matthew 16:19-20, “Go forth and make disciples.” He was saying “Go forth and allow Me, through the Holy Spirit, to use you to restore mankind as the stewards of all of Creation.” He does this by first restoring us in relationship to the Father and then making us a light to the world. This is what John is implying in John 1:4-5 (ESV): “4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Just to recap briefly: When in Genesis 2:7 it says that “7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (ESV), it was Christ who personally took the time, just like a potter, to form and shape Adam’s body from the dust of the ground and later Eve from Adam’s side. This makes me wonder what was going through Christ’s mind in John 9 when He bent down spit on the ground and made clay and anointed the man’s eyes that had been blind from birth. I can imagine Him thinking here, “My child, I am sorry that you were born incomplete because of the sin curse but you must realize that all of mankind has been born incomplete in some way because of that same curse; so take joy, My child, in knowing that because of how you were born blind you and many will be made to see and come to know me for who I am.” I can also imagine Christ thinking, “I am using spit to make clay to heal your eyes and later I am going to use my own blood to make a new clay to heal everyone that will call on My Name and I will do it all for the glory of my Father.”

John 1:4, 5 says that, “4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”(ESV). Remember way back in the garden in Genesis 3:1 when the serpent asked Eve, “did God actually say?” And later the serpent’s statement in verse four, “You will not surely die”; but we did—both instantly and progressively, the second Adam and Eve ate they were separated from God spiritually and relationally. It was at that very point that death entered the world and we all began to die through Adam and Eve as they began to age and grow old. It wouldn’t be until much, much later when Christ arrives on the scene in John 1 that we would begin to be reintroduced to life and light in a permanent and relational way. It was this pivotal point in John 1 that all of the Old Testament pointed to. It was the very thing that every prophet and Judge in Israel’s past had foretold: the coming of this life and light in the person of Jesus Christ. This was the beginning of our re-creation.

In the gospels everything that Christ did, He did to show His disciples and us who He was, to show that He was the Messiah that had been foretold. All of His time and effort was spent in reforming those twelve chosen men so that they could be used by the Father to reform the world, to reform the hearts and minds of all those that would believe. Every miracle, every parable, every sermon, and every prayer was to fulfill one singular passion that the Son of God shared with the Father and the Spirit: the recreation of man back into a right relationship with them, with God. So God the Son spent roughly three years in a process of re-creation, of yatsar, forming the hearts and minds of the disciples, training them to become His emissaries in the world after He left. And then, after He died and rose again, as He was getting ready to send them out into the world, just like He breathed the breath of life into Adam in Genesis 2:7, in John 20:21-22, “21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (ESV)” That’s right. He breathed the breath of new life to them; the beginning of the recreation that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 5:17. Later, at Pentecost, they received the Holy Spirit with power, and they were enabled to preach and teach and begin to finish the work of recreating the world one heart at a time as Jesus had begun. I am awestruck when I look at Creation in this way. It is an amazing fact to me that the almighty Creator and Sustainer of the universe Who could have created me with less than a wave of His hand, less than a thought, and Who, quite frankly, could, with even less of a thought, undo me and all of existence if He chose to, took time. He took time to make us and even more time to remake us. And even in remaking us, He won’t force us to be remade. He will only do it if we believe and ask Him to; and if we do ask Him to, He will and He will take time.

It puts my journey of life with Him back into perspective. The fact that He would take time with me to go through everything I go through because of circumstance or my own stubbornness. He not only takes time to be with us, He wants to go through it with us, He wants to guide us through it; not over, or around, but through so that we can build our faith and perseverance. Check out the first chapter of James in this light. It may just change how you view life. It did for me.

How is the Lord Jesus Christ working the recreation in your life; has He begun a work in you?
Philippians 1:6 says that if He has begun a work in you He will finish it, but are you letting Him?

Love God and Do What You Want

I remember during one of my first Theology classes; coming across the quote by Augustine that I have chosen for the title of this post. I was instantly intrigued by the apparent simplicity of the statement and as a new Christian whether or not it was a statement that I could consider as true. Six years later as I finish up my undergrad work, I am reminded again at just how true it really is. While on the surface it appears to be a simple quote that very well may have just been said in passing, once meditated on and dissected really has no simplicity to it much like the Japanese form of poetry Haiku which is a poem composed of only three lines.
The quote by Augustine “love God and do what you want” always seems to stir the pot when I bring it up in classes. Many people react to the statement without really thinking about it at all and I get the impression that they think of the statement as at best a paradox or worse an oxymoron. After all Christ said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, 21, 23, 24). It reminds me that a couple of weeks ago my wife and I went out on our weekly date on a Saturday morning for breakfast; as we were paying for our meal the clerk commented on my wife’s t-shirt (it said that simply that Jesus is not religion). He asked what she meant or something to the effect of if Jesus isn’t a religion then what is He? She responded with He is a relationship, she said that religion is about a bunch of rules that say don’t do this and don’t do that. The clerk then asked, “what about the ten commandments those are rules aren’t they?” I replied to him that some would see them as that but we didn’t, not any more. They were more like boundaries. I asked him if he was married or had a girlfriend; he said he had a girlfriend. So I then asked him if you knew there were certain things that didn’t make her happy when you did them would you do them, like see other women or lie to her things like that. He said no. Well, those are her relationship boundaries (the ethical implications aside, the conversation wasn’t that deep). The ten commandments are really relationship boundaries for our heavenly Father to let us know how He liked to be treated obviously. They are more than that but that was not the subject of our conversation, relationship was. It is also the point of Augustine’s quote; think about it: “love God and do what you want.” Just think about it for a minute. If I were to take the quote and apply it to my relationship with my wife it may be easier to break it down. If I love Terri, what ever I want to do I do not want to hurt her; so I would never put any other girl before her. I would never lie to her or about her. I would never want to harm her on any level so I would want to respect, even cherish her boundaries for relationship. In fact, I would want to know everything I could about her and her boundaries. It is the same way with our heavenly Father, the same and it is different. It’s the same way in that if I love my heavenly Father I want to know everything about Him and what His boundaries for relationship are. The really cool thing is He wrote it all down for me and He made it interesting for me to read with examples both good and bad; along with plots, subplots, intrigue, suspense, and drama–real stories about other people who did and did not respect his boundaries. This was Augustine’s point: if you truly really love God, you will want to and even feel a need to find out everything about Him–find out what hurts Him; what makes Him feel joy, sorrow, and all the other emotions that He feels and created us to feel also. And when you know Him intimately and are in intimate relationship with Him you can do whatever you want to do because what you want to do would never be anything that would be wrong to do. So…Love God…. and do what you want.

Breathe

In the beginning

You breathed life into me

The same way You breathed it into the first man.

And when Your Son came

He breathed His Spirit into me

As only He can.

If only,

If only I could be so close to You,

My God,

That as You breathe out,

I breathe in.

Every breath a fresh filling

From my Father to me;

More of your Spirit dwelling within.

You breathe life with every breath,

And yet with every breath

It seems that I choose death.

How do I end this nightmare?

How do I make this dream end?

Father, bring me to an intimacy

With You that will never end.

To a place where every breath You breathe out

I expectantly breathe in.

Each breath a gift from You

Of fire and wind.

Each breath more of Your Spirit

Dwelling within.

Father, I am broken!

If You are willing

Only You can mend.

Show me what is in the way

So that my sorrow can end.

Breathe into me more of You,

More of Your love and grace,

Make it possible for me to live;

Every moment before Your face.

The Emporer's New Clothes

In reading Isaiah 6, when it says that the train of His robe filled the temple, I am reminded also of Isaiah 61:10 where it says that the Lord has covered me with the robe of righteousness. Romans 3:10 also comes to mind when it says that there is none righteous, no not one. This then brings me back to Isaiah 6, and because I am a visual thinker and most of my thoughts are like movies that play out in my head. The Lord tends to show me things in the same way. In reading Isaiah 6 and remembering the other two references that I have mentioned—Isaiah 61:10 and Romans 3:10—this is what plays out in my mind.


Isaiah is in the throne room of God—a huge and massive room covered in gold with huge pillars. The room reminds me of what the temple may have looked like during the Old Covenant—the temple that King Solomon built as a labor of love to Yahweh. As he describes in the passage, there are seraphim around the throne, each with six wings, each using the wings to cover their faces and feet. This gives me the idea that the righteousness of God is so much that not even the angels here can look directly upon Him and they cry out to one another Holy… Holy …Holy … is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory! The worship of the angels is so intense that the doors shake with their worship. Isaiah is, of course, filled with awe and amazement but he is also afraid as would anyone who finds themselves in the presence of the Almighty God, Creator and Sustainer of our very existence, our very universe.

Isaiah says “woe is me for I am undone”! The word undone gives the idea that he, at that moment, feels as though he is being uncreated simply by being in the presence of One that is so holy, so just, and so perfect that it is more than his mind or soul can even grasp. Isaiah continues explaining why he feels as though his very existence is unraveling: “because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King the LORD of hosts.” Isaiah of course feels completely blown away; he has found himself in the presence of the God of Israel. The God that, as a nation, they felt they could not even use His proper name, could not even write out the name of Yahweh. This is where I am reminded that one day we will all stand before the Creator and Sustainer of all that we know, the Creator of everything: what we know and all that we don’t understand. In my mind I picture the same scene and, just like in Isaiah, the train of God’s robe flows down over the sides of the throne, down the steps and fills the temple, but as I gaze out on this scene the temple is filled with people from all walks of life, all different times, and they are all facing our Heavenly Father worshiping. The robe that our Father wears also covers them or at least some of them. Others stand there bare—the robe goes around them, not over them. The train of the robe doesn’t cover them.

This is when I am reminded of the children’s fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes written by Hans Christian Anderson. Most should be familiar with it but let me just briefly recap: an emperor is full of pride and self righteousness, so much so that he searches his kingdom for the best tailors that are available to make him a new set of clothes that will bring out and show off all that he thinks is best about him. But the tailors that he commissions for the task are con artists and they convince him that they will make him the finest clothes better than any anyone has anywhere else but they can’t be seen by anyone who is unfit or is “just hopelessly stupid”. After the clothes are “made”, the emperor parades publicly in front of all of his subjects until one small boy cries out, “But he isn’t wearing anything at all!”

This brings me back to the throne room. Those that are present in the throne room, the ones that our Father’s robe just goes around, and doesn’t cover? They are the ones that think they are good enough in themselves, that they are able to do it without Christ’s sacrifice. They think that they can manufacture their own way their own righteousness. They are the ones that Christ is referring to in Matthew 7:23 when He says “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”  These are the ones that are present and Our Father’s robe doesn’t cover because they won’t accept the Robe from the Son of God who paid the price so that they could wear it. This leaves us with only one question as the movie draws to a close in my mind: which one are you are you clothed in: the robe of righteousness mentioned in Isaiah 61:10, the robe that was paid for by the blood of Christ so that you could wear it? Or are you just another emperor so self absorbed with your own works, your own life that you can’t even see that you are standing bare and…. unprotected…. defenseless… with a robe that is not invisible…… it just doesn’t exist?

10 Days of Prayer

As some of you may know, I have partnered with a group called  JESUSPolitik. You can find out more about them by looking at my previous post Blind and their website JESUSPolitik and they have come up with a good idea.  I will just share what Melissa has sent me and ask that you join us in prayer and pass it along.

Hi there!
God gave us an idea to have a “prayer-raising” event! We are hoping this will help us create more of a sense of community with all our partners even though we are spread out all around the world.  We also want to hear from God during this time and see Him act in powerful ways in response to our requests. I’ve attached our requests to this email and a poster too.

You can pray wherever you are, at the beginning or end of your day, group meetings, bible study, chapel, sports meeting, church meeting or on a lunch break at work.

You can pray with a friend, a group, your dorm mates, your church, on your own or along with our prayer videos: A few minutes or hours in prayer will make a difference in the lives of street children, orphans and widows, project workers and staff as well as the lives of those around you and in yourself.
Prayer videos here – http://www.jesuspolitik.com/prayer.htm

You can download posters, handouts, videos and materials at http://www.jesuspolitik.com/prayer.htm

PRAYER SCHEDULE
Days 1 & 2: The Kunhymela House – Love Maputo Project Days 3 & 4: Masana – Love Maputo Project Days 5 & 6: Hope for India Project Day 7: JESUSpolitik staff Day 8: JESUSpolitik Interns & Student Representatives Day 9: Future Organizations, Groups and Students to Get Involved Day 10: What Can I Do to Get Involved?

After you have spent some time in prayer visit our facebook group at

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11199735614 or on our fan page at

http://www.facebook.com/pages/JESUSPolitik/111218225578902 and share about your experience with the rest of us!  This will help us to connect with each other as well as be unified in our prayers.

Prayer is one of the greatest and most powerful ministries there is. It is the ministry of Jesus in Heaven. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 7:35 It is also one of the most underrated ministries, but it changes lives! Join us in praying for 10 Days of Unified Prayer! Send us your prayer requests and we will pray for you too! You can email us prayer requests at PrayerLady@JESUSpolitik.com


God bless,
Melissa N. Davis
President
JESUSpolitik.com

Blind

Recently I was reading in John chapter 9 about the man that Jesus healed who was blind from birth. Several things hit me as I read. The disciples echoed in their question to Christ a common philosophy of that culture. “Rabbi, who sinned: this man, or his parents?” It was a common thought practice in that day to think that anyone who had an infirmity or was born with a defect was cursed by God because of sin committed either by the parents or the person who was dealing with the infirmity.


Christ flat out refutes this thought process when He says that “neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” Without going down a theological rabbit trail I want to state that this does not mean that God made this man blind. Very briefly stated, God put in place and sustains laws that direct all of creation; from the laws of physics that control the flow of the universe, its galaxies and solar systems down to the processes that make our bodies work, including the process of procreation. But because of sin all of creation was cursed including the processes of procreation things don’t always go perfectly because of that fallen state. Hence, we have birth defects, disease, illnesses, wars, conflicts, hatred, etc.
One of the key points of Christ’s ministry on earth was to call us back to the original priority of life; the original purpose and point of creation. We were created for community—community with our Creator and community with each other. Because we are fallen creatures that live in a fallen world we have been twisted by our own sin nature into something we were not originally designed to be and Christ was and is calling us to the only means in which we can be untwisted and set back to our original state.

Back to the blind man, I believe that the reason Christ spat onto the ground and made clay to anoint the eyes of the man who had been born blind was to symbolize this movement back to the original purpose of creation. In Genesis three words are used for the creative acts described in chapters 1 and 2: bara, asah, and yatsar. Yatsar is the one that interests me in this case, because it is the kind of word that would have been used of a clay pot or vase being made, so much so in fact that it was almost synonymous with a potter forming a clay vessel. The other words used to describe creation in the first two chapters of Genesis are words that each show a more intimate undertaking. “In the beginning God created (bara) the heavens and the earth.” This is the act of ex nihilio, which is Latin for creating something out of nothing; not taking a lump of clay, and making a dish, but actually causing the clay to exist without the use of previously existing material. Asah, for the sake of discussion, is used to explain making something out of existing material, but not on the intricate and intimate level that is understood in the use of the word yatsar. Yatsar, gives the idea that a Master Craftsman is putting the effort and skill that only He can put into the creating or forming of His master creation—His (as some would call it) signature piece. That is what we are being told in Genesis 2:7 when it says, “And the LORD God formed (yatsar) man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being” (NKJV). He intimately and personally formed man and made mankind His image bearer. This is what I think Christ was symbolizing with the clay with which He healed the man’s eyes, much the same way that a potter would fix a pot if it cracked while on the wheel. He could have just as easily said “be healed”; in fact He had on other occasions. I think Christ was giving the people around Him an opportunity to be reminded of the story of creation and to bring their minds back to the original purpose of creation: an intimate relationship with their Creator. This brings up an interesting contrast in the passage.
Christ causes the blind to see, and this blind man is cast out of the synagogue by “the Jews”, which is John’s term for the Pharisees; who, by the way, claim to be the only ones who can properly see scripture and interpret it. Jesus gives sight to those that do not have it and those that claim to have it can’t see, because they refuse to, they don’t even see that it is the promised Messiah right in front of them.

The same thing is happening today. As Americans, even our poorest are rich compared to the poor in other countries. I am not condoning or belittling the problems of homelessness and destitution in America; we are just as blind to our social and spiritual problems in America and to the social and spiritual problems of the world as those Pharisees were blind to the Messianic prophecies being fulfilled in front of their eyes. We send billions of dollars in aid and money to earthquake victims because it is a sudden disaster, and the aid we send is a good thing that is needed, but there are other needs being left out because they aren’t new and in America we throw away or tune out anything that is old or “is so last year”.

JESUSpolitik is an organization that I’m excited about. JESUSpolitik is an international nonprofit that helps indigenous missionaries in India and Mozambique to reach their own people. JESUSpolitik connects these missionaries to other human rights and social service organizations as well as missions groups who have a heart for the same people.

JESUSpolitik cares about people’s hearts, not just about raising funds and awareness. JESUSpolitik offers creative ways that anyone can get involved using their talents and resources to directly help needy people being reached by JESUSpolitik projects. You can check out some of the ways people have gotten involved on JESUSpolitik.com’s “Activism Stories” page.

“We believe that no matter what your interests, talents, or resources are – you can do something to help people. Even if you don’t think you’ve been given very much to work with, you can do something to help people. We’ll show you how,” says Melissa Davis of JESUSpolitik.

JESUSpolitik has 2 projects overseas – the Love Maputo Project and the Hope For India Project.
In Maputo, Mozambique “more than half of the population is estimated to be under the age of eighteen” (Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children: Republic of Mozambique (http://www.gvnet.com/streetchildren/Mozambique.htm). The streets are crowded with children in Maputo. Many of these children are homeless. This leaves them vulnerable to sexual molestation, bonded labor, prostitution, drug trafficking, starvation, AIDS and other horrors.

JESUSpolitik’s Love Maputo Project is reaching out to these children. The Love Maputo Project is the collaboration of 2 organizations– Masana and The Kunhymela House. Project workers are reaching approximately 350 children a year. Workers bring children off the streets, provide education, and teach income-earning skills so they don’t have to turn to prostitution, drug running or theft to survive. Project workers feed and clothe the children, offer medical care, and introduce them to Jesus Christ. Children are reunited with family or placed in a safe home so they get appropriate care.

Another project of JESUSpolitik is The Hope for India Project. Project workers conduct medical camps, providing needy people with check-ups, medicine, counseling, HIV/AIDS education and prayer. An orphanage is operated for children whose parents died of HIV/AIDS, as well as for physically handicapped children. Widows are also being helped by this project, with home visits, food, clothing, blankets, medicines and hygiene products. The Gospel is shared as well. Workers have established 7 congregations in Andhra Pradesh state. 90% of the Hope for India Project’s evangelistic work is done throughout Hindu and tribal peoples.

Christ came to earth to rescue us from our own sin nature and pay the debt that we could never repay. His parting command to us was to go out and make disciples. The word translated into “make” means that while we are going we should be in the continual process of making disciples and it was not a vocational call—it was a call to ministry. We are all called to be ministers of Christ. Christ is the title name for Messiah and the word Christian really means little messiahs, so as Christians we should be in the continual process of being Christ to everyone we come across in our day-to-day life and we are called to not be blind to any of it; not what is in our own back yard, and not what is going on over on the other side of the world. Christ fed the five thousand and then He taught them the original meaning and purpose of the Law. He took care of their physical needs so they could have their spiritual needs taken care of. Take I John 3:16-19 for instance; if we have in abundance and don’t give to those in need we can’t have the love of God in us. Also look at James 2:14-20. Essentially it is saying that if you can give and don’t, you’re just as big of a hypocrite as those Pharisees who kicked that man who was blind in John 9 out of the synagogue because they didn’t want to admit that Jesus was the Messiah that they had been waiting for. Are you a Christian in name or are you a Christian in action? To quote James “You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (NKJV).

On JESUSpolitik.com’s “Do Something” page, you’ll find categories of talents and interests with applicable ways of how you can use them to help. You can change a person’s future from bad to good. Read activism stories of people that are getting involved. Get inspired by testimonies of how the Lord utilizes our faithfulness to glorify Him with what we’ve been given.

Bond Servant

This, in part, was the beginning of my journey into the deeper spiritual life of the spiritual disciplines. I had previously read Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline as part of a Spiritual Formation class that I was taking at Vennard College. I had only recently begun a relationship with Jesus Christ a little over a year previous, and had just accepted the call of vocational ministry. It was out of this, my first experience of writing out what I experienced during the practice of Lectio Divina, that I started journaling  and eventually this blog.

Deuteronomy 15:12 says, “If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, is sold to you, then he shall serve you six years, but in the seventh year you shall set him free. 13 “When you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. 14 “You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. 15 “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today. 16 “It shall come about if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you; 17 then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever. A couple of weeks ago my family and I were having our family devotions.  We are going through some curriculum that is refreshing us in the spiritual disciplines.  Part of this refreshing is learning the practice of Lectio Divina; or divine reading. This is a process where you read the scripture, meditate on parts of the passage that God brings out of it, and pray for guidance as to what God is trying to say to you through that particular passage.
 
I was trying to illustrate for my family what the author of the book we are using for devotions  meant when he said that Lectio Divina meant of us to read through the passage, think through the passage, pray through the passage, and pray the passage back to God. The author was saying that we should try to imagine the original context of the verse; what did the original audience think of when they heard the letter of to the Romans for the first time? The Roman church consisted of Jewish immigrants to Rome and Gentiles who had heard and believed in Jesus Christ so this audience was mixed in its culture and understanding. The verse that we were focused on was Romans 12:1 and 2: “Therefore I urge your brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good, and acceptable, and perfect.” Our devotions book said that we should try to imagine the scene and write down what we smell, and hear, and see. I wanted to demonstrate this for my family and this is what the Lord gave me that morning.

The Lord recalls to my memory the passage that we are looking at. Romans 12:1,2  He also brings back to mind Romans 1:1 which says: “Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus, Called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.” The word bond-servant has through several people, in different locations, and at different times come up in conversation and in my reading over the last couple of weeks. The Lord tells me the word bond-servant ties directly into Romans 12:1, 2 and gives me this:

Imagine with me if you will, you are a slave on the beach along the Sea of Galilee. Your master is a mean, cruel, and vicious man, who works you sixteen, eighteen hours a day fishing, cleaning fish, repairing the boats, the nets, cleaning his house, preparing his meals, never giving you more than bare scraps to live on, treating you as property that he really doesn’t want. You are mending the nets barely able to smell the sea air or hear the waves. Your body is so sore from the beatings and the labor; your stomach is empty and you can’t remember the last time it was full. Just down the beach, you see another group of men, also fishermen tending their nets. It’s Simon and his brother Andrew, but there is another man calling them to shore. You reel in pain as you realize that you must have been daydreaming because your master has just kicked you again. He curses you for being slow and not working hard enough. You work faster but you can’t take your eyes off the man talking to Simon and Andrew. The wind carries parts of their conversation to you something about fishers of men. You wonder what that could mean as the Man, Simon, and Andrew start to walk together toward you and your master’s boat. Your master curses at you again and starts to whip you with the rigging from some of the nets. He screams at you that you should have already had these repaired. Then, the beating stops. You look up and the Man that had been talking to Simon and Andrew is standing over you and telling your master to stop; that no one should be treated this way. He tells your master his name is Jesus. You are dumbfounded; you have never heard anyone speak to your master like that. Then you hear the man say something even more incredible: He asks how much does your master want to buy you from him. You hear the cruel laughter of your master as he says you aren’t worth selling but at the same time he tells this Jesus that He can’t afford the price as he continues his laughter. This Jesus then continues the conversation, still with this determined look in His eye. You hear him say, “Name your price for this man,” pointing at you. Your master names some ungodly high price and your whole world starts to spin as Jesus pulls the bag from his belt and gives it to the master. Simon and Andrew help you to your feet. You can barely hear the waves let alone what Jesus is saying to you. He says “I haven’t bought you to keep you in bondage; you are free.” Did He just say that you are free? What does it mean to be free? You have no money; you have nowhere to go, nowhere to live. You ask Him, “What should I do? I do not know how to be free?” Jesus tells you, “I did not set you free to be alone or to die. Come to me if you are weary and heavy-laden; I can give you rest. Here take my yoke and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in my heart.” And so, your heart starts to slow and you begin to feel a peace come over you. You begin to hear the waves again and the seagulls over head. You smell the beach and the food that is being prepared over the fire. You ask Jesus, “let me be your bond-servant for I owe you everything and I have nothing.” Jesus then takes you to His door and pierces your ear to His door and you become His forever, Amen.

This is what it means to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

Compassion

Mark 1:40-45
I would like to start back in Mark 1:41-42 as I attempt to paint for you a mental picture of what was happening in this passage.

Leprosy has been described as a terrible disease.
It first appears as just a white-then pink spot; but, as it slowly progresses it becomes dreadful, loathsome, and fatal in its effects. It illustrates how insignificant sin first appears, but eventually the result is eternal hell. Because of this disease, socially this man would have been looked on as someone who, more than likely, was a terrible sinner or one of his parents were and this was God’s punishment for that family’s sin.

You see a leper loses the ability to feel pain because of infected nerves. The leprous body can be burned, cut, or broken without the person realizing it, since it has lost its natural protection against self-destruction. Still worse, as leprosy progresses, fingers fall off, arms, toes, and legs drop away. Lepers were incurable – they were the untouchables.

So let’s look at it from this man’s point of view. In his mind there probably wasn’t much hope. This was an incurable disease that would eventually take his life. He knew first hand that life was cruel and people could be even crueller. Being a leper, his own family wouldn’t come near him. He had no friends. It would have been easy for him to believe that no one cared or ever would care about him again. He was as alone as a man could be in those days. No money, no house, his skin was probably thick with scars, covered with open sores that leaked out a pale foul-smelling liquid constantly, parts of his fingers and toes were probably gone or about to fall off.

By Jewish Law, he wasn’t allowed to bind his hair; it had to hang loose. He had to wear torn, dirty clothes. And when anyone approached, he had to cover his mouth and yell at the top of his lungs, “UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!” You see, many times this disease would eat away at the lips, causing spit to fly out when a leper would talk or yell and no one wanted to touch or be touched in any way by a leper. If he wanted to attend synagogue, he had to go to a special place and look in through a hole in the wall, or if he was to make the journey to the temple in Jerusalem, he was sent to a special courtyard, separated from all others in an area made just for the lepers.

So this man could no longer even live in the town that he probably grew up and played in and had probably known his whole life. Try to Picture with me if you will, this man walking the streets trying to find scraps of food, just so he can eat a meal and hearing that a rabbi had come to town and was teaching like one who had the authority of God. He had probably heard of the miracles this rabbi had performed, maybe even that some had been healed. Can you imagine the seed of hope that might have been planted when he heard that this rabbi was teaching just off the square today?

I can imagine the thoughts that might have gone through his mind. Could he really heal people? Did he really teach with authority? This kind of thing didn’t happen in these days. “Could he heal me? Would he heal me?”
So, this leper. His mind made up, he works his way to the place where he had heard Jesus was teaching. Covering himself in his only rags and making his way up to the back of the crowd, his heart sinking as he thinks, “there are too many people, he won’t see me, he will never hear me. Wait that’s it!” He throws back his robes and yells with all of his might “UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!” The crowd gasps and parts and there he is in the middle of this space with Jesus.

In Mark 1:40, it says that he came to Jesus beseeching Him and falling on his knees. In Matt it says he bowed before Him, in Luke its put this way: He fell on his face and implored Him saying “if thou wilt, you can make me clean.” How profound of a statement! He didn’t say, “if you can,” but “if you will”.  What a faith, what a hope! This is the type of faith and hope that can only come from God.

This poor man, who had been humbled beyond anything most of us could understand by this gross and relentless disease, and even by his family and friends, had enough understanding to know that Jesus could heal him if He was willing.

In Verse 41, it says that Christ was moved with compassion. The picture I get is this: Christ is so moved with compassion that His heart sinks, it moves with deep seated emotion; but for our understanding, His heart breaks when He sees this man so stricken by such a devastating disease. Some scholars translate this passage not that he was moved with compassion, but He was moved with anger. But if it was anger, what was Christ angry about? There are different ideas: if it was anger that Christ showed, I believe it would have been anger at sin that had caused such a curse as a disease as devastating as this.
Jesus was moved with compassion, so moved in fact that He broke with one of the most upheld traditions in Jewish society. The verse continues, “Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and  *said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

And with a touch from the hand of the Great physician he was healed. I am amazed at the depth of Christ compassion for this man indeed for all of us. Think about this simple act in context of the time and culture Jewish tradition taught that anyone who had leprosy was cursed by God and deserved what they were getting. The leper wasn’t even supposed to be in the city. No one would ever interrupt a Rabbi when he was teaching, but the leper broke with tradition to meet Jesus. He broke tradition to get to Jesus. No one would ever speak to a leper let alone touch him. Christ broke tradition by stopping his teaching; He broke with tradition and not only spoke to the leper but TOUCHED him, and HEALED him. Jesus showed His authority over disease, and over tradition as well as His compassion for Humanity. Think about what He can do for you if you ask?